Energy Bill [Lords]

John Redwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

If my right hon. Friend will give me a moment, I will make a little progress first, and he can be sure that I will give way shortly.

We will replace those oil and gas imports with home-grown renewables and, critically, nuclear power to deliver resilient and reliable energy, powering Britain from Britain. We will reduce wholesale electricity prices to among the cheapest in Europe by 2035, protecting the British consumer from volatile international energy markets.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I agree with the Secretary of State that we need more energy independence and more domestic energy, so why does the Bill propose a 140% increase in imported energy through interconnectors, which will make us more dependent and very vulnerable?

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent comment, as ever, on interconnectors, but I would point out that with the growing number of interconnectors, particularly electricity interconnectors, last winter, for example, we were able to export 10 TW to France through interconnectors, providing us with income. The answer is that they work in both directions, and in some cases, they provide the reliability of, for example, France’s vast nuclear fleet of 56 reactors. When whose reactors were down last winter—because even nuclear power sometimes has to come offline—we have been able to export our power to France, and it has been a net export. Our mission is to secure the clean and inexpensive energy that Britain needs to prosper.

Energy Bill [Lords]

John Redwood Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

If the hon. Gentleman will have patience, I will come to the renewable liquid heating fuel amendments later in my speech, where I am happy to direct any questions to which he is seeking answers.

We have done all the things I have mentioned while growing our economy. We have cut our emissions by 40% while growing our economy by 60%. It is an inherently Conservative value—a value close to the hearts of all on the Government Benches—to pass on what we inherit in a better state to the next generation. That includes the state of our environment and our climate. There is also no more Conservative value than to ensure the security of our nation and its people, and that includes our energy supply.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

On that very point—security—what provision is being made for days when there is no wind, given that we will see the closure of most of our nuclear power stations this decade and will have little else to rely on, other than fossil fuel? How are we going to get through?

[Andrew Bowie]

My right hon. Friend knows that I am a great champion of supporting our oil and gas industry, which continues to supply a large amount of our energy baseload and will do for a significant amount of time to come. As he also knows, we are investing a lot of time and money into ensuring that we deliver the next generation of nuclear power plants, including small modular reactors, so that we have the energy baseload that this country needs so that, as he rightly suggests, when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, people can still be assured that the lights will come on. The Conservative principles that I have spoken about are at the very heart of the Bill, which I am pleased to bring before the House today.

It is true that some time has passed since the Bill was introduced in July last year. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), was but a boy when this Bill was introduced last year. A huge amount of constructive dialogue and dedicated work has taken place during that time. I thank all the Secretaries of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Ministers and the Prime Ministers who have been involved since the Bill was introduced.

Since the Bill came to this House from the other place, I have met and engaged with colleagues from all sides of House. We debated the Bill in a lively Second Reading and spent 72 long hours in Committee, so I start by thanking everyone across the House, especially the shadow ministerial team, the former Scottish National party energy spokesman, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), and all on the Government side, for their constructive engagement in ensuring that we got the Bill to these final stages in a state that, I hope, will be broadly welcomed by most, if not all, Members.

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[Dr Whitehead]

If the hon. Gentleman contains himself, he will see that we have tabled an amendment on low-carbon energy in homes. I agree that we cannot put everything in a Bill but, because of the urgency of the commitment we are making with this Bill, it is important that we get as much clarity as possible on what we are doing in the Bill now, so we know where we are going and the ways we are doing so.

Having discussed those other amendments, I will now draw attention to Labour’s amendments. I hope the House will understand why we have drafted them in this way and how that relates to the tests I mentioned. On our new clause 53, the Government say they support community and local energy. Indeed, as the Minister said, the Government have put a modest amount of funding into supporting community energy but, as the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), who is not in her place now, said, we still do not have an understanding of how community energy can actually work. We think community energy will be an important part of the decarbonisation process. It is not one of the large, shiny things upon which money will be lavished in large amounts but, in aggregate, it will have a huge impact on decarbonising energy in this country.

The Government still have not introduced arrangements that will enable local power producers to trade locally and get the proper value of their trade, which is vital to the success and certainty of these projects. Labour wants to support local energy projects practically, particularly through the “valley of death” period where the pockets of community energy are usually shallower than needed for all the planning permissions to run their course. With support from Great British Energy and local authorities, we propose that £400 million a year will eventually support the important role of community and local energy in decarbonising power.

[John Redwood]

If this electrical revolution is to take off, many more people will need to buy electric cars and heat pumps. Does the hon. Gentleman have any advice for the Government on how those items can be made more popular and more affordable?

[Dr Whitehead]

The Government and I have been in considerable discussion about precisely that point. We need to make sure we change the model of ownership of those devices. We perhaps need to have a longer debate about that on another occasion.

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[Sir Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I do support the overall aim of the Bill, but, in the interests of brevity, I will limit my comments to new clause 43 on onshore wind. I thank all colleagues who have co-signed this new clause, which of course builds on the excellent work that my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke) led last year when trying to put in place a more permissive planning regime for onshore wind.

Onshore wind is one of the cheapest sources of energy available. It is also one of the quickest to deploy. Getting more home-grown clean energy deployed is about enhancing our energy security, our climate security and our national security, all of which are totally interlinked. It is also ultimately about bringing down bills. That is why onshore wind needs to be a meaningful part of a diversified energy mix.

We currently have 14 GW of installed onshore wind capacity across the UK with the ability to power around 12 million homes. However, as we all know, due to planning rule changes, since 2015 we have had a de facto ban on onshore wind. Just one objection is able to defeat a planning application. Frankly, that is not a sensible way for a planning process to operate. As a result, in England planning permissions have been granted for just 15 wind turbines over the past five years. It is also worth pointing out that, had onshore wind annual build-out rates stayed at the average pre-ban level, an extra 1.7 GW would have been added by last winter. That is the equivalent of powering 1.5 million homes for the entire winter, and it would have avoided between 2% and 3% of the UK’s annual net gas imports being burned in our power stations.

[John Redwood]

Does my right hon. Friend accept, on the cost argument, that we also need to build a new gas turbine station as back-up for when the wind does not blow?

[Sir Alok Sharma]

We do need a diversified energy system, and I think the Minister set out all the work that is going on on nuclear, for example. However, as we drive forward for greater energy security, we need to change the planning rules to allow more onshore wind. The objectives of new clause 43 are to ensure a more permissive planning regime. The new clause seeks to lift the current planning restriction that in effect means that a single objection can block a development. It also seeks to ensure that local communities willing to take onshore wind developments will receive direct community benefits.

The Government have today responded to new clause 43 by bringing forward a written ministerial statement on onshore wind. I thank the Government for the constructive dialogue we have had over the past days on this issue. I acknowledge that that written ministerial statement, and indeed the accompanying changes to the national planning policy framework, move things forward and will help to deliver a more permissive planning regime for onshore wind.

The de facto ban is lifted. The statement clarifies that the policy intent is not to allow very limited objections or even a single objection to ban a planning application, and it is explicit that local communities willing to host onshore wind farms should directly benefit, including potentially through energy discounts. That is positive, but we do need to see the Government’s formal response to their consultation on this issue to understand the detail of the precise mechanism by which the benefits regime will work.

I also welcome the fact that local plans will not be the only route to delivering more onshore wind, with more agile and targeted routes available. Of course it is now a requirement for local planning authorities to support community-led initiatives for renewable and low-carbon energy. Vitally, those policy changes are effective today.

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[Craig Mackinlay]

My right hon. Friend has it exactly right. Hence I feel that when we in this place are creating criminal penalties that could put our fellow citizens in prison for 12 months for an unknown offence of the future relating to net zero, we have a duty to discuss them properly. This must be the first time we are potentially criminalising people in this country for not adhering to the new code of net zero. We should not be doing it lightly. We should be doing it carefully and with consideration. It should not be done by statutory instrument.

[John Redwood]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting this issue to all in the House. I hope that the Government will take urgent action to get rid of it, because it is completely unacceptable. It also shows how little time we have to discuss fundamental issues.

[Craig Mackinlay]

My right hon. Friend has put his finger exactly on the pulse. This is a substantial Bill. I say to the Minister that I hope the Government will strip out criminal penalties for not adhering to unknown net zero certification, EPCs and all the rest of it in the future for something as simple as not complying with some of these net zero regulations. This is really serious. I hope that when the Bill returns to the other end of the Palace, consideration can be given to strip out such proposals.

I could have gone on at huge length this afternoon. I tabled many amendments because these are overweening powers trying to push and nudge us and to ban things. All I can imagine is that the Chinese embassy will be looking at the Bill with great enthusiasm, as it will drive even more of our high-energy businesses offshore. China will be pleased that it will be able to sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on its steel, produced on the back of very cheap coal power. That is what we are doing here: driving our high-energy businesses offshore. This is not a recipe for energy security; this is a recipe for energy disaster.

I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net zero proposals banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this and banning that. That is not what we do as Conservatives. We actually allow freedoms. We allow the market to decide. The Bill goes in the wrong direction.

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[John Redwood]

The wish to carry through a great electrical revolution will require a lot of good will from the British people. My worry about this legislation is that it may antagonise them by being unduly restrictive, particularly with the threat of civil and even criminal penalties on some of their conduct. We need to persuade people that the green products will be cheaper, better, more acceptable and make a more general contribution, and not try to bamboozle them. I hope that there will be an opportunity to vote on the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) to get rid of the threat of criminal and civil penalties over the issue of a proper transition.

For things to take off, the products—the heat pumps and the electric cars—will have to be much more popular. More people will have to believe in their specifications and adequacy, and they will have to be more affordable. I, for example, would be very happy to have a heat pump to heat my rather small London flat, but I am told that there is not one available because I am not allowed to adorn the outside of the block of flats with any of the things that a person would need to make a heat pump system work. There must be practical solutions to these problems. We cannot force the pace by legislation; the markets and the investment have to catch up.

My second worry about this legislation is that energy policy has to achieve three things at the same time. Yes, we have to take considerable environmental issues into account, but we also need affordable energy and we need available energy. In recent years, all main parties have put so much emphasis in their policy making on the environmental that we are missing the obvious, which is that we are no longer guaranteeing security of supply. We cannot guarantee security of supply if we are mainly relying on wind farms. We cannot rely on solar on a dark winter evening when people want to cook their meal and turn the heating up, because there is no solar. We have to look at the relative costs. The unit cost of energy generated by a wind farm that is already built is very cheap on one costing system, but if we have a gas turbine system that is non-operational for most of the time, only kicking in occasionally when the wind does not blow, that is part of the cost of the delivery of the wind power and it is a far more expensive way of running gas turbines than if we use them all the time.

[Craig Mackinlay]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent point about the extra energy provision that we need to make renewables work. Has he considered the true environmental cost of the batteries, the digging up of cobalt by children in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the smelting and all the rest of it? That is the real cost of relying on renewables, and we hear very little about the real cost of the batteries.

[John Redwood]

I am greatly in favour of doing proper, whole-life carbon accounting, taking into account all the CO₂ generated by making the green product—its lifetime use, on which it may be better, and its disposal, on which it may be worse. It is certainly the case that if we acquire an electric vehicle that has generated a lot of CO₂ in its production and then we do not drive it very much, we will have not a CO₂ gain but a CO₂ loss, so there must be realistic carbon accounting. We also should not fall nationally for the fallacy that is built into the international system. For example, we could say that we have brought our CO₂ down because we are importing things, but that actually generates a lot more CO₂ than had we done it for ourselves.

This is the essence of the argument about our own gas. If we get more of our own gas down a pipe, it produces a fraction of the CO₂ for the total process than if we import liquefied natural gas having had to use a lot of energy compressing and liquefying the gas, a lot of energy switching it back, and a lot of energy on long-distance sea transport. Therefore, we must be realistic in the CO₂ accounting.

Finally, I do not think that the Bill is giving us much guidance. For example, if the electrical revolution does take off, because the really popular products arrive and people find them affordable, how will they get the power delivered to their homes? We are already told that many wind farms cannot be started or cannot be connected to the grid any time soon. There needs to be a massive expansion of green capacity and a big digging-up of roads and re-cabling of Britain. If my constituents are all to adopt an electric car and a heat pump, we need a massive expansion both of electricity generation and of grid capacity. I do not see that happening at the moment. There need to be market reactions and proper investment plans, and this legislation is not helping.

I fear that this Bill adds to the costs. It adds targets that could turn out to be unrealistic and that could be self-defeating, because quite often the actions taken to abate CO₂ end up generating more CO₂ at the world level and mean that we have exported an awful lot of crucial business that we would be better off doing here.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We are going to a three-minute limit immediately. The wind-ups will start at 5.50 pm and then there will be multiple votes from 6 pm onwards. I am afraid some people may not get in.

Energy Bill [Lords]

John Redwood Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 18th October 2023 Commons Chamber

As I am sure the House will appreciate, their lordships quite rightly feel very strongly about the issue, so they attempted to restore those passages to the Bill when it returned to the Lords for ping pong. However, again, just recently, the Government rejected those proposals.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

One of the barriers will be the shortage of grid and cable capacity to link into. Is the hon. Gentleman envisaging some kind of privileged access or some solution to the grid shortage?

[Dr Whitehead]

That is not quite the subject of our debate, but the right hon. Member can see that we envisage an energetic and far-reaching proposal to develop the grid in such a way that those grid shortages are overcome, so that the grid is able to service the low carbon economy in the way we would all want it to do. In the context of what we are discussing, I remind the right hon. Member that this would be about distributed grids at a local level, rather than the national high-level grids. We need to take further action to strengthen and sort out grids at that level.

The Lords clearly continue to feel strongly about this issue; as we can see, they have sent back to us today a modified version of the original amendment, requiring the Government to consult on changes to assist community energy and, importantly, to set a timeline for proposals to be brought forward to remove barriers to the development of community energy.

Of course, there are others in this House who feel strongly about this issue. The proposals that the Lords have now twice tried to have inserted into the Bill are essentially the wording of a group called Power for the People, which suggested wording for a community energy enabling Bill for which it campaigned to secure signed-up support from parliamentarians. It did indeed secure substantial support from parliamentarians who feel strongly on the issue of community energy. Some 325 Members signed up in support, including 130 Conservative Members and, perhaps most remarkably, 22 members of the Government, including six Treasury Ministers, the present Chancellor and the Minister himself, as I often seek to remind him. There is no lack of support in the House for the principles and practice of community energy.

The Lords amendment seeks to acknowledge and further that support by putting forward very reasonable and, one might have thought, pretty non-contentious wording to add to the Bill. It is inexplicable to me that the Government should seek to resist these proposals in the way they have. Yes, they will say, as the Minister has said, that they have set up a community energy fund of £10 million over two years, which is welcome, and they have verbally indicated that, at some stage, there will be a consultation on barriers to supply, but there are no timelines for that and no commitment to move positively forward from it. That is what this amendment seeks to put right.

As I have said, the Minister appears already to be a signed-up supporter of community energy action, and I would fear for his own emotional wellbeing if he were forced today to perform another policy backflip and acquiesce in yet another Government repudiation of themselves in rejecting this latest Lords amendment. Instead, let us end the extended passage of the Bill on a high note, and all around the House agree on both the importance of community energy and the measures we will need to take to ensure it thrives in the future.

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[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Let us remind ourselves what Lords amendment 247B is about. Within 18 months of the Act being passed, the Secretary of State would be required to carry out a consultation and publish a report on the barriers preventing the development of community energy schemes. It would also require the Government to respond and bring forward proposals to remove the barriers preventing the development of community energy schemes within six months of the consultation closing. That is the bare minimum that the Government could do. It would at least move the issue forward, and yet the Government still put forward a motion to disagree with it.

The Government say that they have already committed to consult on the barriers to local supply, but we still have not been given a date when that will actually happen. The Lords amendment would stop the Government’s current policy of dither and delay and require them to get on with taking community energy schemes forward.

Ultimately, the Government should not need to consult, because they are already well aware of what barriers face the sector; Community Energy England has told them repeatedly over the last five years. It is really disappointing, because there is even an all-party parliamentary group for community energy. Officials have engaged with the APPG, yet nothing has happened because the Government, despite warm words, are not really committed to community energy.

In 2021, the Environmental Audit Committee published a series of recommendations to encourage community energy. The only recommendation taken forward so far is the community energy fund, and even that does not yet have a launch date. I hope that the Minister will tell me when the launch date will be. When will we see the fund for community energy?

We are in the middle of an energy crisis. Bills have skyrocketed. Access to cheap, clean, home-produced energy has never been more vital. We need to secure our energy supply, protect consumers and reach net zero. As we have always said in the debate about reaching net zero, we need to take people with us. That is not about delaying targets, as the Government have just done, but about encouraging people to walk the difficult journey to net zero. Community energy does exactly that. Why are the Government not supporting it with all their might? Why are the Government not even supporting the Lords amendment? It is the bare minimum.

Community energy has the potential to power 2.2 million homes and save 2.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year. All it needs is a Government who give it the support that it deserves. I have seen at first hand the benefits that community energy can bring. In my Bath constituency, Bath and West Community Energy has installed enough renewables to power 4,500 homes. It has invested the money that it has earned back into my local community, donating nearly £330,000 to support environmental and fuel poverty schemes. That is what community energy can do. What is there not to support? Why are the Government not committed to doing all that they can to ensure that community energy projects can be delivered?

[John Redwood]

rose—

[Wera Hobhouse]

Unfortunately, the Government are unwilling to see the potential of community energy. Community energy schemes currently generate just 0.5% of the UK’s electricity. That is because—we know all this; we have said it many times—the financial, technical and operational requirements involved in becoming a licensed supplier put initial costs at more than £1 million. That is a massive risk for any new start-up or small scheme. Any community energy projects such as the one in Bath can exist only because it has reached a certain size. That is one of the problems.

The Government are aware of that fact, but voted to remove Lords amendments to rectify it. The Government need to start matching their supportive words about community energy with action. The most effective step that they could take would be to enable local supply and remove the regulatory barriers that prevent community energy schemes from selling their power to local customers. That could include a community right to connect to the grid ahead of commercial projects that deliver little or no social and community benefit. I am sure that I have answered the question that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) was about to ask.

Community energy schemes are ready to provide clean, green energy that helps local communities. They are not asking for a huge amount of public money, just for the Government to stop blocking the system. In this time of energy uncertainty, having a reliable local supplier can only be positive. I fully support Lords amendment 274B to hold the Government’s feet to the fire on community energy. I urge everyone in this House to do the same.

[Andrew Bowie]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for contributing to this afternoon’s debate. I will first respond to some of the comments made by my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan). I know that he does not like it very much, and would like it if it were not the case, but he is absolutely wrong and I have to correct him: this is not the English Government; this is the British Government. We are the Government of the entire United Kingdom—a United Kingdom of which Scotland remains a part and, if the opinion polls are anything to go by, will continue to remain a part of for quite some time.

The hon. Member has an obsession with decrying the nuclear industry as something that the Tories alone are obsessed with. Tell that to the Governments of France, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Canada, the United States of America and more, who are reinvesting and restarting their own civil nuclear industry, as is the Labour Welsh Government, who are very much in favour of further investment in, and development of, nuclear. He raised the lack of funding for community energy projects; £10 million over two years is an incredibly generous offer. That is alongside other UK growth funding such as the UK shared prosperity fund, which community energy groups can access by working in partnership with their local authorities.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) asked when the community energy fund will be launched. It will be launched as soon as possible. We are aiming to launch applications to the fund as soon as we physically can.

My opposite number, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), is right that we have had a productive and constructive relationship when it comes to discussion of the Bill. The 72 hours that we spent together in Committee were beneficial to everybody’s health, I am sure, and to the development of Government policy on this matter. We have come some way from where we were when we started discussing how we would support community energy. He rightly praised the role that the sector has played during the passage of the Bill. The community energy sector has been incredibly receptive to our commitment to a consultation and to the £10 million fund.

[John Redwood]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Did he notice that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) would not give way? She was arguing—the typical position of her party—that it knew all the answers before the consultation, yet it still wanted a very long, drawn-out consultation to avoid doing the answers.

[Andrew Bowie]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I also noticed that—