National Policy Statements (Energy)

Malcolm Wicks Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charles Hendry]

The hon. Lady knows what has happened. The Committee on Climate Change has made recommendations to us, and we have responded to them, and we were widely seen as one of the world leaders in this respect; the United Kingdom is well ahead of most other countries. It would be helpful if she would sometimes welcome the changes and the advances being made, rather than always saying it is not enough. It is appropriate to recognise in the course of these debates that Britain has shown real global leadership. There is cross-party agreement on that, and it should be welcomed.

The fossil fuels NPS—EN-2—explains what drives site selection for power plants and the practical requirements for carbon capture and storage. Together with relevant bits of EN-1, the EU emissions trading scheme and our own policies on an emissions performance standard, it will give developers confidence that there is a stable regime under which they can invest in the fossil-fuel generating stations that are necessary to provide the essential back-up for intermittent generation from some forms of renewable energy, or perform as low-carbon generators themselves, fitted with carbon capture and storage.

[Malcolm Wicks (Croydon North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister update the House on the progress of the carbon capture and storage programme? When does he expect the first major CCS project to be up and running cleanly?

[Charles Hendry]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s interest and expertise in these matters. As he knows, we took on some of the work of his Administration by allocating an extra £1 billion for the first full-scale CCS project—the largest amount any Government anywhere in the world had given to a single project. Over recent weeks, we have been negotiating very carefully with the interested parties about how we can deliver what we want in terms of the knowledge transfer and output for the CCS project, based on what they believe is achievable for the funding. Those discussions are ongoing, and we hope that they will be brought to a conclusion with the first plant being operational by 2015.

We have also said there will be three other projects, and we have evolved the policy we inherited from the previous Administration by saying that one of them should be on gas, in recognition of the long-term role gas is likely to play and the significant interest in this country in developing gas technologies. At a time when other Governments are slipping back their time scales for CCS, it is encouraging that the UK programme has been moving forward. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will warmly welcome that.