Green Investment Bank

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that point. In so far as it was necessary to have a publicly controlled and funded green investment bank in the first place, what has changed so that such a bank can now be transferred to the private sector without ending up simply acting like and emulating all the other banks, even if it has a greater degree of green expertise than most? How do we know that it will continue to play this unique role? That is the nub of what we want to hear from the Minister.

A good deal of the GIB’s success has come in the form of delivering what its CEO has called “financing firsts”. To use Mr Kingsbury’s own words:

“We have taken on complex projects that would otherwise not have gone ahead and we have been innovative, helping new technologies into the financial mainstream.”

The Westermost Rough offshore wind farm I referred to earlier is a particularly good example of that. The GIB took a stake in the project in 2014. The project was unique, in that it was the first large-scale application of the new Siemens 6 MW turbines, which are significantly more efficient and better suited to the marine environment than previous turbines deployed to date. Of course, they had not been used in 2014, so there will have been natural caution about a move to a new technology.

The project will help to drive down the cost of offshore wind, which has already fallen by 11% in the past four years, and also has supply chain benefits—including, not least for me as the MP for Beverley and Holderness, the fact that Siemens will manufacture the turbines in Hull and East Riding. Over the coming years, we hope to see the supply chain develop around that initial investment. Indeed, there is hope that other manufacturers might see the supply chain and combination of specialties in Hull as something worth coming to and investing in.

The project simply would not have taken off if only private investors had been involved. When I spoke to Mr Kingsbury earlier in the week, he talked about the fact that DONG Energy, which was pushing the project, wanted to find a partner—it did not want to take on the responsibility and risk alone. It found a Japanese investor, but the partner company was looking for comfort. The comfort it sought came in the form of the Green Investment Bank’s expertise and particular positioning, which provided the reassurance needed for it to invest. The GIB got involved, negotiated—as Mr Kingsbury would say—high returns for high risk and used its expertise to help and give comfort to both the Japanese investor and DONG. The project then went ahead, with the positive ramifications being not only the lowering of the cost of wind energy but the delivery of investment in my local area and beyond.

Likewise, the GIB has joined Aviva Investors in financing NHS energy centres. A good example of that is the £18 million investment the bank made in the £36 million energy centre project for Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. That project is emblematic of the market failure affecting the financing of non-domestic energy-efficiency projects. It required the installation of a combined heat and power unit, a biomass boiler, efficient dual-fuel boilers and heat recovery for medical incineration. The project will lead to a saving of £20 million on the hospital’s energy bill over the 25-year project period and an annual reduction of 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

I know the Secretary of State is confident that the eventual purchaser or purchasers will want to buy the GIB precisely because of its expertise in that kind of work. That is the nub of the Government’s argument. In a helpful briefing earlier this week, Mr Kingsbury told me that he is adamant that the GIB is a marketable proposition precisely because the decision was taken not to use the bank simply to offer cheap Government borrowing to the renewables sector, but to develop specialist teams with deep-sector knowledge that are capable of managing sophisticated and challenging financial deals and negotiating high rates of return, as it did with Westermost Rough. Mr Kingsbury was clear that he believes that makes the bank a great business and an attractive proposition to potential purchasers.

Concerns persist, however, about the fact that in private ownership the GIB may yet come to resemble more conventional competitors, such as Bank of America or Macquarie. I do not want to criticise those institutions in any way, but they are driven by the shareholder value that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) rightly mentioned, and they come to different decisions, take different approaches and have different team assemblies from those of the Green Investment Bank, which has a very specific brief.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful presentation on this issue, and he has come to one of the key points. Ministers have responded to questions about the future of the green focus. In his statement, the Secretary of State said that the Government

“also want and expect a privately owned GIB to continue this clear focus on green sectors”.—[Official Report, 15 October 2015; vol. 600, c. 21WS.]

In a written answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise said:

“The Government wants a privately owned GIB to continue this focus on green sectors”.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to hear something stronger than that before we can be convinced that that will actually happen when the bank goes into private hands?

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman, who has served in Government, will know that even within Government it is not enough to wish that institutions will behave in a certain way. We know that the incentives must be understood. For example, it is necessary to understand how schools will behave—the hon. Gentleman and I have experience of that. It is not enough for people to sign up in name to deliver a certain thing and for politicians to say that they will do it, because they will be moved by the complex sets of incentives in which they find themselves. If we do not understand how those incentives collectively impinge on those institutions, we will not truly understand how the institutions will behave. That is as true for education as it is for a bank.

It is not enough simply to say what we want and what should be aimed for; we have to understand how the framework of incentives for a private owner of the bank will lead them to behave in the way that Ministers and the rest of us want. I am impressed by the chief executive of the Green Investment Bank; I think he is passionate and honest in his belief about where the bank will go. Nevertheless, I want to understand how it will go there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Lady pre-empts the rest of my speech. I wanted to start with the glass half full, the positives and the promise; I now come to the buts. I have real concerns about the future of the Green Investment Bank, precisely because of what she has outlined.

As the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness said in his opening remarks, the Government’s announcement in June of their intention—though they were vague about their plans—to privatise at least part of the bank raised the prospect of a number of risks. I was sufficiently concerned to use my first question on the Floor of the House as Chair of the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills to ask the Secretary of State about his plans for the Green Investment Bank. Moreover, the Government have tabled an amendment to the Enterprise Bill, which is in Committee in the other place, that would repeal fully part 1 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, thereby completely removing the green purposes of the bank.

I agree with the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness that the bank’s resources need to be scaled up and that it should be allowed to borrow. The Environmental Audit Committee report on the Green Investment Bank in the previous Parliament claimed that it was necessary for it to raise extra capital as a real bank can. I fully agree. However, the method proposed by the Government is questionable. In particular, we must ask—as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has just asked me—whether any loss of legislative protection for the bank’s green purposes would also mean the loss of safeguards.

I do not think that the Minister will be able to reassure us this afternoon. If the purposes are removed from the statute book, no subsequent private owner can give any such safeguards whatever. I will come back to the Government dilemma over Office for National Statistics classification and ensuring safeguards, but the fact that at the moment the Green Investment Bank can state, on its website and in all its publications, that it is “wholly owned” by Her Majesty’s Government provides confidence and certainty for investors in the low-carbon economy, which remains at an embryonic stage.

Coupled with policy announcements since the general election, such as changes to solar panel feed-in tariffs, onshore wind capability and planning approval, along with other things, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Government are abdicating from any wish to lead in the global low-carbon economy. That is a real tragedy, not only for green issues, but for our future economic and industrial shape and for what modern industry and employment opportunities will look like.

[Kevin Brennan]

As I was explaining to my hon. Friend, I have been reading his 6,000-word speech in Committee on the bank. In discussion of the Bill that set it up, he said that it would not be a green investment bank, but only a fund, if it did not have the ability to borrow. In essence, the Government want, as we all do, the bank to be able to borrow, but that makes no difference. Whether it is in the public or private sector, the bank’s ability to borrow will mean that such borrowing goes on the Government’s books, unless they take the trouble to repeal the essential protection in legislation. As a result, therefore, is the proposal not fundamentally undercut and in need of revisiting?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It has been an extremely high-quality debate and I will attempt, in my half of the one hour and 50 minutes that we have left, to do justice in responding on behalf of Her Majesty’s official Opposition.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) both on leading the campaign to secure this extremely important and timely debate and on his excellent speech. The Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), also said that it was an excellent speech, and it set up our debate today well. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness outlined examples of Green Investment Bank investments extremely well, including some in his own locality. Early on he put his finger on the key issue of the future of the green focus of the bank after privatisation.

The hon. Gentleman said that he thought the Green Investment Bank was vital to the UK’s industrial strategy—he obviously did not get the memo from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills that the term “industrial strategy” is not to be used any more, but nevertheless he happens to be absolutely right. The bank is vital and we do need an industrial strategy that includes a focus on green investment and renewables as an absolutely essential part of the economic future of this country.

As I listened to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, I became ever more convinced, as someone new to this brief who did not sit on the relevant Bill Committee or anything of that kind, that the proposal, as it stands, is not oven-ready. Whatever the Minister has to say at the end, I think that Ministers will have to go back and look at the issue in some detail. I know that discussions are going on in another place, but it seems to me that this is far from an oven-ready proposal.

We also heard a contribution from the Chair of the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool, who, as ever, was extremely assured and knowledgeable. He spoke very well about the role of state development banks more broadly and internationally, and how important they are. He said that, in a way, the UK is an outlier among G7 countries in not having such an institution and that we should not lightly put the Green Investment Bank into jeopardy, given the role that it can play in helping to develop that sort of approach in the UK.

We also heard a contribution from the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell)—that constituency name has changed since the last Parliament, so excuse me if I did not get it quite right. His contribution was also very effective; he told us about the local impact of the Green Investment Bank, particularly in Scotland. He took an intervention from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) about China; it crossed our mind over here at the time that China could well end up owning the Green Investment Bank in quite a short space of time, given the way things are going. We should perhaps cogitate for a while on that prospect.

Finally, the hon. Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan), again, made a very effective contribution to our debate, raising a lot of new and interesting points in addition to the ones that had already been made. He was intervened on by the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) in relation to the position of the Green Investment Bank’s CEO, Shaun Kingsbury. Yesterday, when Mr Kingsbury gave evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee, he made it absolutely clear that he would have liked a statutory lock to remain with regard to the focus and purpose of the Green Investment Bank. He also said, unless I am mistaken, that he remained agnostic about exactly what sort of stake the Government should have in the bank, rather than being a wholesale cheerleader for privatisation. He accepted that that might be the right route for the future of the bank, but unless I misheard him he said he was ultimately agnostic about the level of skin in the game, as it were, that the Government should have in relation to the bank.

The hon. Member for East Lothian also pointed out very effectively that the Treasury was all too ready to allow UK borrowing to be part of the financing of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, yet seemed extremely reluctant to allow the same for our own Green Investment Bank. If the bank is a flagship, innovative policy of the last Government, which I think it is, actually—it was initially conceived even before that, during the previous Government—it will be a terrible shame if the Government are not willing to do for our own Green Investment Bank what they have done for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

I thought that the hon. Gentleman very effectively described the way in which market failure could be countered by the presence of a Green Investment Bank with an honest broker role—not just like any other bank in the business. He also put a fairly effective bomb under the argument about the articles of association being the protection that could replace the statutory protection that the Government intend to remove. He also made a very interesting alternative funding proposal.

We have covered quite a lot of ground, very effectively, during the course of this debate. I hope that the Minister has the opportunity to respond to some of those points in his contribution, although he may not have enough time to respond to them all; if necessary, I hope that he will take back to the Department what hon. Members have said during the debate.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s proposals on the Green Investment Bank seem to go against not only business policy, but areas that I and many of my constituents are passionate about, such as air quality and, as other hon. Members have mentioned, the carbon economy?

I cannot compete with the business and investment knowledge of Members here today, but I feel, as somebody with a local government background and an understanding of the effective use of limited public funds, that there surely is a case for the use of public money to invest in additional growth and additional jobs. Job creation is also a very important role. Does my hon. Friend not also agree that the problems relating to fuel poverty would also benefit from the long-term support of the Green Investment Bank?

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, I agree. I am tempted to quote Kermit the Frog, who said, “It’s not easy bein’ green.” It is not easy, actually—why make it more difficult? That is the problem with the proposal. Everything that my hon. Friend said is absolutely right. There is nothing currently in the proposal that will make any of those things any easier. That is why all of us, in all parts of the House, are asking the Minister to go away and think again about the current proposal with his colleagues.

I do not intend to rehearse, once again, everything that people have said about the success so far of the Green Investment Bank. I remember it as a very embryonic idea when I was in Government, all those many years ago now. It was certainly mentioned by Alistair Darling in one of his Budgets and it was kicking around the Cabinet Office and BIS when I was a Minister in both those Departments during the previous Government. I was very pleased when the coalition Government brought forward proposals, the Bill was passed and the bank was set up and am also pleased about what a good start it has had—how well it has got under way. There have been criticisms about the straitjacket that the Treasury may have put on the Green Investment Bank. Nevertheless, it has genuinely been able to participate in the financing of projects that otherwise would not have taken place and which make a real contribution, as the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness said at the outset, to meeting our commitments under the Climate Change Act. Essentially, it is a good story.

[Graham Stuart]

It is touching to see the hon. Gentleman paying such tribute to this creation of a Conservative-led, now Conservative, Government, especially because at the end of Labour’s period in power, when he was a Minister, only Luxembourg and Malta had a lower share of renewables as part of their energy mix. I am delighted to say that whatever questions need to be asked about the Green Investment Bank, the record of this Government is a paragon compared with the abject failure of so many years of Labour, sadly.

[Kevin Brennan]

I have known the hon. Gentleman for a long time. All I will say is that he has let himself down slightly by injecting a slight note of partisanship into our proceedings; I knew it would inevitably come. Given the sort of person I am, of course, I would never respond to anything of that kind.

[David Mowat]

Without wanting to take this too much further, I should say that I do not think it was Luxembourg and Malta; I think it was Cyprus and Malta. Perhaps we could clarify that.

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

You were doing so well.

[Kevin Brennan]

We were indeed, Mr Crausby. All I will say is this. The notion that, had the Conservatives carried on in power after 1997 we would have had a much greener Government than the Labour one, who passed the Climate Change Act 2008, is one that I find slightly difficult to believe. Anyway, without labouring the point too far, I was saying that in my view—

[Graham Stuart]

We have time. Will the hon. Gentleman give way again?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will give way one last time on that point.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is extremely generous. A little partisanship does not go amiss. It is important to have the perspective that the current Prime Minister, then Leader of the Opposition, was the first major party leader to call for a climate change Act. That same day, the Liberal Democrats followed, and it was only because it felt that it was going to be left behind that Labour joined in. It was thanks to the current Prime Minister that we got the Act, and it is within that framework going forward that we can have confidence that we can meet these challenges. That is why it is so important that Ministers get their policies right.

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Kevin Brennan]

Convention requires me to respond to the intervention from the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness before I take one from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. All I will say is that there are very few people who take seriously that slogan of “the greenest Government ever”, not least given the recent retreats away from any kind of renewable investment and the turmoil that that is causing in renewable investment markets.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am sorry that we are descending into partisanship, but as we are kind of there, I just point out that under this Government the amount of investment going into the green economy has dropped massively. We are now, in many league tables, out of it completely; we used to be in the top 10. Government Members need to take seriously the signals that they are giving to international investors. The signal that they are giving is that the UK is not a good place to put investment into green areas, and that is deeply worrying for economic as well as environmental reasons.

[Kevin Brennan]

That is right. We have all read the reports about the confusion of the international community ahead of the Paris conference as to what the position of the UK is now, having been at the forefront, for more than a decade—under both the coalition Government and the previous Labour Government—of pressing forward on renewables.

[David Mowat]

On that point, will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will.

[Graham Stuart]

It’s all my fault.

[David Mowat]

It is indeed the fault of my hon. Friend; we can all agree on that at least.

We have the Climate Change Act—no other country in the world has come up with an Act that has also required an 80% reduction. It is also true that the level of carbon emissions in this country is lower than the EU average and one third lower than in Germany. We should be pleased about where we have made progress.

[Kevin Brennan]

If it was the fault of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness that we descended into partisanship, credit should go to the hon. Member for Warrington South for raising the tone once again, bringing us back on topic and pointing out that it is important that the UK shows leadership in this area. Perhaps we can all agree on that, even if we do not agree on the extent to which that is currently being displayed by the Conservative Government.

As I said, this has essentially been a very successful innovation. One problem—we have had differences of opinion about this during the debate—has been the restrictions placed on the Green Investment Bank in relation to borrowing. Obviously, the Treasury does not want that to appear on the books, because of the targets that it has set in relation to deficit reduction. However, we have come to a strange pass when even something that we could all agree would be a good thing, even good borrowing, is bad if it is on the Government books, simply because it is on the Government books. Hon. Members touched on this during their contributions. Sometimes in this country we seem to be the prisoners of public accountancy convention, rather than common sense, in relation to when borrowing is a good and effective thing to do—when it is to invest to grow our economy in the future in a sustainable way.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

I want to touch on my hon. Friend’s point about good investment. What we need to look at is this. Over the last three or four years—since 2012, I think—one third of all the growth in the UK, during very difficult years when we were sometimes in recession, came from the green economy. It accounted for about 1 million jobs in the low-carbon sector, worth £128 billion. It is now very disappointing—in fact, tragic—that the Government seek to undermine one of the key drivers of that sector, as we have heard today from so many hon. Members.

My last point is that if we were able to tap into one third of our country’s potential in respect of wind, wave and tidal power, we could create another 145,000 high-quality jobs. When we look at those figures and at how the Green Investment Bank has performed so far, we see that we have to protect it.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to learn that I agree with that point. In relation to wave power, we are all very interested to see how the Swansea lagoon project proceeds. That is a very interesting development in the sustainable generation of energy; if it is a success, it could lead to even larger projects, particularly in the part of south Wales that I represent.

[Mr Iain Wright]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) said. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) is relatively new to his post. Could I urge him to read the CBI’s “The colour of growth” report? It says that we have a £130 billion share of a global low-carbon marketplace that is worth about £4 trillion. That will rise hugely in terms of the opportunities around the world, but we are slipping down the ranks. We cannot abdicate our leadership on this issue, because our prosperity as well as our environment will suffer. Will my hon. Friend have a look at that report?

[Kevin Brennan]

I most certainly will. I am sure that my hon. Friend will lend me his copy so that I can do that as soon as possible. I look forward to receiving it shortly in the post or perhaps by a more green method: he can hand it to me personally.

It is a myth that privatisation is necessary and is the only way the Green Investment Bank could go out and borrow in the marketplace. That could be done, as I understand it, under the current legislation in any case, but because of that financial orthodoxy and the desire, which I understand, for the Government to be able to say what they want to say about their deficit targets, they are extremely reluctant to allow the Green Investment Bank to do it.

As the hon. Member for East Lothian said, in a sense this is a notional concept; it is the sort of debt on the books that really is not of great concern to the City or to the markets. It is part of the obsession of the boffins at the Office for National Statistics that where the Government, in any minor way, have an influence over what an institution such as the Green Investment Bank does, by setting out to limit the types of investment that it makes in any way shape or form, it has to be counted as being in the public sector for the purposes of Government debt.

[Mr Andrew Percy in the Chair]

It is an incredibly esoteric and technical reason for requiring the Green Investment Bank to be privatised even though there is clear evidence of real problems with that process, as we have seen from today’s debate.

The decision to privatise the Green Investment Bank was announced in June. Was it a premature decision? I believe a lot of people thought it was. Many commentators expressed concern at the time. The Government were able at the time at least to give the assurance made by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in his written statement on 25 June, in which he said that he was going to privatise the bank:

“This should bring a number of important benefits, giving GIB greater freedom to operate across a wider range of green sectors in accordance with its green purposes, which are enshrined in legislation.”—[Official Report, 25 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 27WS.]

A key part of the Secretary of State’s announcement, emphasised in that written statement, was the fact that the green purposes of the Green Investment Bank were protected by the legislation in which its duty to pursue them was enshrined. Obviously, something has gone horribly wrong in the meantime.

The advice from the Office for National Statistics that I referred to earlier has led the Government to say that they intend to repeal the very legislative protection that they prayed in aid when deciding to privatise the bank on 25 June. By October, they had to say, “Do you know what? That is not so important after all. It doesn’t really matter if we repeal all that to make sure that the Green Investment Bank doesn’t appear on the books.” That requires a great deal of thought, scrutiny and debate. I thank the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness for pointing that out—and, indeed, for ensuring that we are having this debate.

I do not think it is unfair to say that so far, the Government have no answer to the question of how we can ensure that the Green Investment Bank maintains its green purposes. The letter from the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills of 15 October, in which he announced his intention to repeal the relevant measures in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, offers no assurance that those green purposes will definitely be maintained. The Secretary of State does say:

“We want to ensure GIB’s green principles continue to underpin its business in future and this will form an important part of our discussions with potential investors.”

That is all very well, and I am sure that potential investors will come along and happily assent to the green purposes of the Green Investment Bank prior to privatisation. That is not the question, however; the question is what happens after privatisation. At that point, when the bank is either fully or partly in the private sector—we do not know the full details of the Government’s proposals for privatisation—how are we to ensure that it maintains its green purposes and does not, as other hon. Members have suggested, simply become yet another bank, albeit a very small bank that can easily be, and is likely to be, gobbled up by somebody else?

Although the Secretary of State says in the letter that the Government want to ensure that the green principles will be maintained, he cannot ensure that they will be. The Government can only entreat; they cannot ensure. We need to hear more about how Ministers will pursue this proposal, and how they will ensure that the green purposes remain if the current proposal is implemented. There has been no answer yet from the Secretary of State or Ministers.

I referred earlier to a written question from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion to the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise. In response, the Minister repeated that the Government want a privately owned Green Investment Bank to continue the focus on green sectors, but she did not explain in any way, shape or form how the Government can ensure that it does. We need to know more about that, and I would be interested to hear more from the Minister when he responds to the debate. That absolutely central question has to be answered if we are to have any confidence in what is happening. Otherwise, the situation would seem to be a bit of an unholy mess, and we need to know how the Government will unravel it.

I will ask a few other questions, because there will be a reasonable amount of time for the Minister to respond when I have finished my remarks. Will he admit that he cannot guarantee that privatisation will not dilute the green purposes of the Green Investment Bank? Is the Government’s policy simply: “Fingers crossed”? Have the Government discussed or considered the possibility of some form of penalty for the privatised company should it depart from the green purposes currently enshrined in legislation when the legislative guarantees are removed? Can he confirm that the legislative lock on the green purpose is being repealed purely in order to get the Green Investment Bank off the books? Is that the only reason for removing that lock? Can he tell us a bit more about the stake that the Government expect to retain in the Green Investment Bank following privatisation? Some clarity on that would be greatly welcomed by the House and the country.

What about the £1.8 billion that the Government have set aside to fund the Green Investment Bank and its projects, which is yet to be committed? Do the Government intend that £1.8 billion to be committed to green projects as originally intended, or do they intend that money to be taken back into the Treasury during privatisation? If the latter, what will the Treasury do with that money? Will it simply be set aside against the deficit, or will it be used instead for other green projects and priorities? We need some clarity on that, because some of the claims made about the Green Investment Bank will ring pretty hollow if that £1.8 billion is not devoted to the purposes for which it was intended.

Can the Minister give us a ballpark figure for how much the Government expect to raise through the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank? I do not expect him to be precise, because it is impossible to be precise about that, but can he give us some idea of the parameters that we are talking about? How do the Government intend to avoid the sorts of criticisms that they encountered about the lack of value achieved for taxpayers in the privatisation of Royal Mail? I will not put it any more strongly than that, because we have raised the tone of the debate again since the partisan interventions of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness; I do not want to lower the tone again or tempt the hon. Gentleman out of his slumber. [Interruption.] He is not asleep; I apologise.

[Graham Stuart]

It is contentment.

[Kevin Brennan]

I do not want to tempt the hon. Gentleman out of his contentment. What advice were Ministers given when the guarantee was first enshrined in legislation? Was there any suggestion at that time that putting the green purpose in legislation might jeopardise any future privatisation? Is it possible that when the bank is privatised and its purposes are widened, its funds might be used to invest in things such as fracking?

[John Mc Nally]

The hon. Gentleman raises an issue that has been raised since SNP Members first arrived in the House from Scotland. We are extremely concerned about fracking in our areas, and I am sure others here are on the same wavelength. Everything my colleagues and I have seen since we arrived has been driving towards making fracking this country’s main source of energy. The fact that some of the subsidies under the renewables obligation will end a year early only goes to show that we were right in our thinking. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

[Kevin Brennan]

That is a legitimate concern to raise. At a reception the other evening, I heard a BIS Minister describe fracking as a sustainable form of energy. If it is sustainable, a privatised Green Investment Bank could presumably invest in it. We need to hear whether Ministers think that that is possible.

[George Kerevan]

The hon. Gentleman may remember that the one form of energy the bank was specifically banned from investing in under EU state aid rules was nuclear. Once the bank goes into the private sector, that will no longer apply, and it will be open to the bank to invest in, say, the Hinkley Point C project, which the Government have heavily subsidised with huge amounts of taxpayers’ money 30 years in advance simply to lever in investment.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman is right: that was the ruling in relation to state aid. For what it is worth, I find it difficult to see how we could meet our obligations in coming decades without some investment in nuclear. The hon. Gentleman and I may not agree on that—[Interruption.] The expression on the face of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion tells me that she does not agree with me either, and I am not surprised by that. However, that is my view, and it is shared by quite a lot of people with strong green credentials. None the less, the hon. Gentleman is right to point this issue out, because it is absolutely an implication of privatisation.

Is the Minister concerned that these things will provide further uncertainty for low-carbon investors, at a time when there is great concern about the Government’s retreat on investment in wind power, for example? Do they send the right message to our international partners, on the cusp of the Paris summit, about the importance of renewables?

[Clive Lewis]

My hon. Friend talked about sending the wrong signals. There is a growing global divestment movement, which is moving funds and investments away from high-carbon fuels and into low-carbon fuels. In my constituency, I have Aviva, one of the largest insurance companies in the world. It is very concerned about the effect of climate change on its business models, and one of its clear goals is to divest its funds from high-carbon investments. We have heard about the Green Investment Bank perhaps changing its shape and becoming, in effect, another privatised bank. The Environment Agency, which has a £2.9 billion pension fund, has recently been looking to invest £450 million in low-carbon energy, but it has now said that that will be very difficult without a Green Investment Bank. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?

[Kevin Brennan]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an important and appropriate intervention—I can see why he has taken on a shadow Front-Bench role in a similar area, given his level of knowledge. It is a shame that the fact that he is not on the Front Bench for this debate precludes him from making a speech, which would have added greatly to our proceedings. There are a great many speeches that might have been made here in the last hour or so, although we have heard snippets of them in the form of interventions. I do agree with my hon. Friend.

The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness asked about using the European fund for strategic investments, and I just want to remind the Minister—he is getting a barrage of questions, but he has plenty of time to answer them—that that question was asked.

Are the principles being used by the ONS that are causing the Government such a problem and dilemma used in other European jurisdictions? We have had evidence in today’s debate that that is perhaps not the case. Are we, therefore, allowing an accounting convention to undermine a key green policy initiative?

Have the Government considered structures other than privatisation for the Green Investment Bank? There have been suggestions that other legal structures might get round some of the issues the Government face.

The key question is, why are the Government in such a rush, given all the problems that have been identified in the debate? We know one of the reasons: they want to get the bank off the books—that is part of their deficit-reduction strategy. They are keen to do that as quickly as possible, and we know that significant cuts are coming in the autumn statement. However, it really would be a big mistake and an act of vandalism to rush things just for that reason and to get them wrong, with the Green Investment Bank ending up just like any other bank and perhaps being gobbled up by some Chinese bank. Would it not be better to pause, step back and get this right so that that does not happen? We have learned over many years that making policy in haste is not wise. It is certainly not wise to privatise in haste, because we repent at our leisure. That is not a sustainable way to make policy.

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[George Freeman]

Our view is that we want to give the Green Investment Bank the best possible chance of having a stable and secure future and being able to raise the sort of money that it needs out of the market. Having been an investor myself in much smaller companies, I would say that anyone involved—my hon. Friend is aware of this—will know that there is no perfect shareholder structure. Often having a very small number, particularly if it is one, can create risks of its own. Having far too many small investors can mean that it is a struggle to raise the capital needed. A happy balance will need to be struck, but the judgment will have to give the Green Investment Bank the best chance of fulfilling its remit. I will say something about its green remit in just a moment. My hon. Friend made an important point.

Crucially, the plans are not being imposed by the Government on a reluctant bank. They have the full support of the company and its independent board and chair, Lord Smith of Kelvin, and others. Lord Smith of Kelvin said:

“I welcome this. You can’t keep going back to the Government for more and more money. If we want to build something that is sustainable and durable, we need private capital. This was always going to happen.”

He also said:

“The UK Government led the world in their vision and commitment in setting up the world’s first dedicated green investment bank, so we are delighted to have their support as we enter a new phase and seek additional investors in our business.”

Shaun Kingsbury, the chief executive officer, said:

“That is why I believe the decision announced by the Business Secretary is the right one. It is the option that gives us the best chance of creating the greatest green impact.”

Other important commentators have concurred. Richard Howard, head of environment and policy at the think-tank Policy Exchange, said at the evidence session of the Environmental Audit Committee yesterday that the legislation may not be needed to maintain the green focus, and that if we remove that legislation and allow someone to invest, that investor would come along and invest because they are interested in supporting what the Green Investment Bank is doing. He said that private capital funds have got involved precisely because the bank has a track record in these areas and that they are buying into a pool of expertise in investing in green projects.

The Environmental Audit Committee’s report on green finance in March 2014 said that the Green Investment Bank

“needs to be able to raise significant further private sector capital for investment alongside the Bank’s programmes, and to borrow itself to enlarge the scale of its work…The Government must make an early and clear statement about the Green Investment Bank’s long-term future beyond the 2015–16 horizon of its Spending Review funding settlement”,

which answers one of the points made earlier.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. That is all very well but the problem is that is all just opinion. Today, we are seeking more of an assurance that the Minister can guarantee that when the bank is privatised, it will not lose its green focus. Nothing that we have heard so far gives that guarantee. Is he coming to that?

[George Freeman]

I am coming to that. I have been very generous in giving way. Perhaps I should crack on and then I could answer the points that I keep being asked.

In consultations on the Green Investment Bank in May 2012, Greenpeace said:

“If it’s going to be more than an empty gesture, the bank’s got to have the borrowing powers necessary to support the green shoots of the UK’s renewables industry.”

It recognised that the sector is moving fast.

On the freedom to borrow and to raise capital, by giving the bank access to private funding, we will enable it to grow in accordance with its ambitious green business plan, giving it access to a much greater volume of capital than if it remained in public ownership. I commend that plan to any Members who have not looked at it, as it is a legal document that investors are investing in and will be the subject of all the legal constraints of a company sale. Crucially, it will give the bank much greater freedom to operate, removing a number of constraints that apply to it because it is a Government-owned enterprise, and enabling it to borrow freely on the capital markets without impacting on public sector debt. Hon. Members who take a view that public sector debt is not a national priority or issue will not find that argument compelling. Those of us who believe that that debt is an issue will find it compelling. That is firmly the view of the Conservative party.

In Government ownership, the bank must compete for funding along with all other Government expenditure needs, in a necessarily tight public spending round. We do not want to constrain it because of that. For all those reasons it makes sense for the Green Investment Bank’s investment activity to be funded by private capital where possible and to minimise the need for public funding, which fits with our original strategic policy aim of getting the market to work in tackling green policy challenges. Part of the coalition’s strategic intention was to try to generate, support and de-risk that early green investment market here and globally. As a number of Members have mentioned, the bank has been very successful in that first phase.

I want to touch on the need for repeal of the legislation, which a number of hon. Members have talked about. The reason that we need to repeal the legislation on the bank contained in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 is so that the company can be reclassified to the private sector rather than remain as a public sector body. That is essential to achieving the benefits of private ownership, including the aim that the bank should be free to borrow and raise capital without affecting public sector debt. It has become apparent that, unless we repeal that legislation, there is a major and uncarryable risk that the bank would remain classified to the public sector, even after a sale, because the legislation will be likely to constitute a continued public sector control over the company’s business. The hon. Member for Cardiff West asked whether this was wise in terms of the drafting of the original legislation that set up the bank. I cannot comment on that because I was not involved in it. Our advice now is very clear. If we want the bank to be able to operate in the way that we do, that piece of legislation needs to be repealed. While the decision was not arrived at lightly in any way, we are clear that it is a necessary step if we are to achieve our aims.

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[George Freeman]

Let me answer the question. We will not put a binding contract in regulation or legislation, but we will ensure—here is the point—that when the Green Investment Bank goes to raise funds in a subscription round, the subscription agreement and all the legal documentation will be based on the bank’s current mission to be a green investment bank. The bank’s green business plan will be a material document in the context of that funding round, and investors will be investing in that mission, that plan and those values. As I have said, we will build in a series of protections to ensure that the vehicle in which they are investing is clearly committed to that green mission.

I want Members to understand that we have taken legal advice, and in order to comply with state aid and Treasury rules on public sector financing, and in order to give the bank the freedom that we want to give it, it is essential that we do not bind it with statutory, legislative and regulatory instruction but ensure that, in its offering to the market, the intention of the bank is clear. That is the right mechanism for us to ensure the bank’s green mission.

[Kevin Brennan]

Some might observe that assurances were sought ahead of the Royal Mail privatisation and that those assurances lasted about five minutes after the privatisation happened. Leaving that aside, the initial investors may well come in on the prospectus that the Minister is putting before the House today, but there is nothing to say that that will last for any period of time. Within a pretty short period of time, we could be looking at a very different kind of institution. Can he give us any guarantees about that?

[George Freeman]

I think I have made it clear that I will not commit the Government to giving statutory and legislative guarantees that would constrain the operation of the bank, not because we do not want to see the bank continue doing what it is doing, but because we have been clearly advised that once such guarantees are given, we will not be able to allow the bank to have the freedom that we want it to have or to be able to raise money that does not count towards public sector debt. We have made it clear that we want the bank to continue doing more of what it has been doing, such as investing in green energy and catalysing that market. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has seen the bank’s green business plan, which is a clear document. When investors invest in any entity, particularly a bank, the entity has to set out a prospectus and a business plan into which the investors are investing. That document will clearly set out the bank’s green activities. It will be very clear that people will not be investing in a company that can do something outside of that.

[Kevin Brennan]

Fracking?

[George Freeman]

It will be up to the investors and the bank to determine where the green energy market goes in the longer term. None of us in this room is able to predict where the bank should be investing, given the pace of investment. I have seen a number of interesting technologies—hydrogen cells and some of the battery technology are extraordinary stuff—and we want the bank to be free to invest in different sectors.

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

rose—

[George Freeman]

I will take these two interventions, and perhaps I can then crack through the questions.

[Kevin Brennan]

I want to ensure that this is on the record. I said “fracking” from a sedentary position, and I think the Minister accepted that it is possible, under the current privatisation plans, that the Green Investment Bank might be involved in investing in fracking projects.

[George Freeman]

I want to take specific advice, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman on whether any constraints are envisaged on what may or may not constitute green investment. My understanding is that we want to give the bank the freedom to invest in a range of different technologies. Indeed, part of the bank’s mission is to be able to catalyse investment in a much wider range of technologies that will be key to building a 21st-century green economy.

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[George Freeman]

I want to crack through. Time is galloping on.

[Kevin Brennan]

You have 43 minutes.

[George Freeman]

Well, the shadow Minister should see the list of questions I have been asked, not least by the shadow Minister himself. I will try to answer those questions and, if I fail, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) can intervene at the end.

I was asked whether the management of the Green Investment Bank would prefer a statutory lock. The chief executive officer allegedly said that he is “agnostic” about privatisation, but he did say that he prefers a statutory lock. He also said that he wants the ability to raise funds from the private sector, and he understands the need to remove the statute and the statutory constraints.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness asked how the shareholder framework document will change. Clearly, the framework document will need to change as the shareholding changes. When the bank was set up in 2012, the document’s primary purpose was to set out that the bank should operate independently so that the Government could not interfere in its investment decisions and to ensure the bank’s green ethos. Privatisation will further increase that operational independence, but the bank’s green ethos is now entrenched. The Green Investment Bank is what it is, and it is what is in its business plan, which will be a material document in the shareholder subscription round.

My hon. Friend also asked whether the market failures that the bank was set up to address have now improved to such an extent that we no longer feel the bank needs to operate in the same way. He is right that the bank was set up shortly after the banking crisis in the depths of the dark period of 2010, 2011 and 2012, when the economy was moving very slowly, to rectify a lack of long-term liquidity in the market. It is true that long-term funding for infrastructure projects has recovered strongly, as illustrated by the data I gave earlier. There was a lack of specialist green infrastructure investors, particularly at scale, which is what the bank has now become. The bank has helped to support such infrastructure projects, and we intend that the bank will remain a specialist green investor after privatisation. That is what the bank does, and it is what an acquirer will be buying. We want to let the bank off the leash to do more of that.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is no longer in her place—she gave her apologies—asked whether a profit-maximising bank would be in danger of crowding out investment because it would be just like any other bank. In fact, the Green Investment Bank is already profit maximising; it has turned its first profit. It exists to prove that it is possible to be green and profitable. That is in the bank’s very DNA; we want to show that the green economy is a real economy. That is how we will attract the private sector capital that we need. The GIB’s expertise can do so regardless of whether it is in the private or the public sector, of course, but we want to give it the freedom to raise that money.

The hon. Lady also asked whether other countries are copying us. It is true that we were in the vanguard when the Conservative-led coalition set up the Green Investment Bank, and we have been copied. It is our ambition to be in the vanguard as we take the market forward. We need to raise not just hundreds of millions or billions, but tens of billions—actually, over the next decade or so, we need to raise hundreds of billions—of money for green infrastructure. There is no way that any Government could fund all of it, even if they wanted to. We need to go to the next stage by leading private sector capital into the market.

Several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness, asked whether the bank cannot raise debt anyway, and whether we had explored all the options. The truth is that equity raising by the bank will effectively score like debt to the public sector once that equity is invested, so this is not just about debt, but about ensuring that the bank has the right financial mix to operate. My hon. Friend also asked about the European fund for strategic investments, a £300 billion pot for capital raising, and whether the bank will still be encouraged and able to access that money.

The Government are aware of the European funding for infrastructure investment, and are examining how best to make use of that facility—my hon. Friend makes a good point. In our view, that does not alter the case for moving the bank into private ownership. We absolutely need to ensure that it can access funding. The Government and devolved Administrations are actively considering, along with other UK institutions, how they can work alongside the bank to maximise the impact for the bank and others of accessing that European funding. The EFSI guarantee can be used by the bank to co-invest in and co-finance with both public and private institutions, so privatising the bank does not in itself preclude benefiting from the European fund.

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[George Freeman]

For any investor entering into a subscription agreement, the parties will be the current owners, the operating company, the bank and the other investors, so the shareholder agreement will be crucial. It is binding in law and if anyone has ever seen a subscription agreement pack, they will know that it is lever-arch files-worth of papers. However, the central point is that all the parties in that agreement come together to agree what they are investing in, and what the objectives and aims of the company are, and that is set out in the articles of association and in the subscription agreement.

We hope that there will be a substantial range of serious investors who are committed to this space and to subscribing investment moneys into the bank’s green investment plan. They are not investing in a casino or any of the things that conspiracy theorists might imagine this thing could go on to be, including a “zombie” handing out money. They are investing in a specific commercial venture, and the directors of the company will have to put a prospectus out to the market, and they will have to warrant it legally themselves, personally as well as in the usual way. So, the subscription process, in and of itself, affords significant protections to us all, as shareholders and parliamentarians.

The issue of the Government’s ambition of retaining a stake in the bank was raised; I am trying, Mr Percy, to deal with all the points that were raised this afternoon. We will consider all options for a sale and we will be guided by the ultimate test of what achieves best value for the UK taxpayer, and what best fits with the strategic intention of allowing the bank to continue to be a leader in the green investment market and to pull in private finance. I am not in a position to commit this afternoon to a particular level or stake; I do not suppose that anyone would expect me to do so. We need the flexibility to do what best achieves that value for money and the best outcome for the bank.

It is important to note that, in any event, the Government’s retaining a stake while also securing declassification would not give Her Majesty’s Government the power to exercise control over the company; it would merely provide a stake in the company. Before anyone asks, the advice we have had has been very clear that retaining special shareholder rights that would enable the Government to veto corporate policy decisions would effectively amount to state control, and would bring us back to the problem that we are trying to get around. The Government could only have the same rights as any other shareholder in the company.

Here come the tickertape answers to some of the questions that have been put. The hon. Member for Cardiff West asked if I could comment on whether the off-balance sheet treatment is the only reason for the repeal of the legislation. It is the central reason why we need to do it; it is a necessary technical step to liberate the company from the constraints that would otherwise apply. The reason for wanting the bank to be able to operate in the private market is broader than that; we want it to access private capital and to be freer to develop in that growing market.

The hon. Gentleman also asked how much we would expect to raise from a sale. He will not be surprised to learn that I am not in a position to tell him today what that figure would be.

[Kevin Brennan]

Ballpark.

[George Freeman]

Proceeds will depend on how big a stake is sold, on the outcome of negotiations with investors about the value of the company and on how the company’s business plan is judged. We will need to be satisfied that any transaction represents value for money for the taxpayer, and fits with the Government’s wider policy interests and with the best interests of the bank. The hon. Gentleman would obviously not expect me to speculate this afternoon on what figure we would expect and thus undermine the process.

Importantly, the hon. Gentleman also asked me about the £1.8 billion of funding that is left. As he has highlighted, the bank can carry on for at least another year, given that it has £1.8 billion—roughly—in reserves; he suggested that after that period it could start recycling capital. The truth is that to grow its business and invest in accordance with its green business plan, the bank will need access to a much greater volume of capital from a wide range of sources.

The hon. Gentleman asked why there was urgency about this process. What we do not want is to get to a point where the bank has no reserves and badly needs capital. Anyone who has raised money knows that the time to raise it is not when there is no choice but to raise it, because money is desperately needed, but when a company is in a strong position, and has a pipeline, assets and a good track record. We think the bank is in that situation now. We are confident that we can attract private capital into the bank because of its track record and because it is operating successfully.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. A key part of the rationale for proceeding with this move now is that the bank’s momentum—its existing status—is a strength; it is an asset rather than a liability in the context of the bank’s fundraising. So we are actively looking at everything we can do to ensure that clarity about the bank’s status, position and momentum is provided to potential investors. It is not in our interests that there is confusion, and we are addressing that issue.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am still not entirely clear what the Minister meant in his answer about the £1.8 billion, in particular whether that money will remain available for use by the Green Investment Bank or is likely to be returned to the Treasury at some point. Could he just make that clear?

[George Freeman]

Yes, I will happily respond to the hon. Gentleman. There is a slight circularity to this process, because we want to ensure that the bank is in the strongest possible position to raise the maximum possible amount. We are currently in discussions with Her Majesty’s Treasury as part of the spending review and as part of preparing what we want to be a highly successful fundraising exercise. So the bank, the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are in a conversation right now about how best to structure things, so that we maximise the chances of the bank being able to raise money successfully and to continue the momentum with existing projects, because that is a key part of the asset and of the strength of the offering that we want to put to the market.

The hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) made an important point about Scotland. We are of course talking to the devolved Administrations; in fact, I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is speaking to Scotland’s Deputy First Minister later today. Obviously, I will not pre-empt that conversation, but such conversations are ongoing.

I will wrap up by saying that we have had a really excellent debate this afternoon. Again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness—