Carbon Capture and Storage

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) on leading today’s debate and speaking so eloquently about the benefits of carbon capture—and, of course, on throwing a strong pitch for his own constituency into the mix as well. In fact, all Members in this debate have spoken about the benefits of carbon capture, so I will not cover the ground that others have already covered, apart from perhaps touching on a couple of the points made. I will concentrate more on the policy.

As we know, carbon capture and storage has huge potential for decarbonising fossil fuels and it could be highly effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as we have heard from many Members today. However, it was telling that, in the last contribution, the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) referred to “tiny steps”, because that is indeed what these are: tiny steps on the way.

In Scotland, the SNP Scottish Government are already consulting on a new climate change Bill, with proposals—along with interim targets for 2020, 2030 and 2040—for a 90% reduction by 2050. That is as far as the reduction can go under current scientific advice. The independent expert advice from the Committee on Climate Change has said that that is the limit of feasibility and at the moment there is not enough evidence to set a net zero target.

However, I would caution the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. If he is successful and gets a promise about an installation, there is an elephant in the room. It is not the white elephant of Hinkley Point, which I will refer to later; it is the elephant that is Peterhead, where there was a shameful decision by the UK Government to pull the plug on a long-planned development. Peterhead is not far from the Aberdeen South constituency and it is where we saw a hugely damaging decision being taken, without warning, that will create a legacy that will deter investment incentives and dent consumer confidence.

That decision was a manifesto betrayal. That should be key—it was in the Conservative manifesto that the project would go ahead, and the cost to the taxpayer was £100 million. Peterhead was set and ready to accept a £1 billion contract and expected 600 jobs. I would therefore caution the hon. Gentleman about getting too excited about any promises, because by axing that project at the 11th hour, George Osborne committed what can only be described as a betrayal of the people in Peterhead.

Even now, the commitment to CCS, welcome as this small U-turn is, is still fairly mealy-mouthed, because in the detail it says: “subject to cost reduction”. That is the bare minimum of commitment, and the Carbon Capture and Storage Association has pointed out that it is counter to the way that technology actually develops. We have to invest in order to get the experience to get the drive costs down, so it is very difficult to see how an energy policy cherry-picked in this way, with these announcements and selected U-turns, will really provide a cohesive way forward for the industry. And all the while, in the background, we have the expensive and regressive nuclear policy at Hinkley C.

The SNP Scottish Government support the Paris agreement’s zero-emissions aim and we are providing significant funding in Scotland to establish the feasibility of the Acorn CCS demo project at St Fergus. Incidentally, that project is also supported by EU science funding of €1.9 million, and with SNP Government support the low carbon and renewable industry has created 58,500 jobs. That was the figure in 2015, which was up by a third from 2014.

[Claire Perry]

I know that the marching orders for the SNP, if not always for the hon. Gentleman himself, is that its Members have to be as gloomy as possible about everything at all times, but it is, frankly, really very sad that he has made no reference today to the high-wind offshore floating wind plant, which is one of the most innovative and creative things that is being done. It is being done by the UK Government, because this area is not a devolved matter, as he knows. That has been done because of the combination of the policy, Government leadership and work with industry to drive down the costs of offshore wind, exactly as we propose to do with this technology. Let us focus on what can be delivered and acknowledge that no country in the world is taking a major step into unreformed CCUS at the moment, and we want to do this together, so perhaps we could have just a bit more cheerfulness from north of the border.

[Drew Hendry]

I am grateful to the Minister for her short speech, or lecture, about how we should look at Government policy. I believe it is quite common now for us to be told that we should just hope for the best—that we should all be doing a “rah-rah” and saying, “This is all going to be great in the future”. No amount of deflection from the Minister will get away from the point that the UK Government, at the 11th hour, cancelled the Peterhead project, with no warning to the people involved, and that is shameful. On the point of the floating wind farm, which was launched yesterday, she will be aware that Nicola Sturgeon was there, not only to welcome the project but to launch it officially.

By making these policies—by making these small U-turns and small concessions—the Government are doing some welcome things. However, we want to see further, more significant U-turns. We want to see a significant investment, because, as has been stated, it is time for a long-term, robust UK policy for a low-carbon future. That is needed urgently. I urge the Minister to come up with some actual details about what the Government are going to do in the future to deliver it.