Energy Bill [HL]

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (Lab)]

My Lords, thank you for returning to Committee. Amendment 12 in Clause 5 relates to the Secretary of State’s abilities to give directions to the Oil and Gas Authority. Again, I fear that we are now retreading familiar territory in our discussion of the Bill and some of the concerns that we have with it. The amendments in this group are probing and designed to give the Minister an opportunity to respond on how he considers that these powers might be used by the Secretary of State. We revisit the two issues that we talked about earlier today, which are that the Oil and Gas Authority should have explicit mention of carbon storage and transportation in its objectives and in the matters to which it has regard. For consistency’s sake, we therefore believe that the Secretary of State should also have those powers.

The purpose of these amendments, particularly Amendments 12 and 14, which are in my name, is to ask the Minister whether he could give us a little more information about the circumstances under which he envisages the Secretary of State needing to use these powers. Perhaps he could also give us an example of what kind of direction he imagines the Secretary of State might be giving the Oil and Gas Authority in relation to its functions under these powers. There is clearly not much in the public domain to help me get a handle on the thinking behind Clause 5, so it really would be an illuminating contribution from the Minister if he were able to give us some examples of the circumstances, particularly the exceptional circumstances referred to in the Bill, and the examples of direction.

We had a discussion prior to the break about the primary purposes of the OGA. I remain convinced that there is a clean and very succinct way of doing this, which is to refer to the Oil and Gas Authority’s primary objectives and to include within them explicit reference to activities that go beyond maximising economic recovery, as it is perhaps formally or informally understood. At the moment, it is interpreted as meaning that we will extract the maximum volume of hydrocarbons from our natural resources which fall within our territorial waters offshore, and indeed onshore. But it may be that that definition of MER, while it still of course has cross-party support, needs to be revisited and revised.

In the previous discussion, we saw reference to new matters to which the OGA should have regard being added to Clause 4. The Minister’s response in that debate was that there is no need to be explicit about these matters and that climate change is taken care of elsewhere, as indeed is the need to decarbonise and CCS. But if that logic were to apply, it is the case that one of the matters stated in Clause 4 is the need to have regard to a secure supply of energy, so if we are being true to ourselves and saying that we should have a narrow focus for the OGA and do not need to reiterate these things, there is no need for any reference to security of supply in that part of the Bill either. However, I do not think that is correct. Indeed it was helpful that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who is no longer in his place, made reference to the fact that to avoid doubt it is always better to be explicit about these things, for fear that people with slight imagination —he used that phrase but perhaps it should be “lacking in imagination”—might mean that there is a narrow interpretation of what the OGA is created to do and what is within its powers and remit.

That is a very lengthy way of saying that we look forward to hearing more from the Minister on Clause 5, which is clearly an important part of the Bill. However, as I read it, I am left wondering what these exceptional circumstances are and what these directions could look like. I look forward to hearing from the Minister in his response. I beg to move.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, but I also want to apologise to the Committee because, due to my attendance at my Select Committee, I was unable to be here for the previous debate, during which, as my noble friend said, the case was made for ensuring that the OGA—while it may well have principal objectives—has to operate in the context of wider energy policies. Issues of climate change, energy security and affordability are relevant to how the OGA fulfils its main functions. Indeed, if its main function is in terms of maximum economic recovery, what happens on those other dimensions of energy policy affects the actual economics in MER. Therefore, it is important that the OGA, as set out in the earlier clauses, has some regard to those broader objectives of energy policy. It is also important that the Secretary of State can intervene in those areas.

Amendment 13 would allow the Secretary of State to give directions where it would be necessary to meet the terms of the Climate Change Act and the budgets promulgated under that Act. Amendment 15 relates to the Committee’s discussion before the break about carbon capture and storage, so that directions could relate explicitly to the storage of gas and oil and the storage of carbon dioxide as part of a carbon capture and storage scheme. The amendments previously discussed relating to Clause 4 need to be complemented with the ability of the Secretary of State to intervene on those same subjects. That is what these amendments would do.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments in this group and I thank noble Lords who have participated in the debate for speaking to their amendments. Amendments 12 to 15 relate to Clause 5 of Part 1 of the Bill, which concerns directions the Secretary of State may give to the Oil and Gas Authority. As the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, said at the outset of our consideration in Committee, most of what we are looking at in the non-government amendments relates to carbon capture and storage. That is certainly a point well made. As I have indicated, we have undertaken that we will look at the issues relating to carbon capture and storage prior to Report.

As has been said, Clause 5 gives the Secretary of State power to direct the Oil and Gas Authority in the exercise of its functions if the Secretary of State considers the directions in the interest of national security or otherwise in the public interest. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, asked for examples of that and I will try to provide a couple. First, if a licence is applied for by a person who is suspected of corruption and whose possession of a licence the Secretary of State thinks would lead to reputational embarrassment or political damage to the United Kingdom, the intention is that the Secretary of State should be able to direct the Oil and Gas Authority not to issue a licence to such a person.

Secondly, another instance may be if there are other competing uses for a particular area of the seabed in respect of which the Oil and Gas Authority may grant licences. The intention then is that the Secretary of State should be able to give a direction to the Oil and Gas Authority as to over which areas it should or should not exercise its licensing powers so as not to prejudice those other uses.

Finally, another example may be that the Secretary of State should be able to direct the Oil and Gas Authority not to grant further consents for development in the face of public concern about the scientific evidence in relation to the methods used or a change in government policy. Clearly, that is not an exclusive list but those are some situations that may be covered by it.

The amendment makes it clear that the power in Clause 5 can extend to the Oil and Gas Authority’s functions in relation to the carbon capture and storage sector. We believe that it is unnecessary to do this because the Secretary of State’s power to give directions to the Oil and Gas Authority as to the exercise of its functions already applies to the carbon capture and storage sector in so far as it is in the ambit of the Bill.

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[Lord Whitty]

I do not believe that either my amendment or the other amendments intend to designate the OGA as a drafter or an enforcer of environmental legislation. They seek to ensure that anything the OGA does will not jeopardise—preferably, they would further—the broader objectives of the Government. This does not mean that it is a regulator; rather, that the Secretary of State would have the ability to intervene if some of the economic decisions taken by the OGA jeopardise its legal obligations under the domestic climate change Acts, or indeed jeopardise its international legal obligations under EU or any global climate change agreements. We are not arguing that the OGA should be an environmental regulator.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification. We will have another look at the position, and indeed I am probably using the term “environmental regulator” in something of a shorthand sense. We have legal concerns on this, but I undertake to take a second look and possibly we will come back to it on Report.

In the light of my comments and the undertakings that I have made previously, I respectfully ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Whitty]

24: Clause 19, page 11, line 25, after “which” insert “were or”.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 24, I will speak to the others in the group. We move on to information and samples. These relatively small amendments are intended to ensure that the information and sample regime takes account of the role of carbon capture and storage: in other words, that it is reflected within this part of the Bill in the way that it should be reflected—the Minister has indicated some sympathy towards this—in the earlier clauses relating to the activities of the OGA.

Amendments 24 and 25 are very small and are intended to ensure that the definition of “petroleum-related information” is kept as broad as possible, so that it is not limited to the fulfilment of the principal objective—it is narrowly defined at present—and not time limited to activities which continue to be relevant to that objective. In other words, it could be used, either in parallel with extraction processes or after they have taken place, to provide samples and information to CO₂ licence holders and storage operators. The use of “and” between the two subsections creates an ambiguity here, and if the Government’s intention is to ensure that the information could be provided to and required of CO₂ storage operators, they need to make these amendments.

Similarly, on Amendment 25, which relates to the transfer of such information, there are many within the potential CCS market who regard the inability to access samples as one of the barriers to using former gas and oil facilities for carbon storage. In order to ascertain whether the facility is appropriate and can technically be operated as a storage area, information that is held by the OGA as a result of it having been provided by the extraction operators ought to be made available to the CCS operators. Amendment 25 is designed to ensure that that can happen and that the Government have the powers to transfer such data. The Government have already indicated that they hope to be able to transfer such information, and this would give a proper legal base to that and make it enforceable. In addition, Amendment 28 clarifies that the OGA could require information and samples for the purpose of carrying out any of its relevant functions, not just its principal function. Again, that would ensure that storage licensing was included in that provision.

I hope the Government can look at these amendments and, taking account of the points made earlier in Committee about CCS, consider whether these relatively minor amendments to the Bill would help to encourage and give some degree of confidence to potential operators of CCS making use of our North Sea facilities. I beg to move.

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My Lords, we are all getting very excited about these amendments so we are anxious to speak. I want to add a couple of sentences. There is a history in the oil and gas sector of not sharing information, for whatever reason: sometimes it is competitiveness but sometimes, although I hate to say it, it is sheer awkwardness. Although CCS technology has been around for a long time and has been proven, there is nervousness about transmission, so it would make a great deal of sense if the OGA had the authority to require the sharing of this information, whether for safety reasons or any other reason. Those of us who have had to deal with the oil and gas industry know that it is very shy about passing on the kind of information that my noble friend Lord Whitty has spoken so eloquently about.

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[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I know that my noble friend was not seeking to be difficult or disruptive in any way; I know her too well to think that. I am happy to write further on the issue, but if the company goes into liquidation, basically, proceedings under the Insolvency Act would apply, and the liquidator—I believe this is the case, although this is on the hoof—would then have to act in response to any request from the Oil and Gas Authority to make the samples or the information available. However, I will write to my noble friend on that issue and will ensure that other noble Lords are copied in as well.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for such a detailed response to my amendments and the others in this group. Obviously, I will have a very close look at what he said in Hansard and will consult those who were concerned about these issues. Certainly there is concern that the overlap between “principal objective” and “petroleum-related” could exclude things that were not currently related to the extraction—or exploration of the extraction—of petroleum, and therefore could exclude carbon capture and storage. However, the Minister has given various reassurances on that, some of which I will require some legal advice on. I am quite happy to arrange for a meeting with him or his officials. However, I repeat that I am very grateful that he has taken these amendments seriously and I hope that we can reach some accommodation on this. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 24 withdrawn.