John Robertson
Main Page: John Robertson (Labour - Glasgow North West)National Policy Statements (Energy)
John Robertson Excerpts
Charles Hendry
The hon. Gentleman knows that we attach tremendous importance to the potential of marine technologies. He will also appreciate that the national policy statements relate to major infrastructure projects involving more than 50 MW. There is currently no possibility of any marine technology of that scale. The national policy statements can be adapted in due course and will be reviewed over time, and as technologies of that scale emerge, it will be possible for a policy statement to be established. However, the schemes that we are currently seeing are much smaller, and can therefore be dealt with through the other planning procedures that cover them.
The overarching national policy statement explains the need for transmission networks, which are vital to get electricity into the grid—from locations where there is no existing network infrastructure—and to consumers. It also explains the need for gas and oil infrastructure to ensure that we can take advantage of diverse supply options for gas and oil. Some fear that our policies will lead to a “dash for gas”. We understand their concerns, and we will keep a close watch on the electricity generation that is coming on line. If in the future we decide that our policies are not having the desired effect, we will review them, but the national policy statements are not the place for that review.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) pointed out earlier, other countries are giving up nuclear power, and they will make a “dash for gas” to meet their base load. Has it occurred to the Minister that we may have to do the same in relation to our own base load?
Charles Hendry
The hon. Gentleman is right. We have considered that, and I look forward to giving evidence to him and his colleagues on the Select Committee tomorrow morning.
This is a permissive framework, which involves planning consents. It is not a case of people going ahead and building the plants. A range of other investment decisions need to be made in order for the final decision to be made, but at this stage what is critical is the establishment of a structure so that people understand how the planning system will work.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I would expect the people of Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Assembly for Wales to have a full input and I am sure that the Minister, when he concludes, will be able to confirm that that is exactly what would happen. My hon. Friend’s point is very well made: such a decision cannot be made unilaterally and there has to be input from across the regions, too.
I said that those who doubt the technology should be respected, and not long ago the Secretary of State was one of those doubters. Confronted with the evidence and, I guess, with office, he has changed his tune. I must tell the Minister that the manic contortions of the Secretary of State over the financial support for nuclear have surpassed those of a Chinese acrobat in recent weeks. Last week, during the electricity market reform statement, when challenged by his party colleagues, he laid out three financial mechanisms that could support the development of new nuclear facilities alongside other low-carbon technologies. He did that to explain to the House that there was no subsidy for nuclear.
As the Secretary of State has come out of the closet on nuclear, he ought to stop trying to hide his embarrassment. The expansion of low-carbon technologies does not come free and they will all—onshore and offshore wind, biomass, future wave and tidal, CCS and nuclear—require some support and market intervention to drive in the levels of capital required. The medium to long-term protection that that gives through the diversity of energy security is in the interests of UK plc and we support it.
We do not, however, support sleight of hand or the appearance of double dealing. The carbon floor price announced in the recent Budget is a pretty poor way of generating the new low-carbon investment that the documents envisage. It was, in fact, a back-door windfall for existing nuclear and renewables to the tune of £1 billion and a far from stealthy Treasury tax grab of £740 million in 2013-14 rising to £1.4 billion in 2015-16. That decision shook confidence in DECC’s grasp of electricity market reform, shocked some of the big six utilities on which the Minister explicitly depends for the level of new investment required and it hammered the energy-intensive users, risking exports of jobs abroad along with carbon leakage. It gives carbon tax a bad name and shows who is in charge of DECC policy: the Chancellor.
On EN-6, although it is good to see the groundwork physically being dug for the first of the new generation of stations at Hinkley Point, will the Minister tell us when he anticipates that the first such station will be completed and online? Can he give us an indication of the dates for bringing the others online? Will he please not say that it is entirely up to the market, as that would suggest that he has not met any nuclear operators over the past year? He has, as I have, and I am sure he will have some idea of when that will happen.
John Robertson
Is my hon. Friend concerned, as I am, about the grid for some of the new power stations and, for that matter, renewables and about how the energy will get into the system for people to use?
Huw Irranca-Davies
Very much so. That is the benefit of having the package of NPSs to consider tonight, as we need to deal with the grid connectivity, too, to which I shall return in a moment. My hon. Friend makes a good point.
We are also considering EN-3 on renewable energy. Since we last debated the draft NPS on renewables, we have learned that the UK has dropped out of the top 10 global league tables for investment in renewables. That is quite a feat for the greenest Government ever. We have not just slipped out; we have bombed out. We have crashed out from having the fifth highest inward investment according to global rankings at the end of Labour’s Administration to having the 13th, according to the Pew report, in just one year. Today’s NPSs, including that on renewables, are part of the end-of-term report for the greenest Government ever, which states: “Must do better. After early promise, fails to live up to expectations and has gone backwards in many areas.”
The renewables document, EN-3, however, will succeed because it is built on very good foundations. It is welcome that the Government have made good on Labour’s ports competition and have started to build the manufacturing, distribution and servicing base in our ports, which will see a massive boom in our offshore wind. That builds on the consenting regime for offshore that was already under way under Labour. Those measures will provide crucial green jobs in manufacturing, engineering, design and maintenance up and down hard-pressed coastal regimes and in supply chains across the country, so they are to be welcomed. With streamlined planning in place, we will have the potential to create several hundred thousand jobs and to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by hundreds of millions of tonnes as we head in the direction set by the previous Government.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). I have heard it all before, and I still do not agree with him. I stand here as chair of the all-party nuclear energy group, so it would not take a genius to work out where my sympathies lie. The hon. Gentleman talked about the stone age, and that is exactly where he would like us to be. We are trying to develop a future—somewhere we want to go to. Eventually, one day, man will have to solve the problem of his own survival and move to another planet. It is pretty clear that the hon. Gentleman did not wait for the spaceship before he went there.
I am bothered by what the Minister said about the time delay that has, once again, been introduced. I attacked my own Government on the length of time it took them to put their policies together, and here we are again, not much further forward than we were at the time of the last general election. I accept that the national policy statements are needed, and I support them. If there are votes, I will support the Government on this, because it is vital to this nation. It was said earlier that there was no solution to the problem of nuclear waste, but there is. Anybody who wishes to go to Oskarshamn in Sweden will see that technology in action. The good news is that Sweden has taken the next step and is now building its new repository.
Mr Reed
We all want CCS technology to succeed and prosper. Does my hon. Friend agree that although Members in all parts of the House seem to be betting the farm on CCS succeeding, what we know about radioactive waste disposal is significantly well in advance of what we know about carbon capture and disposal?
John Robertson
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. If anybody knows anything about nuclear power, it will be him, as Sellafield is in his constituency and he deals with it on a day-to-day basis.
My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) did well in speaking to his amendments in a very short space of time. He and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), who is not in his place at the moment, said that they dislike incinerators. The good news is that people who live around nuclear power stations do not dislike them; in fact, they see them as a source of wealth and a way of developing further.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Scotland at this point. These NPSs apply to Scotland as well, energy being a matter that is reserved to this House. We can abide by all of them north of the border except on one thing, which is the most important in the development of any new technology or, for that matter, old technology—planning. In Scotland, planning can be used to stop new nuclear power stations or wind farms being built anywhere, whether offshore, onshore or anywhere else. That is wrong, and the Government and this House should take a careful look at it. Thousands of jobs and billions of pounds are involved in building a nuclear power station. The west of Scotland, in particular, will need 9,000 jobs in a few years’ time, and we are not going to get them thanks to a Government north of the border who use the planning rules to stop nuclear development, all because of a doctrine and an ideology followed by many people in this House—the hon. Member for Cheltenham is one of them—that has nothing to do with how real people have to live their lives now and in future.
I have heard the talk about Fukushima. Although everybody in this House regrets what happened there, the fact is that the problem was not the nuclear power station but the tidal wave that hit it.
John Robertson
No, I will not.
I do not believe that anybody has, as yet, been killed because of the nuclear power station. Tens of thousands of people have been killed thanks to the tsunami, but that is unfortunately the way things are going.
John Robertson
I have already said that I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Base load for this country is very important, as is the cost of energy. Two of the big six have already put their prices up. It is the Government’s job to try to make sure that we bring these people to task, but we do not want to give them loads of money to build wind farms in places where they are no good and a waste of money, as we have seen in many places in Scotland. I want a level playing field in energy for everybody. If there are no subsidies for nuclear, there should be no subsidies anywhere else. If we are looking to try to promote low carbon, then so be it. However, my wee old ladies up in Drumchapel, an area of my constituency that is one of the poorest areas in the country, are worried about how they are going to pay their electricity bills at the end of this year. That is a bit more important than whether we build a wind farm in the middle of nowhere that is a waste of money and that we are subsidising.