Severn Barrage

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I understand the noble Lord’s concerns. The consortium to which he refers submitted a business case to DECC in November 2011. In 2012 we asked for some supplementary information and we have had a series of meetings with the consortium at ministerial and official level, but none of these satisfies having enough of the detailed evidence on the economic and environmental impacts of the scheme that we require. The noble Lord will understand that until we get more detail about the plans it will be difficult to make a decision.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, would the noble Baroness put the Hafren Power proposal within her category of well developed proposals? From the viewpoint of south Wales, it would be a tragedy if we did not look seriously at this—the biggest renewable energy project in Europe, which would harvest the natural powers of the Severn—and missed the opportunity. It would generate 50,000 jobs and improve flood protection. Most importantly, it could be developed without any contribution from public funds. Is the noble Baroness aware that there is considerable support in Wales for this project, and are the Government giving it a fair wind? What is the Government’s preliminary response to the Hafren Power proposal?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, in my Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I laid out that we are taking all proposals very seriously. However, as the noble Lord will be aware, it would not be right for the Government to take a decision until they are completely satisfied that the mitigation plans against environmental impacts that need to be in place are in place. We have made it clear to all consortia that we are interested in looking at how we can harness energy. We need a good mixture of energy but we also need to ensure that it is viable economically and environmentally.