UK Hydrogen Economy

Debate between Lord Spellar and Christian Matheson

Thursday 17th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) on securing this debate and his comprehensive introduction.

There was some criticism, slightly reflected in the hon. Gentleman’s positive introduction, about the comparison with other countries in terms of investment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), speaking from the Front Bench earlier in the week, mentioned that. Today, however, I want to be positive about the Government’s strategy as it stands. [Interruption.] I am being positive to the Minister and supporting him. I will support the issue of financing, particularly because of a point raised by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), which was eloquently put, about this not being a competition but a jigsaw. I will refer back to that excellent point.

I am here to represent the case for my own region in the north-west and, in particular, Cheshire, which has a historical position in the chemicals industry through the salt mining that took place in mid-Cheshire for many years. In the energy sector, we also had strong nuclear expertise, through Warrington and Capenhurst in my constituency. Energy is part of our region’s DNA. There are offshore wind farms, which we share—as well as the ambition to drive forward our own hydrogen project—with north Wales, in the cross-border area represented by the Mersey Dee Alliance. The scheme that we are keen to promote has widespread support across Manchester, Liverpool, Cheshire and north Wales. Our local enterprise partnerships and the North West Business Leadership Team are behind it, as are the local councils.

The exciting opportunities that we have in Cheshire and Warrington will give us the chance to drive forward a new hydrogen economy at pace. Industry is at the forefront of proposals that are deliverable quickly, and which will protect and support high-value employment and can create thousands of green jobs in the local economy. One of the main projects is HyNet, which could start capturing industrial carbon dioxide emissions as early as 2025, if the Government make speedy decisions on the industrial decarbonisation challenge programme.

Hon. Members may be aware that the north-west region has the highest concentration of advanced manufacturing and chemical production in the UK and industry accounts for nearly a quarter of the region’s 40 million tonnes of annual CO₂, so if the Minister can drive this forward, he will make a real difference.

As part of the projects that we are proposing, Liverpool Bay gasfield owner ENI has now been licensed to store CO₂ permanently. Detailed design work is already under way on the pipelines needed to connect the Ellesmere Port industrial cluster to the CCUS—carbon capture, usage and storage—facility.

We also have the potential to start producing low-carbon hydrogen at scale by the middle of the decade, subject to the positive decision on HyNet. The Essar refinery complex at Stanlow could ultimately produce 18 TWh per year of low-carbon hydrogen for use to fuel industry and transport and, potentially, to feed into the gas networks in nearby homes. I say again to the Minister and the House: we already have the human infrastructure —the expertise—as well as the physical, in place and ready to go.

[John Spellar]

Time and again, even when there is the expertise, Whitehall puts new capacity down south, as it did with nuclear. There was considerable nuclear expertise in Cheshire, yet the next development was put down in Oxfordshire. More recently, with vaccine production, Whitehall had a choice between Oxford and the north-east. Once again, it chose Oxford. Must we not change that mindset in Whitehall?

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Lord Spellar and Christian Matheson

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[John Spellar]

I must repeat what I just said: everybody accepts that population change, growth and reduction, urban clearances and so on have an impact. That has changed somewhat, because the traditional pattern was that slum clearances in the inner cities meant that people moved to the suburbs and, subsequently, to the fringe towns. I expect that is what is happening in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell. Everyone accepts that that takes place.

It was the actions of the former Prime Minister—first, in attempting to reduce the number to 600 and secondly, proposing to change the margin of variation to 5%—that created an unacceptable framework, which then created completely unrecognisable constituencies that completely lacked community. The borough of Sandwell would probably have gone down to three seats.

The other problem is that the rigid mathematical formula, along with no imagination from the boundary commission, creates a huge number of orphan wards. Those are areas that are parts of someone’s constituency but have no connection with the rest of it. Inevitably, the Member then focuses on the bulk of their constituency. That is not good for democracy.

[Christian Matheson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. He is right about the orphan wards. Does he share my concern that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, in her intervention, accidentally conflated two interpretations of the phrase “current situation”? One is the current situation regarding the current introducing of boundaries and the other is the current situation regarding the process we follow to get there and, at the moment, the current situation includes a parliamentary approval. She mentioned in her intervention the different sizes of constituencies. We are not suggesting that we object to that, but there is a conflation here that might confuse the Committee.

[John Spellar]

I very much take my hon. Friend’s point. Fundamentally, the parliamentary approval finally acts as the constraint on the Executive, but also on the bureaucracy. I do not believe in this, as in so many other areas, we should just hand over decision making to the great and the good. Academics and lawyers have a proper role: they should advise. Quite apart from their role in a judicial capacity in trying cases, their views should not be unchallengeable. As I said earlier, I thought that view was quite fashionable in the Conservative party, but that may have changed.

One could do away with the whole problem. One could have a national list and, just as in Israel, whatever the percentage of votes are achieved, that is the number of seats given. I happen to believe very strongly in the constituency link. I happen to believe in individual constituencies and the Member’s link to those constituencies, representing their local interests and views. In the last election, we saw very different patterns across the country. Those regions and towns were represented. That is why it is important we try and keep those together.

Finally, one of the experts referring to the question of local links rather disparagingly said that very often they were political points dressed up as constituency links. There was some truth in that, although I think he was far too disparaging of constituency links and relationships. Equally, we are seeing that in the debate we are having. There are some political elements in this, as we are seeing with the 5%. Also, as in clause 1, there is a slight anomaly here. In 2031, the report will have to be in by 1 October and every eighth year after that it is 1 October, except in 2023 when it is 1 July. One therefore has to question whether there is an interest—I give way to the vice chair of the Conservative party.

[John Spellar]

The cat is out of the bag.

[Christian Matheson]

Meow!

[John Spellar]

Not one denial that this is a change that is designed after, presumably, not a two-thirds majority but a simple majority of the House to do away with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. I think it is part of their programme to put through that legislation and then call a snap election in October, rather than in the following May, which is scheduled in all the other legislation.