Neil Parish
Main Page: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)
Mr Hollobone, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate all hon. Members on this interesting debate—I mean that sincerely—in which some good points have been made. I welcome the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) to her place on the Front Bench. It is a pleasure to speak with her for the first time in this debate. Interestingly, we both have landlocked constituencies, yet we share a keen interest in this project.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) on securing this debate. His chosen topic is of great interest to the Government, and I sincerely welcome this opportunity for an exchange of views. He, like others from the south Wales region and beyond, is keen to understand better how the proposed Swansea bay tidal lagoon project, if it goes ahead, would benefit the local economy.
I want to clarify one important thing: my hon. Friend is absolutely right to mention that the Swansea bay project was in our manifesto. The Government absolutely recognise its potential to deliver low-carbon, secure energy for the future. However, as I am sure he will accept, it was not a commitment to deliver a contract for difference. This Government are absolutely determined to prioritise keeping costs down, to be on the consumer’s side and to decarbonise at the lowest price while keeping the lights on. Although the project is of huge interest to us, I am sure that he will appreciate that we must keep a close eye on the cost.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
The Bristol channel has the second highest tidal rise and fall in the world. We must harness it. We look to the Minister to find a way to fund that over a long period, because I think it has a timescale of more than 120 years. Once the lagoon is built, if the banks and turbines can be repaired, it will have an infinite life. If we can get the funding right, the power will be right, because the tide will be there, hopefully. As long as the moon is there and the earth revolves around the sun, we will have a tide.
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I agree completely. As I said, we are keen on the project, but not at any price.
Since the Government entered bilateral negotiation with Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd on a possible contract for difference for the project, my officials have been undertaking due diligence to establish a better understanding of the project, including detailed scrutiny of its costs, timescales and potential benefits. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) that the bilateral negotiation process is set out in a stakeholder engagement document that my Department published in January 2015, so it is not an opaque process. I urge hon. Members to read it.
Let me be clear that this Government continue to recognise the potential for the deployment of tidal lagoons in the UK. The scalability of the technology is of genuine interest to us. We are attracted to the proposed Swansea bay tidal lagoon because of its potential to unlock larger, more cost-effective developments elsewhere in the UK.