Swansea Tidal Lagoon

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am filled with optimism, because the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), who called for this debate, recently had a debate about S4C and, lo and behold, the Government miraculously found some funding for it. Therefore, this debate might well presage good news about investment in the tides.

This is an ancient dream. There is a nineteenth-century painting of a Severn barrage—somebody foresaw it in Newport—and an inquiry in 1980 looked at it in great detail. I wrote an article for the Western Mail in which I foresaw a series of barrages that would make use of the tides all around the Welsh coast—different pulses of electricity come at different tides—which, to ensure that the project was demand-responsive, were locked into pumped storage schemes in the valleys of south Wales. When the high tide came in at about 3 o’clock in the morning, the water would be pumped up the hills in the valleys and then it would be let down. Dinorwig has proved to be a battery for all of Britain.

When I dug out that article, which I wrote 40 years ago, I was struck by the fact that in all that time we have ignored what is the great source of untapped power, certainly of Wales, but of all the British Isles: the great cliffs of water that surge around our coasts twice a day. Immense amounts of untapped power are wasted. As the hon. Gentleman said, such power is clean, green and, unlike most other renewables, it is entirely predictable. We know exactly when it will happen and it will last as long as the human race inhabits the planet. What are we doing with it? Very little. The great example is in Brittany, where a barrage was opened across the Rance river and now, 50 years later, the turbines are in pristine condition and, without carbon or pollution, it produces the cheapest electricity in Europe. Of course, we should go ahead.

There is now another reason why we need to invest in the project: what I believe is the collapse of the Hinkley Point C project. All that is left promoting it is the stubbornness of the French and UK Governments and the reluctance to accept the mountain of evidence that says that the project cannot work. It has not worked in the past, it is not working now and it will not work in the future. Even today, in The Times, following similar articles in the Financial Times and many other papers in the last seven days, I note the realisation—it was in the main headline—that £17 billion could be saved if we abandon Hinkley Point. There is no rational case left for European pressurised reactor projects. Have they worked anywhere? Three are being built in the world but none is working. The one in Finland, due to cost €6.4 billion, should have been generating electricity in 2009.

[Richard Graham]

You will have to rule as to whether this is the right place for an anti-nuclear campaign, Mr Brady. May I gently suggest that many of us here believe that we need more energy full stop, from nuclear and from tidal lagoons?

[Paul Flynn]

Yes. At the moment the Government are approaching an impasse, because Hinkley Point is doomed, and that is crucial to where else they can go. They must go somewhere else to create energy for the future, so it is crucial to the debate that we understand what the entire scientific establishment and the two chiefs of EDF have recognised: it cannot go ahead. EDF is €37 billion in debt—if it were anything other than a nationalised company, it would be bankrupt and out of business. Its share price has collapsed by 10% in the past 24 hours.

EPR electricity has not worked anywhere. The other great EPR project is in Flamanville, where there is a serious problem with the roof of the reactor vessel, which means it may never be completed—it will certainly be delayed for years. Again, that project is billions over budget. How on earth can anyone rely on that?

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the difference between nuclear power projects such as Hinkley—which he is dilating on at the moment—and the proposed technology at Swansea bay and around the Welsh coast is that in lifespan, while nuclear projects are finite and have potential unforeseen consequences in terms of disposal of waste, tidal lagoons provide a clean source of power that, built on a Victorian scale, will last for many decades if not centuries?

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Flynn, before you respond, I hope you will use your last two minutes to focus more on the tidal lagoon side than the nuclear side.

[Paul Flynn]

Of course. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about every comparison we make on what tidal has to offer. It has cleanliness as a source of power, it is ours—it is British—and it is eternal. It does not have to come from anywhere else. There is a simplicity in taking moving water, getting it to turn a turbine and then generating electricity.

It is time now for this dream to come true. The Government are into investing in huge projects. They have spent £1.2 billion on their railway project, but they have not built an inch of track yet. Those projects they have taken on are long term, and some of them have failure written into them, but this project has success written into it. Tidal power has simplicity and works in several other ways, whether it is through a lagoon or some other project.

We should look at the serious objections there have been in the past 40 years to building a barrage, particularly from those in the natural world who say that building a brick wall across the Severn will have all kinds of repercussions for the natural world. That is not a problem that occurs with lagoons. In order to provide electricity for the future that is green, non-carbon, eternal and everlasting, it must be tidal power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right that the advantage of this project is that it is despatchable and not intermittent, which is the problem with offshore wind. However, I am afraid that he is not right that the cost of this project is comparable to the cost of offshore wind, because the timescale for this project is vastly different. If we compare like with like, we find that this project is much more expensive.

Once again, I congratulate hon. Members; this has been a very constructive debate and I have taken away a number of points from it. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who has expressed his very long-term vision, which is far beyond the pedigree of most of us here, if not all of us here. He has been promoting the possibilities for tidal and he is absolutely right to do so. However, I can assure him that Hinkley Point is not comparable. We are very confident that the Hinkley Point project will get built and I will make the specific point that, as he will know, the decommissioning costs are taken into the CfD price, and so there is not a further cost of decommissioning, as some Members suggested.

[Paul Flynn]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her remarks. If the Hinkley Point European pressurised reactor suffers the same fate as all other reactors—delays of six or seven years—what is the Government’s plan B to fill the energy gap?

[Andrea Leadsom]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Government are not dependent on any one technology. The important thing is a mixture of technologies and we are confident in our strategy for ensuring reliable and affordable supplies of energy.

It is entirely understandable that people are getting behind this proposed tidal project. It has the potential to be a very exciting development for Swansea, south Wales and the UK. If the project goes ahead, it should have a positive impact on the local economy, and if a positive decision is taken, we will look to maximise the opportunity and the effect as far as possible. However, we have a duty to ensure that the decisions we take are in the best interest of consumers across the UK, both today and in the future. So while we will continue to discuss the project with the developer and carefully scrutinise its most recent proposals, we will await the outcome of the independent review before taking any decisions on the Swansea bay proposal.