Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesman.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I rise to speak to amendments 7, 8 and 10, which have been tabled by the SNP. I note that no substantive changes have been made to the Bill’s provisions since we discussed it some weeks ago in this place; it is no more responsive to the needs of the climate, the energy sector in Scotland or bill payers who are haemorrhaging money on their energy bills. We know, from the appropriation of Scotland’s energy wealth by Thatcher in the 1980s, Cameron’s “Cut the green crap” at the beginning of this Conservative regime, and the weak-minded and politically naive rolling back of the green transition measures by the current Prime Minister, that time and time again, the Tories will never look after ordinary workers, Scotland or the environment.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent start to his speech. Does he agree that it is outrageous that the Prime Minister has masqueraded this legislation as a way of reducing energy bills for consumers, given that even the Secretary of State could not defend those claims? Does he also agree that this Government’s only intention is to unlock as much tax revenue from the North sea oil and gas sector as possible and that no consideration has been given to reducing domestic energy bills, to energy security or to reaching our climate commitments?

[Dave Doogan]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. She touches on some of the key elements that I will address in this speech.

In order to salvage some semblance of responsibility and/or equity from this Bill, I urge Members to support the SNP’s amendments. They seek to amend the provisions to facilitate licence issuance on a case-by-case basis, rather than it being done annually and by prescription. That is a reasonable improvement to the Bill by any measure. We would also like to incorporate a real test for new issuance that would require the North Sea Transition Authority to assess whether new licences will: lower energy bills for bill payers; deliver energy security and reduce reliance on imported fuel sources for domestic consumption; enhance sustained job security for the oil and gas workforce in areas of the UK that are economically reliant on the oil and gas sector; guarantee funding for domestic refineries to increase capacity to process sustainable fuel sources; and stimulate the North sea oil and gas sector to meet commitments set out in the North sea transition deal.

The SNP also wishes to ensure that, henceforth, 100% of tax revenues from oil and gas are invested in the just transition. A “just transition” test would have to be met for any given relevant year, under which the NSTA would issue new licences only if it assesses that: they will support the delivery of the North sea transition deal’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of 10% by 2025, 25% by 2027 and 50% by 2030 against a 2018 baseline, in order to meet the sector’s aim of a net zero basin by 2050; and the Secretary of State has provided funding to support the development of the renewable energy sector in areas of the UK that are economically dependent on the oil and gas sector, equivalent to tax revenues collected from UK oil and gas production. That amendment means that new licences cannot be issued unless it can be shown that the licence will meet the North sea transition deal’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and unless the UK Government are funding the renewables sector in oil and gas dependent areas to at least the value of oil and gas revenues.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is speaking about conditions for granting new licences, but the SNP’s draft energy strategy includes a presumption against any new licences—is that his position? Is the SNP’s position that there should be no new licences for oil and gas exploration?

[Dave Doogan]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that. It is lovely to see him in his place; we know that he is a busy man with his other two jobs. I am sure that Hansard will correct me if my memory does not serve me correctly, but I believe that we rehearsed this issue on Second Reading. Let me point out to the hon. Gentleman, who I am certain is an ardent Unionist, that the position of the devolved Government, and whoever they are, is irrelevant in debating what we do with oil and gas licences in the UK because, sadly, Scotland’s oil and gas endowment, as he well knows—he makes excuses for this regularly—is controlled remotely by a dysfunctional UK Government, whoever they are. So the point is moot.

[Douglas Ross]

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene, just to provide clarity?

[Dave Doogan]

No, I will not.

The last SNP amendment will prevent this Government and the soon-to-be-installed Labour Government from simply using Scotland’s North sea oil and gas revenues to fund tax cuts in the UK, a state that is demonstrably not paying its way in the world. Both Labour and Tory —two cheeks of the same face, where Scotland is concerned —will sacrifice Scotland’s economic, industrial and material welfare, and those working in the energy sector, if it will win them a few more seats in this place. They have done it before and they will do it again while we remain in this broken and discredited Union. The prosperity that comes from oil and gas in Scotland is finite.

[David Duguid]

I was not sure if the hon. Gentleman had moved on from his glowing appraisal of the North sea transition deal, but can I take it from his reference to that deal that the SNP’s position is to support and welcome it in its entirety?

[Dave Doogan]

I am not going to meet the hon. Gentleman’s ambition to nail those colours to the mast, but I will tell him that through the Bill, the UK Government are turning a blind eye to the implications of a free-for-all when it comes to emissions and who benefits from revenue receipts. I am sorry if he finds that difficult, but he will to have to deal with it.

The prosperity that comes from oil and gas in Scotland is finite, as we know all too well. We have seen what deindustrialisation with no transition plan looks like—we witnessed it at first hand in the 1980s, when coal, steel and heavy industries were all torn asunder on the altar of monetarism and share prices in the City of London. That is set to happen again for oil and gas, under Thatcher’s willing disciples, the Leader of the Labour party and the Prime Minister. We cannot allow that to happen again. It is therefore essential that north-east Scotland and other areas reliant on oil and gas are afforded the investment required. That is what our amendment speaks to; it is about creating new jobs and transitioning in a managed, strategic fashion to accelerate our post-carbon future.

[Douglas Ross]

On that point, will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dave Doogan]

No.

That is a just ambition for a just transition. The billions of pounds still to be yielded from oil and gas revenue must not be wasted on doomed capital infrastructure projects, such as HS2, or used to fund exorbitant false economies, such as nuclear power stations in England. It is a moral and economic imperative that revenue be used to accelerate a genuine just transition, to protect jobs.

[Douglas Ross]

In response to my previous intervention, the hon. Gentleman said that the Scottish National party position on this issue was “irrelevant”, but of course it is not; it is vitally important. The SNP’s draft energy strategy says there is a presumption against new exploration for oil and gas. Does he support that?

[Dave Doogan]

That question speaks to a mis-representation. There is no point in giving way to the hon. Gentleman if he is going to misrepresent me in that way. What I actually said was that it does not matter who is in government in a devolved Assembly where energy policy is decided by remote control from a dysfunctional Westminster Government. That is the beginning and the end of it. If the hon. Gentleman does not like it, then he is welcome to join the SNP—well, perhaps not.

We know the facts on the ground: the oil and gas sector is in decline because of finite reserves, and because it is to be considered an industry with a limited future, whereas the green transition has an unlimited future. Jobs have already decreased in the sector. Government Members are giving the impression that with unlimited licensing there will be unlimited jobs, but that is not the case. Jobs have decreased by 228,000 since 2013, despite 400 new drilling licences in five separate auction rounds. Production of gas in the North sea has already fallen by two thirds since 2000 and will fall a further 95% with new licences, as opposed to 97% without.

The issuance of new licences in and of itself will not shift the dial, especially if the revenues from Scottish oil and gas continue to disappear into the black hole that is the Treasury. What is needed is a wholesale redistribution of fiscal receipts from Scottish oil and gas to the renewable transition, ringfenced and guaranteed by statute. In Scotland, we are apt to wonder what we got for the £300 billion in tax receipts from Scotland’s oil—a question now being mirrored for our renewable endowment.

I note that Members on the Government Benches have desisted from repeating the nonsense that energy bills will be lowered if we grant unlimited licences—and not before time. What will lower bills is ensuring that the renewable energy we generate can find its way to consumers without needing to be turned off because the grid cannot cope after 14 years of non-investment by the Tories. New grid infrastructure will lower bills by dialling gas out of the system. Government Members talk about the relentless need for more and more gas, as if that does not speak to a flaky ambition on a just transition; it exposes it and lays it bare. We will dial gas out of the system by having a network that can connect Scotland’s renewable energy to the market where that is required, and we will do so with proper investment in sub-sea lines, rather than by scarring Scotland with 80-metre pylons. It is a pity that the UK Government would not invest the billions that they are ploughing into nuclear into environmentally optimal grid improvements, instead of defaulting to pylons and overhead lines.

The Bill is part of an ill-fated Tory miscalculation on making a just transition a wedge issue. We know that, because the Bill is a non-existent solution to a non-existent problem. Some 27 new licences were granted in 2023, and a licensing round has been held by the North Sea Transition Authority every year and a half since 2016. If the Bill is the answer, then I am not certain what the question is. It undermines the independence of the NSTA by forcing it to hold new oil licensing rounds every year, whereas currently the NSTA undertakes licensing rounds when it deems that they are required. It is a challenge so unwelcome that the NSTA board unanimously agreed that this legislation and the annual licensing rounds were unnecessary. This is what happens when the energy sector, so vital to a broad-based, developed economy like Scotland’s, is subject to remote control.

Renewables already account for the equivalent of 113% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption, yet we still pay sky-high energy bills because of the amount of gas required for generation in England, due in no small part to the Tories small-minded hysteria surrounding onshore wind, and their 10-year-old ban on development of onshore. Investing further in the green hydrogen sector in Scotland could support up to 300,000 jobs—it is a pity that Members on the Government Benches will not focus on that opportunity—and it would add up to £25 billion to Scotland’s gross value added by 2045. Further development of our renewable sector represents an extraordinary export opportunity for Scotland—one that we must grab much more, instead of looking back; we should look to the enterprises of the future.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Ind)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly mentions the sky-high energy prices that people in Scotland face, even though Scotland generates so much energy. What role does he think zonal and modal energy market modelling, rather than a one-size-fits-all, UK-wide approach, would play in substantially reducing energy costs in the likes of Sutherland in Scotland, and also in England, in places like Surrey? Everybody would be a winner if we moved away from the UK-wide model and towards the zonal and modal method.

[Dave Doogan]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question. There has been a lack of investment, and the network that delivers energy around GB was designed for a small number of very large generators. It is ill-equipped to deal with many smaller systems of generation. That is why we find ourselves switching off wind turbines and, where the demand still exits, replacing them with gas, much to all our constituents’ cost and misery. The failure to transition in the electricity distribution network across GB is exactly the same failure we see in our dependency and desire to keep looking backwards. We should transition from hydrocarbons to renewables in a way that respects communities.

In closing, we should grasp Scotland’s bright future with both hands. In so doing, we will rid ourselves of the mismanagement of successive UK Governments in Westminster.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I bring in some of those who may not have tabled amendments, I remind Members that we are at Committee stage, so discussion is of the amendments. However, as we are also discussing clauses 1 and 2 stand part, there is perhaps a little more scope.

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[David Duguid]

I rise to speak in support of the Bill and of all the employees of companies right across the country, including in my Banff and Buchan constituency, that will play a critical and successful role in the UK’s ongoing energy transition to net zero by 2050.

I remind the Committee that, for 25 years prior to being elected in 2017, I worked in the energy sector—in the oil and gas sector specifically—in a wide range of roles for several different companies and in various places around the world. I also declare that I have a close family member with a financial interest in one of those companies, which is below the threshold required for registering interests. I can also assure the Committee that that financial interest has never had, and will never have, any bearing on my contributions in this or any other debate.

On Second Reading, I spoke about the potential for increased confidence and certainty that the Bill brings to the energy industry. For many people watching, including a few hon. and right hon. Members in this place, there would appear to be a perfectly polarised distinction between maximising oil and gas on one hand and promoting renewables on the other. The truth exists on a continuum between those two extremes, however. We have in fact been on a transition away from the most polluting of fossil fuels towards cleaner, lower-carbon, renewable sources of energy for a number of decades now. That transition is happening at various rates in different parts of the world, but it is fair to say that the United Kingdom is at the forefront, as the first major economy not only to legislate for net zero but to set the most stringent decarbonisation targets.

The Conservative Government have presided over the UK’s becoming the first major economy to have reduced carbon emissions by 50% from 1990 levels. That compares to only 7% that had been achieved by the time the Conservatives came to power in 2010. We have effectively transitioned away completely from coal power, and continue to reduce our demand for oil and gas and increase our renewable and low-carbon capacity, but not as fast as our domestic supplies will continue to decline, even with new production.

A critical point that needs to be reinforced in considering this legislation is that new oil and gas does not mean more oil and gas—a mistake that I heard in the speech of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). Even with new production, the North Sea Transition Authority predicts that UK oil and gas production will decline, not by the 3% to 4% suggested by the International Energy Authority to stay within the global 1.5°C target, but by twice that rate of decline, at around 7%. We are today 75% dependent on oil and gas for our energy needs, and not just for electricity generation, but for heat and transportation as well. Of that 75%, about 50% is produced domestically with the rest having to be imported.

The arguments for producing our own oil and gas closer to home have been well rehearsed. There is the obvious benefit of having that source of energy under our control, not that of other states and countries that are not always friendly. We have also heard how liquefying natural gas for transportation and shipping that LNG halfway around the world to then be de-liquefied back into gas when it arrives in the UK can produce up to four times the carbon emissions of domestically produced gas. We know from the Climate Change Committee that we are likely still to be up to 25% dependent on oil and gas by 2050. It therefore follows that carbon capture, utilisation and storage will be required for the UK to reach net zero by 2050. That includes, of course, the Acorn CCS and hydrogen project at St Fergus in my constituency, and in particular the role it will play in decarbonising gas-fired power generation at Peterhead.

What will also be required to get to net zero are precisely those skills, technologies and supply chains that currently exist and will, no doubt, continue to be developed within the oil and gas industry. However, those critical elements would sadly no longer be available to us if we shut down our domestic oil and gas industry prematurely, which is what would happen if the Opposition parties had their way, whether it is the SNP’s “presumption of no new exploration” for oil and gas—a direct quote of the SNP’s draft energy strategy—or Labour’s “just stop oil” approach.

I am seeing some nods of agreement from across the Floor, but there has recently been something of a war of words between the two main parties—I am referring to Labour and the SNP—in Scotland following Labour’s screeching U-turn on its £28 billion a year green investment plan. Of course, we on the Conservative Benches always saw that plan as undeliverable without massive tax increases. Labour announced that it would not only increase the energy profits levy and make it last longer, but remove the investment allowance.

[Dave Doogan]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Duguid]

Before I give way, I will gently point out to Opposition Front Benchers—I am not sure whether they are aware of this—that the 78% tax rate they are so keen to copy from Norway comes with an equivalent 78% investment allowance in that country. Labour’s plans would remove the investment allowance, putting future investment across the energy sector even further at risk.

Of course, as we heard earlier, Labour still maintains its position of banning all new oil and gas licences, which has inevitably led to an outcry from the sector in recent weeks. Among others, Offshore Energies UK’s chief executive David Whitehouse has said:

“We remain deeply concerned about what Labour’s proposals could do to our people. If we can’t get companies to invest here, there are no jobs. It’s that simple.”

He went on to describe Labour’s proposals as

“a hammer blow to the energy we need today and to the homegrown transition to cleaner energies that everyone in the UK wants to see.”

That is the key point, which often goes over the heads of so many on the Opposition Benches: the skills and technologies to deliver net zero are not going to appear magically over the horizon, and the talent and expertise in what would become a defunct oil and gas industry will not automatically and immediately transfer across to the renewables sector. More likely, companies and their employees who will find themselves squeezed out of oil and gas in the UK will simply move overseas to deliver someone else’s energy security and someone else’s energy transition—and, no doubt, deliver oil and gas that we would end up having to import.

Of course, the SNP has come out of the woodwork to jump on the bandwagon, criticising Labour’s approach while completely contradicting its previous stance and—more than likely—that of its Scottish Green coalition partners in Holyrood. SNP leader Humza Yousaf said last September that he did not want Scotland to be Europe’s oil and gas capital, presumably wishing to pass that mantle to our North sea neighbours in Norway. A little over a year ago in its draft energy strategy, the SNP stated—I quote again—that there should be a “presumption” against new exploration for oil and gas. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) is still looking to intervene, but I wonder whether he would take this opportunity to answer that question.

[Dave Doogan]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking my intervention, even though it was about five minutes ago on a different subject. He made a really interesting point in his speech: that new licences do not mean more oil and gas. Conversely, having a more circumspect and rational approach to licence issuance—taking it out of the political arena and putting it into the bureaucratic space—does not mean less oil and gas. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will accept that if that is true for one, it is true for the other. Does he not agree with my position, and that of my party, that as the oil and gas industry continues on its journey to its natural conclusion of a much reduced industry, for whatever reason—the transition to renewables, or depleted resources—it is much more important, and in fact elegant, to make sure that those tax receipts are invested in the energy of the future, not squandered by His Majesty’s Treasury?

[David Duguid]

I find myself looking for a point that I might agree with in the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and sadly failing. However, his point about the decline of oil and gas in the UK has been made time and time again. Ever since 2004 we have been a net importer of oil and gas, so my point about new oil and gas not being more oil and gas is about managing that decline to make up for the fact that we are not replacing that oil and gas generation with renewables as fast as we would like. I will address that point in more detail in a moment.

Those comments from the SNP leader just go to show the staggering hypocrisy and inconsistency of the SNP, but neither the industry nor the electorate are so easily fooled, particularly in the north-east of Scotland. If asked whether they support new oil and gas licences, as we have seen today, some SNP Members—and, I dare say, some Labour Members as well—may find it difficult to commit to a position, particularly when facing their constituents in the north-east of Scotland. However, this Conservative Government and, in particular, the Scottish Conservatives have maintained consistent support for the oil and gas industry—the companies, and the tens of thousands employed from right across the UK. We recognise, as this Bill does, the potential for the people in this industry not just to keep our lights on and keep the economy moving in the near term, but to lead the world in showing how a successful energy transition from oil and gas to renewables can be done. Sadly, as has been confirmed a couple of times today, all His Majesty’s Opposition seem able to offer is to lead the world in virtue signalling.

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[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

I rise to support amendment 15 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey), and in particular subsection (b) to proposed new section (1ZA), which relates to Grangemouth. There is something perverse and absurd about using Scottish oil if Scotland’s refinery is to close.

We have to transition. It has to be a just transition, which cannot just be a glib phrase. It must also be paced, because we cannot get there overnight. In my constituency of East Lothian, we can see the turbines on the Lammermuirs, and we can see them growing in number daily, and the growth in the number of columns, as offshore wind capacity comes. But we require fossil fuels to deliver that renewable capacity. We require diesel for the trucks, and marine diesel for the ships, out setting the columns and turbines. We also require the plastics that go with much of that. So we need to continue using and exploiting oil to get to a renewable future. We have to do so at a pace that is appropriate, but also ensure that our country benefits. That is why subsection (b) is so important.

There is something perverse in the fact that Scotland is energy-rich, yet people face fuel poverty. In my constituency, we are not seeing the benefits in employment that should come from being in a county that is so energy-rich. The county faces the same problem as Scotland: it is energy-rich, yet people can only look wistfully at the turbines offshore, while they are unable to pay their bills. We must ensure that we get jobs and work here. The refinery at Grangemouth is pivotal to that.

I grew up not in East Lothian but in West Lothian. The Grangemouth refinery has been there for a century—since 1924—not for North sea oil but for its precursor: the shale industry, which was centred in West Lothian, from which came BP, Paraffin Young and others. BP was the centrepiece, along with Imperial Chemical Industries in its various iterations; it is now Petroineos. The refinery initially dealt with the shale industry, but, once North sea oil was discovered, we used it for that oil.

The Forties pipeline comes ashore from the North sea at Cruden Bay, and oil is piped down to Grangemouth because it was meant to be refined there. Grangemouth is also capable of refining oil from elsewhere: a pipeline runs from Finnart in Argyll through to Grangemouth, which allows oil imported from abroad to be refined in Scotland. Yet we face a situation where unless we support the amendment, Grangemouth refinery will likely close. Although a spat has been going on between the SNP, Labour and the Tories about the North sea and its oil, little has been said about what is happening at Grangemouth. The threat has been growing, and action from the Government both here and in Scotland has been in inverse proportion to that.

[Dave Doogan]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have heard me reference Grangemouth and its future in my contribution. I support his ambition to maintain our hydrocarbon future at Grangemouth, as long as it can be sustained economically and environmentally. Does he agree that if we are to prevent the jeopardy that workers at Grangemouth face from ever re-emerging, we need to make sure that sustainable aviation fuel, biofuels and hydrogen are an integral part of Grangemouth’s output? We need to ensure that they overlap with hydrocarbons and leave them behind.

[Kenny MacAskill]

I have had discussions with the shop stewards and unions, whom the Scottish Government may wish to follow and not brush off with cursory meetings. We want a biofuel strategy for Grangemouth, but that is for some significant time in the future. Unless we act now, the refinery could close in 2025. Biofuels will not be refined in Grangemouth or anywhere else in 2025. The shop stewards and the unions wish us to get to biofuels, and Grangemouth must be declared a hub for that, but if it is to survive until then, we must ensure that it is a refinery, not simply a terminal, and that we maintain those skills.

It is absurd that we will continue to exploit Scotland’s oil, yet its refinery will close. There is something perverse about that. Scotland will be the only major oil-producing nation in the world—we are ranked No. 21 along with the UK in the top 25 oil producers—that does not have a refinery capacity. That will put us with large developing countries that produce less oil. We will join a club hosted by the likes of the Republic of Congo and Trinidad and Tobago. I am sure that they are lovely countries—I have never visited—but they are not developed nations with an industrial economy. The danger is that we will become a developing nation, in terms of our industrial base.

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[Graham Stuart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He has taken a long and deep interest in this issue, for which I pay him respect. It is the burning of oil and gas that is the primary issue. He mentions 110%—we probably have 200%, 300% or 400%. There are countries setting out to massively increase their production. That is all driven by demand. If we—as a species, as a globe—are to get to net zero, we will have to cap wells all over the world. We will have to leave it in the ground. The most important thing is to ensure that the demand curve is going in the right direction. Despite all the issues, challenges and difficulties of maintaining our role as the leading major economy in cutting emissions, the UK’s biggest challenge in dealing with climate change is not domestic, despite the difficulty of that; it is to get others to join us on a net zero pathway. The idea of producing our own emissions to ever-lower standards and replacing them with higher-emission products from abroad is for the birds. It makes no sense.

[Dave Doogan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Graham Stuart]

I am going to press on. [Interruption.] I do not mean to be rude, but I think I am unlikely, given his previous performance, to be terribly afeared of hearing from the hon. Member for Angus.

I turn to a series of amendments that seek to place conditions on when oil and gas licensing rounds are run. Amendment 15 relates to carbon capture, usage and storage, and the Grangemouth refinery. The oil and gas sector provides a significant portion of the investment that the UK needs to go into wind, CCUS and hydrogen, and I fear that the amendment would drive that investment elsewhere. It would also tie UK production of oil and natural gas to the refining activities of one refinery—Grangemouth—which I am sure Members across the House would agree is neither practical nor desirable.

Amendments 22 and 24 would result in an inconsistent approach between oil and gas licensing and our ambition for domestic energy efficiency. The Government already have a clear aim for as many homes as possible to reach energy performance certificate band C by 2035 where cost-effective, affordable and practical. That is the minimum standard required to replace fossil fuel boilers with low-carbon heating such as heat pumps.

On amendments 23 and 25, we are already reviewing our energy charter treaty membership. As far as we are concerned, there is no longer a clear route for modernisation. We will update the House in due course.

New clause 2 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), who was right to highlight the importance of achieving strategic co-existence between different uses while maintaining environmental protection. Work is under way to ensure that we strike the right balance between our different marine priorities. The soon-to-be-commissioned strategic spatial energy plan and cross-Government marine spatial prioritisation programme will ensure, as she rightly outlines, that we take a strategic approach to identifying future sites for marine developments and energy infrastructure, and that these can co-exist with our environmental and wider marine priorities. I appreciate what my hon. Friend seeks to achieve and assure her that the Government share her desire to protect the marine environment—not least, of course, in the Celtic sea.

Amendments 2, 3, 13 and 18 seek to add an additional climate test to the Bill. The UK produces far less oil and gas than we need, and even with new licences, production is expected to decline faster than the average that is required globally to align with the UN’s 1.5°C pathways. All that this test would do is stop licensing and increase dependence on imported products like LNG, which has production emissions that are four times higher than those of domestically produced gas. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North knows this—he must—so what, other than ideology and a desire to please his Just Stop Oil backers, could lead him to table an amendment that could raise emissions, lose British jobs and hammer our economy? Truly, it is a mystery.

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[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

It has been interesting following the process of this Bill. I spoke on Second Reading, and I sat through most of the Committee today, and I am pleased to speak on Third Reading to support the proposals brought forward by this UK Conservative Government—the only party supporting our vital oil and gas industry across the United Kingdom, and particularly in the north of Scotland. My constituents in Moray, many of whom work in the oil and gas industry, will be shocked and annoyed by what we have heard today from those on the SNP Benches and by the deeply disappointing remarks we have just heard from the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) on the Labour Front Bench. If he thinks that “misinformed scaremongering” from Offshore Energies UK and from Aberdeen chamber of commerce does not deserve to be raised in this Chamber, he is gravely wrong. I think it is an indication of Labour’s position. It has already turned its back on the oil and gas industry in Scotland, and by the sound of things it will only get worse. [Interruption.] He is looking quizzical, but let us just look at what is happening in Scotland now and at some of the coverage.

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is a regular reader of The Press and Journal, but its front page made clear what people in the north-east of Scotland think about Labour’s proposals. The Scottish Sun said that people in Scotland could wave goodbye to tens of thousands of jobs. That is not the papers or the Opposition just saying that; it is papers reporting what experts in the field are saying. We know that the Labour party changes its policies quickly, and I can only hope this is another of those, because its actions are having a deeply damaging effect. Were these policies ever implemented, they would have a huge impact on the oil and gas sector and the people who work in it and rely on that oil and gas production. Tens of thousands of jobs and livelihoods are at risk.

As we often want to articulate our own views in this Chamber, I think it is only right that we repeat some of the concerns raised by the industry. Offshore Energies UK’s chief executive Dave Whitehouse is someone who must be listened to on this subject. I met him recently on a visit to Aberdeen. He said that Labour’s proposals

“would deliver a hammer blow to the energy we need today and to the homegrown transition”.

He also said:

“These are not faceless numbers but decent, hardworking people working across the UK to provide the energy we will need today and in the future.”

That is an expert view on the Labour proposals.

Aberdeen chamber of commerce has described Labour’s plans as a “betrayal”. Chris Wheaton, an oil and gas analyst, said:

“The uncertainty created by threatening new windfall taxes is as bad as the tax itself.”

Perhaps most powerfully of all, last week, more than 800 individuals, firms and trade groups wrote to the Leader of the Opposition to express their deep concerns about what is being spoken about by the Labour party.

Sadly, in Scotland, we cannot get a cigarette paper between the Labour party and the SNP. It is almost as if they are in a race to decimate our oil and gas industry and want to outmanoeuvre each other. Both support a windfall tax. Both oppose the Rosebank field. Both are speaking about dangerous proposals—[Interruption.] Liberal Democrat Members think that is funny. I am sorry, but I do not think it is funny that tens of thousands of jobs across Scotland are under threat. I take that issue extremely seriously.

Speaking about the SNP, I tried to get this out on Second Reading and in Committee. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) is still in his place, because we have to get to the bottom of this. I ask him to intervene on me and explain whether he, as the MP for Angus, representing a north-east constituency, believes further licences should or should not be granted for production of oil and gas in the North sea.

[Dave Doogan]

I do not know about you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I have just about heard enough from the hon. Member today. For the fourth time, Government Members’ association between the number of licences issued and the number of oil and gas jobs protected is specious at best. We have been accused by them—including, I think, the hon. Member—of wanting to put the oil and gas industry in Scotland to the sword. There is no such plan. The leader of the SNP and Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf was in Aberdeen just yesterday talking about how Scottish oil and gas workers must never be left behind.

I am disappointed in the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid)—I thought more of him—misquoting Humza Yousaf, who said that he would rather Aberdeen was not the oil and gas capital of Europe but the renewable energy capital of the world. That promises vastly more economic opportunity for workers in Scotland. Government Members had better start dealing with that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I remind Members that this is a Third Reading and that we should not be reopening arguments that were heard in Committee or previous stages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross]

That is just one example of the mixed and confused messaging from the SNP which, sadly, we hear far too much in this Chamber. We have heard it across the north-east this week and it has dominated much of our proceedings.

[Dave Doogan]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Douglas Ross]

I will, because this may be our final chance to hear if the hon. Gentleman believes in the SNP’s draft energy strategy, which included a presumption against licences for new oil and gas exploration.

[Dave Doogan]

As much as I am enjoying the hon. Member’s crocodile tears about protecting jobs in Scotland, I wonder if he could give confidence to those oil and gas workers in Scotland by highlighting an example from recent history when the Tories have protected anyone’s job anywhere?

[Douglas Ross]

It is only this UK Conservative Government and the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood who are standing up for an industry that supports more than 200,000 people across the United Kingdom and 95,000 people in Scotland. We have heard that 42,000 jobs are at risk under the Labour proposals, which are almost identical to those of the SNP.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dave Doogan]

The Bill is completely lacking in merit. It seeks to solve a problem that does not exist. The North Sea Transition Authority can issue licences, and it has been doing so. This is a Potemkin argument; a specious debate about the issuance or otherwise of licences. When this Bill passes, which it will given the arithmetic in this House, it will change not one jot the ability to issue licences or otherwise. What it seeks to do is put on a pedestal and create conflict in what was previously broad consensus about the need for a just transition to combat a climate emergency.

In the tone and tenor of the debate today, Government Members in particular have shown a desire to weaponise that. We just heard from the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), who said in his summing up that only the Conservatives are standing up—absolute and utter nonsense, although if I was working in oil and gas, I would not want to rely too heavily on Labour, if its £28 billion plan is anything to go by. It could have included measures to offset the rapacious appetite for more and more licences to drill for every drop of oil and gas within the North sea basin and receipt every available ha’penny of tax into His Majesty’s Treasury. It could have done those things, and chucked a little bit over the wall to say, “But we’re going to put 5%, 10% or 15% of all those revenues directly into the just transition.” That would not have been brilliant, but it would have been something. But no—there is not a thing in this legislation to offset the appetite for further and further investment.

Government Members have spoken at length about the need to ensure that we do not develop a gap between that which we demand and that which we can supply—it has already passed; the UK can no longer sustain its own demand. We have to import oil and gas from elsewhere. But that is a myopic obsession with the supply side. There is not nearly enough being done by the Government after 14 years to mitigate the demand side. Supply is a function of demand; the be supply requirements are such as a result of that which is being demanded. If there had been a truly ambitious programme at any stage over the past 14 years to insulate houses, get people into electric vehicles and introduce further decarbonisation of our economies and lifestyles, we would not have the demand that we have now. The potential gap between that which can supplied domestically and that which has to be imported would inevitably be less in a zero-sum game. However, we do not have any of that.

[Douglas Ross]

I will not go over an issue that I am not going to get an answer to. However, the hon. Gentleman’s own party has been in government in Scotland for 17 years now, and the Scottish Government have repeatedly missed their own climate change targets, largely because they have not done what he is accusing the UK Government of not doing. How does he reflect on his own party and Government in Scotland who have not done enough to insulate homes, get more people into electric vehicles and put in the charging points that we need across the country?

[Dave Doogan]

Not for the first time, the hon. Gentleman has stood on a political landmine if he thinks he is going to hold me to account on the availability of charge points. What he may not know—although, knowing him, I suspect he probably does—is that someone wanting to find anywhere on these islands with more vehicle charge points than Scotland would need to come to London or the south-east of England. Scotland has many more available charge points for electric vehicles—

[Douglas Ross]

Rubbish!

[Dave Doogan]

Well, we can sort this out later. Scotland has the third highest availability of electric vehicle chargers of all geographical areas in the United Kingdom. I think the Scottish Government’s record is exemplary—having, as we do, one hand tied behind our back due to being a member of this non-Union, with the freedom of movement and zero agency that comes from being a non-sovereign state. Any other normal country could invest into whatever it wants, and could do so using the normal levers that an independent country would have. Scotland, of course, cannot do that because it must wait for its cheque every year from Westminster. If the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) does not like that, he knows what to do.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) for the work he did in finally grinding out some progress from his partners and colleagues in government on the Acorn project, but that just typifies the slowness—the absolute pedestrian nature—of measures to protect consumers and the environment from the largest possible demand. If we had gone into that with a proper fund and with ambition and pace five, six or seven years ago, we would not be in this situation now.

The SNP’s amendment proposed an elegant solution to invest the additional receipts from oil and gas extraction in the North sea basin directly into the renewable transition, protecting people from higher bills, insulating their homes and getting them out of their petrol and diesel cars and into electric cars. As we saw in the Prime Minister’s rolling back on heat pumps and electric vehicles—a further weaponisation of the climate emergency—that is not on the agenda of this fag end Tory Government. They are trying to scrabble around looking for votes, but that does not work. They have achieved tremendous damage with that approach and judging by recent by-election results they have gained zero political capital. On the mess that is evident before us—[Interruption.]—while I get heckled by the hon. Member for Moray, I and my SNP colleagues urge Members to decline the Bill a Third Reading.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Dave Doogan Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

The Scottish National party declines to give this Bill a Second Reading—[Interruption.] Would the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), like to intervene already? I would be happy to take it. This Bill is as unnecessary—much like the chuntering from a sedentary position—as it is unwelcome. The Prime Minister, no less, claimed that these measures would reduce energy bills, but of course that is untrue, and the Secretary of State was well advised to distance herself from that fantasy. It is claimed that the Bill will assist with the UK’s energy security, but of course it will do no such thing, given the combined effects of an international energy market and the vagaries of the UK’s refining capacity, which is increasingly and substantially incompatible with oil extracted from the North sea basin. The Government seek to gaslight us with claims that there are strict tests to be met in order to issue any new licences, when in fact these Potemkin tests will inevitably be met for each and every licence application in the future, should the Bill pass.

The Bill will not provide an evidence-based assessment of all licences on a case-by-case basis, and as a matter of actual fact, 27 new licences were granted in 2023 alone in the absence of any legislation of this nature and a licensing round has been held by the North Sea Transition Authority every year and a half since 2016. This proposed legislation will, in effect, undermine the NSTA by placing a statutory obligation on it to hold new licensing rounds every year, rather than as and when it deems them necessary in its professional capacity, as is currently the case. Moreover, the NSTA board unanimously agreed that the legislation requiring annual licensing rounds is unnecessary, but the Government are advancing it as a means to guarantee unfettered access to continued hydrocarbon extraction. That is not what we need.

The Bill’s proponents would have us believe that having more licences will deliver lower energy bills, but it will achieve no such thing. We all recognise that oil and gas will continue to be an essential part of our energy mix and, as the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) said, we use oil and gas—certainly oil—for more than combustible uses, so we will need a measured and qualified licensing regime to accommodate an ongoing reliance on oil and gas as a source of energy and much else, but that is not what the Bill proposes.

The thing that is pushing up the price of household and commercial energy is not a lack of licensing but the price of gas on the international market that consumers are forced to pay not just for heating but for electricity, given the bizarre pricing structure and how the UK is set up to favour gas. That energy pricing disaster is compounded by this Government’s failure to invest properly in alternatives such as large-scale, long-duration storage solutions, which would dial a considerable amount of gas out of the system and dial down prices, too.

Fourteen years of Tory mismanagement of our energy security have seen barely sufficient investment going into renewable generation to meet the demands of the climate emergency, and practically no investment going into the network to transmit this new energy. That means consumers are denied access to large swathes of cheap, green, renewable energy because of a lack of grid capacity. Renewable energy, once switched off, to compensate for a 1960s network, is substituted by gas. I appreciate that the Government are improving and investing in capital infrastructure, but it is 14 years too late.

The Bill will not deliver energy security. Indeed, the former chief executive of BP, Lord Browne, said that the Government’s decision to expand North sea drilling is

“not going to make any difference”

to Britain’s energy security, and the former head of the NSTA, Andy Samuel, said in 2022 that the introduction of new licences will make a difference only “around the edges”.

What we need from the Government is a bold plan to further accelerate the electrification from renewables of our domestic energy market. What we are presented with is a backward-looking cash grab for Scotland’s hydrocarbons, which comes at the cost of a just transition. Scotland will lose out by having our energy policy dictated by a remote, luddite Westminster Government who are relentlessly focused on the rear-view mirror, rather than on the future and job security.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about energy policy being directed by other people. Does he share my concern about our continued membership of the energy charter treaty, which means that any deals signed now will have to be fully remunerated on their potential hope value, not their actual value, even if they are phased out or cancelled by a sovereign Britain or by a sovereign Scotland? I am neutral on the latter issue. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that, like our European partners, we should withdraw from the energy charter treaty to allow ourselves true energy independence?

[Dave Doogan]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s ambitions on the energy charter treaty. It is about time that the Government got off the fence on the issue and made a decision.

On job security, let us be clear that this Government care for oil and gas workers in Scotland every bit as much as they cared for the miners and the manufacturing workers in Scotland who were put to the sword in the 1980s, every bit as much as they care for our service personnel living in squalor, every bit as much as they care about the Post Office staff thrown into the privatisation mincer, and every bit as much as they care for junior doctors in England.

[Alexander Stafford]

On my previous intervention, I refer the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on my Falkland Islands trip paid for by the Falkland Islands Government.

The hon. Gentleman talks about the miners. In Rother Valley we were hit hard by the closure of the mines, which is why we need a transition. Keeping the new licences going will make the transition slightly longer and keep more people in work. Surely it is a good thing to diminish the negative impact that net zero will sometimes have on certain people.

[Dave Doogan]

The premise of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is that by delaying things, and maximising oil and gas production, we somehow maintain this link. We could just as easily deliver the same thing by accelerating the delivery of renewable energy and the infrastructure to transmit it to where it is needed. That would have the added benefit of introducing lower bills for consumers and industry, and making sure that we are not reliant on petrostates from far away with questionable regimes. I am looking through the right end of the telescope, whereas the hon. Gentleman and his Government are looking through the wrong end.

In short, the Tories could not give a flying fig for any worker on these islands—as long as their share price remains healthy, to hang with the rest of us. If the question is “How do we protect and transition oil and gas jobs into renewable energy production?”, the answer is definitely not to overstimulate unlimited offshore petroleum licensing. According to industry data, 441,000 jobs were supported by the oil and gas sector in 2013, but that number has already fallen to 215,000—so we are talking about 200,000 fewer jobs in 2022. The Government have issued approximately 400 new drilling licences, in five separate licensing rounds, in that period. The claim that there is a direct and proportionate relationship between the amount of licences issued and the amount of jobs sustained is entirely spurious.

[Douglas Ross]

Can the hon. Gentleman explain to the House and, importantly, his constituents in Angus, many of whom are employed in the industry, what the Scottish National party’s current position is on the issuing of new oil and gas licences? At the moment, does it support them? Or is there is a presumption against them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dave Doogan]

What is important is the understanding that we will be reliant on oil and gas. This Government are creating a false dichotomy between having unlimited new licences and having an oil and gas sector in Scottish waters and within the UK; the two things are not related in the fashion that they are setting out. The hon. Gentleman should be asking why the UK Government will not match the Scottish Government’s ambition for the just transition and our half a billion-pounds of investment, but I will get on to that in a second.

[Douglas Ross]

rose—

[Dave Doogan]

Is the hon. Gentleman asking whether I am giving way?

[Douglas Ross]

For clarity—

[Dave Doogan]

No, I am not.

Where is the guaranteed ringfencing of revenues from North sea oil and gas production to develop more renewable energy and accelerate the just transition? Accelerating the just transition—not unduly sustaining legacy energy production—will make the difference and deliver real jobs with sustainability, in terms of both the carbon outputs and how those jobs will last into the future. Where is that support?

The Government have claimed that the circa £50 billion in tax revenue over the next five years “could” be used to support the shift to cleaner forms of energy—we are used to jam tomorrow from this Government—but any other form of fiscal revenue could be used to support the future development of renewables. The vacuous observation that the Government have made is so unconnected to reality, unconditioned and unqualified as to be meaningless.

It would have been an uncharacteristically elegant solution for this Government to have ringfenced future oil and gas revenue for the green transition, to marry the endowment of the legacy hydrocarbon industry to the priming of the pump of opportunities of the next renewable industry, but this Government are at least consistent in their ability to disappoint.

To the casualty of the climate from this Bill, which is an inevitable consequence of this course of action, we can add the pace of delivery for the new net zero economy opportunities in Scotland. When oil and gas opportunities go to a plateau of exhaustion in Scotland, as everyone knows they will, what will be left in the cupboard to support communities such as those in Banff and Buchan, Angus, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, and elsewhere in the north-east of Scotland? Why are the revenues from the historical exploitation of oil and gas not going into accelerating renewable opportunities and making sure that we deliver jobs for the future?

As I said in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), the Scottish Government have invested £500 million into the green transition for Scotland—[Interruption.] Well, unlike anything to do with this Bill, that funding is allocated and is there to be invested. I will tell you why, Mr Deputy Speaker, this Government are nervous of that figure: because if the UK were to match Scotland’s ambition in the just transition, it would be £5 billion across the UK, but we see no such commitment, vision or climate ambition. What we see is a Tory Prime Minister who cannot effectively lead his party, let alone the UK state or an energy transition, seeking to divide people on the climate, and rolling back on climate action commitments and signals given to industry on electric vehicles and boiler replacements, while over-exploiting Scotland’s legacy hydrocarbons and dragging his feet on carbon capture, usage and storage, especially Acorn.

The picture is revealed even for those with the largest blinkers. The hallmark of failure is stamped on this Tory Government, who will politicise anything, even the climate consensus, in a vain attempt to stem their electoral destruction. The Bill fails to outline a transition away from fossil fuels as per the agreed resolution at COP28, on which the ink is barely dry. The UK delegation signed up to that agreement in the full knowledge of this Bill’s impending passage. We all know that the UK has a questionable approach to its international obligations, but this is plain bad faith.

Finally, the Bill does not acknowledge the climate emergency. In fact, with this Bill the Tory Government are thumbing their noses at the climate challenge that we all face together and should address together. In the Bill, the Government seek to over-capitalise on legacy energy production rather than invest in the renewable energy jobs of the future. Much of that employment and enterprise will be in demand mitigation, with thermal insulation, equipment upgrades and new technologies. As a result of the ambition that drives the Bill and the warped thinking behind it, jobs, the economy, bill payers and the climate will suffer, so I urge Members to decline to give it a Second Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dave Doogan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for this opportunity to reiterate what I said previously. There is a fundamental understanding of the ongoing role of oil and gas in meeting our energy needs. Whether that is dealt with and satisfied through existing licences or future licences is a moot point, and I will tell him why: I have already demonstrated, in as simple terms as I can, that the implication that there is a direct and proportional link between job security and licences issued is spurious. I am aware of the point he is trying to make, but he is not making it well. I have told him what the situation is, and he can either like it or lump it.

[Douglas Ross]

I would just like an answer. I have tried twice, and that was as clear as mud. I think people looking at that answer will actually be unable to tell what the hon. Gentleman’s personal position is and what the SNP’s position is. That is really important. Maybe it is telling that only one SNP MP has turned up to a debate about the oil and gas sector—

[Dave Doogan]

Have you seen the weather?

[Douglas Ross]

I have seen the weather. I saw the weather when I left Inverness airport at 6.45 this morning. I know what the weather is like in Scotland, but it is important that when we are debating the oil and gas industry, which is crucial to Scotland and the United Kingdom, the SNP can find only one MP to turn up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We have a base at Buckie harbour that is supporting a number of jobs and will continue to do so for decades to come—it is a small number of jobs at the moment, with opportunities to grow—but at the moment the vast majority of the workforce is employed in the oil and gas sector. I agree with him that they will go elsewhere, shifting their jobs and expertise to other countries, and another city will become Europe’s offshore energy capital. That would be devastating not just for our net zero ambitions and for Aberdeen, but for the economy of Scotland and the UK as a whole.

We have already heard in the debate that 90,000 Scottish workers are employed in North sea oil and gas. It has been for decades, and will continue to be for some time to come, one of the most important sectors in Scotland’s economy. Yet I believe that it is the position of the SNP—it would be if more SNP Members than just the hon. Member for Angus had turned up to state their case—to put those jobs on the scrapheap. The SNP wants to have a cliff edge in our oil and gas sector and exploration because it is in government with the Greens in the Scottish Parliament. It is supporting Green Ministers who want an immediate end to the extraction of fossil fuels from the north-east, and that is putting those 90,000 jobs, and the Scottish and UK economies, at risk. That is viewed extremely dimly in many parts of Scotland, particularly the north-east, which the hon. Member for Angus represents.

[Dave Doogan]

It is a bit rich listening to a Scottish Tory MP talk about the bountiful experience of North sea oil and gas for Scotland. If we had been independent in the ’70s, we would be embarrassingly well off compared with our neighbours elsewhere in these islands. The hon. Member says that we want to throw workers in the oil and gas industry in Scotland under a bus, and that we want to see a “cliff edge” where those jobs disappear. What is his evidence for that? We are investing in a just transition. Whereas he is trying to pursue an endurance of legacy opportunities for employment, we want to turbocharge new opportunities for jobs over 150 to 200 years.

[Douglas Ross]

My evidence is very clear; in fact, it is the hon. Gentleman’s own words. When he cannot even tell this House or his constituents about the SNP’s position on the presumption of new oil and gas licences, that is an answer in itself—not a moot point. The SNP clearly does not support it, and he cannot quite find the words to say it yet. That is the SNP position because it is in office with the Greens in Holyrood, and they are increasingly abandoning the north-east oil and gas sector and the jobs that rely on it. As I say, that is viewed extremely dimly not just in the north-east but right across Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesman.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

The situation for bill payers this winter is even worse than it was last winter, which is why the SNP has called for the reinstatement of the £400 energy support scheme. However, the Government have stubbornly refused to sufficiently stand by householders, who are freezing all over these islands, despite reports of increased hospitalisations and the doubling of burns from hot water bottles in Scotland. How will the Tories extend just a fraction of the interest they have shown in exploiting Scotland’s natural energy resources to the people of Scotland, who are freezing yet again this winter?

[Graham Stuart]

As I set out in response to the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, we have acted decisively, offering among the most generous support of any nation in Europe. We can be proud of the efforts we have made and I am pleased to see that the energy price cap is down so significantly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

New renewable energy generation demands new transmission infrastructure. This Government have been asleep at the wheel for 14 years, showing zero pace, ambition or grip in delivering that energy infrastructure, and that is why bills are so high. Nevertheless, we are where we are. Will the Minister confirm to the House for the record what National Grid has said: that UK Government policy is that when constructing new transmission infrastructure, overhead lines are the starting position?

[Graham Stuart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Of course, we have been moving at pace. We have had the Winser review and the connections plan. In the autumn statement and, indeed, the Prime Minister’s speech in September, there was so much to drive forward and change the transmission infrastructure, including halving the 14-year timeline to seven years. We are working flat out.

It should be noted that the reason overhead lines are preferred is the cost of undergrounding. Not only is it vastly disruptive, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) said; either undergrounding or offshore is five to ten times more expensive than having overhead infrastructure, and sometimes even more than that. That is why it is the starting presumption. We want to power Britain from Britain and in a low-cost manner, so that when we get to the 2030s and we have decarbonised our electricity system, we have a low-cost electricity system, while ensuring that we install the infrastructure in a way that is friendly and supportive to communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stuart]

Given the hon. Lady’s lifelong passion for this subject, I find it extraordinary that she never, ever recognises the unique achievement of this country in halving emissions. I would have thought she would celebrate that. As the hon. Lady will know, the Climate Change Committee’s chair is not just a matter for the UK Government. The appointment of the chair of that committee has to be agreed by the devolved Administrations as well, and we are moving as quickly as we can.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Who is holding it up?

[Graham Stuart]

The best thing, as barristers know, is to not ask a question unless you already know the answer, because it might not suit you. We are moving as quickly as we can to make sure that we have a chairman in place. I share the hon. Lady’s belief that it is an important role, and we want to have it filled as quickly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Thursday is Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, and recently the Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel estimated that nearly 30% of households in Scotland are facing extreme fuel poverty, up from 12% in 2019. Does the Secretary of State agree that at the very least that is concerning? Somehow a third of my constituents in the north-east of Scotland—home to a 50-year bonanza for His Majesty’s Treasury—live in energy-rich Scotland but find themselves in fuel poverty. Is that what Unionists mean by pooling and sharing resources?

[Claire Coutinho]

We have taken energy prices going up incredibly seriously, which is why we have spent £104 billion protecting the British people. That is one of the most generous packages anywhere in Europe. If the hon. Member cares about the incomes of people in Scotland, I suggest that he backs British oil and gas jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the spokesperson for the Scottish National party, who must have a great connection with the east of England.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

It comes as a great relief that the Minister is listening, certainly to my constituents and his own. There are extraordinary levels of cheap green Scottish renewable energy transmitted to large consumers in industrial bases in the south by the network. This north-south transaction should rightly be done by subsea transmission cables, negating the need for onshore pylons and their attendant visual blight, environmental degradation, loss of productive farmland, costly compulsory purchase and wayleave charges. Why are Angus and other Scottish communities now threatened with a new 400 kV pylon line, instead of transmitting that energy south using subsea methods?

[Mr Speaker]

I think there would have been better questions. Time is a bit tight, but please answer the question, Minister.

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

This Gracious Speech serves as a stark reminder that the Westminster Government cannot be trusted to deliver for the people of Scotland—certainly not in terms of energy. It is ludicrous that people living in energy-rich Scotland are having to grapple with unaffordable energy bills. As a solution, we have a King’s Speech that does nothing to address that. The only energy-related Bill that was referred to in the King’s Speech on Tuesday was the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which the Secretary of State herself admitted just a few days ago would not bring energy bills down. It is therefore incorrigible that, at a time when a record number of households are facing fuel poverty, the only concrete proposal mentioned in the King’s Speech is one that, by the Secretary of State’s own admission, will not help cash-strapped households across these islands. It could though, she says, release funds to support households with energy bills—the operative word there being “could”. But even in this vaguest of commitments, the mask slips. Let me reinterpret that comment. It basically means that, in the absence of additionality to the Exchequer, this Government will stand idly by while people freeze.

The speech also included reference to help

“attract record levels of investment into renewable sources”

and

“reform grid connections”,

but no Bills were specifically named that set out how that might be achieved. There were no plans, and no detail or funding, to deliver the transition network that is needed to lower bills and ruthlessly dial out gas from our generation systems, thereby protecting consumers. It is utterly hopeless. It is a blank cheque for new extraction based on maximising extraction in abstract, with very little strategic ambition or joined-up thinking, except that of maximising London’s receipts from Scotland’s hydrocarbon endowments. Old habits, it would appear, do indeed die hard.

This ambition also comes with the worst possible greenwashing nonsense as supposedly qualifying criteria, which are entirely permissive, including the carbon intensity test, which seeks to discern whether gas extracted from the North sea will have a lower carbon footprint than gas processed and shipped from around the world— I am pretty sure that you and I, Madam Deputy Speaker, can guarantee that it will. Then there is test that discerns whether the UK remains a net importer of both oil and gas. It seems that that, too, will be a fairly consistent position. It is not even clever or sly; it is almost an indignity to put criteria like that, which is so simple to meet or exceed, in the legislation.

With the same forked tongue that the Government used when they claimed that revenues could go to supporting household energy bills, they also claimed that tax revenues could go towards supporting renewable energy investment. If they meant that, they would be setting out exactly how that would happen; but they have not, because it will not happen under this Treasury or this Tory Government.

In Scotland, we know what the revenues from our oil and gas will be spent on. It is the same thing that they have been spent on by UK Governments over the past 40 years: infrastructure investment in the south-east of England and stemming the economic collapse of broken Brexit Britain. Scotland will not reap any endowment from this latest round of extraction. The Government claim that this is for energy security and to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and gas, when only last month they explicitly decided to prolong that very reliance on gas: through the rollback of the boiler replacement ambition; through the failure of auction round 5, resulting in even more gas generation, which will have to replace the offshore wind that did not happen as a result of that auction round; and through the rollback of the deadline to phase out internal combustion engine cars.

There is no progress on energy efficiency, home insulation, curtailing demand, protecting bills and keeping people safe in their homes—none of it—in this ambition. And the Government are now congratulating themselves on the gas front, because the gas that we will extract from the North sea is marginally less environmentally damaging than that which would have been shipped in from Asia or the middle east. It is the stuff of nonsense.

[David Duguid]

The hon. Gentleman says that the gas imported from overseas is only marginally more environmentally damaging. Does he not agree with the likes of the North Sea Transition Authority, Offshore Energies UK and other experts in the field that estimate that it could be anything between twice as much or up to five times as much the carbon footprint to take liquefied natural gas into this country, deliquefy it and then get it into our system?

[Dave Doogan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I think that we actually agree: the gas that we extract from the North sea is less environmentally damaging than that which would be shipped in from around the world. The point that I am making, and the point that many other observers are making in this space, is that we should be running as far away as we can from yesterday’s hydrocarbon technologies and throwing everything that we have, including the kitchen sink, at getting into a renewable space, protecting bills and saving the environment from further damage. That is where we should be, so mithering over percentages here or there is not the way for us to proceed.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some really important points, many of which are to be applauded. One significant point is how do we make that transition away from hydrocarbons and deplete the carbon that is already being generated and stored in offshore carbon banks? Does he agree that one way to do that is to introduce a wellhead tax on all new oil and gas to fund carbon capture and storage offshore? Secondly, does he support the establishment of a publicly owned energy company in Scotland?

[Dave Doogan]

On the hon. Gentleman’s latter point, I say yes. On his initial point, we would not need to be overly sceptical to take a jaundiced view of the tax regime that operates in the oil and gas sector in the UK. Let me leave it at that.

The only way to achieve long-term energy security, which goes in some way to answering the hon. Gentleman’s question, is through renewable energy produced on and offshore in the North sea and all around these islands. Scotland’s future is at the heart of this green gold rush but we are, as usual in this so-called Union, held back by London doing to Scotland, never with, and talking at us but never for us.

Wind energy is demonstrably and by some margin the cheapest to produce of all the energy in the UK, but despite that, the UK Government managed in auction round 5 to offer a price for wind energy that was so low that not a single offshore wind producer could sign up to it. This is cack-handed arrogance from a Department that thought it knew better than industry—a Department that, rather than working in partnership with industry, deluded itself into thinking that it had the whip hand, that it held all the cards. In this, as with so much else, it was entirely wrong. It tried to call industry’s bluff, but the Westminster Government were forced to blink first—you could not make this up.

The interesting thing about that failure in auction round 5 is that when that generation capacity comes online—now it will come online I assume as a result of auction rounds 6, 7 and so on—the gap will still exist in the supply pipeline. We do not have the energy infrastructure to take that generation from where it is being generating and deliver it to industry and homes across Great Britain. That infrastructure is not there. The Government talk about how good they are on a global scale. They love to trumpet their record—this ridiculous debate heading “clean energy superpower” is specious nonsense—which betrays the fact that we cannot even deliver the energy that is being generated today. This Government are paying generators to switch their wind off, but the demand still exists, so where does this energy come from? Yes, gas. Every way that the consumer turns in this country, they are being let down and circumvented by this Government.

We could augment the grid and network infrastructure by properly supporting community energy ownership and generation. But let me be clear: there is £10 million for England only—perhaps the Minister could clarify whether that will be consequentialised for the devolved nations—which is not properly standing up for community generation. In Scotland, community-owned wind farms average £170,000 a year for community benefit payments per installed megawatt hour—an astonishing leverage of capital into communities, compared with £5,000 from standard community benefit payments.

Not only do communities fund those projects themselves —no public money is used in their construction—they solve the problems of the local community, including fuel poverty, improving home insulation and upgrading heating systems. Local communities know better than the UK Government what their priorities are, and are willing to fix them themselves. I would have thought that that was pretty consistent with Conservative ambitions—the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) may want to intervene—of self-reliance and resilience, but apparently not.

Thankfully, the Scottish Government recognise the huge opportunity of community energy schemes to empower communities, solve those challenges, and reduce the need for vast infrastructure investment projects through the community and renewable energy scheme. In Scotland, the Government have provided more than £58 million. Contrast that with the £10 million from the English Government for England—it is not actually £10 million anyway, because £1 million is for administration; it is really only £9 million—and we can see which Administration are supporting community energy generation, and which are not.

Time and again, we hear from local community groups that there is no support for gaining connection to the grid, and that the Government are utterly apathetic regarding the benefits of community energy generation. Perhaps we can get an answer today on when the Government will launch the much-anticipated consultation on the barriers blocking growth in community energy generation, given their promise to do so back in September.

This debacle has needlessly set back wind production in auction round 5, and we need to see something very substantial in auction round 6. I assume that we will have a realistic strike price for offshore in auction round 6. I hope that it will be around 50% to 60% inflated over what was in auction round 5, in cognisance of supply chain constraints, construction price inflation, and the challenges of capital expenditure and attracting investor confidence in the UK, which of course has taken a real battering after the Prime Minister’s announcements to row back on climate emergency legislation.

[Richard Thomson]

My hon. Friend is making a marvellous speech pointing out the shortcomings of the Government’s approach to accelerating renewables and to the barriers onshore. Does he, as I do, detect the remnants of an anti-growth coalition living on among those on the Conservative Front Bench?

[Dave Doogan]

That would depend on what we want to grow. If we want to invest substantially in renewable energy and the technologies of the future, then yes, I do. If we want to invest in Chinese expertise, French reactors and nuclear power plants, then no, I do not. It is very much horses for courses with this Government, and I wish that my constituents, and everyone else in Scotland, did not have to rely on these misguided ambitions any longer than we absolutely must.

[David Duguid]

I want to ask a genuine question of the hon. Gentleman, if he does not mind. He mentioned that he was hoping for between 50% and 60% inflation on the strike price for AR6, as and when it comes around. Could he expand on how that is calculated?

[Dave Doogan]

I do not want to go into the calculation elements of it, but it looks at the disconnect between the strike price that was delivered in auction round 4 and the ambition for auction round 5, wraps it up in the inflation environment that we are in—bear in mind that these are 2012 prices, so it is not actually that number—and comes out with a figure within that range. It is an auction, as the hon. Gentleman will know very well, so there is an element of second-guessing to it. However, after this Government’s failure in auction round 5, we cannot allow something similar to happen in auction round 6, which will create a disinvestment in offshore wind that we cannot allow to happen.

Scotland is a well-established net exporter of electricity. In 2020, we created 31.8 TW of renewable electricity in Scotland, equivalent to powering all the houses in Scotland for three and a half years. That was in 2020, and we are now generating even more. Calls in Scotland are growing louder and louder, asking how it is possible that in our country of 5.5 million people, where we produce six times more gas than we consume, a staggering 50% of Scottish people aged 55 to 64 are living in fuel poverty. It is as well that they ask, because the answer lies in being handcuffed to Westminster.

Scotland is currently leading the world on floating wind, but only by a very slim margin. We need strategic ambition and significant investment to leverage our intellectual, engineering and geographic advantage into a systemic lead on this technology on a global scale, certainly for technology and design, and for manufacturing in the European sector. Until three months ago, Scotland had the world’s largest floating offshore wind installation, but that title now belongs to Hywind Tampen in Norway.

We are at a critical juncture for offshore floating wind in Scotland, with the potential to exploit our enormous growth opportunity, and to export our manufacturing expertise across the world, but only if we get the strike price right. It is therefore frustrating in the extreme to see the Tories talk about the need for economic growth while at the same time utterly failing to do anything ambitious to support this burgeoning industry of almost limitless potential for Scottish jobs, UK jobs and global sales. Contrast that investment posture with the rush to welcome Chinese expertise and French technology into England’s nuclear industry.

Floating wind must get an appropriate strike price in AR6 that reflects the enormous growth potential of the industry. The Department needs to stand up to the Treasury and secure an administrative strike price that reflects the rudimentary understanding that, as a new technology, floating wind will have a higher cost per megawatt-hour, but it will reduce over time. The price must reflect the advantage of having a more advantageous strike price that allows the supply chain to fall on these islands, not forcing developers to get their supply chain from abroad.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend mentioned standing up to the Treasury. The Secretary of State bragged about the Government’s support for tidal, but it is a peedie amount in comparison with their loving support for nuclear. It is very disappointing, when we consider how efficient, steady and reliable—and how much cheaper—that electricity source is. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Dave Doogan]

I absolutely agree. I can only assume that it is due to the Conservatives’ blinkered reliance on nuclear. They cry, “We need baseload!” but we need a mix of energy storage and baseload solutions, just as we need a mix of generation. If they showed half the ambition for pumped storage, battery storage and hydrogen as they do for nuclear, we would be in a far better position and much less reliant on this grossly expensive generation technology.

On the pumped storage issue, I wrote to the Minister earlier this year and was informed that the Government were

“committed to putting in place an appropriate policy framework”,

but we saw nothing in the King’s Speech and we detect no sense of urgency regarding pumped storage. Long-term energy storage is yet another way to ensure energy security that the Government seem more than happy to ignore.

To maximise the efficiency of renewable energy generation while ensuring the lowest possible prices for consumers, we require a properly functioning energy grid, which will necessarily include long-duration energy storage. Industry has been super clear that future expansion of pumped hydro storage is achievable and affordable, and that crucially a number of projects already have planning permission, such as Cruachan in the west of Scotland. However, the UK Government’s current market mechanisms prevent the investment needed to ensure that those vital projects are delivered in a timely manner, consistent with the climate emergency and the ambition to lower consumers’ bills.

A cap and floor mechanism will fix pumped storage, and I would be very interested to hear the views of the Secretary of State on that, but when we take all these issues in the round, it is very clear to me and to the people of Scotland that we need control over our energy future. The only way to do that is with the full powers of independence.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who makes her points with great candour and is, as always, well researched. I was honoured to witness the first King’s Speech in more than 70 years, albeit from a tightly cramped room at the back of the House of Lords, not being able to see the King and just about able to hear him. However, it was a true landmark in British history.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to ensuring that we deal with long-term issues and change the country for the better. There is an agenda of exciting Bills that will have an exceedingly positive impact on the people of this country, but much of government, of course, does not have to be legislation; it can be good administration.

On energy, I well remember how in the 1980s, before I came to this House, I account managed the computer equipment that kept our power stations running, and indeed in the early 1990s I was responsible for the team who kept our power stations’ telecommunications running as part of my roles at Unisys and then BT. The transformation that has taken place in our power stations up and down the country is enormous. From having mainly coal-fired power stations, it is truly transformational that we now have renewables supplying so much more of our power, but what we have failed to do over successive Governments is invest in the new nuclear power stations required to replace the ageing ones. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) mentioned small modular nuclear reactors. We must advance that technology rapidly, get it in place and ensure that nuclear plays its part, because it is vital for our energy security that we have a mixed supply of energy, with renewables, nuclear, and fossil fuels where required.

[Dave Doogan]

rose—

[Bob Blackman]

By the way, the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) referred to the title of this great debate, but he was wrong in that regard as it was chosen by the Opposition, not the Government. I will give way to him in a moment.

The reality is that we need to ensure a continuity of supply. We should understand that nuclear power is vital to keeping the baseload, and we build on that on the grid when demand increases. Of course, gas-fired power stations are often required at peaks and troughs when we need to get energy quickly into the grid. Unfortunately, it often seems that many colleagues do not understand the industry or the science behind it.

[Dave Doogan]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his insight and education in the vagaries of this place—although I have no intention of hanging around long enough to become expert myself. He is an advocate of SMR, which he is entitled to be. What is his best guess for when the first megawatt of electricity from SMR will be generated in the United Kingdom?

Energy Bill [Lords]

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 18th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the SNP spokesman.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

“Specious”, said His Majesty’s Opposition spokesperson about the arguments against this amendment, to which I would add, having listened to the Minister’s defence of the Government’s position on community energy, that it was also one of the more tendentious arguments that we have heard in this Chamber. I am not convinced that the Minister is absolutely fully signed up to that which he has been put out today to defend. I think he knows the importance of community generation and he is not content with the feet dragging that his Government are forcing him to come here to defend. This is another extremely negative decision by a Government who show no let-up in their disdain for community ambition for disaggregated generation infrastructure, or, in fact, for the climate. If we contrast that ambition with the Tories’ now messianic devotion to the cult of nuclear, we see that next year everyone across these islands will be well shot of them, and nowhere more so will that be clear than in the energy space.

Lords amendment 274B is a perfectly sensible ambition. It is a pragmatic amendment by their lordships. It is balanced and deliverable, works with the grain of local ambition, and is destined to unlock significant value in the green transition. It would unlock local enterprise and it would unlock value-add in the real economy and promote community wellbeing. There is nothing not to recommend about this ambition; it is quite clear that it has positives for the people and for our communities. It is no wonder, then, that this Tory Government will reject it out of hand. They have no interest in empowering the people or powering the green revolution. They would rather throw billions on to our energy bills to pay for nuclear, while they proscribed onshore wind in England up until September this year, leaving Scotland to do all the heavy lifting as usual.

Why will these Tories not follow the SNP Scottish Government’s lead in this priority? The Scottish Government’s community and renewable energy scheme promotes community energy ownership across Scotland. CARES continues to help communities engage, participate in and benefit from the transition to net zero. Since 2010, CARES has offered advice and support to more than 900 organisations and assisted in the delivery of 600 community and locally owned renewable projects throughout Scotland, offering funding in the process of £58 million. Just to clarify, that is just in Scotland, which rather puts in the shade the £10 million on offer from the English Government to English community generation—whenever that happens. CARES accelerates progress towards the Scottish Government’s target of 2 GW of renewable energy to be locally or community owned by 2030. The scheme assists in the delivery of both the Scottish Government’s energy strategy and heat in buildings strategy through the provision of loan finance, grant funding and specialist advice.

In Scotland, we see a Government of the people working with the people for their shared ambitions, but here in Westminster we see only the veneer of an Administration masking the infighting, bitter division and self-interest of that Tory party.

The Scottish Government’s community good practice principles, which have been widely adopted across the renewables industry, promote the provision of community benefits at a national level. They promote the equivalent of £5,000 per installed megawatt per annum, index-linked for the life of the project. Over £22.8 million has been paid out in community benefits to Scottish communities in the 12 months since August 2021. England has a very similar scheme but—and it is a big Tory-shaped but—as these funds are in the greater part principally born of onshore wind development, and the Tories introduced a de facto ban on onshore wind in 2015, English communities have lost out on millions and millions of pounds in community funding thanks to this dysfunctional UK/English Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie]

We cannot respond to a consultation that has not been launched yet. We are in the process right now of working with the community energy contact group. In fact, it has already met. Work is under way right now to develop the consultation, identify what the barriers to market are, and get out there and support the community energy sector, as the Government are determined to do.

[Dave Doogan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Bowie]

Yes, of course—I am delighted to give way.

[Dave Doogan]

The Minister is very kind. He was re-emphasising the importance of the £10 million community energy investment that he is making in England over two years. The Scottish Government have been investing £5.5 million every year for the last 13 years. If he thinks that his investment is outstanding, how would he characterise the Scottish Government’s investment?

[Andrew Bowie]

I welcome all Governments’ investment in support of community energy projects across the United Kingdom, but this is a sharp change from the last time the hon. Member came to this place, when he was decrying the fact that we were not extending community energy packages across the United Kingdom. I think I had to inform and educate him that there was already a community benefits package in Scotland, operated by the Scottish Government. Yes, there are problems with that scheme, and we will learn from the difficulties that it has faced. That is why I am so sure that the scheme that we are launching—the £10 million to support community energy projects the length and breadth of the country—is the right one, working in tandem with the funds that are already available north of the border for community energy projects in my constituency and, indeed, in his.

The hon. Member for Southampton, Test spoke about previous amendments on community energy. We have been clear that they would not provide the best outcomes for consumers. A right to local supply already exists, and Ofgem has existing flexibility to award supply licences that are restricted to certain geographies. We continue to believe that it is a commercial matter left to suppliers.

Lastly, I turn to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore). Six months may be too soon, frankly, to adequately analyse the outcomes of the consultation. It must fully take into consideration wider interdependencies in the energy system. We will always aim to respond in a timely manner, but I would not want to put a strict timeframe in legislation.

The Government support our route to net zero. The Government are taking action to ensure that we are more energy secure and energy independent, and the Government are supporting community energy projects the length and breadth of the country. For that reason, we should disagree to the Lords amendment before us.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 274B.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the SNP spokesperson.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her new role. I wish I could have welcomed her to her new role on 5 September, when we had the remaining stages of the Energy Bill, but she was not here. I wish I could have welcomed her on 7 September for the urgent question on the auction round 5 strike price, but she was not here for that either, so what has the new Secretary of State been doing in the midst of the chronic energy crisis facing our constituents and allowing her Department to see shovel-ready offshore wind go into abeyance? What has she been doing?

[Claire Coutinho]

I struggle to see how that was directly related to the question, but let me tell the hon. Gentleman what I have been doing. I was here for the Third Reading of the Energy Bill; perhaps he was not. During this time, I have been moving forward with all the Government’s priorities on energy security and ensuring that we can move to a just, clean transition.

[Dave Doogan]

Forgive me if that rendition is not immediately recognisable in offshore wind projects from auction round 5. I hope the Department has learnt some salutary lessons from this mess, but it will be consumers who pick up the bill. Can I ask the Secretary of State for her personal intervention in pumped storage to introduce a cap and floor mechanism, which industry has been clear is absolutely necessary to get this vital baseload energy source into position? Will she intervene personally and get that moving, because it is blowing in the breeze just now?

[Claire Coutinho]

I am absolutely focused on getting investment into offshore wind. One of the first things I did after AR5 was speak to investors from across the board, to make sure I was listening to their concerns, and there are multiple things they care about. One is having certainty; there was lots of welcoming of the move to annual auctions. The other is connections to the grid. I will be looking at all those things and making sure we can get the investment the sector needs.

Offshore Wind Contracts

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

The Minister failed to point out that 3.7 GW is scarcely half of what was achieved in auction round 5. He also failed to mention, when he was heralding onshore wind, that 90% of that will be found in Scotland. Since 2014, the four auction rounds have yielded 1 GW, 2.5 GW, 5 GW and 7 GW, so a nil return is an utter catastrophe.

The critical need for massive investment in offshore is patently obvious for bills and for the climate, yet this ambition has been thwarted by an incompetent previous Secretary of State and by the Treasury, which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Can the Minister assure us that the Department will get round the table with industry as a matter of urgency to try to repair this damage? Industry needs a strike price that reflects the not-mutually-exclusive goals of lower bills, net zero, and jobs and investment in Scotland and elsewhere. Can he confirm whether a recovery group for auction round 5 will be convened by him or the Secretary of State to try to get this catastrophe resolved? And where is she?

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman and his party never fail to trash this country—[Interruption.] He can heckle all he wishes. I will be meeting industry representatives this afternoon and, as I have said, we will be announcing in two months’ time the price ceiling for the next round—[Interruption.] I am getting heckling, not least from His Majesty’s Opposition, who left us in that parlous situation. We are the world leader in so many of these technologies and we are going to continue to be. If the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) were to recognise the need to attract investment to this country and not talk it down, he might find that Scottish jobs would be even stronger in the pipeline than they are already.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alok Sharma]

I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend that we need more battery storage. That is being rolled out and I am pleased that she has had a discussion with the Minister.

In conclusion, I welcome the written ministerial statement because it moves us forward. It is for that reason that we will not seek to press new clause 43 to a Division.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I start by paying tribute to my predecessor in this role, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), whose work on energy, particularly on access to clean and affordable energy, was exceptional. I base my ambitions in this role on his record. I also note the Minister’s kind remarks about my hon. Friend and thank him for them.

I want to highlight the abject abandonment of community-owned energy projects in this Bill. It is patently obvious that any just transition to net zero is simply not possible if local communities cannot sell the energy they produce to local customers. Local energy trading provides manifold improvements, including lower prices, protections against price shocks, enhanced energy security, network redundancy and a return on investment back to communities.

The UK Government kicking this can down the road is a hammer blow to efforts to achieve a just transition, and they are doing so without even trying to disguise the fact. Worse still, they have instead provided a paltry £10 million over two years—the Minister left out the “over two years” bit—to fund feasibility studies in England. That is not seedcorn funding; it is chicken feed served up with extra disdain for Scotland and Wales, as the UK Government have steadfastly refused to apply Barnett consequential to this admittedly pitiful sum.

Fundamentally, this sop to Tory Back Benchers does not—as one of the Minister’s Back Benchers said—remove the barriers preventing community energy schemes from selling their power locally. The Local Electricity Bill would have done that, as would amendments made to the Energy Bill had they not been removed by Ministers in Committee in July. Why is this Tory Government so loth to put power in the hands of the people?

Turning to nuclear, English MPs maintain an enduring obsession with nuclear. Their total failure to concede or even rationally acknowledge the catastrophic decommissioning and clean-up costs of that energy source is, by any measure, incredible. As they drag Scotland and Wales along with them for the ride, it is almost as if those English MPs, and indeed the Government, can foresee a time in the not-too-distant future when they will need to buy Scotland’s energy rather than just taking it, as they have got used to doing over recent decades. Nuclear is their insurance policy against Scotland’s independent future.

New nuclear is a millstone around the neck of our net zero future, consuming disproportionate costs per megawatt-hour. If we contrast nuclear with offshore wind, we see that although construction costs for nuclear continue to spiral out of control, and SMR nuclear continues not to get off the ground, the cost of offshore wind has fallen by 80% in a decade. New offshore wind projects coming online within the next two years will be paid about £45 per MWh, which is half the wholesale power price of £90 per MWh forecast until at least the end of the decade, and 60% less than the £115 per MWh of electricity from Hinkley C nuclear power plant.

Tories and Labour Members alike will cry, “This is all about baseload for when the wind does not blow”—I am surprised they have not done so already. Of course, that is correct; we do need baseload, but it does not have to be nuclear. If successive Westminster Governments had invested nearly as much rhetoric and taxpayers’ money creating a renewable energy mix as they have done for nuclear, we would be in a very different place. It would be a place where tidal flow and barrage schemes complement widespread impoundment, pump storage and run-of-river hydro schemes, together with green hydrogen production, battery storage, solar on every appropriate elevation of a domestic or commercial property, and timely delivery of carbon capture, usage and storage.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point that must be recognised and understood for the future. Before Hinkley Point was commissioned, the question was of providing 6 GW of nuclear baseload rather than just 6 GW of baseload, and of seeing whether there could be a mix of green energy, as he argues, or if it would have to be nuclear energy. By prescribing the way the Government have in the past while sticking to 2012 index-linked CfD prices, nuclear is a way to make and print money very quickly.

[Dave Doogan]

My hon. Friend is correct. Over and above the self-evident environmental consequences of nuclear, the way in which this and successive Westminster Governments have fiscally mismanaged the pursuit of nuclear leaves nothing to the imagination.

To continue my remarks, we do not live in that place. We live here in broke, broken Britain. The Bill fails the people on energy once again because it is bereft of strategy and completely loses control of costs. If we want to evidence such calamitous incompetence, we need look no further than auction round 5, or, more specifically, the strike price therein. That price threatens to kill off construction-ready projects from that auction round. At the very best, it will mean even less of the additional supply chain value landing in domestic companies and local workers’ bank accounts, further deepening the cost of living crisis. Penny wise, pound foolish.

Contrast that with the strategic ambition of the Scottish Government, who are investing in communities by maximising the economic, supply chain and employment opportunities of onshore and offshore wind, with up to £1.4 billion of developer supply chain commitments on average across Scotland. I have seen the extraordinary investment and opportunity at Montrose port in my Angus constituency with Seagreen, but we need sustained investment to win those crucial multiplier effects and make the just transition a systemic reality for our communities.

[David Duguid]

I welcome the hon. Member to his new role and pay tribute to his predecessor, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown).

The hon. Member gave a whole list of reasons why there would be an absence of baseload in Scotland, but I think I may have missed the point where he suggested how that baseload would be supplemented in the absence of nuclear. Could he clarify that? Does it include a new gas-fired power station in Peterhead with carbon capture, usage and storage?

[Dave Doogan]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct: he did miss me highlighting what would replace that baseload, and I refer him to Hansard after today’s debate.

The challenges of inflation and interest rates have altered the parameters to such an extent that this Government’s pretence that it is business as usual is breathtaking. Have they not seen what happened in the recent auction round in Spain or, conversely, what happened in Ireland when the Irish Government intervened to protect investment in renewables and reaped the benefit and reward for their economy?

If projects do slip from allocation round 5 as a result of an unrealistic strike price, where do Ministers think the supply chain capacity, the skilled workers and the specialist vessels will go? They will not wait around here, waiting for the Department to get its sums right—they will be off to the US and the EU to access commercially cogent incentive packages such as those found in the Inflation Reduction Act or the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act. The stakes could not be higher for both net zero commitments and UK energy prices.

I am proud that the SNP has worked to protect people from the worst effects of the Westminster cost of living crisis with our amendments to the Bill, with steps that would protect the next phase of contracts for difference projects within AR5, properly provide for a comprehensive and complementary mix of energy storage solutions, advance local supply rights and work towards supporting our most vulnerable with the development of a social tariff, especially for those with higher energy use caused by medical conditions. I am pleased that the SNP’s new clause 39 will be put to a vote this evening, and I urge all Members to support that provision, which, while modest in scope, would have profoundly positive effects on many in our rural constituencies who live off the grid and have to heat their homes through liquid fuel.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a small issue that makes a big difference. The energy bills support scheme, which was very harsh, ended far too soon and has caused an awful lot of problems. This has been covered by Radio 4, and people have written letters about it—I have a letter here from Stourport, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who is a member of my Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. People the length and breadth of the UK are feeling the harshness of the Government’s penny-pinching and tight deadlines, and those who live in caravan parks or on boats are being especially hammered by this. This Government should listen and make a difference. One of the big things affecting people watching this debate today is that they are not getting that £400 for the last year.

[Dave Doogan]

I agree entirely, and I echo the calls from my Scottish National party Westminster leader, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), who wants to see the £400 support package reintroduced. The idea that the pressure on household budgets from energy prices has somehow gone away is for the birds.

Energy security is not some abstract area of Government policy, nor is the purchase of energy a discretionary one for homes and businesses in our constituencies. Failing to legislate and plan strategically in this area, as Westminster has done in perpetuity, is the very reason people are facing the choice between heating and eating. It is the same reason that businesses across these islands have closed their doors due to energy costs. The exorbitant cost of energy in the UK is a function of supply-side constraint, and this Government have compounded that through incompetence, inaction, lack of ambition, penny-wise, pound-foolish misadventure and their obsession with nuclear.

Just imagine how much more perilous the situation for energy consumers in England would be if they never had Scotland’s energy powerhouse to shore up this Government’s incompetence and spaffing money on nuclear left, right and centre. This Bill was an opportunity to make up lost ground and catch up with functioning unions—the United States and the European Union—but as usual, the dysfunctional United Kingdom gets it wrong again, and it is ordinary taxpayers and bill payers who will pick up the pieces and pay the cost. There is one reason why households in energy-rich Scotland are facing fuel poverty and haemorrhaging household budgets on energy costs, and it is sitting in this Chamber: the UK Government.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I remind Members of the four-minute limit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the opportunities of geothermal. He will be pleased to know that it just received a potential allocation through the contracts for difference round. As he and other hon. Friends have pointed out, geothermal has great potential in this country, and we look forward to supporting it.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Communities in Padanaram, Forfar, Aberlemno and Stracathro in my constituency have been on the receiving end of an extraordinarily flawed consultation by SSEN—Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks—on taking a 400 kV line from Tealing to Kintore. I welcome the investment, but can the Minister advise on the minimum standards for consultations on capital infrastructure of this nature, and why will Ofgem not mandate that there is a community benefit?

[Grant Shapps]

I will, with the hon. Gentleman’s permission, arrange to write back to him in a more detailed structure, given that the development is actually in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie).