David Mowat
Main Page: David Mowat (Conservative - Warrington South)(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Callum McCaig
I disagree. The absence of a strong regulator is where there have been significant problems in the oil and gas industry, in particular with access to infrastructure. The inability to get two parties with competing commercial interests to agree a deal on access to oil and gas infrastructure—a pipeline, for example—has meant that investment decisions have not been implemented. The industry needs a regulator that is hard-touch where required. I very much hope that the threat of sanctions from the OGA will in itself be enough, and that they will not be required. The OGA probably recognises that itself. Issuing sanctions left, right and centre would suggest that its soft skills, its influence and the buy-in the Wood review has brought forward, are not working effectively enough. Where there is no compliance or buy-in to the idea of maximising economic recovery, and where disagreements about access to infrastructure are inhibiting investment, the regulator should go in—and go in hard—to ensure that what everyone is supposed to be working towards is delivered.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman mentions, correctly, the need for a laser-like focus on maximising economic recovery as the objective of the Bill—and goodness knows we need it. Is it therefore his party’s position that the amendment in the House of Lords on carbon capture and storage is not necessary at this point, because it could risk reducing that laser-like focus?
Callum McCaig
Yes. I am coming on to that point now. I have spoken about carbon capture and storage many times and I will continue to do so. We fully support that. However, there is a requirement, which the shadow Secretary of State talked about, to have the review and the strategy in place before it can be imposed as one of the principal objectives of the OGA. If we dilute the core functions of the OGA, we distract from that attention. We should remember that the OGA and the Wood review come from a time when oil was over $100 a barrel. Those were the circumstances required to support the industry, which was going through difficult times, at a very high oil price. Those pressures are much higher today. I agree that we need to allow the OGA to bed in. Perhaps in future, once there is a strategy in place and it can be demonstrated that it has the support of the Government from both a financial and a strategic point of view, that might be something we want the OGA to do. At the moment, however, I think that is premature.
As I said, the Wood review comes from a time, two years’ ago, when oil was $110 or $115 a barrel. It is now $29 a barrel. The game has changed significantly. We have to accept that, while this is a vital step in supporting a vital industry, it will not be enough in and of itself. We need fiscal changes to the tax regime, particularly on incentives, and to review the tax level as a whole.
Immediately following the autumn statement, the Oil & Gas UK economics director, Mike Tholan, said:
“Since the last Budget, the oil price has declined further, and we must continue to do as much as we can to help boost confidence and encourage investment in the UK Continental Shelf. If the oil price continues to be lower for longer, there is little doubt that alongside industry’s own concerted effort to improve its efficiency, we will need to work with Treasury on additional measures, including revisiting the current headline tax rate—consistent with the government’s commitment to the sector’s tax rate falling over time.”
Callum McCaig
So we are backing up the cheap renewables with fossil fuels that are not so cheap, and the solution to that is to use the fossil fuels that are not so cheap all the time. That sum does not quite add up. I am not sure that I have worked out the equation.
We have been EVELed out of the changes in the planning regulations, but I would not have opposed them anyway. However, I think that what is good for the goose should be good for the gander, and that the policies should respect the different attitudes that exist in the different nations of the United Kingdom. We in Scotland would like onshore wind generation to continue, and we hope that there will be mechanisms to enable that to happen—which brings me neatly to the idea of a subsidy-free contract-for-difference mechanism that would provide the price stabilisation and allow a route to market for onshore wind, the cheapest form of renewable generation. I am sorry; I could not help it. That was there for the benefit of the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty.
Finally, the emissions trading proposals would ban the Government from using carbon accounting through the European emissions trading scheme. I and my party are not opposed to that in principle, but would recognise that we are probably a little premature in terms of agreeing that in advance of the fifth carbon budget.
David Mowat
In principle, that apparently is the position of the hon. Gentleman’s party, because to leave the ETS, which is a Europe-wide system, seems an odd tack to take for a party that is always telling us how European it is. In particular, surely the way to fix this is to get a proper ETS, not one that has a price of carbon that is so low? That is the way forward, not by leaving it. Surely as good Europeans, that cannot be the SNP position.
Callum McCaig
I do not believe there was any suggestion to leave. I would not suggest we cannot use or do it, but, rather than looking to buy carbon emissions and the capacity off our dear friends on the continent, we should be looking to be the leader and to have that high ambition. We could be in a position not only to stop counting those emissions towards our own contributions, but sell some to others who may not be quite so good in dealing with it.
In closing, as I see it there are three aspects to this Bill: the Oil and Gas Authority, the onshore wind and the emissions trading. We at this stage support two out of three, and, as Meat Loaf said, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”
Edward Miliband
The carbon price floor was introduced by this Government—or, rather, this Government when they were in coalition. The point is not to deny that transition needs to take place; the point is we have to do it in the right way, and I do not disagree with that.
I now wish to carry on making my case. If we support zero emissions globally—that is what the Secretary of State has done—the logical position is that we must also support it domestically. We set a target of an 80% reduction, but it does not make sense to have 80% as the target when we know from the science and from the global agreement that we will eventually have to get to zero emissions.
The second part of my case is based on economics, and I wish to make the following comments to Conservative Members in particular. They will worry that my proposal sounds as though it is going to raise costs, but quite the opposite is true. I ask them to listen to some of the business voices who are saying that they want us to set a clear target for zero emissions. Why are they saying this? It is because certainty is the friend of business in this area and uncertainty its enemy. Richard Branson has said that a net zero emissions goal simply makes “good business” as it
“will drive innovation, grow jobs, build prosperity”.
He is joined by many other business leaders in making that case. Just as it is the right thing to do for business, so, too, is it the right thing for government. We are going to have to make decisions on infrastructure now which will have implications for 20, 30, 40 years hence. It is right to make those decisions on the basis of what we will eventually have to achieve, albeit in the second half of the century, because we know that we will have to get there.
Thirdly, and finally, my case goes beyond our borders. The Paris agreement is a great one, but its biggest weakness is that if we look at the aggregate of the different commitments made by different countries, we see that although the aspiration may be to limit warming to less than 1.5°, when we add them up they seem to be more like 3°-worth of commitments. Some might ask what difference the UK can make, as it represents only 1% of global emissions. They might ask why our acting has an impact. I say to the House that it does have an impact. The Climate Change Act—I give credit to the Conservative party because it supported this and actually pushed the then Government to do this—had an impact, not only in Britain but around the world. When the Secretary of State went to the Paris negotiations and urged others to take action, they were not able to say to her, “You are pretending you care about these things and want to legislate for them, but actually you are not taking action in your own domestic legislation.” We did do that.
Edward Miliband
I am not going to give way, because I would lose my time if I did so.
I say to the House, and to those who are sceptical about action having been taken, that the 2015 global climate legislation study looks at climate change legislation in 99 countries and talks about the speed of response following the UK’s Climate Change Act. My threefold case is that we need to have consistency between domestic and international action; that there is an economic case for doing this; and that we have an impact on other countries if we act.
I wish to deal with two other points that might be made to me about why my approach is a bad idea. The first is that we should stick to our existing targets and not worry about having more ambition. People might say, “Why do we need more ambition when we have this framework already in place?” By doing so, they are sticking their heads in the sand, because if we have to get to zero emissions, we should start that process now. It is a hard task, but it is a feasible one and we need to know that we should get there. My case is a pragmatic one. I am not saying, “Pluck out of the air a date on which to get to zero emissions.” I am not simply saying we should get there in 2050, as some business leaders have urged. I am saying that we should get the independent experts—the Committee on Climate Change—to look at these issues and advise government on when we should put this into UK domestic law.
The second point, which I think has been made in interventions, is that somehow we are going far too far ahead of other countries—that this is us being far too far out in front. The simple point to make about that is that more than 190 countries have now signed up to this zero emissions goal in the Paris agreement. Every country is theoretically signed up to this goal, so the question is: are we actually going to do it? Is this goal just warm words? Is this just us pretending that we are going to act but not really following it through?
In conclusion, I hope the Government will come forward with an amendment such as I have been outlining. If they do not, I want to work with people across this House to seek to make it happen. The Government can support this measure, so I hope they will table an amendment, either in Committee or on Report. It would build on the momentum of the Paris agreement, it is in the best cross-party traditions of the Climate Change Act, and it would send a powerful signal around the world and in Britain about our determination to act. Above all, it would increase our ability to tackle dangerous climate change. Notwithstanding the contribution from the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, this is something that unites the vast majority of Members across this House. I therefore hope the Government will give this suggestion the consideration it deserves.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) and other colleagues who have spoken today. I do not think any more memorable phrase will come into the debate than the “50 shades of green” used by my right hon. Friend. As so often in this area of debate, people dispute the numbers, as he did with his initial “ 40 shades” effort.
The thread of agreement among everyone who has spoken so far, including my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), my right hon. Friend and others, is that if we are setting out to fulfil the requirements of the Climate Change Act, we must do so in the lowest-cost way. My right hon. Friend was right to point out that, given the burden sharing throughout Europe, there is an issue about our taking further steps. Would that simply provide greater slack elsewhere? People may or may not share his scepticism about the whole arena, but none of us would want our making progress to mean that someone else slacks as a result. Therefore, having a joined-up approach is a sensible part of delivering what we all want and doing so at the lowest possible cost, and that is worthy of further investigation.
Where I do not think my right hon. Friend is right is in suggesting that this is purely an exercise in sadomasochism. After all, the Committee on Climate Change’s brief is to fulfil that which was passed in this House, albeit without his support: an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. If we read the Committee’s fifth carbon report, which was recently published, we see that its whole premise is to try to work out a pathway to get us there at the lowest possible cost. That is one reason why I welcome the reset of the policy by the new Government and our new Ministers. They are not stepping away from the Climate Change Act, although some of my hon. Friends might wish that they were. On the contrary, they are saying that they want to look at how best to make sure we have a policy framework that incentivises activity to meet the outcomes that we all want.
I know from discussions with the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who is nodding in my direction, that one renewables issue we face—this picks up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty—is dealing with intermittency. One way of dealing with that is to develop storage. Have we had sufficient investment and created a framework that has incentivised enough focus on storage while we were also incentivising investment in things such as wind? The answer has to be no. We must therefore try to ensure that we get a framework that captures all the elements that we need in order to create a rational response, so that even if my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden does not entirely agree, he can see a more rational thread running through the policy in order that we can deliver.
The Secretary of State played a leading role in the negotiations in Paris, and Britain was at the table, helping to create a more ambitious deal.
David Mowat
My hon. Friend mentions Paris. I wish to understand, perhaps from the perspective of GLOBE—the Global Legislators Organisation—why the EU’s intended nationally determined contribution submitted at Paris implied a degree of reduction in emissions that is half the rate of the UK’s. Why has the EU decided not to follow us with the Climate Change Act, and apparently to be so tight around it? Does it know something that we do not?
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend often carries around with him the list of the emissions reductions of European countries since 1990. He points out—
Graham Stuart
Indeed, Austria is my hon. Friend’s favourite bête noire. He points out that the contribution of many countries that like to talk about this topic but not deliver on it is pretty woeful, which goes back to my earlier point about the need for a joined-up approach to ensure that we genuinely deliver collectively the outcomes that we desire. Thanks in part to the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, EU ambitions were raised, but they did not go as far as the UK would have liked. In 2008, with cross-party support, we unilaterally decided on a pathway for this country, which was 80% reductions by 2050.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak after so many engaging and insightful contributions. As we meet today, it is easy to forget that it is almost 10 years since the Prime Minister, who was then Leader of the Opposition, decided it was time to hug a husky, and five years since he declared his determination to lead the greenest Government ever. As soon as he had walked down Downing Street and made his way through the rose garden, and once he was out of the earshot of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), what did he do? He instructed his advisers to “cut the green crap”. I say that not to imply that the Prime Minister and his party were lacking in sincerity—of course they were not—but because it shows the undeniable truth that talking is easy but action is hard.
We saw that today in the Government’s failure to act to support the steel industry and jobs in my constituency, and we see it on climate change. Warm words will not stop global warming; only concrete action will. The connection between how we tackle climate change and how and where we get our energy is self-evident. It was for that reason that the Department of Energy and Climate Change was set up and why the Climate Change Act 2008 committed to reducing emissions by 80% by 2050. Alongside the Act was a detailed plan for moving to a low-carbon economy. Today, however, the Government are enthusiastically dismantling it, injecting as much uncertainty and instability into the energy sector as possible.
When I worked at the World Economic Forum, I was privy to the thoughts of CEOs and leaders of some of the world’s biggest companies. I have to say that most of those people got it. They would simply tell me, “Look, our business is not sustainable if our planet is not sustainable.” It is not just the case that business and the private sector could or should be partners in sustainability; the truth is that the business community desperately wants and needs to partner government on green growth. Like me, they have seen the reports that unchecked climate change threatens at least $4.2 trillion of assets around the world. They know that a sustainable business needs a sustainable planet.
I have seen the revolutionary capacity of private sector actors in attaining public goals—but that requires support from government. Part of that government support must be about creating an environment of certainty. Business can only mobilise and invest its intellectual and financial capital in green energy if it can have some sense of certainty—if it can be sure that the floor will not be pulled up from underneath it overnight. It is on this, and with the Bill in particular, that the Government are failing. Already the Government have decided effectively to block the solar industry from any certainty over the feed-in tariffs that it will receive once projects are finished. Now we see greater uncertainty being injected into the issue of carbon capture and storage and wind farms with the early closure of the renewable obligation.
Onshore wind is one of the most cost-effective and low carbon energy sources available to us in the UK, so the Government’s decision retrospectively to close the existing subsidy scheme, which was not in the Conservative manifesto, is an example of the Government’s reckless chopping and changing of energy policy. It should be particularly worrying for the following reasons. First, it will cost jobs. Hundreds of highly skilled workers will be laid off because of the Government’s mismanagement of clean energy subsidies. Secondly, the Government claim that ending solar and wind support will save households 80p on their annual bill, but most of the savings will be offset by hand-outs they have announced to more expensive energy projects, such as Hinkley Point B. The Government’s approach is inconsistent: stripping support for clean energy—for the cheapest energy we have—just when it is on the verge of reaching parity with non-renewables, while announcing new subsidies for the most expensive forms of energy. That is not about a fair market, but about ideology.
Thirdly, all this has been done with almost no notice, so it will totally wreck investor confidence. I have to ask the Secretary of State to put herself in the position of an investor in the energy market. Faced with the choice of investing in the UK or the US, where renewables investment has doubled under President Obama, where would she choose? Faced with the choice of investing in the UK or Germany, which has seen renewables rise from 6% of the energy sector in 2000 to almost a third of the sector by 2014, where would she choose?
David Mowat
The hon. Gentleman mentions Germany. He is right that there are more renewables there than in the UK. It is also a fact that in Germany carbon emissions per capita are one third higher than in the UK and one third more per unit of GDP because of its reliance on coal. Does he not accept that the Government have a responsibility to decarbonise as cheaply as possible? There was a terrible announcement today in his constituency. The cost of electricity for making strip products in Port Talbot is double the price for an equivalent company in Germany. Does he not accept that part of what Government must do is mitigate that?
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). It will not surprise the House to learn that there was not one paragraph in her remarks with which I agreed. [Interruption.] I am sure that she will wear my words proudly like a badge of honour.
We should remember why we are all here tonight, because, with a few exceptions, we have not really addressed the main purpose of this Bill, which was to implement the Wood review. That is why the Bill was initially introduced. That review, compiled by Sir Ian Wood, was very necessary as it looked to create a more participative and sharing environment in the North sea over the last decades of its life. At the time, the life of the North sea looked longer than it does now. We should recall that, over the past two decades, this country has had two world-class industries—banking, and oil and gas. The latter has been centred in Aberdeen and has made a massive contribution to the Exchequer, to jobs and to our prosperity. The situation that it finds itself in now—I think the House is a little sanguine about this—is worse than some of the speeches have implied.
Right now, the operating costs—not the development costs or the exploration costs—in the North sea are round about $28 to $30 a barrel. That is where the world oil price is now, which implies that, unless something changes, not only will we not develop new oilfields, but we will struggle at current oil prices to keep operating the platforms we already have and our current activities. It behoves this House to sort that out and do what it can. I do not think that the Wood review will make a big enough difference to make a big enough impact, but let us remember that there are 475 installations in the North sea that have to be decommissioned in the next few decades, 10,000 km of pipeline and 5,000 wells. The industry employs nearly 400,000 people, and it does not employ them all in Aberdeen. When I knock on doors in Warrington and speak to people, I ask where they are working. The answer is often that they work offshore or in some part of the supply chain. Every Member here will find that many of their constituents work in highly paid jobs in the North sea. It therefore behoves us to get this right.
We are trying to create a facilitative environment. In the future, for example, when Shell wants to abandon a platform, or no longer use a pipeline that might be useful to Total, it will be prevented from doing so because people will be looking at the bigger picture and trying to maximise the whole basin. That has to be a sensible target, as is the central objective of the Bill, which is the maximisation of economic recovery. That is why I really regret the fact that the Labour party has sought to change that in the Lords, with this point on carbon capture and storage. It is not that we do not agree with CCS, or that it is not important, but, to use the good phrase the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig) used earlier, we need to have a laser-like focus on the objective of keeping that industry and those 400,000 highly paid jobs in existence for as long as possible. That is why the amendment is wrong; it is not because we do not believe in CCS. [Interruption.] If the shadow Secretary of State wants to intervene on me, she should please do so.
Lisa Nandy
I say to the hon. Gentleman that that is precisely why we need a long-term and a short-term strategy. We should not be seeking to pitch one against the other, which is why we will be seeking to amend this Bill to ensure that, where economically viable, those options will be considered.
David Mowat
I just go back to this point: how many objectives can we give a new agency such as this? The North sea is not that far from being unviable. We need to put our shoulders to the wheel in this House to come up not with caveats but with a practical set of solutions that were set out in the Wood review.
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend makes some important points. Does he agree that the challenges he has outlined in relation to the long-term viability of North sea oil and gas are further highlighted by the Iranian nuclear deal that has been signed, and the fact that that supply of oil will be coming on to the global market when prices are already depressed?
David Mowat
My hon. Friend is right. That development was probably already discounted in the market. Nevertheless, more oil will, of course, put the price down. Like the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell), I worked in the oil industry for a period of my life. During that time a phrase that was often used was that the solution to low oil prices is low oil prices. At some point there will be a market reaction, but it is a long way off. My hon. Friend is right—the Iranian thing does not look helpful.
I have two points on this part of the Bill. The first is one that the SNP may agree with. The new authority is to be based, apparently, in Aberdeen and London. I do not understand why any of it has to be in London. I leave it at that. We have a need in this country to have everything in London. If anything needs to be only in Aberdeen, it is the new authority.
The second point is whether the new authority is going to have issues with US competition law. I do not fully understand that, but my experience is that there could not even be a meeting between US oil companies in the same room without lawyers involved, because of their incredible concern about US anti-trust laws. I wonder how the authority will deal with that, but no doubt somebody cleverer than I am has thought about that.
We have spoken about CCS. Clause 80 is an interesting amendment proposed by the Opposition in the House of Lords. That clause says, broadly, that we should no longer take credits from the EU emissions trading scheme as part of the process. If we step back and think about that, it is the Opposition saying that they do not want a European solution to cap and trade. I made this point earlier and I think I am right. It is true that the European ETS system is useless; that is a different problem. It is completely useless because the European Parliament would not increase the cost of carbon as we have, for example, but that is no reason to give up on a European solution. It seems odd that the two more pro-European parties in this House—I think it is fair to say that—want to go away from a European solution to sort out emissions.
David Mowat
I have taken two interventions and time is not on our side.
The two Opposition parties want to ignore the fact that what the world desperately needs—this might be a point on which the hon. Lady would agree—is a cost of carbon in the system somewhere. If there was a cost of carbon, the investment decisions right across the world would be affected in the same way—that is what the ETS was supposed to deliver—and we would be in better shape. It is a little odd that the Opposition take that view.
I shall not speak at length on the wind point. Others in the House feel more strongly about it than I do and I have spoken about it previously. It is clear that it was in the manifesto and we need to do what we are committed to do. The wind point goes to the core of one of the issues in the climate change debate—the continuing confusion between renewables and decarbonisation. I have heard speeches today in which Members said that other countries are building renewables more quickly than we are, even though their carbon output is vastly more than ours. Germany is an example, but there are many others. We need to be focused with laser-like efficiency on decarbonisation. That brings in CCS, nuclear and other technologies which the focus on renewables has damaged.
On Paris, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who is no longer in his place, made a speech that I found strange in parts. I say to the whole house—I make this point every time—that the European commitment on the rate of decarbonisation, which it put forward in Paris in its intended nationally determined contribution, and of which we were a part, implies a rate of decarbonisation that is half that which the Climate Change Act 2008 requires us to achieve. Now, it may well be that those countries do not yet realise that we are leading them. It may well be that they have not yet cottoned on to the fact that they are slower than us. Or it may be that they desperately want to protect their Port Talbots, their Motherwells and their Redcars, in a way that has not reached the consciousness of this House to the same extent.
I will finish with a point about jobs. We often hear how many jobs are at risk in solar and wind as a result of changing subsidy regimes, and of course that is regrettable, although I do not know the extent to which those numbers are true. However, it is wrong to say that higher electricity prices do not also cost jobs. It is not just about giving relief to energy-intensive industries. If we in this country expect to have a march of the makers—to use that phrase—and for that to be based on an energy regime in which our manufacturers are paying up to 50% more than manufacturers not in China, or even in the US and Singapore, but in France, Germany and Holland, it is going to be tough. I think that Members of this House need to respect the Government’s duty to balance cost with decarbonisation and all that goes with it.
Several hon. Members rose—