Energy Bill

Debate between Joan Ruddock and Tim Yeo

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In this context, I point out that my passionate conviction that more urgent action is needed to address climate change and to cut greenhouse gas emissions from both the energy and transport industries was formed in 1993, when I had ministerial responsibility for these issues, and that the financial interests listed in the register were all acquired more than a decade later, after I left my party’s Front Bench.

I welcome the Bill, although its introduction is overdue. To keep the lights on, Britain needs huge new investment in generation and transmission capacity. To make energy costs affordable, we need a step change in energy efficiency and improved competition in both the wholesale and retail markets. To achieve our carbon emissions reduction commitments, we need the right incentives for low-carbon energy.

I welcome the Government’s acceptance of some of the recommendations made by my Committee—the Energy and Climate Change Committee—particularly the inclusion in the Bill of the aims of electricity market reform and the change to the counterparty arrangements for contracts for difference. I regret, however, that the Bill still needs Government amendments, particularly in relation to energy efficiency, which should be right at the heart of energy policy, not an afterthought tacked on under pressure from outsiders.

Obviously, I cannot deal with the whole Bill in the space of six minutes, so I will stick to a few headlines. To secure investment at the lowest cost to consumers, absolute clarity of policy is needed. That clarity does not exist if different Government Departments put out different messages or, even worse, if different messages emerge from within the Department of Energy and Climate Change itself. Mixed messages create uncertainty.

Investors seek higher returns to compensate for the extra risk of investing in long-term assets in a country where energy policy appears to be subject to short-term changes. That is one of the reasons we need a carbon-intensity target in legislation. The need for that target is supported by my Committee, by the Government’s statutory adviser, the Committee on Climate Change, and by a large number of companies. It is even accepted by the Government themselves, but they will not decide what that target should be until 2016.

Delaying that decision for four years leaves investors wondering whether energy policy will be based on the gas strategy, which envisages a possible increase in the fourth carbon budget and the construction of 37 GW-worth of new gas-fired power stations, or on the energy mix rightly favoured by the Department. Running 37 GW of unabated gas at more than a third of its potential would end any hope of cutting carbon intensity from electricity generation to even 100 grams per kWh, let alone the 50 grams per kWh advocated by the Committee on Climate Change.

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree, like me, with the finding by the Committee on Climate Change that, largely as a result of the rising price of gas, a virtually carbon-free sector by 2030 would cost consumers £23 billion less than relying predominantly on gas in the 2020s? It is, therefore, of huge benefit to consumers, as well as to companies that want to invest.

[Mr Yeo]

I noted the views of the Committee on Climate Change with great interest. I also note that, up to now, both Government parties have accepted its recommendations without alteration.

Deciding the intensity target now, or even in 2014, when the fourth carbon budget will be reviewed, would helpfully clarify the position. Alternatively, emissions performance standards could be amended to curtail the operation of unabated gas plants after 2030, instead of allowing grandfather rights for those power stations until 2045.

I stress that my Committee was one of the first to call for Britain’s shale gas reserves to be exploited, but basing energy policy on the assumption that Britain has decades’ worth of cheap, recoverable shale gas reserves before a single flow test has been completed in this country would be reckless. Shale gas is a game changer in America, but there is no certainty that similar benefits in the UK would be so dramatic. Therefore, particularly as a result of high transport costs, the price of gas in both Europe and Asia may be significantly different and possibly higher than that in America for decades to come. Gas will and must play an important part in our energy mix, but we need low-carbon technologies as well. Carbon capture and storage has huge potential benefits, but there is no guarantee that it will be available at an economic price.

The model in DECC’s “Pathways to 2050” helpfully shows how hard it will be to achieve emissions reductions without new nuclear power stations. To bring new nuclear and other low-carbon technologies forward, we need clarity on strike prices. I accept that, initially, strike prices must be set centrally, but I hope that we can move to an auction system before too long. Auctioning would allow the benefit of cost reductions in the more mature low-carbon technologies to be captured for the benefit of consumers much more quickly than if strike prices are decided centrally in perpetuity.

Turning to energy efficiency and the demand side, we must be hard-headed about value for money. I commend the success in energy-rich Texas where, on some days, 30% of the electricity is generated by wind power without any subsidy at all. As has been shown in Texas, demand-side measures can reduce the need for capacity market payments, even if they do not eliminate that need entirely. Better incentives for electricity storage or a bigger strategic reserve are other ways of addressing problems of capacity and peak demand. I hope that the Government amendments will reflect the most cost-effective way of tackling those issues.

We also need more clarity about how the incentives for energy efficiency will be funded. If the cost of capacity market payments will be met from outside the LCF total—I am sorry, but I am trying to do this in six minutes—surely the cost of energy efficiency payments could come from the same pool. The LCF is the levy control framework.

I firmly believe that countries that decarbonise their energy and transport industries and their built environment will enjoy a huge competitive economic advantage in the long term. Some low-carbon technology involves a small upfront cost compared with fossil fuel-based alternatives, but even those costs will fall significantly as economies of scale are achieved. As concerns about climate change become more acute, as I believe they will in the next 15 years, and the carbon price rises, driven either by emissions trading or carbon taxes, investment in low-carbon electricity will prove to be not only right environmentally, but beneficial economically.