Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill (Fourth sitting)

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point on the comparison with a “fit and proper person” test for taxi drivers. That underlines the point I was going on to make. In the Bill, there is no statutory requirement for members of ARIA to possess scientific expertise or experience, whether individually or collectively. There is no floor—there is no minimum requirement—for their expertise. We have heard a lot about how wonderful and amazing and visionary they must be, but we have not heard about any floor for that expertise and, as I said earlier, there are no “have regard to” factors that the Secretary of State must consider when making appointments. Schedule 9 to the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, for example, establishes that the Secretary of State must consider the collective relevant experience of the UKRI board when making appointments. In this Bill, there is no floor. That is a huge concern for the Committee.

In the evidence session, Professor Philip Bond said:

“What you are doing in creating this kind of model is handing trust to people. You want people with high integrity who are brilliant, and then you let them get on with it, and you trust that they will do something that reflects their character.”––[Official Report, Advanced Research and Invention Agency Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2021; c. 25, Q20.]

With the examples that we have seen of Tory cronyism, do the Committee really think that we can just rely on trust when it comes to public interest and the public purse?

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

One of the fundamental roles of a director is to exercise reasonable care, skill and diligence. As that is part of the fundamental concept of a board, I would suggest it is the collective responsibility of the chief executive and the entire board, not the responsibility of the Secretary of State.

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point, and it would be excellent if we understood better how the board would collectively exercise responsibility. When we talk about a board exercising collective responsibility, that is absolutely true. That is right, and it is what happens in the private sector. I would be interested to know whether the reporting requirements on private sector boards will apply in this case, but this is public money. It is £800 million of public money—taxpayers’ money. Particularly as we come out of a pandemic and recession, there are many worthy recipients of that money. Is the hon. Member truly saying that it should be spent and directed by people who have no accountability and cannot be removed? The Secretary of State is responsible for their getting the money, but will have no ability to remove them, no matter how unfit they prove themselves to be. On the basis that the amendments offer the Secretary of State further powers to ensure the fitness of the board, I hope that the Minister will accept them.

UK Steel Production: Greensill Capital

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I will certainly look into the hon. Lady’s request. This is something that has been brought to my attention and I will try to see if we can publish something soon.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) [V]]

It is absolutely right to support the steel industry, given the jobs and the simple fact that steel is a fundamental material in our construction industry, and the Government do. I am sure the Secretary of State will note my Environmental Audit Committee inquiry looking at sustainable building materials for the future, such as engineered wood, which is stronger than steel and embodies carbon. Does he agree that we must explore these avenues alongside supporting existing industries as we transition to a greener economy?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s report and his contribution to the debate around the green industrial revolution. He is absolutely right that, alongside steel, we should consider all forms of innovative and novel materials—advanced materials—that can help us build back greener and more sustainably.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Duncan Baker Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) [V]]

This country is steeped in science and invention, so it is fitting that the Bill paves the way to create an agency that will lead to who knows what UK discoveries and innovation.

Members might not think that my constituency would be home to some of the most famous British inventions we have ever heard of, but they would be wrong. Christopher Cockerell, who was at Gresham’s School in my constituency, began with a prototype using a vacuum cleaner, a cat food tin and a coffee jar. He tested his invention on Oulton Broad in the 1950s, before it became the hovercraft, which saw its first commercial crossing of the channel in 1959. Perhaps one of the most famous inventors this country has ever produced grew up in North Norfolk and retains a close affinity with my constituency. He invented the ballbarrow, before inventing the dual cyclone vacuum cleaner. We all know him today as one of our greatest living inventors, Sir James Dyson.

What those two people have in common, apart from their connections to North Norfolk, is that they failed a great number of times until they created the inventions we know today. That is exactly what is so special about the Advanced Research and Invention Agency—that it will cut the red tape and bureaucracy and enable creativity and talent to take the risks that failure so often curtails before people are ever allowed the chance to succeed. With £800 million behind it, and the freedom to explore, ARIA is the launchpad that could so effectively uncover the next leading and pioneering inventor.

We are a scientific superpower. If anyone has any doubt about that, or about what we are capable of, they need only look at what we have achieved in this great nation in the last year, with the University of Oxford developing the coronavirus jab. That encapsulates why we should invest in science and pour money into such transformative research, which I have no doubt will be necessary again in our lifetimes. Free from the political union with Europe, the Government made the right choice. We sought our own vaccination strategy, and we backed our scientists with millions of pounds to develop the vaccine as quickly as possible. Long-term research investment also helped, and that is exactly what this new fund will provide. Oxford scientists had already been researching a vaccine that could be used against a disease such as covid-19. That research investment, which stretched back years, and the willingness to invest have added to the situation we find ourselves in today.

Sometimes in life, we have to take a little risk if we want to deliver rewards worth fighting for. Those who want to dismiss the Bill should think a little harder. They worry about the immaterial detail rather than the overriding thrust of the Bill, but they have to look back and they have to think, what could be? We should remember what one of the greatest entrepreneurs and inventors of the last 20 years said—a lot of my colleagues have spoken about disrupters, and this person was certainly just that:

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

That was Steve Jobs. This Bill is essential to support the efforts of UK people like that and to develop the entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers of the future. I warmly support the Secretary of State in all his efforts.

UK Space Industry

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) [V]]

May I thank the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for securing this debate? It is important for many reasons, not least because the space sector provides an opportunity for significant post-covid growth, and indeed growth that features high levels of productivity. A report by the London School of Economics showed that small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector are growing by more than 30% per annum. The UK is already a world leader in space science, in producing small satellites, and utilising space data; and as part of the Government’s strategy of achieving 10% of the global space market share by 2030, it has been decided that we also need to focus on space launch services. We have the suppliers and the customers; now we need the infrastructure, the equipment and the services to bring them together in the launch sector. But I ask the Minister: are we pursuing our 10% market share goal with sufficient purpose and are we prioritising the areas that will bring the biggest benefits? The largest value sub-sector of launch services, the design and manufacturing of rockets, has so far received the lowest amount of support funding from the UK launch programme. Only one UK launch vehicle company has benefited from the “LaunchUK programme, whereas seven spaceport sites have already received support.

We have heard a lot in the mainstream press about spaceports; they are, after all, a prerequisite for the UK’s launch ambitions and critical national infrastructure. However, the breakdown of the value of each launch will see spaceports gaining fees of about 2% of the total value of a launch, which compares with the launch vehicle representing more than 60%; we are talking about a difference of thousands versus millions of pounds. It is therefore clear that the UK should be doing all it can to gain this value of the upstream space market. To be clear: if another nation launches its rockets from our spaceport, we get thousands, but they get millions. The benefits of supporting more than one domestic rocket company would be immense in terms of new jobs, productivity, growth in skills, technology and benefits to UK supply chains.

However, it is not too late to correct the balance. A company in my constituency, Raptor Aerospace, is developing the next generation of suborbital launch vehicles. Yes, in among the golden waves of North Norfolk’s finest agriculture, a company is designing and building rockets to access space—it is one of only three significant home-grown rocket companies. Raptor is a start-up that has doubled in size in the past 12 months, and it will grow faster still in 2021. The company has developed a unique hybrid rocket engine facility in the east of England, and the company’s trajectory will see the launch of a development rocket from a UK spaceport later this year, with a commercial space-capable rocket the following year. We have brave companies such as Raptor Aerospace that are willing to take the first steps. We must rely on them and the advantage of the synchronicity and the boost that developing launch capability can provide for all the UK.

Border Carbon Adjustment Tariffs and Decarbonisation

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The answer is that there are many different ways that we could approach it. The simplest would be to choose the five or six key carbon-heavy industries and start with them. As we get more knowledge of how to implement this kind of scheme, we could spread out to the wider economy. I suggest that the best way to do that would be to look at the carbon-emitting credentials of the energy market in the third country and assess in broad terms what its carbon contribution is. For example, in China, the coal contribution to the energy mix is between 70% and 80% and we would use that as the basis for the carbon contribution of its imports. When we get a bit more sophisticated, we could look at giving rebates to individual businesses that can demonstrate that they have a low-carbon approach despite the high-carbon attitude of their country as a whole. That would benefit behaviour and would not be protectionist, but would merely be a fair assessment of the carbon cost of transactions.

Moving on to energy, we naturally assume that we create all the energy that we use in this country domestically, but that is not the case. On average, we import, via undersea interconnectors, about 7% of the electricity that we use in this country. Members may recall that, last May, we trumpeted in the press that we had a two-week period in which we were coal free. We had coal-free electricity for two weeks. That was very exciting, but what the newspapers failed to mention was that, during that two-week period, we imported from Holland 40 GW of coal-fired electricity. The reason that we did that was not that we lacked generating capacity in the United Kingdom, but that it was cheaper to import coal-fired electricity from mainland Europe than it was to use our own. The reason why it was cheaper was that it was entirely tax-free, whereas we imposed a carbon tax on the generation of our own domestic electricity. Unbelievably, we actually incentivise the importation of high-carbon coal-generated electricity at the expense of our domestic manufacturing processes. How can that be right? A border carbon adjustment would sort that out in a jiffy.

What single better way is there to forward this Government’s levelling-up agenda than by putting in place the economic conditions for the market to want to re-industrialise in the UK, and all that with no need for Government subsidies. In fact, not only does it not require Government subsidies but it will actually produce an annual windfall for the Treasury year after year. Working out how big that windfall might be has a number of imponderables in it, but the Grantham Research Institute of Climate Change and the Environment has produced a report on this and, again, using the assessment of a carbon price between £50 and £75 a tonne, starting in 2020 and working up towards 2030, it assessed that the gross amount that the Treasury could recover under this process would max out at £36.7 billion a year. I stress that that is the gross amount. Members may well take the view that, rather like VAT, this is a tax that is consumer based and would impact poorer households disproportionately as a percentage of their gross income. The Government might very well want to use some of that £36.7 billion to cushion the blow and to make it more acceptable for lower-income families, perhaps by investing in insulation for their houses or other measures.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a fascinating speech—despite starting off talking about sheep, he has managed to keep everyone’s enthusiastic attention throughout. A lot of emissions-intensive British industries will already find it difficult to compete in the global marketplace. As we begin to encourage the use of carbon capture and clean hydrogen by heavy industry, they will face higher production costs. Would a border carbon adjustment enable heavy industry to decarbonise while preventing job losses, and is that something the Treasury would also find attractive?

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head, because one of the key benefits of a border carbon adjustment is that it would allow us to decarbonise, and allow our heavy industry to accept the pain of higher energy costs, therefore letting the market work in our domestic market to incentivise the development of lower-carbon technology, while at the same time protecting it from being undercut by countries that are taking a little longer to go on the low-carbon journey.

We are not going to be spending money; we are going to be making money. That money could be used as the Treasury knows best. It does not mean that the money is taken out of the economy, because it could be put straight back in—in productivity-enhancing tax cuts, I hope, but that is up to the Treasury.

Best of all—I have saved the best till last—by freeing up the ability to price domestic carbon emissions at a realistic, behaviour-changing level, we can unleash the magic of the free market to seek out the most efficient solutions to low-carbon production. We do not need the Government to pick winners and subsidise industry once a market is working properly. Give a price to carbon, and that is exactly what we will create: a many-headed monster of innovation, entrepreneurialism, dynamism and efficient, productive capital growing our low-carbon future.

This future, if we are brave enough to embrace it before other nations, rather than just following, and if we are bold enough to allow the reshaping of the economy by demand rather than by direction, will equip our industry as leaders in low-carbon manufacturing. They will be leaders because they will be swimming in their natural element, whereas their international competitors will still be struggling to react to the short-term Government green initiatives and schemes that we all currently suffer from. It is a lead that could generate exports and growth in this country.

What is stopping us from delivering on the Prime Minister’s vision of a low-carbon, dynamic economy? Some worry about a protectionism challenge at the World Trade Organisation, but with a BCA applied in an open and transparent manner, nothing could be further from the truth. This policy is about removing unfair competition, not creating it. In any event, WTO rules expressly allow for tariffs whose purpose is to protect

“human, animal or plant life and health”

or

“to conserve exhaustible natural resources”.

Those are two exceptions tailor-made for this kind of tariff.

More practically, if the UK were to join the United States of America, our friends in the European Union and other countries to establish the principle of BCAs at COP26, that would be a game changer, because that would ensure their practical acceptance. Others worry that putting forward such an ambitious proposal at COP26 runs the risk of failing to achieve the consensus that would allow the PR men to claim a stunning success. It might, but the risk of failure is the price of ambition, so should we give up on our ambition? Of course not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support the development of hydrogen energy.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support the development of hydrogen energy.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Alok Sharma)]

Both the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan and our energy White Paper, which we published yesterday, set out our bold ambition for the UK to be a world leader in low-carbon hydrogen. As set out in the White Paper, we are determined to make tangible progress in this important sector, including by investing £240 million through the net zero hydrogen fund and supporting industry to begin a hydrogen heating trial in an entire neighbourhood by 2023. We will publish a comprehensive hydrogen strategy early next year.

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is all about jobs—high value-added jobs. He, along with other colleagues in the House, makes the case at every opportunity for the HyNet project, and it is very lucky to have him as a champion. As he will know, HyNet has already received funding through phase 1 of the industrial decarbonisation challenge, as well as £13 million of support through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy energy innovation programme. We will announce the winners of the next phase of the industrial decarbonisation challenge in spring next year.

[Duncan Baker]

Bacton gas terminal in my constituency harbours a significant percentage of the natural gas intake into the UK. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the potential opportunities presented for the manufacture of blue hydrogen at Bacton, creating low-carbon jobs for the east of England?

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend again raises the issue of jobs. Of course, creating these low-carbon jobs across the country is a priority for the Government. As I have set out, in our 10-point plan and the energy White Paper we have put forward policies for the creation of a significant number of jobs. The Oil and Gas Authority is currently conducting an in-depth feasibility study into blue hydrogen at the Bacton gas terminal. I very much welcome that work, and my officials and, indeed, Ministers would be very happy to engage further with my hon. Friend on this matter.

Offshore Wind Transmission Connections

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

This is my first Adjournment debate in this place, and I am proud to have been granted a debate on one of the most important areas that the Government are tackling. At its heart, we are dealing with climate change, and our efforts to provide clean, green power will set us apart as we tackle the single most important issue that all Governments around the world face.

Perhaps it is rather fitting that I am standing here at all on Guy Fawkes night, because had Guy Fawkes got his way back in 1605 and blown up the Houses of Parliament, I would not be able to be here to talk about a different kind of blow—the blowing of the wind that is to transform our energy sector and make us the leading nation in the whole world in the race to decarbonise and reach net zero. Back in December 2019, I stood on a commitment to care about and tackle climate change. Eleven months in, how are we are getting on? We are doing that, aren’t we, but why? Wind energy has the potential to be our greatest story and to give us energy security—just imagine that—as well as protecting our natural environment; all those things together.

Off the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, we already have 52% of all the wind farms in the country, and we will contribute well over 60% of all the country’s energy once the current applications are built. This programme, along with all the other initiatives we are contributing to, is making us the fastest country in the G7 to decarbonise since 1990. As well as that, we have been the first nation to legally commit to being bound to achieving net zero by 2050, an achievement that we on the Conservative Benches are all rightly proud of. But recently, we heard the Prime Minister announce that we will go even further, even faster. Not content with that, the Prime Minister four weeks ago announced that by 2030 every single household in the country will be powered by wind-produced energy. As he said:

“As Saudi Arabia is to oil, the UK is to wind”.

And I have no doubt that the Prime Minister is sitting watching, having a cup of tea.

It is an intrepid quintet of Norfolk and Suffolk MPs who are already ahead of the curve. We saw that vision and we have a method to deliver it. It is at this point that I want to thank my colleagues, some of whom are here this evening, because without them we would not be as far down the line as we are now. My hon. Friends the Members for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) and for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) have been working on how to achieve that vision for months and, certainly before newbies like myself, even longer. For there is a problem that brings us to this debate. How do we connect that much power and put it into the transmission grid? We need a better system, a better method, and a fit-for-purpose and future-proof way.

Five years ago, nobody really cared. It was not the problem that it is now, but we have come an enormous way since then. We have now to catch up with the technology, catch up with the regulatory framework and catch up with the legislative processes.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this vital debate and on speaking so eloquently. I am proud to be one of the quintet to which he refers. Does he agree that what we all share is that our constituencies will see very significant infrastructure built in the years ahead to accommodate the new demand for offshore wind? We all support that, but is it not the case that bringing forward a new transmission method, whereby we have more co-ordinated wind farms, would not only reduce infrastructure pressure but sustainably develop the industry in the interests of UK plc?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend makes perhaps one of the most important points I am about to come on to. He is absolutely right that as our growth has become almost exponential, we have had to tackle the problem of infrastructure and find that better way. We will come on to that in a moment, but first of all I just want to highlight some of the problems that that presents for my communities and the communities of my hon. Friends the Members for Broadland and for South Suffolk.

I have said before that it is about the rate of growth. Because of the rate of growth at the moment, communities are blighted by the invasiveness of connecting these mammoth pieces of infrastructure to the transmission grid. I have said many times—for the record, I still believe it—that I am lucky enough to represent the most beautiful constituency in the country, which is my home of North Norfolk. An increasing number of offshore wind projects are being granted in similar locations within my constituency, breaking land and sharing cables routes that go through my countryside. My communities, such as Weybourne and Happisburgh, which I am sure some of my hon. Friends know well and have holidayed there, are seeing year after year of destruction to their communities as cable routes tear through villages, communities and farmland.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that, although cable corridors call to mind something rather minor, they in fact run a 100-metre corridor through whatever is in front of them, whether it is the environment or local communities?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend is right, and he highlights another important point. It has been a privilege to serve in this place since December 2019. Since then, we have held many meetings with—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has not done anything wrong, but it is five o’clock.

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(James Morris.)

[Duncan Baker]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is a privilege that I have not done something wrong in the Chamber.

Since December 2019, I have had many meetings with my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland, and I commend him for the passion with which he has served and tried to help those communities that have seen potential road maps of cable corridors coming through their small villages. He has been a champion for trying to stop that in those communities. I used to live in one of those communities—Cawston—and I know how much he has done to help it. One of the problems is that the current regulations prohibit the sharing of infrastructure due to competition rules, so each individual company must construct separate cable corridors.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I am not fortunate enough to have a beautiful coastline along my constituency, although Beaconsfield is beautiful indeed—the most beautiful, I would wager, but we can debate that later. Does my hon. Friend agree that those who are passionate about tackling the climate change emergency and are providing new and alternative forms of energy need infrastructure that can be shared with everyone, including small community energy suppliers, and that we need to look at how we can expand that infrastructure to not only wind farms but other alternative forms of energy?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know that she has an equally beautiful constituency; perhaps we should do an exchange programme one day and view each other’s constituency. She makes an important point: wind energy is just one part of the jigsaw of how we decarbonise and create enough green energy. There will be other forms of energy that are part of the mixture that will help us to decarbonise by 2050. We are lucky in Norfolk and Suffolk to have an enormous amount of wind energy off our coast, but there are many areas around the country with leading initiatives that are helping in the fight to tackle climate change.

The point I want to highlight, and the reason why this debate is so important, is what these cable corridors are leading to. They are causing major environmental damage, as wildlife habitats and agricultural land are dug up multiple times. Nutrient-rich land is sometimes irreversibly damaged from the disturbance caused, and many farmers report poor crop growth along cable routes—much worse than before those cables were put into the ground—caused by the disturbance of the digging. Communities also suffer great socioeconomic damage from the disruption and upheaval caused. For businesses that are along cable routes, there is disturbance, including from heavy goods vehicles and traffic for many months—sometimes up to a year—while these trenches are being dug. It causes enormous problems for these small, often rural communities in my part of the world.

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend has already made mention of the beautiful village of Cawston in my constituency and the neighbouring village of Oulton. Does he agree that when we look at the socioeconomic impact of these cable routes, it is wrong to look at them in isolation? In the case of Cawston, for example, there are no fewer than two routes crossing each other in the same community, yet we have individual planning applications. Does he agree that a more integrated approach dealing with all the infrastructure requirements for offshore wind should be taken?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He makes a hugely important point: we have places that are seeing multiple crossings of cable routes. Of course, what we should be doing is looking ahead with some vision about what is coming in.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is making his case extremely passionately. He has clearly done an awful lot of research for this debate, but I do not know whether he has seen this week’s Policy Exchange report, “The Future of the North Sea” that highlights the enormous potential of the North sea basin to generate jobs and to achieve our carbon reduction targets. Does he agree that the way to do this is to work collaboratively with industry, which wants to help, and to look at reviewing and changing the regulatory framework, as indeed Policy Exchange has suggested, but in a way that does not disadvantage industry?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend has, as he always does so beautifully and succinctly hit the nail on the head. This is all about our wanting to promote, help, collaborate and work together on such an important issue. Ever since we have been involved in this whole discussion, we have come together with the industry, and worked with people from across the world, mainly in Europe, who have brought such brilliant ideas to the table. Only through collaboration and working with them do I even stand here today to try to present some of the issues and why it is so important to work together. I thank him enormously for that contribution.

[James Cartlidge]

As a supplementary to that intervention, will my hon. Friend give way?

[Duncan Baker]

Absolutely.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in taking interventions. I hope that he continues in that spirit—I am sure he will. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) is absolutely right to highlight the Policy Exchange report. I believe that it calls for a more holistic approach to planning the future of the North sea. Is that not in keeping with what we are asking for, which is a more co-ordinated approach? After all, not only is it in the interests of our communities to reduce infrastructure and build more of it out at sea, but it supports the industry, enabling it to grow more sustainably because it does not have to be bogged down with constant planning changes and all that comes with that.

[Duncan Baker]

Again, my hon. Friend, in his enthusiasm and excitement, is leaping ahead to the point in my speech that I am going to get to in just a moment, but he makes the point so passionately and enthusiastically. That is why I said at the beginning that he was part of the quintet. I feel almost guilty that my great friend the hon. Member for Waveney is not included in this quintet. I want to invite everybody to be part of this, because they have all been such champions to get to this important debate this evening. That point is absolutely right, and we will come to that point about co-ordination and integration point in one second.

As more and more developments are granted and our communities recover from one cable corridor and get back on their feet, another one comes along in close proximity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland mentioned, even in such close proximity, they cross over the top of each other. I say to all hon. and right hon. Members in this place today that we cannot go on like this. There is a better way and it is only right that we urge the Government to address this problem. For months now, we have met with all manner of stakeholders, from the operators to the regulators, to those around the world who have helped us in our quest, and I do think that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I am hugely grateful, as we all are here, to the Minister for giving up his time and for so willingly allowing us to lobby him. I have even disturbed him when he was eating his dinner in the Dining Room to talk about this. He has always been so engaging and has allowed me to shamelessly talk about this. I know that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is charging ahead with the offshore transmission network review, which we also welcome. What started off as a very fixed vision of an offshore ring main has in just a few months morphed and evolved into something probably best summarised by the National Grid ESO report published last month. The report’s findings outline many of our concerns, but, as in all governance, we should not just come up with a problem—we should offer a solution. There is something there: an integrated offshore network using high-voltage, direct current, or HVDC, technology that could save consumers approximately £6 billion by 2050. More than that, by using an integrated approach with the infrastructure out at sea, we reduce the environmental and social impacts of the point-to-point connections, such as cables and onshore landings, by about 50%.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous in giving way. Is not another big advantage that once we start building that offshore transmission network, it massively increases the capacity for exporting energy once a surplus is generated? We will come ever closer to linking through those big DC connectors into Europe through France.

[Duncan Baker]

Again, my hon. Friend hits such an important point. We touched on this at the very beginning when we talked about the ability to create energy security for ourselves. Where else do we produce a solution in which we could actually end up exporting energy? We will be a sovereign nation—we are a sovereign nation again—and the ability to have that security but export excess energy to other countries in Europe is almost a no-brainer. I know that he has very close links to the Chancellor, and I am sure that he, too, is watching this speech and that his eyes will light up at the potential export opportunity and income to the Treasury.

The integrated technology is reasonably available, but a key way to unleash the new system is through the use of HVDC circuit breakers. As we heard very recently, some of the technology is already available. Some is being developed. We are very much at the cusp of this.

[Jerome Mayhew]

In your discussions—

--- Later in debate ---

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend again makes an important point. Even in my short time in this place, it has been amazing to see how many people seem to want and agree on this, and to be pushing in the same direction. He is absolutely right—yes, there are people out there, and industry bodies, who do this day in, day out, who want us to push in this direction. Suddenly, for the first time, everyone is pushing at an open door and it is now incumbent on us to help try to deliver this, and that is part of the reason why we are here this evening.

I was trying to set out the point that if we ensure that the legislative and regulatory frameworks are right, using this new technology we will have a chance to link wind farms together and send current down new cabling straight into the locations that need it. No longer would it have to go through my communities and those of many other hon. Members. It would go directly to the locations that need it. What would that do? It would minimise the need for onshore infrastructure and trenching and disruption in our communities.

[James Cartlidge]

Is it not the case that this is precedented? There was a plan to build new power lines over the border from Scotland into England, but because of the damage that that would have done to the countryside, they built an under-sea link, known as the western link, down into north Wales and the rest of the grid. Does that not show that we can already deliver large amounts of power underneath the sea so that it is closer to the population centres where the demand exists?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend has again picked up on the fact that some of this technology is already out there. It may be in its infancy, but it is on the way. It is being developed and, in some parts of the country, it is even starting to be there already. We just need to unleash it for the rest of the country to take advantage of it.

We often lose sight of why we are even talking about this issue. The current piecemeal approach was appropriate in perhaps the early stages, but as we quadruple our wind generation and commit our energies to decarbonising, we have to look again, and in my case and those of my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk and other Members here, pay particular attention to our coastal communities, where such technology has been such an enormous problem.

[Peter Aldous]

I appreciate the point that my hon. Friend is trying to make, but for coastal communities such as mine, these developments have been an absolute godsend in bringing jobs to the area.

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is enormous generation of jobs on the back of this green energy revolution. He is absolutely right to point that out and I do not dispute it in the slightest. The point I was making was that in coastal communities, where we are trenching into the side of cliffs—in areas of outstanding natural beauty—I want to make sure that we can properly improve things for the future.

This is now an issue of speed. We have all read the report that I referred to earlier, and I think we now have to get on with things as quickly as we possibly can. I know that the Minister is hugely supportive of the case, so I wonder whether there will be time in the Queen’s Speech next year for Bills to be laid out so that we can really get to grips with ensuring that the legislation can change for the better to benefit all our constituencies.

There are significant challenges ahead. Nobody should stand here and think that this is going to be a walk in the park, but we are offering a solution—a way forward. I want this day to be as important as it was 415 years ago, when Guy Fawkes, luckily, did not get his way. He did not get quite the explosion that he wanted, but perhaps five intrepid MPs from the east will help to blow us back on course with an energy solution that we need for a truly green future.

Government Support for Business

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

The high street is a passion of mine, given that I worked in retail in my home of North Norfolk before becoming an MP, and the high street is dying at an alarming rate. That is not new, but the decline is continuing year after year, and I see little in the way of a long-term strategy to deal with it. Although I welcome the changes to business rates and the Government’s £3.6 billion towns fund, I do not feel, sadly, that that is the finished answer. It is a temporary sticking plaster, when major structural change and reform is urgently required.

What we are seeing is a fundamental technological shift that has enabled shopping habits to alter through technology. I am not one to stand in the way, but I feel that the Government need to intervene to level up what has now become a completely unfair playing field. Bricks-and-mortar stores are seeing costs rising at an exponentially high rate, through wages, rent, pensions and energy, while their frontline sales growth continues to contract. By contrast, the internet giants buy in enormous bulk, lowering costs, and they do not have the same cost base as companies in what we term A1 retail space.

The high street not only employs millions of people; it also contributes major social and economic value to the country. Boarded up, vacant towns will have a major impact on our health and wellbeing. We should think of the isolation and loneliness that people suffer if they cannot go out to the shops and add that social value to their lives.

Internet sales over the years have rocketed, from around 5% when the data was first collected to around 20% of all retail sales now. That is an alarming rate of growth. Last July the proportion of all shops on the high street that were empty reached 10.3%, the highest level since January 2015, also relatively recent.

Every year we see major chains being lost. House of Fraser, for instance, was narrowly saved. Many go bust, and if they do not, the restructuring deals mean that hundreds of shops are closed instead. We witness thousands of job losses each year, particularly after Christmas, which is a crucial period for many retailers, which either sink or swim after that.

When an industry leader such as John Lewis, which is seen as the bellwether for the high street, is struggling and announcing further potential job losses, we have to recognise that structural change is required. John Lewis has the luxury of Waitrose, and cash from the supermarket division enables it to reinvest in the department stores. Most businesses on the high street do not have that. When John Lewis is struggling, we have to recognise how hard it must be.

All the indications are that footfall is continuing to decline on the high street, potentially at around 2% every single year. That is pretty depressing news. There is a declining customer base and shifting consumer habits; we have all witnessed that managed decline in our lifetimes. We must act now with some kind of intervention to change the playing field before we see communities and high streets really lost, and enormous unemployment off the back of that loss.

What are the suggestions for change? For starters, we need to consider some kind of internet sales tax, specifically on online shopping. Great Britain is renowned for its backbone of small shopkeepers. Some kind of online tax would give high street retailers, whose overheads are high and who employ local people, a better chance of being able to survive. Similarly, some kind of higher rate VAT-style tax should be considered. If we do nothing, the trends that are already happening in front of our eyes will continue. In a time when the Treasury is looking for ways to generate income, why not consider such changes? They are staring us in the face.

We absolutely must tax the internet giants that are contributing to the demise of our towns and cities by not paying their fair share of tax. Only when we do that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) has said, can we start to support the business rates reductions that we hugely welcome.

People say to me, “Why should the Government intervene? It is not their job to interfere in industry change; it is an evolution that we are seeing led by technology.” There is a reasonably simple answer to that: we have done it before. For instance, we have subsidised agriculture for many years, even though the payments system is now being altered. We now have a chance to put some kind of support mechanism in place while retail adjusts.

We are partly to blame for the situation, because we have not sorted out some of the hopelessly lax planning decisions and policies that we have had over the years. Unfair competition from out-of-town stores has created a further threat to our beleaguered traditional town centres. Had previous Governments applied a policy for every supermarket to be restricted to the sale of food items, our high streets would have had a remaining viable use. Furthermore, the modern practice of supermarkets developing instore bakeries, fish counters, butchery departments and so on has led, through that competition, to many smaller businesses on the high street disappearing, almost on a weekly basis—particularly greengrocers. Stringent planning policies must be put in place to curtail some of the supermarket growth that has led to the demise.

The decline of our high streets is a complex problem with a vast array of contributory factors, but the rise of the internet is at the very crux of it. We have to start tackling the problem now. To use our favourite term of the moment, we need to do some levelling-up of our beleaguered high streets.