New Pylons: East Anglia

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew). I extend my sympathies to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), whose parents enjoyed their later years in my lovely constituency. The whole town extends its love to him and his family over these next weeks.

I am pleased to see the Minister in his place. I am sure he will remark that many hon. Members have met him on several occasions recently. We are grateful for that engagement, but I will leave him with the thought that that is our engagement so far. As he has heard from my right hon. and hon. Friends, this system is not suitable for our constituents. Arguably, given our recent challenges with energy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland pointed out, we need to future-proof ourselves and understand what we need for the country.

My main focus is on how the proposals fail to offer choice and the lack of meaningful consultation with my constituents. Like many, I fully support the work being undertaken to achieve net zero. Indeed, looking at the temperatures that we are currently working in and enjoying, it is essential to move towards adaptation as well. Low-carbon energy production has a crucial role, and the contribution of the east of England is likely only to grow, given the likelihood of Sizewell C, further offshore generation and the new generation of sea-tethered wind farms that could give us greater capacity. Our 4,100 MW of generation today is destined to rise to 25,000 MW by 2030, but as my hon. Friend pointed out, we have slightly put the cart before the horse. I would gently say that we are talking about energy resilience and critical national infrastructure, so we should take a step back and think about what we are doing here.

The National Grid’s proposals display little thought or care. In the meeting yesterday, for which we were all extremely grateful, it straight away blamed the current regulatory framework—the national policy statement. The reason that it could not offer anything other than pylons was that that was the most economic and efficient way of doing it. I put it to the Minister that we need to halt and understand the problem. We need to look at the NPS and its criteria in relation to energy, add the east of England to the holistic network design, and offer true choice.

As it stands, Bury St Edmunds faces having 50 metre-high pylons tearing through it, as do the constituencies represented by my right hon. and hon. Friends. From the maps that the National Grid has provided, one could be forgiven for thinking that the stretch from mid-Suffolk had been drawn by merely placing a ruler on the map and drawing a pencil line down one side.

The electricity generated on the east coast is destined—demanded—to keep the lights on in London. While it is important to give that assurance for the east of England, we want protection for our communities, our countryside and the food that we produce for the nation. We are informed by those at NG ESO that multiple cables will be needed, but we have seen no impact statement or costings, so we feel that we are being taken for a ride. The only opportunity is for the deliverer, not our constituents. As announced yesterday, subsea transmission is good enough to pull energy from Morocco to the UK, and it is good enough for the north of England, so it should be good enough for us.

Our counties are not only good at generating energy; we are three of the nation’s largest producers of food to give our people energy. What assessment has been made of the impact on that? I have received a significant amount of correspondence from constituents who are incredibly concerned about East Anglia GREEN and their strong local objection is echoed throughout the route. My right hon. Friend the Minister will know from his own constituents how passionate locals are about infrastructure projects. Mine are no different. This is precious to us.

I have visited part of the affected area in my constituency. As I drove around my constituent Tom Rash’s farm, he pointed out the regenerative way in which he farms and how erecting pylons sat at odds with our objective of supporting food production and enhancing food security, and directly contradicts the objectives coming out of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As I looked at Wortham Ling, a site of special scientific interest on Mr Rash’s farm that is overseen by Suffolk Wildlife Trust and managed as a nature reserve, the acid grassland and dry heath developed on glaciofluvial drift deposits—[Interruption.]—yes, one of those early in the morning—offer a unique area of natural beauty. As we look up at the big skies from Wortham Ling or the local well-attended tennis club or the church that stands adjacent to the farmyard, the pylons will bear down on us and give us no benefits in our community. This is precious to us; it is valuable.

The early opportunities team at National Grid appear to see the area as open land, free to cut through, and has given little consideration to anything but the bottom line and what the book says. Straight routes are cheaper; we are being serviced on the cheap. Due to the sparse population, we may be seen as an easy hit. Can the Minister confirm in his summing up if there has been a full impact assessment of overground and underground pylons, undersea options, the hit to food production and the environmental impact?

If we are just being seen as an easy early opportunity, that is unacceptable. From the correspondence that I and others have received, it is clear that subsea transmission is overwhelmingly preferred. However, I say again: we have not been given the chance to choose. Who is accountable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex asked? I share my constituents’ views, because offshore generation is only going to grow and we should ensure a system that is future-proofed. Indeed, looking at Octopus’s latest announcement on Xlinks, there is more likelihood that renewables will come to us from different parts of the world. The Dutch are very high generators of renewables. Surely the ability to connect around the country would be a much more sensible approach?

Allowing those interconnectors to be put offshore would be a move forward, but I am led to believe no alternatives to the Norwich-to-Tilbury proposals have been fully explored. They appear to have been discarded without a full explanation as to why they are not viable. The recent consultation by National Grid offered no alternative to overland transmission. Indeed, many of the questions were somewhat irrelevant as they were closed, such as “Do you want green energy?” Who is going to answer anything but yes to that? There has been no ability to put forward a different view. To be frank, it was a fait accompli. It serves no purpose but to reinforce a decision that has already been made—“Sorry, overhead pylons are the default and that is what you are getting”—and to silence that local voice.

To add to the local incredulity regarding the consultation, it has now become apparent that elsewhere in the country, as others have said, subsea transmission is being used precisely to avoid impact on local communities. This is all starting to feel incredibly unfair to the east of England, particularly given our status as a net contributor to Her Majesty’s Treasury: we give you our money, we give you our energy, we grow your food, yet we are not worthy of a proper consultation or protection.

I want to see complete transparency about the allocation of funding for subsea transmission, particularly as the east of England is a major power generator for the country, with connections to the continent to transmit energy when needed. It was not included in the holistic network design and that feels like a mistake. The Minister and I have discussed the meaning of “holistic” before: it means dealing with or treating the whole of something and not just a part. We cannot have a three-quarters holistic network design, which is what we have at the moment. More work on inclusion in the HND is required. We are not nimbyists in Suffolk; we are pragmatic. However, we want a fair consultation. All this can be avoided if we are treated in the same manner as other parts of the country, with subsea transmission replacing overland proposals, or we are at least given a choice.

My constituents and I want change. We want to be part of a holistic network design. We want a Government who stop and think and take stock. We want a Government who future-proof us. A sensible Government will do that. Demand will only grow as we need to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. With any infrastructure investment, it is imperative to get it right first time. As the Minister knows, the local voice is important. Please listen to ours.

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[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I join others in passing my condolences to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), who made a brilliant speech in the circumstances. We are grateful to him for continuing none the less. We are also grateful to him for chairing OffSET; I think we have had an impact.

Let us be clear what we are not debating today. No one is debating the policy of pursuing net zero—all of us East Anglian MPs support that. No one is debating the need for sovereign sources of energy, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Actually, no one is debating the need for an offshore grid. That is now Government policy. When my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) held an Adjournment debate in November 2020, the current Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, then the Energy Minister, said to him:

“I would suggest that the argument for some form of offshore network system has been won. What is critically under discussion at the moment is the timing.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 584.]

That was November 2020. In the summer of 2020, the discussion had not even started. That shows the progress OffSET made in persuading Government to buy into an offshore grid. Last May, in my last Prime Minister’s question before being promoted, I asked the Prime Minister about an offshore grid. He said:

“My hon. Friend is spot on in what he says about the need for an offshore grid.”—[Official Report, 19 May 2021; Vol. 695, c. 698.]

So, it is Government policy.

The question before us is about the extent to which an offshore grid is being taken into account in the real life in-flight decisions being made today that are affecting our constituents, which brings us to East Anglia GREEN. We have just had the consultation on this brand new proposal for huge pylons across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. I attended those consultation sessions. Having met with my constituents, it is my view that they felt it was a predetermined consultation—what we would call a fait accompli.

My constituents were shown a narrow strip of land—I think it is called a swathe. The National Grid officials hoped that the discussion would be about where exactly the pylons would go within that very narrow swathe. However, my constituents and those of colleagues had envisaged that that informal consultation would be an opportunity to discuss the top-level options. Should the pylons go under the sea? Should they go over land? If over land, should they be underground just in the area of natural beauty, or elsewhere? Instead, constituents were presented with a final decision that the pylons were going in that swathe, on land—taking place, as I said earlier, as if in a parallel universe.

I also received feedback from constituents that when they asked the National Grid officials in the village halls doing the consultation about an offshore grid, they were told that it is not possible, not feasible and so on. I wrote to all constituents affected and pointed out that although officials were telling them that an offshore grid is not feasible, National Grid is committed to £3.4 billion of expenditure on undersea cabling off Scotland and the north of England, on two enormous bootstraps—undersea electricity cables.

In fact, we already have an undersea electricity cable off the west coast, from Scotland to north Wales, called the Western Link. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex said, the total mileage—built or committed—is about 800 miles. Off East Anglia, with Sea Link 1, which I referred to when I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), the mileage is about 80 miles—a ratio of 10:1. When I shared that with my constituents, they were astonished. They had been given the impression that it was not even possible; in fact, it is happening as we speak. Bootstraps have been built and others will be built. My constituents want to know why we could not get a greater share of that technology in our counties.

What particularly hurt was reading an email that was shared with me. I will not reveal the name of the person concerned—they are a member of the public. The email, which was sent to National Grid’s community engagement team on the northern project, asked:

“Would you know the reasons to go submarine rather than overground, there are many obvious advantages but would be interested to understand the primary considerations?”

The response from National Grid was:

“This is a good question. Routing the cable overground for hundreds of miles would likely require overhead lines that would cause disruption and visual impacts to many communities, ranging from County Durham to southern Scotland, where the route originates. By routing the cable under the North Sea, away from settlements, we significantly reduce its impact on communities.”

Just to be clear, the question was about the primary considerations. It is clear that, off Scotland and northern England, the primary consideration—those are the words National Grid responded to—was the protection of communities. Yet when National Grid came to Holton St Mary village hall to speak to my constituents, who said, “We want you to protect our countryside by going offshore,” National Grid said that that was not even possible—“And, by the way, we can’t even talk about it as part of the consultation.”

[Jo Churchill]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. If I understand him correctly, he said that in the consultation the value and worth of communities and environment was a strong rationale, but we are being told that we have to be bound by the rationale of the NPS, which is economic and efficient. Does he feel, like me, that we are not being treated fairly?

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point: we are not being treated fairly. We possibly got some explanation about that at the meeting that we held yesterday with National Grid, National Grid ESO and Ofgem. Unfortunately, it was a private meeting, inasmuch as it was not held with our constituents, but it was public to the extent that we can talk publicly about what was discussed. I would much have preferred that our constituents were involved in those discussions, but unfortunately the consultation has closed.

What is crucial is that, first, National Grid argues that the consultation covered offshore options. National Grid emailed me. It believes that it covered those options because, buried in a 120-page document that it circulated when people from National Grid were going to village halls, there is a page that says:

“The use of onshore technology. The potential for an offshore connection was considered as part of the process of defining the preferred reinforcement solution”—

it then goes through some detail—

“but concluded that the options were poorer performing on the basis of capability and poorer in cost benefit least regret terms.”

In National Grid’s view, that means that the consultation covered offshore options. When I ask whether it covered offshore options, I mean that, when my constituents went to Holton St Mary village hall, was there a picture on the wall of their preference and another picture of what an offshore option would look like? That is what a consultation means: people look at both options. Of course the option was not on the wall; it was buried in the small print.

My view is not predetermined. National Grid says that it consulted on offshore. This, therefore, is what I am going to do. I will write to all of my affected constituents and ask them, “Did you participate in the consultation, and if so do you feel that it covered offshore? Do you feel that you had a say in the top-level choice of going overground or under sea?” My thoughts are not predetermined—I will see what they say—but my view is that the consultation did not cover it. There was no transparency on the justification.

There is a reason that there is no transparency, which we discovered yesterday. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is absolutely right that the people at National Grid are doing their job, and we should not cast blame. That is not the point; we are here to represent our constituents. National Grid said yesterday that given the concern about what is happening in Scotland and the sense of unfairness, it would publish a detailed assessment of an offshore option later in the summer. Why will that be published later in the summer? Because it has not been done. There has been no detailed assessment of an offshore option.

How on earth did National Grid conclude that it cannot go offshore? Let us figure that one out. That will answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), because I am pleased to say that the meeting was attended by Akshay Kaul, the director of networks at Ofgem. The argument from National Grid is that the framework precludes it from looking at an offshore option. The regulator, Mr Kaul, said that is not correct: the framework does not preclude looking at offshore options; all the infrastructure projects should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. That is what he said to us yesterday, very transparently. How can something be looked at on a case-by-case basis if the detailed work has not been done?

National Grid also said to us something that goes back to the brilliant point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew): that the work it will do will show that an offshore option is not possible. There is a word for that. I have only recently resigned as the courts Minister, and must be careful what I say—I am conscious of the judicial arm—but that is predetermination if ever Members have heard of it: “We will do the work, but here is the answer it will tell you.”

I would like that report, first, not to be undertaken by National Grid, but to be commissioned by the Government and undertaken by an independent expert who is not predetermined. Secondly, I would like it—as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland said—not to draw a line from the closest oceanic point next to Norwich down to somewhere in the south of England, for instance near Tilbury or the Isle of Grain, but rather to draw what we all want, which is a mesh of offshore connections: in other words, not just Sea Link 1, but Sea Links 2, 3 and 4, which would give us 6 GW, which is what the pylons would give us. Crucially, as my hon. Friend said, we would then have the nodes that give us the interconnectivity with the continent, so we can import and export, and be the Saudi Arabia of offshore wind.

In other words, we want the consultation to be reopened, not to look at this basic and expensive option, which has had no work put into it, but to ask an independent consultant, “What if we used this connectivity as the foundation stone for a proper offshore grid in East Anglia?”, which is what we believe Government policy should be.

There is one final thing that the report needs to do. It needs to include my constituents. We know constitutionally that none of us is here in our own right. We are here only by virtue of the fact that we have won an election and we represent our constituents. They have not been involved in any of the discussions. There was no meaningful consultation on offshore as far as I am concerned. This has to be reopened. That does not mean giving us a report; it means going back to Holton St Mary village hall with the results and explaining to people why it may not be possible to go offshore, but being transparent about that. That is what democracy is all about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Unfortunately I was not able to be at the meeting yesterday, but I will carefully look at a read-out of what was said at that meeting and study it. In any case I need to respond to his letter of 7 July, so I will make sure that I take on that specific point as far as I am able.

In general, my hon. Friend makes the good point that there is undersea cabling around the country. He rightly points out connections, for example, between Scotland and Wales, between Scotland and England and so on, but it is worth pointing out that East Anglia GREEN will deliver 6 GW of extra network capacity. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney made that point. The latest offshore cable technology is capable of carrying up to 2 GW of capacity. When we are looking at the sheer amount of energy that needs to be transmitted, it is not necessarily comparing like with like. To deliver the equivalent of East Anglia GREEN offshore would require at least three 2 GW cables. We can all look at a map and see where connections are, but that does not tell the whole story.

[Jo Churchill]

The nub of it is that we have not been given these options. The Minister spoke about environmental impact and the other considerations that were taken into account, but as the MP trying to help inform my constituents, I certainly have never seen any of that information or data; I do not know whether anybody else has. Yesterday it was definitely inferred that some of this acquiring of information would need to happen in short order.

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I have spoken about yesterday, and I repeat my pledge to hold as soon as I can a further meeting with colleagues to consider what was said and the progression of these matters, while bearing in mind the quasi-judicial planning nature of the Secretary of State’s decision.

In July my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, when he was Energy Minister, launched the offshore transmission network review, or OTNR, to improve the level of co-ordination in how we connect offshore and ensure that future connections are delivered in the most appropriate way. I think itwas my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland who asked, could we not have foreseen in 2015 the great need for this work? To some extent, that is not an unfair point. In many ways, in this country we are victims of our incredible success with our offshore wind capacity, which is the largest in Europe. It was the largest in the world until last summer, when China overtook us. It really is the envy of the world, and others come to see us. The United States is scaling up its capability and other European countries are coming to see us and so on. So he makes a fair point.

Earlier this month, we reached a significant milestone in the review with the publication of a major deliverable—the holistic network design, to which my hon. Friends have referred. In addition, we recently announced Nick Winser CBE as the UK’s first Electricity Networks Commissioner. He will play a pivotal role in ensuring that we have the right infrastructure to transmit electricity to where it is needed.

I pay tribute my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds for always being engaged on all matters environmental during her time at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. When it comes to commercial and industrial and energy resilience, which is very important, I refer her to the evidence that I gave yesterday to the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy, which goes into those matters in some detail.

The HND sets out the need for about £54 billion of onshore and offshore transmission infrastructure, new and upgraded, which will be needed to deliver our 2030 ambition. That is the first time that those have been co-ordinated to ensure better outcomes for communities, the environment and bill payers. Although a new requirement for onshore network reinforcement has been identified in the HND, no decisions have yet been taken on how best to do that. All projects that come forward as a result of the HND will be subject to the relevant democratic planning processes to ensure that local stakeholders get a say on the developments and that the impacts are mitigated as far as possible. I have already mentioned the pathfinder projects.

I will deal with three or four other points that arose in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland asked whether connection contracts were subject to planning. They are, but of course they are not yet in the planning system. There is a statement from the five projects in East Anglia that are working together on offshore co-ordinated options, as he knows, and utilising changes in the offshore transmission network review process. That will be supported by a £100 million offshore co-ordination support scheme, which will be launched later this year.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds asked about the NPS, which will be reconsulted on later this year. I expect that that will apply to this project. MPs will have a chance to have an input on the NPS process. I expect both the current and future NPS to provide the flexibility for trade-offs between cost and impact and between offshore and onshore options to be brought forward where appropriate. That is a matter for National Grid Electricity Transmission and Ofgem. My hon. Friend also asked about the environment impact assessment for East Anglia GREEN, which will cover the impacts on agriculture. We expect farmers and landowners to receive compensation for any loss or impact on crop production.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk wants a study on the offshore grid to be done independently. In accordance with its transmission licence, it is NGET’s responsibility to develop and put forward options to reinforce the network. BEIS is the ultimate decision maker for those nationally significant infrastructure projects.