Severn Barrage

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, anyone who has crossed the Rance barrage near St Malo in France will have seen the attraction of being able to harness the tides to generate electricity. Of course, it is a very narrow dam and it is entirely sheltered in the great bay that St Malo stands on—totally different from what we have in the Severn or the Bristol Channel. I have long seen the attractiveness of trying to do it, but from what I have read and studied, this proposal by Hafren Power is simply not the way that it is going to be done.

My noble friend Lord Cope referred to the effect on the ports, particularly the ports of Bristol and Portbury. I would like to say a word or two about that. The thing that has always puzzled me is how on earth it was going to be financed—and there has been a lot of discussion—other than if the Government were going to find the money. As noble Lords will realise, that is not currently feasible. Therefore, is it going to come from the private sector? We do not know. Hafren Power has been extraordinarily economical with its business plan. It has published documents, but not given any real indication of what the whole business case is. The negative impact that this would have on the port of Bristol has been full spelled out to me by the port company. I have greatly admired what it has done in recent years. My noble friend referred to some of the investments and improvements that have been made. Its growth depends entirely on its competitiveness, and its ability to attract shipping in and out in competition with the many other ports that this country has.

This company’s brief refers to,

“the immediate and ongoing impact of commercial blight on their operations and in the longer term if a barrage was consented and built, the drastic impact the change in the tidal range would have on the viability of the port”.

It says it,

“would eventually lead to closure of the port at the cost of many thousands of real jobs”.

That is its view, and I have not seen the answer to that.

Hafren Power has attempted to answer the points, but I am sure that I am not alone in having seen the port of Bristol’s meticulous attack on the Hafren Power paper in which it describes Hafren Power’s claims as far-fetched, unfounded, naive and ignorant of the way a port in this country is operated. I cannot help feeling that this has all been made perfectly clear to the Select Committee, but it is desperately important. My noble friend has said that this threat should be removed and we should be looking again, as others have said, to alternative methods of harnessing the power of the tides in the Bristol Channel and the Severn estuary.