Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Michael Shanks

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th May 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Michael Shanks]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important intervention. I will turn to the substance of the amendment before I get into trouble, Mrs Hobhouse.

The amendment seeks to set the level of benefit at £1,000 per year over 10 years. First, I should say I welcome the fact that across the Committee today there is support for that principle. That is really important, because the principle that we want to recognise—to be fair, the previous Government did when they launched the consultation—is that if we host nationally important energy infrastructure, particularly transmission infra-structure, which so often has less of a community benefit in the communities that it passes through, there should be some benefit from it. That is a really important point.

The balance that we sought to strike was to find a way to give a benefit to those households affected by the transmission infrastructure, but also make sure that the wider bill payers across the country that will pay for those community benefits are not saddled with a significant bill as a result. So the balance that we struck was £250 per year over 10 years. I would never seek to question the House of Commons Library, but I think perhaps the hon. Member for Broxbourne might not be correct in his interpretation of its figures. It would be £2,500 over the course of the 10 years that the scheme would be in place. I think that is what he was referring to.

In our view, the point here is that this still provides a significant benefit regarding bills for those households for a substantial amount of time—10 years—but at the same time does not result in significant amounts being added to the bills of other people right across the country who will pay for this. We think £1,000—which we looked at carefully as part of this process—is too much.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

I thank the Minister, and I absolutely recognise the importance of the principle of community benefit. However, would he not agree with me that it becomes problematic if we put in specific numbers, such as £250 or £1,000 a year? Inflation will change what that means, so is it not more relevant and logical to place a requirement more like the amendment advocated by the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, which talks about a community dividend that is in proportion to the revenues generated by the project rather than an absolute number?

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[Michael Shanks]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point; I will come to the new clause shortly. The difficulty with that approach for transmission infrastructure is that by definition it goes through so many different communities in a linear way that it would be really difficult to divide up that funding among communities. How you define each community is quite challenging, whereas defining households that are within a certain distance of pylons, for example, is very easy, and we want to give a direct benefit to those households.

[Ellie Chowns]

Logically, we could divide by the number of miles of transmission infrastructure in each community.

[Michael Shanks]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but a transmission line goes through a significant number of communities in a linear way. For a wind farm, you could draw a line around it and benefit all those communities; a transmission line does not work that way, so we would be giving to a significant number of communities who have maybe one or two pylons near them. That is why we think what is most important is that the households closest to the infrastructure get the direct community benefit.

To the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, this is not the only part of the Bill—we will also have a community benefits fund for infrastructure like substations, where if there is one particular piece of infrastructure built in a community, with all the disruption that goes with building that, wider community benefits come from that as well. It is not one or the other; we are doing both, but in a legislative sense, we only have to legislate on the Bill discount scheme, which is what we are talking about in this amendment.

The shadow Minister asked for detail on some important points—including that we should set out in secondary legislation the specific level of benefit and the duration over which it will be paid. Of course, the £250 a year is a “minded to” position that we have come to as a result of the consultation that the previous Government did and the evidence that we have seen, but that will be set out in secondary legislation, which—to the hon. Lady’s point—allows us to alter that over time if the scheme is successful. This is, in some ways, a trial to find out whether the intended policy outcomes result. I hope that for those reasons—I will come to some others—the hon. Member for Hamble Valley might withdraw his amendment.

Clause 22 is about creating a financial benefit scheme for eligible households living near certain new or significant increases in network transmission infrastructure, and inserts new sections into the Electricity Act 1989. It empowers the Secretary of State to establish and determine the overall design of the scheme, including qualification criteria, scheme administration, enforcement, and provisions requiring the benefit to be passed on.

The “pass-through provision” is outlined in new section 38B(2), and is essential to ensure that the right consumers benefit and to ensure that when an intermediary sits between the electricity supplier and the end user—as happens in some cases—the intermediary will be required to obtain the full benefit and then pass it on to the end user. If this is not complied with, new section 38B(3) allows regulations to provide for the withdrawal or recovery of benefits made to intermediaries.

To enforce compliance with the scheme, new section 38C details the enforcement provisions that may be made in regulations, and I hope this answers the shadow Minister’s point around potential fraud in the system and the imposition of penalties that we will make through secondary legislation for instances of regulations not being complied with. Finally, new section 38D deals with provisions around data collection for the purposes of administering the scheme. Overall, it is worth remembering the purpose of this clause: it is to improve the public acceptability of network transmission infrastructure.

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Debate between Ellie Chowns and Michael Shanks

Friday 26th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman understands the purpose of GB Energy, but it is not to bring down gas prices; it is to bring down bills. The whole point of GB Energy is to move us away from our over-reliance on gas. If we are not reliant on gas prices, we will remove that risk to bills from the shocks that we receive from the international markets, but we can do that only if we invest in the clean energy of the future.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Does the Minister agree that the energy crisis is a matter not just of supply but of demand, and that the cheapest bill is the one that does not have to be paid because the energy is not being used? Does he intend to announce today ways of tackling the demand side? We could, for example, ensure that all new buildings are built to net zero standards, and announce a timeline for getting to that point as soon as possible. We could also announce a nationwide, street-by-street insulation programme to tackle the need for energy efficiency; that is the cheapest and quickest way to address the energy crisis. If he is not going to make those announcements today, when will they be made?

[Michael Shanks]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She has perhaps been reading our manifesto, because I agree with everything she has just said. That is why we are announcing a warm homes agency and looking at energy efficiency across the public and residential sector, and why we will massively upscale that domestic investment. I will come back to her points in more detail later. It is almost as if she knew what I was going to talk about.

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[Michael Shanks]

I was hopeful that that was going to be a very positive question, but then we got to a “however”. I thank the hon. Lady for her support of what I have said so far. North sea licensing is an important issue. We were clear throughout the election that we do not intend to issue any further licences in the North sea. We are looking at how exactly that will come into force, and a lot of detailed work is going on because we want to give assurances to the industry.

On the question of Rosebank and some of those other fields, we have said that we will not bring to an end any of the licences that are currently in place. I cannot speak on some of the particular issues, because there are, of course, cases before the courts, but we will come back to the House in due course to set out the detail. What is important is that we have said that we do not want any new licences in the North sea and we stand by that commitment. We now want to work out a detailed plan, so that that just transition, to which the hon. Lady rightly referred, can come into effect.

I wish to finish on the warm homes plan, which the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) mentioned earlier and is so committed to supporting, and we are grateful to her for that. It will invest £13.2 billion in clean heat and energy efficiency over the lifetime of this Parliament, doubling the previously planned investment to upgrade 5 million homes, with grants and low-interest loans to support investment in insulation, low-carbon heating and other home improvements.

The latest Government figures show that 3 million households in England are in fuel poverty. In the private rented sector, the figure is one in four. Shamefully, the last Government abandoned their commitment to get those homes up to decent standards of energy efficiency, but we will not abandon tenants. We will ensure that homes in the private rented sector meet minimum energy standards by 2030, saving renters hundreds of pounds a year.

[Ellie Chowns]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Michael Shanks]

I will carry on, if that is okay.

We will ensure that we have a regulator that fights for consumers as well. We have seen repeated failures in recent years, including the scandal of the forced installation of prepayment meters, poor customer service, and consumers picking up the cost when companies go to the wall. The Government will overhaul the mandate, powers, remit and redress of Ofgem, and we will reduce the burden of standing charges, which have risen by £150 since the start of 2022. We will hold companies to account for wrongdoing and ensure that there is automatic compensation for those failed by their energy supplier.

Finally, the next 18 months in the run-up to COP30 are critical to ramping up and delivering on our global climate commitments. Britain must and will regain its influence on the international stage, so we will work with international partners to raise ambitions, including by leading a clean power alliance that brings together a coalition of countries to accelerate the clean energy transition.

The Government’s clean energy mission and our wider energy agenda are critical, not just for that international leadership, but as a route to lower bills, energy security and good, long-term jobs. There is no doubt that we are playing catch-up. If we succeed—and success is vital for all of the reasons that I have outlined—the benefits will be substantial and felt by everyone long into the future. We have wasted no time as a Government getting started in pursuing this mission and I look forward to the contributions of hon. Members across the House, so that together we can deliver this critical agenda for the future of our country.