Great British Energy Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 111 and 112 in my name, and in support of Amendment 113, in the name of my noble friend Lord Fuller.

Amendment 111 would require the Secretary of State to assess the impact on the environment and animal welfare standards of the installation and generation of offshore wind energy technologies. Amendment 112, also in my name, similarly requires an environmental impact assessment, but with the focus on the decommissioning of oil and gas structures.

The threat posed by the installation and generation of offshore wind farms and tidal energy is not new to the House. Many will be familiar with these concerns, as we on these Benches raised such issues in Committee in debates on the Crown Estate Bill, and discussed the purpose of electricity generation and the Crown Estate’s role in the stewardship of our seabed.

In considering the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Fuller, we must again address the Crown Estate’s strategic and unprecedented partnership with Great British Energy, which is estimated to result in up to 30 gigawatts of new offshore wind developments reaching seabed lease stage by 2030. We should expect to see considerable and accelerated growth in offshore renewable energy projects, with offshore wind contributing significantly to these efforts. The UK is the second largest offshore wind market in the world. Under the new Government, allocation round 6 has awarded 5.4 gigawatts of offshore energy contracts across fixed and floating offshore wind and tidal stream.

The speed and scale of these planned developments raises concerns about the impact on the marine ecosystem, as expressed by bodies such as Birdlife International. As stewards of our seabed and investors in and facilitators of offshore renewable energy projects, the Crown Estate and GB Energy have a duty to assess the impact of offshore energy installation and generation. GB Energy must restrict such installation and generation if it is found to cause the environment and its associated animals harm. Environmental concerns linked to the installation of offshore energy projects and the operation of these technologies include, but are not limited to, increased noise levels, the distortion in light pollution, and the potential impact on carbon storage and the biodiversity of the seabed and its composition.

In an overview of the ecological impacts of offshore wind on the marine environment, Birdlife International highlighted the impact of the installation and operation of offshore wind farms on marine animals. It found that the installation and generation of offshore wind technologies produces underwater noise, affecting the echo location behaviour of marine mammals. Porpoises, seals and marine birds have been shown to be displaced by wind farms, with some marine birds displaying consistent avoidance behaviour during breeding seasons. Noise pollution produced by piledriving has also been found to impact the behaviour of pelagic fish.

I have briefly outlined the impacts on our environment caused by offshore wind, yet other technologies also have the potential to cause significant harm. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Fuller for addressing the threat tidal energy poses to the fish which inhabit our seas. As he will no doubt discuss this impact in more detail, I will succinctly outline the problems associated with tidal energy generation, which is foreseen to increase rapidly in the coming years. Tidal turbines in open water could result in additional mortality caused by rotor blade collision. This is significant, as tidal waters serve as key feeding areas for fish, as well as passage corridors for migratory fish. Other risks include changes in underwater noise, electromagnetic fields and habitats, and displacement.

Finally, I hope the Minister will listen to the concerns highlighted in the amendments in this group and will confirm to the Committee that he recognises that Great British Energy is in a unique and critical position to assess and minimise the impact of offshore energy installations on our environment and the marine life which inhabits it.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 113. I have previously tabled amendments to the Bill on land, and now I return to the sea, which well fits someone whose territorial designation is Gorleston-on-Sea in the county of Norfolk.

These amendments require the Secretary of State to assess the impact on the environment and animal welfare standards of the installation and generation of tidal energy technologies and their associated cabling. When we consider tidal energy, I am not thinking just about the fish, important though they are—in the tidal races, the machines can mash their flesh—but about sea-birds and the rest of the marine flora and fauna. I am thinking about not just living creatures but the wider environmental effects that may happen slightly away from the installations of the machines themselves, in the associated cabling that links those machines to land—a topic I will return to.

I am not against harnessing this almost inexhaustible supply of energy. The energy is there; it is year-round, predictable and reliable. It deserves to be won and it should be won. But I am not starry-eyed about the practicality of building machines that can survive in the most hostile environment, pounded by the seas and eaten away by salt-water corrosion. I am involved in the liquid fertiliser business, so I know more than most how hard it is to reliably engineer things in these tough, salt-aggressive environments. It is hard to engineer reliability in these unforgiving places, but that does not mean we should not try.

We know that tidal generation is best located where the water flows fastest—where it is choked through the channels, so that the speed naturally increases—so the machines can operate most effectively. Last November, I visited Saint-Malo and saw for myself the world’s first tidal barrage power station, opened in 1966; it is nearly 60 years old. It was a really impressive spectacle. It is cheap energy, but it has not come without cost. Thomas Adcock, an associate professor in the department of engineering science at the University of Oxford, says that there has been a “major environmental impact” on the Rance estuary as a result of the tidal station. He said that

“this would make it very difficult to get permission to do such a barrage again”.

Researchers point to the adverse impacts on marine life of altering sedimentation patterns, as well as the impact on oxygen and nutrient levels in the water. I saw for myself that the fast-flowing water passing through the 24 turbines left nowhere for the fish to go. Sand-eels and plaice have disappeared, and the silting has reduced the number and variation of other fauna. Sand-eels are the subject of the very first post-Brexit EU fishing trade spat, and of course they are the preferred diet of British sea sea-birds, so this is an important matter. It is in the public interest that this all be taken into account, so that mitigations can be put in place.

My amendment would require GB Energy to take into account a number of factors and to continuously monitor them when assessing energy proposals. Examples include the cumulative impacts of the installations when considered alongside the predicted impacts of other projects in the area; transboundary impacts, whereby activities in other countries, such as commercial fishing, may be affected, as we have seen; and interrelationships whereby impacts on one receptor, such as noise, can have a knock-on effect on another and disturb species. Examples include sub-sea noise, which my noble friend mentioned, physical processes such sedimentation flow —we saw this in France—and the updated navigational risk assessment possibly deflecting vessels into the path of other sensitive zones.

For offshore tidal proposals, perhaps with tethered devices, we must have regard to the cables that will transfer the energy to the coast. Coming from Norfolk, I take particular interest in the Cromer shoal chalk beds marine conservation zone. It is one of 91 such protection zones established by the last Government, by an organisation lately chaired by my noble friend Lord Banner. The MCZ is a protected inshore site 200 metres off the north Norfolk coast, extending about 10 kilometres out to sea and covering 321 square kilometres. It protects our diverse species. It is predominantly sandy, but the chalk beds provide a stable surface for seaweeds and static animals to settle and grow, and they are home to the Cromer crab, one of the important exports of our county; it is an important source of economic activity too. So, even though marine energy machines may be some miles offshore, we need to consider the whole cable system as well, particularly if it passes through places like the Cromer MCZ on its way to the grid.

None of this is mentioned in the Bill, which is a slim Bill with fat consequences. The Secretary of State is not required to give directions to GBE to take these important environmental safeguards into account. My previous amendments observed that GB Energy is a company: there is to be a fiduciary board, and it is established under the Companies Act 2006 to promote its private self-interest. So, unless it is constrained, we should not be surprised if GB Energy acts in its private interests, not the country’s interests. If it follows purely commercial principles, why should it need to take the marine environment into account unless it is directed to? This amendment would require the Secretary of State to provide such directions.

I expect the Minister to say, “This is all very well but it is not really necessary”. However, we must learn lessons from the water Bill, which flowed through this House as an example of what to do when you have a private company that is established for public purposes yet strays from the path. I do not want a repeat of that. Success does not look like having successive legislation later to cure the unintended consequences of GB Energy getting carried away because it acts in the private interest, not the public one.

Let us put protections in the Bill now. This amendment would provide a simple safeguard, along with those proposed by my noble friend Lord Offord of Garvel, so that the Secretary of State is directed to ensure that sensible precautions are taken to protect our fisheries, sea-birds and other flora and fauna in the whole end-to-end tidal generation system, from the coast all the way to the grid. I am not trying to block tidal power and I am certainly not seeking to add cost or complexity—still less a set of directions or to provide excessive control. My concern is to make sure that this private body, established for public purpose, acts in the wider public interest—not just its self-interest—as to its environmental responsibility and sets an example to others.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Offord’s Amendments 111 and 112, to which I have added my name. It has become increasingly apparent, from many points of view, that impact assessments are necessary. In particular, in exercising its functions, GBE should be required to consider the environmental impact and the effect on sea-birds and marine life of its installation of offshore wind facilities, as well as of its decommissioning of oil and gas structures.

I also support my noble friend Lord Fuller’s Amendment 113, which seeks to place the same obligation on GBE with reference to tidal energy projects. I have looked for information on both the Sound of Islay project and the Bristol Channel project, both of which I was reasonably familiar with some years ago but about which I have heard nothing in recent years. I am heartened by my noble friend’s enthusiasm for the sector and look forward to hearing whether the Minister expects that GBE will be encouraged to make investments in it. As my noble friend Lord Fuller said, this is a slim Bill with fat consequences. We have to make sure that GBE will act in the public interest.