A Green Industrial Revolution
Peter Aldous Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) on a passionate, robust, honest, and forthright speech. It is clear that she will be no shrinking violet in this place, which is quite right.
A green industrial revolution is currently taking place in Suffolk and Norfolk. Off our coast, parts of one of the largest clusters of offshore wind farms in the world are either in operation, being built, or being planned. There are also exciting plans for revitalising the fishing industry in East Anglia post Brexit, in an environmentally responsible way that can help to revitalise coastal communities along the 200-mile coastline in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. The foundations have been laid and jobs are being created, but more work is required if we are to realise the most from those exciting opportunities for local people, communities and businesses.
Successive Governments have done well in creating the policy framework in which the green industrial revolution is taking place—a framework that encourages technological advance, innovation, and inward investment. The cornerstone is the Climate Change Act 2008 and the creation of the Committee on Climate Change. That was followed by the industrial strategy, the clean growth strategy, and sector deals, including that for offshore wind, which was launched by former Minister Claire Perry in Lowestoft last March. Subsequently, last summer we enshrined in law the legally binding target to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050—the first major economy to do that. That target is robust and realistic, and in line with scientific expert advice from the Committee on Climate Change, which stated that there is no evidence that a target date earlier than 2050 is feasible.
We now need to get on with the policies that are required to reach net zero. Provided that we do not dither and delay, we may be able to achieve this target earlier. Such policies include those set out in the Conservative manifesto of increasing the UK’s ambition on offshore wind to up to 40 GW by 2030, enabling floating wind farms and committing £800 million to building the first fully deployed carbon capture and storage cluster by the mid-2020s.
In East Anglia, much has been achieved: 4 GW of offshore wind power is already operational off the East Anglian coast, accounting for over 50% of the UK’s installed capacity. With the potential developments in the pipeline, we can provide much of the Government’s new revised higher target. Investment to facilitate that further development is taking place: in autumn, the £10 million Energy Skills Centre was opened on East Coast College’s Lowestoft campus, and ScottishPower completed the new £25 million operations and maintenance base in the Hamilton dock. Later this year, CEFAS—the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science—will open its new offices and laboratory in Pakefield. It provides, and will continue to provide, the best fisheries scientific advice, but it is also now giving advice on offshore renewable energy to Governments across the world. It is a trusted bridge linking the public sector to academia and private industry.
I commend the Government for facilitating that investment, but now is not the time to rest on our laurels. We need to go the extra mile. The national policy framework must quickly move forward to its next stage, with the Government setting out a cost-effective pathway to achieving our net zero target. Net zero must be embedded across Government. All future departmental decisions, particularly those on spending, must pass a net zero test, to ensure that we achieve, and hopefully deliver beyond, the target.
As I have mentioned, in an East Anglian context much has been achieved, but there is a concern that, notwithstanding the massive scale of investment off our coast—£1 billion to £2 billion per project—the region is very much unrepresented when it comes to the supply and installation of main components. There are a number of main contractors in the region with the expertise to do this work, including Sembmarine SLP, James Fisher Marine Services, Seajacks, 3sun and Global Marine Group-C Wind.
The offshore wind sector deal has the potential to stimulate the required inward investment in components manufacturing, which will create longer and more resilient supply chains and more local jobs. We need to work with those businesses to ensure that they can realise their full potential. That will also require investment in infrastructure, particularly in ports such as Lowestoft. If we do that, then ultimately opportunities will open up for more UK businesses to develop and export low-carbon goods and services, thereby facilitating the global transition to net zero.
The oil and gas industry has been an integral part of the East Anglian economy for over 50 years. It still has an important role to play as we transition to net zero. Collaborative work is taking place with the offshore wind sector, with both learning from one another, and with further opportunities to pioneer inter-sector training and currency certification. Gas to wire technology and gas platform electrification, powered by offshore wind, are emerging as new advances that provide added resilience in supply while assisting in decarbonising traditional methods of generation.
As I have already mentioned, there are exciting opportunities in carbon capture and storage, and we must not forget the enormous amount of work that needs to be carried out in decommissioning oil and gas assets on the UK continental shelf. In the southern North sea, late-life and decommissioning expenditure is forecast at around £4.4 billion for the period up to 2027. That amounts to an average annual spend of around £445 million. It is important that we have a policy framework and an investment strategy that ensures that we secure as much of that work as possible for UK and East Anglian businesses. The Government recognise the need for an oil and gas sector deal, and I urge them to start work as soon as possible on its preparation, collaborating closely with the industry.
I turn to the opportunity that Brexit provides to revitalise the East Anglian fishing industry. The right policy framework is emerging following the 2018 fisheries White Paper, and it is important that the forthcoming fisheries Bill promotes sustainable and environmentally aware fishing practices and management. Having sat on the Fisheries Bill Committee in the last Parliament, I believe that we are moving in the right direction, but more work is required. In East Anglia, we have produced the REAF—“Renaissance of East Anglian Fisheries”—report, which sets out recommendations for revitalising the industry that could generate an additional £28 million to £34 million per annum in the region’s ports.
The report’s recommendations very much recognise the importance of sustainable fishing, including the development of a modern fleet, delivering top-quality fish, high-quality jobs and a reduced environmental impact. It is recommended that consideration is given to restricting offshore vessels to 500 hp and prohibiting the abhorrent and unacceptable use of beam trawls. Those restrictions would encourage and facilitate the entry of modern vessels, each with a crew of up to approximately five and each able to use a variety of gear, such as twin-rig trawls and fly-shooting nets. These vessels would carry the most modern fish-handling and storage technology. The proposed new fleet is modelled on the modern French fleet of the same size and gear types. It offers higher fish quality, greater employment opportunities, less impact on marine ecology and a lighter carbon footprint.
This vision is in contrast with the current fleet. At present, no offshore vessels operate out of East Anglian ports. Instead, a number of UK-registered but Dutch-owned vessels operate out of the Netherlands. They use beam trawls, which drag heavy metal beams across the seabed, which is ecologically damaging and fuel-intensive. We now have the opportunity to move to a newer and greener way of fishing that will benefit our coastal communities. It is important that we grasp the opportunity.
In conclusion, the future is bright, but it is not orange —it is green. There is enormous potential to revitalise coastal communities not only in East Anglia, but all around the coast, to provide opportunities for many people who feel that they have been overlooked and forgotten for too long. It is important that we do not let them down.
Climate Change
Peter Aldous Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I very much support this motion and I congratulate the Government on bringing forward this legislation so quickly after the passing of the motion on 1 May accepting that there was a climate change emergency.
I hope that the motion will be approved this evening. If it is, we must not rest on our laurels but move immediately to provide the full policy framework so we can deliver what is an ambitious target. The good news is that much of the framework is already there: the Climate Change Act 2008, the industrial strategy, the clean growth strategy and the sector deals. Some pieces of the jigsaw have been put in place, such as the offshore wind sector deal—the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), launched it in Lowestoft in March—which will help to revitalise the local economy.
Other pieces of the jigsaw are missing, however, such as a route map for decarbonising transport, a flexible policy framework for promoting local bespoke heating schemes and a comprehensive plan for meeting the domestic energy efficiency targets in the clean growth strategy, as put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) in her ten-minute rule Bill last week. The UK has made significant strides in decarbonising the nation’s power supply, with offshore wind providing a means of regenerating coastal communities such as Lowestoft, but more work needs to be done, including providing a clear route to market for other clean energy technologies and getting on with delivering those big-ticket items of nuclear power and carbon capture, utilisation and storage, which are absolutely vital to delivering on the zero carbon goal. It is important for us not to be not a one-trick pony and concentrate only on power. We must immediately set about making significant strides in decarbonising transport and heat, as well as improving our performance in relation to energy efficiency.
The challenge is a big one, and the UK Government cannot deliver on their own. We need to be working with and leading other countries, and incentivising and encouraging the private sector to step up to the plate and invest. Norway is a country with which we have a great deal in common, as we share the North sea oil and gas basin. We must work with the Norwegians to ensure that oil and gas are produced in a low-carbon, efficient manner in future, and that we realise the full potential of carbon capture, utilisation and storage. Companies that were exclusively oil and gas businesses are responding to the winds of change and are making the transition to low-carbon forms of energy production. The Government must incentivise them to move as quickly as is practically possible, and to ensure that the highly skilled workforce on the United Kingdom continental shelf have every opportunity to move to jobs in the low-carbon economy.
The UK has a record of which we can be proud, but we now need to accelerate our efforts to meet the challenge, and the motion is the first step in that process. It is welcome, so let us now ensure that it is passed, and then get on with the enormous amount of work that is required for that challenge to be properly met.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Aldous Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I call Andrea Jenkyns. Oh dear; she has beetled out of the Chamber. I therefore call Peter Aldous.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Kelly Tolhurst
My officials are in regular contact with the Treasury and MHCLG to represent the views of business. Last week, we welcomed the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), to BEIS so he now holds ministerial roles in this Department and in MHCLG, as Minister for the northern powerhouse and local growth. This further strengthens our relationship. We look forward to continuing to work together to support these businesses and make proper representations to the Treasury.
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Aldous Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Greg Clark
It is a sad reflection that the job creation that has taken place in Scotland lags behind that in the rest of the UK. I fancy that one reason for that is that Scotland has acquired a reputation for being the highest- tax part of the UK. So I hope the hon. Gentleman would reflect on these causes and advise his colleagues in Holyrood to take a different course.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Greg Clark
I am aware of the advice from the committee, which we will consider carefully. My hon. Friend will know that the energy company obligation has been reformed to concentrate on fuel poverty, but we are grateful for the committee’s advice and we will respond shortly.
Climate Change Policy
Peter Aldous Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Claire Perry
We should have been listening to the scientists in 1950, when the link was first found. What has been important about Ms Thunberg’s visit today—it is amazing to see the work—is that the conversation has gone from being niche, held between people who, like me, have long-standing interests in this area, to a mainstream conversation where everybody is talking about what it is that we need to do. That is why this is such a challenge but is so important. For the first time, the whole country is talking about climate change. I believe the whole world is talking about climate change and how we stop it. There are no deniers on the Conservative Benches.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The UK has a good and proven track record in meeting the challenges of climate change, from passing the Climate Change Act in 2008 to the emergence of a world-leading industry in offshore wind, which is bringing significant benefits to my constituency. That said, we can do more. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions from our existing housing stock, which will tackle the scourge of fuel poverty, and will she consider recognising housing as a key component of national infrastructure?
Claire Perry
My hon. Friend has been a marvellous champion of renewable energy. It was a delight to launch the offshore wind sector deal in Lowestoft and to see the regeneration that it is bringing to that proud port. He is right to talk about retrofitting homes. I sat on the green deal Bill Committee, as many others did, and we thought that we had an answer there, but it did not work. We have to keep going and recognise that such things as green mortgage lending could make an important contribution. Hopefully he will be pleased to see that we have focused the whole of the ECO budget on fuel poverty and have also upped the innovation component, because we need to have innovation in the area of retrofitting homes, particularly to drive costs down.
Future of the Oil and Gas Industry
Peter Aldous Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate the Scottish Affairs Committee on producing this informative report and on securing the debate.
The oil and gas industry is extremely important in the north-east of Scotland, but it also has other clusters, although not quite as large, in the north-east of England and East Anglia, which I represent. I chair the British offshore oil and gas industry all-party parliamentary group. It is important to remember that the industry is a national one and that it has a supply chain that extends throughout the whole of the UK.
The industry has been, I would say, the British industrial success story of the past 55 years. The results of extracting hydrocarbons on the UK continental shelf have been the creation of thousands of well-paid good jobs, the generation of an enormous amount of money for Her Majesty’s Treasury, and the development of expertise that can be taken, and has been taken, all around the world. Go to Libya, the gulf of Mexico, Kazakhstan or China, and one hears Scottish, Geordie and East Anglian accents.
David Duguid
Following on from something the Chair of the Committee said in his opening remarks—I meant to say this in my speech—I have benefited from that skills transfer, having worked not in Libya but in some of those other places around the world where oil and gas are prevalent. Does the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) agree that an important aspect of the sector deal, and the urgency of it, is to encourage the retention of those skills in this country in order to develop the technologies and innovations that we have discussed?
Peter Aldous
My hon. Friend is right. We have developed enormous expertise in the oil and gas sector which it is important to retain and build on. We are just beginning to see that in the offshore wind sector as well and, as I will come on to, the two are inextricably linked.
Yesterday was an important day for the industry. The APPG had its annual parliamentary reception, and those attending were in good heart and had a positive outlook for the future. We also had the Chancellor’s spring statement. Normally, the APPG lobbies Government hard coming up to annual Budgets and statements, but yesterday the Chancellor made no mention of the industry. I think that was mainly because he is keen for statements to be just that and not mini Budgets, but in many respects that was good news, because the industry wants a stable fiscal regime with no unforeseen, unpleasant or unhelpful surprises. That said, as we anticipate the autumn Budget, I suggest that we should all be back in top lobbying gear.
I acknowledge that we are now entering the second half of the contest—perhaps I should say challenge—of extracting oil and gas on the UKCS, but we should emphasise that this is not a sunset industry, as indeed colleagues in all parts of the Chamber have said. As in many matches, the best performances, goals and tries come in the second half. The industry has come through a great deal in recent years, but while challenges remain—in particular the low level of drilling activity and exploration—it is largely in a good place. Last year, significant final investment decisions were made on a number of major projects, production performance was strong, and unit operating costs had stabilised.
I shall highlight three areas in which the industry, the Oil and Gas Authority and the Government need to work together in the immediate future to maximise the sector’s potential for the benefit of all those who work in it and for the UK. First, attention needs to be given to strengthening the industry’s supply chain. Many companies’ revenues and margins are under extreme pressure, and increased collaboration and innovative contracting models are needed. If those are put in place, as a country we will be able to continue to compete for international investment, to provide security of energy supply, and to create and support highly skilled and fulfilling jobs.
Secondly, we need to build up expertise and create specialist hubs to carry out decommissioning. A good start has been made with the launch of the National Decommissioning Centre, but we must have it in mind that that is an enormous prize, not just on the UKCS—and, from my own perspective, most immediately in the southern North sea—but in basins all around the world.
Thirdly, the sector has made a good start in promoting and facilitating the transition to a low-carbon economy. Instead of the Danish oil and natural gas company and Statoil, we talk about Ørsted and Equinor. Gas has an important role to play in the transition to a low-carbon economy. In the southern North sea, the oil and gas and offshore wind sectors are collaborating on such innovative projects as gas to wire, which involves gas being generated into electricity offshore and transmitted to shore via spare capacity in the subsea cables that are used for the wind farms.
There are plenty of challenges, but my sense is that the industry is resurgent and brimful of ideas. With the right nurturing, promotion and collaboration, it can play a key role in the UK on the post-Brexit global stage.
Offshore Wind Substations: East of England
Peter Aldous Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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George Freeman
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Had I been in charge of energy policy at the relevant time, I would have doubled nuclear capacity when we could have got it cheap and invested more in long-term research on a whole range of renewables, including tidal. But we are where we are, and tonight my constituency faces the enormous challenge of hosting this national infrastructure.
I want to make it clear that I am a strong supporter of renewable energy. Indeed, if the wind is to be used, I would rather it were used offshore than onshore. Investment in offshore wind in East Anglia is phenomenal, and it will generate a large number of jobs. Much more importantly, it will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and dramatically accelerate our work on climate change; it will lessen our dependence on energy from Russia and the middle east; and it is generally a very good thing. I do not want anything I say to be taken as in any way against the offshore wind generation revolution.
East Anglia is now the global hub of offshore renewable energy, and many of the points I am raising tonight impact on Norfolk as well as Suffolk. I am delighted to be joined tonight by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), and to have the support of the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal is here on the Front Bench, muted by virtue of her high office but present and supportive as ever—with a thumbs up for the camera.
I want to raise three questions tonight. First, what strategic options have not really been debated properly in Norfolk, Suffolk or East Anglia, and have the Government looked, or required the relevant agencies—in this case, National Grid—to look properly at those options and do a proper cost-benefit assessment and environmental impact assessment? Secondly, what guidance and provisions cover small communities such as Necton when they have to host national infrastructure on the scale that we are talking about? When I talk about a substation, I am not talking about something the size of a container that hums in the rain behind a hedge; these are the size of Wembley stadium, and I shall have two of them outside one village. Thirdly, what can a community that is being asked to carry that kind of infrastructure expect in the way of proper consultation and community benefit?
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The offshore wind sector deal, which was launched by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth in Lowestoft and Yarmouth last Thursday, provides for the Government and the industry to work together to maximise the benefits of offshore wind to the UK and to regions such as East Anglia. The sector deal makes specific reference to the need to ensure that the impact of onshore transmission is acceptable to local communities such as Necton. Does my hon. Friend agree that this provides the framework for the Government, the industry, National Grid, the Crown estates, councils and MPs to work together to put in place a sustainable solution to the problems that he is quite rightly highlighting?
George Freeman
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that excellent point, and I hope that the Minister will pick up on it in her closing comments. He has pointed to something very important.
The key question that is being asked in our part of the world is: if we are to host this incredible investment—there is up to £50 billion of investment already in the pipeline; I have two wind farms connecting through my constituency and there are 10 more coming—what voice should the people of Norfolk and their elected representatives have in shaping the way in which that infrastructure is connected? At the moment, it looks very much like a free for all. Each wind farm applies for its own cabling and its own substation, with the result that we waste energy, we waste huge amounts of land and we massively increase the environmental impact. This leaves Norfolk powered by renewable energy but disempowered when it comes to the democracy of those decisions and without any benefit. In our part of the world—I say this as a supporter of renewable energy—it is beginning to feel as though the applicants are using the national significant infrastructure planning regulations to bypass and circumvent the need for any meaningful conversations at all. This explains why I have had such strong support from other colleagues in the area.
I have taken an interest in this, and I have been a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Department, so I was quite surprised that I first heard about the scale of this infrastructure in my role as a constituency MP, when I was confronted by the application for the Dudgeon wind farm. At the time, the proposal was to put it close to Necton. I did not particularly have a problem with that, but I did have a problem with the siting. It was proposed to put it on the top of a hill in an area of natural beauty with environmental protections. Anyone who had actually been to that area would have said that it was a daft place to put a substation. With the active co-operation of the then applicant company, we sat down with the parish councils and were able to agree that it should be put in the low-lying land next to the village of Necton.
A few years later, in 2013, it became clear that the Vanguard and the Boreas wind farm applications were coming, and that they would need another substation. That was my first surprise, because I felt that the first substation would have been big enough for all those wind farms. However, it turns out that each wind farm will have one. The process of consultation, led by Vattenfall, has led to increasing levels of concern not just for me but for the local community. Throughout all the consultation phases, no one is actually listening to the voices of the people on the ground. We have ended up with this enormous structure placed on top of the hill, visible to five villages and raising all sorts of environmental impacts, including light pollution and impact on the landscape. This has happened in the teeth of a howl from the local community. They do not mind having a substation, but could it not have been put out of sight in the low-lying land next to the previous substation? You could not have made this up.
What has been shocking in this process is the absolute lack of interest from the applicant in the voice of local community representatives, from the parish council to councillors to the MP, because it seems to have been led to believe that it is able to circumvent that local representation under the nationally significant infrastructure planning rules.
The more that one looks into the process by which we have ended up here, the clearer it has become that there has been no proper consideration of the strategic options for taking this scale of energy offshore. Indeed, a number of people in both Norfolk and Suffolk have suggested at various points that it would be rather more efficient to have an offshore ring main to collect the electricity and then have it brought onshore at one or two points with a major substation, instead of requiring each individual wind farm to have its own cabling and substation. You might think that a sensible proposal, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I see you nodding, which is encouraging—neutral though you are—but at no point in the past three, four, five, six or seven years has there been a strategic discussion in Norfolk or Suffolk to which the elected representatives at council or parliamentary levels could contribute.
It appears that the National Grid has merrily gone through the national planning process and has responded to applications, but we are in danger of having hugely unnecessary levels of cabling and substation infrastructure, all of which involve high-security installations that represent something of an energy security challenge to the UK in these dangerous times. To illustrate that point, the two wind farms coming to my constituency are responsible for 2,500 acres of land over which 115 km of cabling will run, and reasonably sophisticated local projections have shown that if the cabling were unified for just those two, it could be reduced by 80 km, but there seems to be no basis upon which that conversation could be had. Therefore, what consideration has been made of such options? If there has been none, what consideration should be made of not only the cost and benefit, but the environmental implications? I know that the Minister, as a passionate activist and campaigning Minister, takes such matters seriously.
In the event that little villages such as Necton end up carrying major substation infrastructure—hopefully on the right site—what benefit should such communities expect? It has always seemed fair that if a village should host a wind turbine, for example, it should benefit in a small way locally. Where a village takes a massive piece of national infrastructure, perhaps the benefit might be proportionate. The people of Necton would be happy if something flowed back into the village by way of some community facility. Given the scale of the infrastructure, that could perhaps come as a transport upgrade to the dangerous junction with the A47. Normally, I would relish sitting down with the applicant to try to broker something sensible, but the way that the regulations appear to have been drafted means that there is a no conversation to be had, which seems wrong.
It is late at night, and I have made my points, so I will invite the Minister to reply. However, I close by saying that the applicant should not be able to plead that because this is national infrastructure—although understandably that may bypass the minutiae and the eddies and currents of the local planning system—then somehow the voice of the local community and elected representatives should be cut out. That is important not just for Necton and Mid Norfolk, but for trust in our planning system and for the sense that this energy revolution will work for everybody’s benefit. At the moment, however, it looks horribly like it will be for the benefit of a few energy companies and very few people in our part of the world, so I welcome the Minister’s interest in this matter both offline and in her comments now.
Sustainable Seas
Peter Aldous Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Mary Creagh
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, and I share his concern about the plastics that come off the greenhouses where our tomatoes and cucumbers are grown, which are discarded and then literally chucked into the sea. We treat the sea as a waste disposal unit, and it is not. There is more that supermarkets can do in tackling the full carbon footprint of the fruits and vegetables that they import and making sure that they stamp out any abuse and any forced and slave labour in their fruit and picking supply chains. We know that that they is an area where forced labour and child labour are prevalent.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I commend the hon. Lady and her Committee for this excellent report. May I also mention the excellent work that is done by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, which is based in my constituency to both identify the problems and come up with solutions? Based on its work, the UK can be a global pioneer in the sustainable stewardship of our seas?
Mary Creagh
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is a former and much esteemed member of our Committee, for that question. I saw the CEFAS ship on a visit to his constituency when I was shadowing the DEFRA brief. He is right that we have world-leading marine biologists and marine scientists. The world looks to the UK for our brilliance and thought leadership on the subject. One criticism that we have of Government is that they have stopped funding our long time series around ocean certification measurements. One key recommendation is that we need to measure the acidity of the ocean. We know what it was going back decades, but we need to have more monitoring sites around the UK, so I hope that he will help us in pushing the Government on that task.
Nuclear Update
Peter Aldous Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I am disappointed in the right hon. Gentleman who, as a former Secretary of State, I would have thought knows the changing economics of the energy market, which I set out pretty clearly. I gently remind him that, as Secretary of State, he was responsible in his time for the negotiation of the terms of the Hinkley Point C agreement, so it is surprising to hear him being so critical of it.
The right hon. Gentleman wants to take credit for one of the policies for which he was responsible but not the other, which I might uncharitably say is characteristic of his party. As with Hinkley Point, there was a recognition that financing such significant projects—£16 billion from a private company—is hard to do through the conventional channels of private investment. It is desirable to have nuclear as part of a diverse energy mix. If I might put it this way, having a substantial mix of technologies has an insurance quality. We should recognise that, but there is a limit to what we can pay for the benefit, which is reflected in my statement.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Sizewell C is an important component of the world leading low-carbon energy sector emerging along the north Suffolk coast. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Government remain committed to Sizewell C and to negotiating a value-for-money deal with EDF?
Oral Answers to Questions
Peter Aldous Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
The Government support businesses throughout the UK by encouraging innovation, investing in infrastructure and skills and, more importantly, building long-term partnerships with businesses as part of our modern industrial strategy. We have demonstrated our support for the importance of our supply chain through the automotive, aerospace and nuclear sector deals.
Peter Aldous
I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Fabrication yards in UK ports have supply chains that extend throughout the UK, but there is real concern for their future. Can the Minister confirm that the oil and gas and the offshore wind sector deals will make provision for realising the full potential of those yards and their supply chains?
Richard Harrington
I certainly can, and I welcome the deal proposals that have been put forward by both the offshore wind and the offshore oil and gas sectors.
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
I think I have answered a similar question before, although not from the hon. Gentleman. I have absolutely no plans to change the traffic lights system. The current fracking proposals being tested in Lancashire right now were developed with that system. The fact is that that system is working and being triggered even by micro-tremors; the hon. Gentleman will know that we have had some great evidence from the University of Liverpool as to how small the tremors actually are. If we are to take forward what could be a very valuable industry, it is only right that we do so with the toughest environmental regulations in the world, so I say again that there are no plans from the Government to change the traffic lights system.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Kelly Tolhurst
We continue to work closely with the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that the needs of high street retailers are understood. In the 2018 Budget we announced a reduction in business rates worth £900 million over two years for small businesses. The digital services tax, a 2% tax on revenues specific to digital businesses, will ensure that they pay tax reflecting the value that they derive from UK users. We have also established the Retail Sector Council, which has now decided on its future work programme, as part of which business costs and taxation are one topic being considered.