Great British Energy Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for tabling Amendment 51A. We also believe in a just transition and the need for that to happen alongside support for skills and jobs. One of our issues is that, despite the money invested in the Budget, we still see very low levels of predicted growth coming forward as a result of that investment. There is more for all of us to think about and do to make sure that the transition is a just one that creates green jobs and growth, and that we actually help people transition from the old industries—if I can call them that—to new green industries. This is the second industrial revolution; this stuff is not going away. All the jobs of the future will be green jobs, or we will not have jobs. We need to do more as a society to support that transition.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in strong support of Amendment 55, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. Of course we want to consult widely with farmers, fishermen and communities; after all, these are the people who are most likely to be greatest affected by the generation of renewable energy in the countryside. However, that energy will be consumed in the cities, and so those people will not necessarily see the benefits. The harms could be damaged landscapes, the consumption of land, and the introduction of noise and general disruption from construction. We are looking at towering turbines and new pylons. In my own area, in Norfolk, Diss faces being surrounded—fenced in—on both sides by two huge lines of pylons as part of our drive to net zero. Acres of land are lost to solar, with the loss of jobs in the countryside and the debilitating hum of battery storage.

What can the Minister say about the extent to which the consultation will be coupled with reassurances and promises of compensation for those in parts that are most affected—possibly a reduction in electricity or energy bills? It should not be just the generality of everyone’s electricity or energy bill but particularly those people who are most affected.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Whitty, Lord Hamilton, Lord Teverson, Lord Grantchester and Lord Fuller, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Young, Lady Boycott, Lady McIntosh and Lady Bennett, for their thoughtful contributions so far to this debate. This group has dealt with the critical subject of the strategic priorities of Great British Energy, and we must recognise the importance of this issue.

I begin with Amendment 46. As we discussed on the first day in Committee, the drafting of the Bill is concerningly lacking in detail. Unlike other Bills we have scrutinised in this House, the Great British Energy Bill lacks a clearly defined purpose and does not set out the company’s strategic priorities and plans. I am grateful that Amendment 46 looks to define the impacts of Great British Energy’s strategic priorities: the security of energy supply and the diversification of the ownership of energy facilities for the benefit of people and communities.

By explicitly stating that Great British Energy’s strategic priorities will assist in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency, we would ensure that the £8.3 billion of taxpayers’ money is used effectively for the Government’s stated purpose. Not only this but it is critical that Great British Energy looks to achieve a secure energy supply, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. We saw how that was disrupted with the war in Ukraine. This is not an issue that can go unaddressed when discussing a Bill that the Government claim is so consequential to our country’s energy production, supply and security.

In fact, Clause 3 explicitly states that

“Great British Energy’s objects are restricted to facilitating, encouraging and participating in … measures for ensuring the security of the supply of energy”.

However, the Bill makes no provision to ensure the security and future of our energy supply. We are concerned that there may be some tunnel vision here on renewable energy to achieve the Government’s unilateral, and perhaps overambitious, target of clean energy by 2030; that would inevitably compromise our energy security. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses for addressing this concern in their amendment.

Amendment 47 in my name requires the statement of strategic priorities and plans to include the reduction of household energy bills by £300 by 2030. Throughout the election campaign, the Government repeatedly promised that Great British Energy would cut household bills by an average of £300. A similar claim was made by at least 50 MPs, the Science Secretary and the Work and Pensions Secretary, and even the Chancellor said:

“Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company, will cut energy bills by up to £300”.


In an interview in June, the Secretary of State himself claimed that Great British Energy would lead to a “mind-blowing” reduction in bills by 2030. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, put it so eloquently, the public are hearing this message and must not be misled.

It is worrying that in the other place the Government voted against a Conservative amendment to make cutting energy bills, quoting the £300, a strategic priority for Great British Energy. By doing that, the Government voted against an amendment that would hold them to their word. They voted against ensuring delivery on their promise to cut energy bills for the British people. Why do this? If it is not £300, what is it? The public genuinely believe that Great British Energy, as a new energy company, will supply them with cheap electricity. Can the Minister give the Committee a cast-iron guarantee that GB Energy will cut energy bills? By how much will they be cut?

The pledge to cut household energy bills by up to £300 was not the only promise the Government made during their election campaign. They also promised that Great British Energy would create 650,000 jobs, yet this too was defeated from becoming a strategic object of Great British Energy and is absent from the Government’s Explanatory Notes on the Bill and the Great British Energy founding statement. Why is this? Amendment 48 in my name would ensure that the Government are held to their word and that the creation of 650,000 new jobs is included in the statement of strategic priorities.

These are not trivial matters: they are promises that are important to people. The Government have already put 200,000 jobs at risk with their plans to prematurely shut down North Sea oil and gas. The public are aware of this transition and they want a just transition, but they are hearing of an acceleration in offshore oil and gas to the detriment of jobs and no commitment given as to the new jobs that will replace them. The Secretary of State has made huge promises that greatly impact people’s energy bills, their businesses and their jobs. It is therefore critical that the Government are held accountable.

Amendment 49 in my name would introduce a specific strategic priority for Great British Energy to develop UK energy supply chains and require that an annual report is produced on the progress of meeting this strategic priority. It is essential that our transition to net zero does not increase our reliance on foreign states, as has been mentioned many times, and particularly not on hostile foreign states. I think we all want to see a “Made in Britain” transition, where our offshore wind turbines are constructed by British manufacturing companies and erected by British high-skilled workers, and deliver clean, cheap energy for British homes and businesses. With that in mind, my Amendment 49 would make domestic supply chains a strategic priority for Great British Energy. In this transition to net zero, we are presented with great opportunities for investment and for new jobs. As with employment, we must ensure that British people and domestic companies benefit from the increase in investment we hope to see in the coming years. Therefore, we must not simply outsource this transition; the transition will not be just if it benefits only Chinese companies.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for tabling Amendment 55. It is critical that the Secretary of State must consult with various groups and local communities, including farmers and fishermen, when implementing a statement of priorities that will almost certainly have significant implications for them. I remind noble Lords of Amendments 26 and 110, to which I spoke on the first day in Committee. I raised the importance of local community consultation when the activities of Great British Energy might result in the erection of pylons.

I also draw the attention of noble Lords to Amendments 106 and 107, which will no doubt be addressed in future debate. I too have expressed my concern on the impact of Great British Energy’s functions on coastal communities and commercial fishing. I seek to ensure that an annual report is prepared and published to assess those potential impacts.

I turn to Amendment 50 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I do not intend to be repetitive, but this too is a fundamental issue with the Bill—it lacks strategy. How can the Minister expect the Committee to have thorough debate when the details of the Bill are so vague? The Bill lacks substance and we need to clarify the strategic priorities. However, by addressing amendments such as Amendments 50, and Amendment 73 which will come later in the debate, we can begin to address some of these glaring omissions.

Great British Energy Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I may add a few words to some of the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom. He mentioned the carbon cost of steel, but there is one other element we should not forget. I understand that building pylons to take power overground is cheaper than putting it underground, but I plead with the Minister to accept that there are areas that we should try to protect. In fact, in the long term, it is probably as cheap, if not cheaper, to put power lines underground. I recognise the dilemma that the Minister is in, but we should look at the aesthetic value of what we are talking about, as well as the financial one. I believe that there are some areas of the United Kingdom that we should protect at all costs.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom on carbon accounting. He said that he does not know very much about oilseed rape, but I do. About 20 years ago, in some of the very earliest stages of emissions reduction, I was involved commercially in that.

My noble friend asked that we should have pilot plants and studies to see whether the energy balance of oilseed rape can be done, as if it has never been done before. I can tell your Lordships that pilot plants were set up on Teesside, at enormous expense, and analysed to death. Although this is not a debate on farming, I can say that, at normal yields, when all was said and done, after the ploughing, sowing, fertilising, spraying, harvesting, processing and transportation, you came ahead on a carbon basis only when or if you burned the straw that otherwise would have been left behind in the field. Of course, at low yields, you spent more carbon on growing it than you got back at the end.

I make no other comment save to say that my noble friend is correct that, often, superficially attractive green energy schemes, when you boil them down, cost more carbon than they yield. That is important to look at because, otherwise, we could sleepwalk into an enormous waste of public funds through GB Energy, chasing projects that do not hit the target—which, of course, is to allow us to be more sustainable in future.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. If I may, I will call out the elephant in the room on this Bill. We have had 10 groups of amendments turned into 18 groups on this final day in Committee—over half of the groups that we are discussing today are the result of one party degrouping amendments. We have spent over two hours speaking to the first group of amendments, and we have 18 groups to speak to today. I have heard a lot of speeches, but in the case of many, I could not tell which amendment they were even speaking to.

I will say just this: we support the Government and the Bill. This is an extremely important Bill. I am pleased to see action taken on these measures after the Conservative Party failed to do anything about it, left bill payers vulnerable to the increase in bills as a result of the war in Ukraine and ended up spending £40 billion of taxpayers’ money subsidising bill payers for no long-term benefits. In this group, we are generally supportive of Amendments 61, 65, 69, 70 and 74. For groups that we feel were unnecessarily degrouped, we will probably not make comments.

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Moved by

[Lord Fuller]

67: Clause 6, page 3, line 38, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State must give a specific direction to Great British Energy that it must not facilitate, encourage or participate in the development of renewable energy technologies on agricultural land classified as grade 1, 2 or 3.” Member’s explanatory statement
This would restrict the types of land on which renewable energy technologies can be developed under Great British Energy’s activities, to protect the most productive and versatile land for food production.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 67, 73, 104 and 105 on the Marshalled List stand in my name. This is the first set of amendments I have brought to your Lordships’ House and, on that basis, if I make some small procedural missteps, I ask the Committee to treat me gently.

The purpose of this set of amendments is to protect the best and most versatile land for food production. That is not to say that solar or renewables are intrinsically bad. It is just that solar and renewable energy should be focused on the poorer land and food production on the best. Having needed to dig for victory within living memory, we cannot afford to forget that having food in your belly ranks above having a roof over your head in the hierarchy of the most basic needs. I am not seeking to be obstructionist, but we have to recognise that we are a crowded island and we all have to eat—and you cannot eat a solar panel.

There are plenty of calls on land use, for housing, for water management and drainage, for amenity and the environment, for factories and transport uses and, of course, for food production. My amendment seeks to balance the tension between energy and food production. It cannot be left to an operationally independent private company—GB Energy—and the directors who have no concern for food to get carried away and undermine the food security of our nation.

It is because of these tensions that the last Government proposed a land use framework, so we can strike the right balance as a nation between these competing land uses. I note we are still waiting for that to be published by this Government, who have exhibited quite a cavalier disregard for anything that happens in the sticks, unless they can cover it with concrete or carpet it with panels.

At this stage I should declare my interests as a director of companies involved in the agricultural supply and farming industries. But this is not about my personal interests. Protecting the best and most valuable land is in the national interest. I am not alone in stating this. The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, talks about food security being national security, and I agree.

Put simply, the UK is not self-sufficient in food and continues to rely on the kindness of strangers to feed it. It is important, because last November I asked a Written Question about how many hectares of solar farms were currently being considered under the NSIP regime. The answer came back that there were about two farms covering 1,400 hectares under consideration. Now, I know in Norfolk alone there are 7,000 hectares and five schemes. It is the same elsewhere. The Government have simply lost control of the numbers on renewables. They are unsighted on the stampede to take our best land out of production and lock it away for a generation. There is an unthinking dash for renewables overlaid by a reckless indifference about one of our largest industries: the food industry, the backbone of private enterprise on our shores. GB Energy has no concern for any of this, but it should. That gets to the heart of why these amendments are needed to the Bill. We cannot afford to be careless with our food supply.

Last year national wheat yield was down 25%, from over 14 million tonnes to about 11 million. It is partly explained by bad weather, but also by so much productive land being temporarily placed in environmental schemes— there was a herd effect. I am pleased to say that plantings have bounced back this season; but that 25% reduction should serve as a warning about the fragility of our food supply.

A casual approach to land use materially affected our ability to feed ourselves before anyone even realised. As I say, the cultivated land has bounced back this year and the damage has been repaired, but when land is converted to solar it is locked away not for one season but for 30 years—a whole generation. That is consequential; we cannot accidentally sleepwalk into locking away our best land. It needs a more planned approach and that is why we need directions.

I am grateful to your Lordships’ Library for providing me with a best estimate of the different types of farmed land here in the UK. In essence, Natural England estimates that, under the classification system established in 1966, about 21% of the land under cultivation and grazing is grade 1 or 2, and 21% is the upper end of good grade 3—the best and most versatile land. If we make an allowance for the lower end of grade 3, I suggest that about half the 8.9 million hectares of farmed land in England could be classified as the most productive and worthy of protection. This is the land that is the subject of these amendments.

I am not going to dwell on the difficulties the Library tells me it had in collating this information, but if we just accept—and be gentle with me—that about half the land is grade 1, 2 or 3, which is the best land, that would still earmark about 4.5 million hectares for non-food uses, including renewables. I am going to refrain from describing this vast area—4.5 million hectares—in the traditional unit of measure, which is probably football pitches. I venture to say that 4.5 million hectares is about two Waleses, or nine Norfolks. I have heard it said that the amount of land that could be devoted to solar, even in the most adventurous scenario, is probably no larger than the area devoted to the UK’s golf courses, but that is to miss the point. If indeed the coverage is much less than 1%, there is nothing to fear from protecting the best land. In other words, if my amendment is accepted, there will still be plenty of the worst land for renewables, just not in the places where the best land feeds us.

Let us move on to the economics. Thanks to this Government, the public now start to realise how farmers work in difficult conditions to eke out a precarious existence in a risky enterprise buffeted by weather and global trade issues. The reward for this all effort is about £200 per acre, often having invested millions in productive plant and equipment such as sprayers, tractors and combines. These farmers are being offered about £900 per acre to sit on the beach, with no-risk, index-linked income streams for 40 years, by giving up farming and installing panels on their land. There are whispers that, should they do this, after a passage of time that land would then be zoned as previously developed land, rather than farmland, and be worth considerably more as a result. You cannot blame landowners for seeking to covert to solar—except that some landowners want to turf off their tenants, and that is no good. It is a completely rational thing to accept, and completely in their private interest to do so. This amendment recognises that, while it may be in their private interest, it is not in the national interest. We cannot have a situation where it is open season for renewables regardless of the wider consequences.

The state exists to arbitrate between the private and public interest, and I say that we cannot be cavalier or careless with our food supply, however much we crave clean energy. We need to strike the balance between eating and heating. That means ensuring that food is preferentially produced on the grades 1 and 2 land, while accepting that grades 4 and 5 can contribute in other ways—that is the way forward. That said, even where grades 4 and 5 land could be contemplated for renewable energy, it is often the case that while some of this is impaired in agricultural terms, it has other values. Some of those values may include amenity value, outstanding landscape value or contribution to a wider social benefit, perhaps in an area of natural beauty. It is for this reason that, even in cases where land may be at the poorer end of production, changes in use to solar or renewables should be consulted on by residents within a 20-mile buffer of the widest proposed land extent. My amendment 104 provides for this stipulation.

Taken together, my amendments seek to establish and enforce the balance and tension between the private and public interests. That is what the state is for: to protect us from the herd effect that can stampede a whole industry in a particular direction before it can be appreciated what is happening, as we saw last spring.

I want to talk about why it is important that GB Energy is constrained by these amendments to the Bill. It is partly because no one in the countryside is prepared to take anything on trust from this Government going forward. Labour does not really understand the countryside—but I tell you, the countryside understands Labour.

Great British Energy is a company. There is to be a fiduciary board, and there are duties under the Companies Act 2006 to promote its self-interest—the private interest. The Secretary of State will be empowered by the Bill to make certain directions, but we would not need these amendments if the nature of those directions were already in the Bill. We should not be surprised if, left uncontrolled, GB Energy acts as company law requires: in the best private interests of the company, not the public interest of the country. It is not scaremongering; it is what we have just seen, having spent hours and hours debating the Water Bill, so there is precedent for wanting these sorts of controls.

My amendments would require the Secretary of State to ensure that GB Energy focuses its activities in such a way that it does not undermine our food security—our national security—and that it acts in the wider national interest and does not pursue its own private interest. There is no such requirement, so it falls to us to ensure that there is.

My amendments are important for another reason, and I want to dwell on an economic reason why they are is so important. I referred to the nature of the contracts being offered to farmers to incentivise them to give up food production and sit on the beach: long-term, state-backed, secure income streams that are index-linked, underpinned by a physical asset in a country with strong property and commercial rights. These are the sorts of investments that pension funds around the world seek out. The parcelling, packaging and collateralising of such assets into derivatives is what Wall Street thrives on. If we do not apply limits, we risk the perverse incentive that would convert much more than 1% of the British countryside—a huge amount of land—into nothing more than a global energy play, with the benefits transferred to offshore territories, controlled from who knows where. The countryside is not there to be collateralised, so GB Energy should be directed to give preference to the hard-grafting and toiling farmers of the best lands, who feed us, rather than driving the countryside in the direction of providing passive income for global investors elsewhere.

Failure to accept these amendments would be a policy designed to kill the family farm even faster than the Government are planning to do so already, transferring control of much of the countryside to Wall Street, while British jobs—proper jobs—and real family businesses are greenwashed out of existence. Rural Britain will be rinsed unless we get a grip here, with its landscape and environment impaired.

To summarise, the stampede for solar is economically rational for individual farmers, but economically illiterate for the countryside and our environment. It is not a matter of food security versus energy security: I know we need to keep the lights on, but we have all got to eat. Food security and energy security can and should be bedfellows, and this amendment provides a sensible framework whereby they can live alongside each other, in the national interest, and with the consent of those most directly affected by the installations.

In essence, GB Energy should be required by statute to prevent a repeat of—a modern version of—the Highland clearances on the lowlands, in an unthinking and unconscious dash for renewables on our best land. GB Energy cannot have operational independence over our food supply without limit or regard to consequence. Can the Minister tell us why the Government would be against this when, under my proposal, we could still have nine Norfolks-worth or two Wales-worth of land to work with, but at least with the security of food in our bellies? I beg to move.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, on his first set of amendments. Of course, he is right that our food security is very important indeed to this country, just as moving as quickly as we can towards clean power is also very important, and I certainly accept that of course there is a balance to be drawn. Certainly, the importance of maintaining our natural resources to support UK agriculture, and supporting local stakeholder consultation in affairs that affect their surroundings and the quality of the environment, are values that I share with noble Lords who have spoken in the debate tonight. But I must come back to the fact that we are talking about Clause 6 and the issue of whether we should seek to amend Clause 6 in the directions that the Secretary of State can give to GBE.

I repeat what I said in the first two groups: these directions are a backstop where an intervention is needed, not a way in which to develop policy in relation to land use. In response to my noble friend Lady Young and other noble Lords, my understanding is that the Government plan to publish a 12-week consultation on land use early in this year. The consultation will inform the publication of a land use framework in England, to be published later on in this year.

I have also noted constructive comments about the need for us to develop—indeed, some noble Lords wish us to mandate—the use of solar in warehouses and in industrial and domestic properties, and these matters are under very urgent consideration at the moment. But we will always need ground-based solar, as well as onshore wind, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, suggested, which of course is why we got rid of what was in effect a ban that the last Government so grievously introduced in relation to that development.

The projects that GBE will be concerned with, that it will invest in and that it will give guidance and encouragement to—because of course that is an important part of its role, too—will be mandated. Inevitably, its job will be to consider government guidance on the most suitable land for renewable energy projects, and any project that it is involved in will be subject to the same rigorous planning processes that currently exist to protect agricultural land, minimise the impact on food security and provide ample consideration for local community interests.

The environmental impact assessment regulations of 2017 require that certain types of projects, including large-scale renewable energy developments, undergo an environmental impact assessment to assess their potential impact on the environment. Developers must also ensure that their projects comply with environmental regulations, which can include mitigating impacts on local wildlife, water resources and soil quality.

Further, the National Planning Policy Framework includes the preservation of agricultural land for food production as a key consideration in its legal framework governing renewable energy projects. It emphasises the need to protect the best and most versatile agricultural land, namely grades 1, 2 and 3a, from development that could compromise its productivity. Developers must consider the classification of the land involved in renewable energy projects and ensure that developments do not conflict with planning policies aimed at safeguarding agricultural land.

On the noble Lord’s suggestion that there is a dash for renewables, yes, there is a dash for renewables—I do not deny it. We have to have a dash for renewables. But that does not mean that existing protections are being overridden. Of course we recognise that poorly sited onshore projects can have impacts on the local area, which is why we will retain important checks and balances to protect the environment.

But, in the end, we come back to why we have Clause 6. It is a backstop power which we hope will never have to be used; it is not a way of seeking to change policy in relation to land use.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, we have had a good debate that has explored the tensions between food and energy security in the context of the national interest. It has recognised the tensions between the establishment of a private company, GB Energy, acting as it is required to do in its own narrow self-interest, and its responsibilities as a public body with a duty to set the right example.

I have taken from some of the comments that, “Lord Fuller has perhaps played the right notes but in the wrong order”. I am not Morecambe and Wise to my noble friend Lord Roborough, but I would just like to refer to some of the points that have come along.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, for his comments on the balance of land use and the importance of the “tilted balance”. Please do not misunderstand: my amendments are not saying that there should be no solar or renewables, or that we should have only food production. It is about where we put this thing in the tilted balance.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Roborough for shining a light on the fact that, notwithstanding that the Minister said, “Well, there are rules to be followed”, the rules are not being followed. That is why it is important that these amendments are made to the Bill, because we cannot really give the benefit of the doubt: if hitherto they have not been followed, why will they be followed now?

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, but even more grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, for being gentle with her so I did not have to be.

The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, talked about the broad picture, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, for his point about tenants, because that has been lost as part of the social fabric in this.

I will be brief. This is such an important issue that I do not feel we can just leave it on trust that the Minister for Energy Security will necessarily dovetail in with the Minister for Food Production to get that tilted balance right. The nation cannot risk GB Energy going rogue, and there has to be a better way with that. It is hard. Energy security and food security can be bedfellows: we are not being fundamentalist about this. At heart, my amendments are about putting food production on the best land, and solar and other renewables on other land.

We have we have fleshed out quite a few details and I know we are in Committee. I hope the Minister will meet with me and colleagues before Report, so that important safeguards can be taken into account in the Bill, if not in Clause 6 then perhaps somewhere else—who knows? I also hope that we may even have the heralded land use framework which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, promised before Christmas—but there we are.

On the basis that the Minister will meet me, I am prepared to withdraw these amendments, but in so doing I signal my intention to re-present them on Report, having taken soundings from colleagues that, if we cannot make satisfactory progress towards getting an acceptable way forward, we may need to test the opinion of the House. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 67 withdrawn.

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[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 85G and 85H in my name.

In this week of all weeks, when temperatures have dropped to minus 20 in parts of our nation and we are down to less than a week’s-worth of gas, it is time for the rhetoric on renewables to collide with the reality of what it takes to power our economy and protect the comfort and well-being of our citizens. There could not be a better moment to have this debate, with Mother Nature dialling a wake-up call to us all.

We need to be more realistic about the practicality of heating and lighting our homes, grounded in the world as it is rather than how we want it to be. The purpose of these amendments is to ensure that GB Energy takes a structured and quantitative approach to investing in energy production from renewable and wind energy assets. These investment plans would be evidence on an annualised basis, but broken down into monthly segments to reflect the seasonality that we all experience, with mandatory monitoring on a monthly basis. At its heart, my amendment seeks to force GB Energy to use a data-driven approach to address the structural energy gap we get every winter and, inter alia, to use that data to prioritise investments in energy assets that give energy security above the desirability of decarbonisation.

Energy security and decarbonisation are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but when the UK’s energy balance is published monthly, as these amendments would require, it will act as an obvious spur on investments to keep the lights on every month as a first and primary duty. These amendments do not dilute the ambition of GB Energy or abandon the obvious desirability of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. However, requiring GBE to publish its plans for renewables and to address the predictable gaps that come each year will bring some reality to the rhetoric.

This country is bumping on empty this week—it is a serious matter. We are too reliant on the kindness of strangers to heat our homes. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, head of your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee says, the crux of the matter is the robustness of our plans for

“the doldrums of winter when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow”.

I am not rubbishing renewables but we need to be less starry-eyed about their ability to make the contribution some have thought they can, especially in winter. The amendments would therefore require GB Energy to be specific about how its investments in renewable and wind energy assets, and the planned additional investments over its existing ones, will contribute to the aggregate energy demand in monthly slices. There is a purpose to this, which is to ensure that when we flick the switch, the light comes on; when we press the button, the motor whirrs into action; and when you open the bill, you should not have to fall over in shock.

I am not interested in adding bureaucracy; NESO has a responsibility to produce these aggregate demands and I do not intend to interfere with those. But we know that there are seasonal variations in sunshine, and as with solar, also with wind; we all know the wind tends to blow harder in the winter as storms barrel across the Atlantic. My amendment will require GBE to take this predictable seasonality into account in its investment plans, to ensure that those investments in renewables can realistically contribute to meeting the energy requirement on a monthly basis, especially in winter. It is also about holding GBE accountable for the hard-nosed business of addressing these predictable structural energy gaps in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, highlighted, working hand in glove with NESO to address the market failure.

It sounds obvious that this should be the case, but my sense is that the Government are primarily focused on decarbonisation, even if it just ramps up surpluses in the summer that require these constraint payments to pay wind turbines to be switched off. If we are chasing carbon alone, we are missing the point. We need to balance renewables and wind investments in a way that also balances energy markets every month so that we do not run out of juice when it is cold.

This is important, because the total amount of standby generation capacity that we need is scaled by the months with the greatest deficit. It is on not an annual basis but a monthly basis. Because we have these predictable gaps, we pay standby gas power stations millions to keep ticking over, ready to jump into action when needed. Control rooms up and down the country are staffed by people playing patience and waiting for that call. That is expensive. It also underpins the entire speculative subculture in energy markets, in a process that the Daily Telegraph last week called the “gasino”, whereby speculators make a fortune while householders pick up the tab.

My colleagues have noted that the Guardian reported this week that two gas-fired power stations were paid £12 million for just three hours of electricity. We should not be surprised. Running a power station is expensive—there are staff, there is capital and maintenance, with people sitting around waiting for that call—and it is expensive to provide this insurance. The truth is that we are having to pay twice for much of our electricity, once for the renewable capacity, which we hope will boil that kettle, then again to have non-renewables on standby, ready to leap into action so that we can ensure that we can boil that kettle when the mercury falls. The consequence is that we are paying for some of the most expensive electricity in the world. Our costs rose 124% in five years, according to government figures. The UK’s energy price per kilowatt hour was 25.85p per kilowatt hour in 2023—significantly higher than in Germany, France and the US. We are becoming structurally uncompetitive as a result.

If enacted, my proposals would mean that the company’s objectives and functions would be forced by the market and public opinion to rank energy security above the decarbonisation function. That way, our £8 billion investment in GBE will keep the lights on. That is how we get best value from those investments, and we have energy markets that work more efficiently and at lower costs, which is a good thing. I expect the Minister to say, “Well, this is all rather burdensome”, and give ifs and buts and ask why would we need to publish this stuff. However, nobody questions when the OBR on a monthly basis publishes the forecast for the Bank of England. I do not see why, if it is good enough for the Bank of England, the GBE should not be forced to publish its investments as well.

I mentioned in the earlier debate how GB Energy is a private company, but it is established for public benefit. Publicising its plans and monitoring them is for the benefit of the public. It should not be entitled to cloak its activities in secrecy, as a private company established under the Companies Act 2006 would normally be expected to do. Mandating a monthly look at the markets, with a view to reducing the amount of back-up generation that we need, would avoid the perverse incentive to invest in renewables that make the surplus even greater. We do not want to overprovide standby back-up, so we end up paying excessive compensation payments, and we pay people more than is necessary to play solitaire in those control rooms. We do not want to underprovide, so that speculators hold us over a barrel in the short squeeze.

It follows that the requirement to publish the plan, to invest with the purpose of reducing the monthly or the predictable energy gaps, ensures that it brings a dose of reality to the complicated job of not only calculating the gap but doing something about it. That is where GB Energy can have a good, effective and ambitious role. Success looks like GBE publishing the plans and data so that we can see how effective it has been in needing fewer people in the control rooms by minding that gap, seeing fewer people falling over when they open their bill and a realistic, data-driven, balanced energy market that is not held hostage by ideology so much, so that we can move our economy forward—to keep the lights on and keep those motors whirring.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 85F, tabled by my noble friend Lord Murray and Amendments 85G and 85H tabled by my noble friend Lord Fuller. As I explained in an earlier group, it is very clear that the price of electricity is presently adversely affected by the pricing mechanism applied by NESO, which is the price being determined by the last price of gas as used. If you are using gas only as a balancing item—that is, when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, you fire up a gas power station to make sure the lights do not go out—it is much more expensive. The electricity generated by that last switch on of a gas power station determines the price of electricity, and that has a huge negative effect on the consumer, obviously. That is why these amendments are so necessary.

I would like to ask the Minister if he thinks that it is right that the electricity price is determined by the last firing up of a gas power station, which is being used simply as a balancing item when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. As we have seen over the last few days, there have been many days when the proportion of our electricity generated from wind is under 10% and that generated by gas goes above 50%, which means that power stations that are used only occasionally are being fired up, and that is very expensive.