Severn Barrage

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I rise with some diffidence, given that the noble Lord, Lord Cope, has made his position on this issue clear. I am afraid that I am still somewhat ambivalent about this proposition. On the face of it, it is a fairly major contribution to meeting our climate change targets—5% of Britain’s electricity could be generated by this. It also has economic upsides of substantial employment. There are probably enough speakers on the list who will emphasise the Welsh dimension. I also emphasise that in the south-west there will be a significant number of jobs—probably more than at Hinkley Point.

However, there are economic and ecological downsides. I declare a past interest as a member of the board of the Environment Agency. I was persuaded, with some reluctance, that we should oppose this proposition, largely on the grounds of the effect on migratory birds and fish and the need to find compensatory habitats, as well as the effect on the whole ecology of the Severn estuary. It is not possible to replace the habitats that exist in south Wales for migratory birds, nor frankly is it possible to construct turbines that do not have some fairly negative effect on large numbers of fish. Nevertheless, this is a conflict between two different environmental objectives. We have to bear in mind that to meet the trajectory of carbon reduction to which we are committed—in a sense the subject of the previous debate—we will have to make some unpalatable decisions and face up to some fairly unpalatable costs, whether it is nuclear energy or some of the major renewable projects, including this one.

I do not think that I will have quite changed my mind again. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Cope, said, I think that the new proposition has some mitigating factors, although they are not entirely convincing, even to me. We need to look at the latest version with some considerable scepticism, but the project as such has some serious merits. However, I want to seize on the last remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Cope, on whether there are other ways of making use of the great tidal difference in the Severn. There were earlier propositions of having a series of lagoon-type projects that would not save so much carbon—we have to be fair about that—but which would probably cost only slightly less, and would not have either the negative ecological effects nor the damaging effect on the Bristol ports to which the noble Lord, Lord Cope, referred. I ask the Minister specifically whether those other alternatives are still being considered as well as the latest Hafren proposal. I would not want to be as dismissive of it as the noble Lord, Lord Cope, but the Government need to look seriously at other propositions as well.