Floating Offshore Wind: Celtic Sea

Debate between Michael Shanks and Clive Efford

Thursday 12th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Efford. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) on securing this debate and for all the work she does in championing her area, and the Celtic sea more broadly. We have had a number of conversations and debates on energy-related policy and she is a real champion for her constituency.

I thank all hon. Members this afternoon for their passionate contributions to the debate. I do not know what the collective noun is for a group of Cornish Celtic tigers and one Welsh one, but they made fantastic contributions and I think that gives us a sense of how seriously new MPs are taking the future of their constituencies. We should be proud of that.

The key issues that have been raised today, of the grid, supply chains, skills, planning, and getting the balance right so that we bring communities along with us in much of this—the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) put that well—are important. It was nice to hear the hon. Gentleman speak about the coalition Government, as we do not hear enough about them these days. I encourage him to say much more about them in future debates, but I suspect that he will not.

Let me first speak about the context of the debate and I will then answer some of the specific questions. I think the “why” of our being in this race and transition is important. Why are we pushing to deliver clean power by 2030? The truth is that it is an imperative if we are going to meet our long-term goal of a net zero economy and deliver economic growth and energy security. They are intrinsically linked.

A number of hon. Members have raised the point about the potential of jobs in industry in communities that have, in many cases, been forgotten for a long time. The rates of poverty and underemployment in those communities underlines how important it is that we bring about new opportunities. I think the point about legacy raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell). This is not just a transition for the sake of a transition; the aim is to deliver good, well-paid jobs for future generations and to make it a prosperous transition for many communities.

We are in no way missing the scale of the challenge. Delivering clean power by 2030 will require us to rip up the rule book on how Governments deliver big projects and to take a radically different approach to how we deliver change at pace. It means working in lockstep with communities and with the private sector to rapidly address the barriers that hold us back, which have all been raised today, so that we can deliver unprecedented levels of new clean energy infrastructure.

The Government received the National Energy System Operator’s advice on achieving a clean power system by 2030. It shows that this is not only achievable, but can create a cheaper, more secure system. The advice will inform the Government’s clean power 2030 action plan, which will be published imminently and will set out our route to decarbonising the electricity grid with the aims of protecting billpayers from volatile gas prices, strengthening Britain’s energy security and accelerating us towards net zero.

I hope all hon. Members will agree that we are on the cusp of a once-in-a-generation transformation of our energy system, led by a Government that is determined not to be a passenger on the big questions of the day, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) put it, to drive forward radical change. The infrastructure that we deploy now and in the years ahead will set in train decades of energy security, stability, and prosperity for every part of the UK. Key to that will be the role played by offshore wind and, in particular, floating offshore wind. I will focus on that in the rest of my remarks.

Offshore wind will play a crucial role in our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower and deliver clean power by 2030. At 14.8 GW of generation, we have the highest deployment in Europe and the second highest in the world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth said so eloquently, the UK is a global leader. These days there are not many things in which we can still have a claim to be that, but this is one that we must ensure we maintain.

The new technology unlocks deeper areas of the seabed that can benefit from stronger and more consistent winds, helping us to secure our energy supply and to deliver on our statutory decarbonisation obligations. Our floating offshore capacity is second only to Norway. At around 25 GW, we have the largest pipeline of floating offshore projects anywhere in the world. Of course, in the Celtic sea, there is enormous potential for floating offshore wind, and we are determined to take advantage of the opportunities that that represents. Earlier this year, the floating offshore wind taskforce estimated that floating offshore wind could contribute £47 billion in GVA to the UK economy by 2050 and support up to 97,000 jobs across the country, so we are hard at work, right across Government and in the private sector, to make sure that we realise the vast potential of this opportunity.

The test and demonstration projects, which a number of hon. Members have rightly raised, total 432 MW of capacity in development in the Celtic sea. They are crucial not just for the capacity that they generate, but for helping us to understand the supply chains and the development and for building the skills in the future. We want to see many of these projects succeed, and Government are doing everything we can to support the projects.

Under the offshore wind leasing round that the Crown Estate recently launched, a further 4.5 GW of floating wind capacity in the region will have an impact of up to 5,300 new jobs and a £1.4 billion boost to the economy. We are determined that by working together with the Crown Estate on an innovative approach to this leasing round, we can ensure that there is new industry that provides social and economic opportunities for communities right across the country. It is important for us to say that this is this Government’s absolutely key priority, that we are not agnostic on the industrial future of this country and that we want to see the good, well-paid jobs here as well. My hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth rightly highlighted the example of Kincardine, and there are other projects where all the parts were manufactured abroad and towed into our waters simply to start generating. That is the part of this that we do not want to see again. We want to see the good, well-paid jobs here.

That is why the Crown Estate has launched a £50 million supply chain accelerator to fund and accelerate supply chain projects. The 13 successful organisations are set to receive funding in the initial round. Just yesterday we were able to announce more details on these. It is the case that £5 million of funding was awarded to kick-start a range of projects across Great Britain, contributing to a combined development investment of more than £9 million, with £400 million of capital investment. As has been mentioned, the partnership that Great British Energy, the first publicly owned energy company in 70 years, has with the Crown Estate is about trying to drive forward even more of those opportunities right across the country.

The issue of ports has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members. They clearly will play a vital role in the deployment and maintenance of offshore wind infrastructure. Up to £4 billion of investment is required by 2040 to support the roll-out of floating offshore wind. That is why the FLOWMIS scheme, which is providing grant funding to support the development of port infrastructure, is so important.

The shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), rightly referenced the importance of Port Talbot and the port of Cromarty Firth in the FLOWMIS scheme. We are moving forward due diligence on that as quickly as possible. It is one of a number of in-progress decisions that we inherited from the previous Government, on which we are moving as quickly as possible to actually deliver, so that the funding can be put to good use as quickly as possible. It goes hand in hand with the creation of the national wealth fund, which will invest at least £5.8 billion of capital in the five sectors announced in our manifesto, including port infrastructure. That comes alongside some of the work already being done by the NWF in Ardersier port, the port of Tyne and Teesworks. To understand the barriers to port infrastructure, we are working closely with the ports task and finish group, led by RenewableUK, to ensure that we are building on the work that has already been done.

On the wider point of working together, which my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth raised earlier, DESNZ has a standing invitation to the Cornwall FLOW Commission, which Cornwall council is involved in. Officials regularly engage with all councils, including Cornwall council, on this and many other issues, and we are very happy to do more.

Let me turn, finally, to the point about industry. In the spring, we will publish the Government’s industrial strategy, which is our commitment to ensuring that good, well-paid and trade-unionised jobs come to these shores to deliver the energy transition as well as to a number of other sectors. Most recently, we announced the clean industry bonus as part of the CfD scheme, which rewards fixed and floating offshore wind developers that choose to invest in the UK’s poorest communities or in cleaner manufacturing facilities. A portion of that budget is ringfenced for floating offshore wind components.

On the broader points that hon. Members raised about the next contracts for difference rounds, we will say more about auction round 7 in due course. Clearly, it is important to recognise how much the industry has moved since the abject failure under the previous Government in auction round 5, in which much of the sector was flat on its back. We have moved as quickly as possible on AR6 to get projects over the line. We want to see more of these projects succeed, and we will have more to say imminently on AR7. There will also be a consultation on that process.

I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth for bringing forward this debate, and I thank all hon. Members for their contributions and their real commitment to this issue. This is a Government who are determined to ensure that we realise our potential in communities right across this country and drive towards clean power by 2030. That is not as an end in itself, but because it will make energy in Britain cleaner, cheaper and more secure for our entire nation, reinvigorate long-neglected supply chains in clean energy and engineering, and return a sense of pride and prosperity to all parts of this country.

The road ahead will be challenging—no one comes into government just to tackle the easy stuff—but we are determined that together we will ensure that we achieve the most difficult task of all: by 2030, we will have a secure, cleaner energy system. The prize at the end is worth all that effort, and there is no point being in government if we are not going to tackle some of the long-term, difficult challenges. I once again thank hon. Members for participating in this debate and encourage them to keep up the challenge to Government as we ensure that we realise every single opportunity available to us in this most important sector.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

We have 27 minutes remaining, but this is not an invitation to make a 27-minute speech. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) should take a few minutes to emphasise the key points that she wants to take away from the debate.