Energy Bill

Lord Turner of Ecchinswell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief about this. I understand the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, and I accept that he is trying to reach a compromise. This Bill started with the support of all parties in Parliament. I was a little disappointed to hear the noble Baroness’s complaints that the Bill does not meet many of the requirements that she would wish to see in it, but on the whole her party has supported the Bill. Indeed, it has gone further and recognised that the Bill’s passage is deeply important to the future of our energy industries here.

My noble friend Lord Lawson described it as the worst Bill he had ever seen, took part in the first day of Committee and we have not heard from him since. The fact is that everybody else who has taken part in the passage of the Bill has recognised that the new machinery, which sets up the electricity market reform as an essential part of our generation and consumption measures, is crucial for foreign investment—for all investment, but particularly when we have some of the larger foreign companies willing to invest in this country. Nothing upsets them more than if they see that there is uncertainty in Parliament over the Bill.

Picking up one point made by my noble friend Lady Verma, we have offered the other House a chance to consider the amendment that was carried in this House. It was firmly rejected by a much larger majority there than passed it here. That is the purpose of this House. We have done it. It would be extremely damaging to the general intentions of this Bill if, yet again, we were to send it back to the other place. It would send the wrong message.

I understand the points, made by the noble Viscount, that there may be some marginal advantages. I have had representations from the gas industry about this. The overwhelming reason, however, that we should reject the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, is that the Bill needs to be passed. It should be passed without any further delay. For that reason, I intend to vote very firmly against his amendment.

[Lord Turner of Ecchinswell (CB)]

My Lords, I speak in favour of the amendment. I find it difficult to understand, for anybody who concentrates not on tactical issues such as the speed of passing of the legislation but simply on the wording, what their opposition in principle could be. The simple fact of the case is that Parliament several years ago passed an Act of Parliament by huge majorities, committing us to the very significant decarbonisation of our economy: an 80% reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2050. It is the clear conclusion of all analysis, including that of the Committee on Climate Change that I used to chair, that there is no believable path to that emissions reduction by 2050 which does not involve the very significant—almost total—decarbonisation of electricity in particular by around 2030.

Clearly that is completely incompatible with a role for coal other than as providing a small number of hours a year of peaking capacity into the mid or late 2020s. This amendment would simply ensure that that possibility would clearly be excluded—with, however, a get-out under Section 48 if that at all endangered an adequacy of supply. It simply seeks to ensure that we will not have unabated coal in significant quantities in the late 2020s, and it does so 12 years ahead, in order to influence the decisions on investment that are required for security of supply.

I fail to see what the disadvantages of the amendment are. It would give greater clarity over our plans for coal and over the opportunities for gas, and I therefore support the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, in his amendment.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I am prompted to rise because of the rather unwarranted attack that the noble Viscount made on Ministers. None of us takes responsibility for security of supply in the future. The late Baroness Thatcher used to say that the only thing that was certain in politics was uncertainty. None of us knows what the future holds or what the likely position will be in 12 years’ time. This amendment would remove the flexibility that a future Government would have in order to keep the lights on. It is really quite wrong of the noble Viscount to present this as some kind of political matter that is exercising Back-Benchers in the other place, as he did, with Ministers responding to that rather than to their responsibility to ensure that we have security of supply. I notice that when I asked the noble Baroness on the Opposition Front Bench about security of supply, she did not deal with the issue.

At the end of Question Time, we had a Question about China. We are now importing vast quantities of carbon from China because of the expansion of coal-fired power stations there, and exporting jobs that would otherwise have been here. To present this as some kind of neutral political argument—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Turner of Ecchinswell (CB)]

My Lords, I simply point out that the interim targets in the form of the actual budgets are legally binding commitments of the Government under the Climate Change Act. Once the budgets are set—three budgets in advance—they are not merely planning guidelines but are part of the Government’s legally binding commitments.

[Lord Dixon-Smith]

I am used to the Chancellor of the Exchequer making annual Budgets and I have been involved in politics indirectly and directly for a very long time. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer is forced to, shall we say, amend interim budgets, it seems to me that sticking our feet in the ground over an energy budget is not exactly wise.