Severn Barrage

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend raises an important point. Until we have a more detailed plan, we are unable, on the information we have at the moment, to make a complete assessment of the impact on consumers. We do know that alternative energy is providing us with good value at the moment, and offshore wind is one of those energies.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords—

[Lord Cope of Berkeley]

My Lords—

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

Developing the important questions just asked by my noble friend Lord Anderson and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and accepting the importance of the environmental considerations that the Minister has rightly mentioned, will she bear in mind that this project is convincingly financeable at present and prospective rates of interest? That is an important reason for a quick decision. Effectively, it would be a free gift of an enormous increase in renewable energy in Britain. It would also be of great benefit to reviving the economy and employment in south-east Wales.

[Baroness Verma]

I come back to my original point, which I have stated a number of times. I understand where the noble Lord is coming from in his commentary. However, given that the consortium will no doubt look for subsidies for the contract from energy bills for this particular energy as well, it is incumbent on the Government to make sure that they deliver best value to the British public. At this time, we are working with the consortium on a much more detailed plan. We have not ruled it out, but we want more detail about what it proposes to do. At the moment we are not satisfied on that.