Energy Bill

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Will my noble friend tell the Committee what is wrong with France? We have an interconnector already. Perhaps there will in future be greater surplus capacity in France which it would be willing to sell to us on a capacity market basis or directly or a mixture of the two, and perhaps it is worth investing in a bigger interconnector. I think the present one is 2 gigawatts, so perhaps it should be another 2 gigawatts. What about Scotland if it chooses to become an independent country? This amendment is permissive. It does not require for its good sense that there should be certainty that it could be utilised. It is attempting to make sure that others have a proper incentive for participating in our capacity market to mutual advantage if they are capable of doing so.