Energy Bill

Lord Oxburgh Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I was in China the week before last, in Xi’an and Beijing. I will say just this. Having witnessed the smog that inhabits the whole of Xi’an and Beijing, and from my conversations with Chinese opinion-formers—who made it clear that they look to this country and recognise their own failings in not having tackled these problems earlier—I can confirm everything that the noble Lord, Lord Stern, has said about China. For those and other reasons, I support the amendment.

[Lord Oxburgh (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, support these amendments. We have to recognise that the Bill has been a long time in gestation. What has changed since the Bill was originally conceived is that the bottom has dropped out of the coal price. It is very important to point out to the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that in fact cheap coal does not mean cheap power: it means big profits for the owners of coal-fired power stations. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, pointed out, the electricity price is effectively tied to the gas price because of the operation of the mechanisms. As things are at present, it is effectively the low coal price that is driving the operation of coal-fired power stations and giving very substantial profits to those companies that have them. Indeed, roughly half that capacity is owned and operated by the big six.

I will not draw on your patience longer, but simply say that I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. There is effectively a chicken-and-egg situation here. Unless we give the market the certainty that these amendments would give, we shall not see the investment in gas that is needed to maintain the attainability of our longer-term targets.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin has rightly pointed to the crucial problem, which is: how do we deal with that period in which there is fear that the lights will not stay on? That is a proper fear to have and should be the first fear of any Government, because there is a responsibility to keep the lights on. There ought to be a second fear, too: namely, that we keep the lights on in such a way that the next generation has an even worse position, because we have polluted the atmosphere further and made the fact of dangerous climate change even greater. We naturally have to look at this very carefully.

However, on this occasion it seems that those who are most concerned with keeping the lights on, and I certainly put myself in that category, and those who are also concerned with climate change, and I put myself in that category, too, are in fact pushing at the same door. If we do not have a mechanism whereby it is sensible to invest in gas, that bit of the transition will not take place. That would seem to most of us to make it more difficult to provide affordably for the energy that we need.

The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, as so often, put his finger on one of the other problems. When we talk about these things, let us not confuse the cost of production with the price at which it is sold. Those of us who, like me, have represented constituencies, know how many people are close to the edge when it comes to warming their homes. The whole question of affordability is utterly crucial. However, the idea that if we burnt coal we would get cheap power is not so. We need to have a mixture—a portfolio of means of generation—in which gas will play its part.

We have heard a lot recently about the opportunities that shale gas will give us. I find both extremes unacceptable—from those who think it means the end of the world at one end to those at the other who feel that it will be a game-changing matter. They are both wrong, but there is a place for gas. If that gas were produced at home, that would contribute considerably, not to a lowering in cost because it would have little to do with that, but to greater energy sovereignty, which is worth while.

The question is how we move from a situation which we hardly imagined, because the bottom had not fallen out of the coal market, in which we have to provide for the transition from coal to gas to one in which we do provide for that transition. The difficulty is that I suspect both those who tabled the amendments and the Government are on the same side—both groups want to achieve this. The real question is that there is a kind of fear of letting go of nurse’s hand—that is, the coal—in case we do not get the gas. I would like to turn it around the other way: if we do not do this, I am not at all sure that we will get the gas. That is crucial. I hope very much that the Government will enable us to have a situation in which we provide for that transition.

I have been trying very hard during these debates to remain entirely independent because all I have spoken are the words that the Committee on Climate Change, which I chair, has put forward. The committee has made it clear that it feels that this kind of transition needs to be facilitated in this way. I do not want to make this a great division because I do not think it is one; it is a question of how we do this safely in the new circumstances to which the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, referred.

I very much hope that my noble friend will be able to give us confidence in the Government’s answering of this question if she is unable to accept the amendments that are put before her. If we do not do one or other, we will find ourselves unable to guarantee reasonable prices or the continuance of the lights being on because we have not made the transference that is essential in any case and which I thought everyone supported.