Large-scale Solar Farms

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Johnson]

My hon. Friend is completely right and he demonstrates that this menace stretches the length and breadth of the country. I will come later to his well- made point about the grading of land.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Is she aware, in relation to the use of best and most versatile land, that our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when appearing before the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs last month, made a statement that he was reviewing the suitability of best and most versatile land for solar planning applications? As my hon. Friend will be aware, I am a supporter of solar energy, as she is, but it needs to be in the right place. We should not have, as she and our hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) have described, industrial-scale concentrations over vast areas beyond a reasonable level. It is a question of balance that we have to get right.

[Dr Johnson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I was not aware of the statement at the EFRA Committee, but I am aware, from my discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, of his love for and attention to farmland and his desire to see that food security is protected.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

11. What recent estimate she has made of the cost of decarbonising the grid by (a) 2030 and (b) 2035.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

23. What recent estimate she has made of the cost of decarbonising the grid by (a) 2030 and (b) 2035.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Only recently, we have seen European countries having to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas. We cannot do that, only to become dependent on other parts of the world for our energy needs. Our plan will give British supply chains time to develop, ensuring that British workers can reap the benefits of the energy transition. According to expert analysis, the Labour plans will cost taxpayers £100 billion—all to undermine British manufacturing and risk blackouts.

[Philip Dunne]

As the Secretary of State is aware, the Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into decarbonising the economy has heard evidence that no newly commissioned nuclear capacity—even from small modular reactors—is able to come on stream until 2035. New energy projects given planning consent today are unlikely to connect to the grid before 2030, and the scale of the necessary grid network roll-out to reach our 2035 target is already huge. What does my right hon. Friend make of the feasibility, let alone the cost that she has highlighted today, of the fantasy pipe dream of official Labour party policy to decarbonise by 2030?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. The plans that we have set out represent the largest expansion of nuclear in 70 years, with radical reforms to the grid. However, it does take time to build things. Labour’s 2030 policy is mad, bad and downright dangerous. I have yet to meet a serious expert or a single person in the industry who believes it is possible. We have a record to be proud of, becoming the first major economy to halve our emissions, but Labour’s plans would heap costs on to taxpayers, in stark contrast to our pragmatic and proportionate approach.

Civil Nuclear Road Map

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) for referring to the letter that the Environmental Audit Committee has just sent under my name to the Secretary of State. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) allowed the letter to be tagged to this debate when he secured it, and I congratulate him on doing so. It is on an important subject and, from our Committee’s point of view, it is timely, because we wrote to the Secretary of State only a few weeks ago, before the recess.

Some members of my Committee—it is a very diverse Committee, with a complete range of opinions on this subject—have very strong reservations about the role and scope of nuclear energy in the UK, but I will start by placing on record my personal support for nuclear energy and the SMR programme, which was the subject of our letter and will be the subject of my remarks today. It is an important part of the path to net zero, contributing not just to baseload, but to the significant increase in electricity generation that will be required if we manage to decarbonise our economy, as is supported across the House.

I look forward to listening to the contribution from the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), but the Labour party’s energy policy is in complete disarray. I therefore welcome the stark contrast that the Minister has provided—particularly in his new role as Minister for nuclear—by getting nuclear on the road to regeneration as a core part of our energy mix as we move towards net zero. It is precisely because the Labour party, during its last period in office, made no decisions and would not even debate the subject that we have such a skills shortage in the UK civil nuclear sector. That was picked up in an intervention by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). No new nuclear reactors have come online in the UK since 1995 because of that indecision, so I welcome the civil nuclear road map, which sets out the Government’s ambition to reach as much as 24 GW of nuclear power by 2050. The intent to deploy SMRs will assist the UK in reaching that target, as is set out in the British energy security strategy.

I ask the Minister to consider the concerns that I raised in the Committee’s letter of 13 February to the Secretary of State, among which is the fact that the investment decisions sought between 2030 and 2044 are likely, on current plans, to realise generating capacity of between 9 GW and 21 GW. The Minister, who is very good at maths, will recognise that that is quite a range: 12 GW, or half the Government’s 24 GW upper target for nuclear capacity by 2050.

Great British Nuclear told our Committee that the Government’s target of producing up to 24 GW of nuclear power was not sufficient to give industry confidence about the scale of investment that would be required and suggested that a specific programme should be required to facilitate industry confidence. Further clarity—this was the essence of my letter—would be welcomed. Despite the Government’s assertions in response to the Committee’s recent intervention, as it stands the road map does not offer as much clarity as industry and investors require.

Given the increasing international interest and competition in investment in building nuclear energy capacity, we need to recognise that the UK market for creating that additional capacity cannot be considered in isolation. We are in an international race to transition our economy into a decarbonised world in which many other countries are looking to build nuclear capacity. Those involved in delivering that capacity will have choices: where to invest, to build and to bid.

A key role for Government in achieving their objective of introducing SMR nuclear energy is to provide as much clarity as possible in the process for decision making, the timescale to which they are working and the manner of the procurement process, including funding and contracting models. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to make the Government’s expectation on gigawatt roll-out as clear as possible, so that the contribution SMRs are expected to make to the electricity generation mix in the UK by 2035 is made available to industry. That will give it the confidence it needs to invest in the programme to the extent the Government would like and according to the timetable they have indicated in the road map. I assume Ministers are as convinced as I am about the future role of baseload generation in supplying electricity to the grid, alongside the power to be provided by renewables, and I am sure the Minister will need no further invitation to set that out in his response.

On current estimates, it seems unlikely that SMR deployment will be contributing generating capacity to the grid until 2035, the date by which the Government expect the GB electricity grid to have been decarbonised, with both Hinkley and Sizewell likely to be operational in the early 2030s. Quite how the Labour party believes it can decarbonise the grid by 2030, a full five years ahead of that, against all consensus of prevailing expert advice, is a matter for Labour, but it seems wholly fanciful and frankly misleading to the British public.

So what will the additional generating capacity to be delivered through an SMR fleet provide? There are strong suggestions in the road map and its supporting papers that a fleet of SMRs based on advanced nuclear technologies will have applications beyond power generation, but until those technologies are proven to be viable for deployment in SMRs, with the benefits that a modular approach to construction is expected to provide, which were highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) in introducing the debate, they remain some way off being ready for investment.

Not only is nuclear, and the SMR approach to deployment, a crucial component of reaching net zero, but there are significant economic benefits to the UK if we are a leader in this technology, including a large potential export market for SMR units. The UK’s SMR programme is in an advanced position among western countries. It has the potential to facilitate a nascent export market and deliver new skilled jobs across the UK.

Along with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), in 2015, when I was Minister for defence equipment, science and technology and had responsibility for defence nuclear procurement, I was proud to launch the coalition Government’s programme for sustaining the UK’s nuclear skills. The competitive advantage we have in this field is potentially huge, if properly resourced and incentivised.

However, all of this requires the Government to flesh out the road map in ways that further demonstrate a long-term commitment to the UK’s nuclear future, and to learn from the issues in procuring gigawatt-scale nuclear when developing its strategy to deliver nuclear through SMRs. Simon Bowen, whom I commend for his clear leadership of Great British Nuclear, explained to the Committee that between one and four SMR designs are to be selected for Government contracts, with at least one SMR project to be taken to final investment decision by 2029.

On the issue of the timetable, I was disappointed that the road map removed reference to clarity of the timeline for the conclusion of the current design competition, signalling that the Government may push back awarding contracts to winners of the SMR design competition beyond summer 2024 as originally intended. I hope the Minister will use this opportunity to clarify when he expects to announce the outcome, and hopefully that will be prior to the summer recess. Any of us who have held responsibility for procurement in Government will know that time is a constant pressure, so I encourage the Minister to do all he can while in post to put in place the right processes early, so that deadlines do not slip.

Our Committee has said that, in the interests of parliamentary and public confidence in both the expenditure of public money and the timely delivery of expected benefits, the SMR programme should be fully subject to a value for money audit by the National Audit Office, provided that this in itself does not add delay to the delivery. I recognise the pressure to streamline planning and regulatory processes, but the Committee thought it vital that robust governance and safety arrangements were maintained. This is not an area where Ministers will want to cut comers.

While I am on my feet, I ask the Minister to comment in his closing remarks on media reports that Great British Nuclear is in discussion with EDF to purchase a part of the existing nuclear site at Heysham as a likely location for one of the first SMR facilities. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris)—a neighbour of yours, Mr Deputy Speaker—in whose constituency Heysham sits, cannot be here for this debate, but he has told me that the site in his constituency has grid and rail connections, a supportive community, and, clearly, a highly skilled workforce—the largest of any generating nuclear site in the UK—which could support the operation of any future nuclear development at Heysham. In order to help accelerate deployment once the successful designs have been selected, which other speakers in this debate have called for, can the Minister confirm whether GBN could make a start on preparing one or more sites for the eventual successful bidders, once the Government have announced which sites they have designated for initial deployment?

Finally, the fact that every nuclear power plant started life under a Conservative Government demonstrates our willingness to make important decisions for the long- term future of this country. I welcome the Government’s plans, as they represent the biggest expansion of nuclear power for, I believe, 70 years—my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe said 50 years—which will lead to a quadrupling of nuclear capacity by 2050. The UK can once again become a leading nation in providing civil nuclear energy, and this Government can take credit for taking the key decisions to bring that about. It would be great to expedite those decisions as soon as possible.

Civil Nuclear Road Map

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

Today’s statement provides welcome clarity about the Government’s road map for the delivery and revival of new nuclear energy capacity, and I will be writing on behalf of my Committee to the Minister shortly to raise some points about the SMR competition that he has touched on today. Notwithstanding the grudging support from those on the Opposition Front Bench, what steps is my hon. Friend taking to build the broad consensus behind this essential component of the delivery of net zero, so that the road map does not fall victim to the short-term thinking that bedevilled the delivery of a safe and effective renewal of nuclear capacity in the past, notably under the previous Labour Government?

[Andrew Bowie]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his support of this document and for the work that he has done in chairing the Committee to drive forward the arguments for further investment in nuclear. I know he shares my belief that if we are to reach net zero, nuclear will play a large part in the mix of energy solutions that we invest in.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to build a broad consensus. I genuinely welcome the support of the official Opposition for new investment in nuclear. As I said, when we look around the world, the pace at which the mood is changing and the broad acceptance of nuclear as a key benefit in reaching our net zero goals is incredible. It will take a lot of hard work on the part of all of us who believe in the benefits that nuclear can bring economically, to our energy security and, ultimately and most importantly, to the environment, to keep the pressure up. I look forward to his writing to me, and to discussing the issues that he has raised further, and I thank him once again for his broad support for what we are trying to deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned that he will go to COP28 next week. Could he remind Members of the House, particularly those on the Opposition Benches, of the measures taken in last week’s autumn statement to help to promote the green energy agenda in this country?

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend is quite right. We must never forget the parlous state of this country in 2010. Less than 7% of our electricity came from renewables—that was the legacy of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). In the first quarter of this year, that was nearly 48%. Opposition Members raised the issue of people being cold and unable to pay their bills, but just 14% of homes were insulated properly; now, it is 50%. In last week’s autumn statement we heard announcements about the grid and—

Net Zero by 2050

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

I warmly welcome what my right hon. Friend has just said about the focus on the grid and accelerating grid access. I hope she will be able to pick up on the report that my Committee is undertaking on that subject and that we can contribute to her deliberations. As she will be aware, I wrote to the Prime Minister on behalf of the Committee in the week following his speech, offering him an opportunity to put some flesh on the bones of what his more pragmatic approach to achieving net zero ambitions actually means. Will she confirm when my Committee can expect to receive a reply to that letter? Will it include an analysis of the impact of the trajectory of delivering net zero on the five-yearly carbon budgets and, in particular, how the announcement we have just had confirmed by the Transport Secretary, who is sitting next to her, on maintaining the zero-emission vehicle mandate will impact on that trajectory?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank my right hon. Friend and commend his long-standing work on environmentalism; I have been privileged to work with him on this before. I will be responding to him and I look forward to coming to speak to his Committee in due course. We set out unprecedented levels of detail in the analysis of how we are going to meet the targets earlier this year. I also accept the Climate Change Committee’s analysis, which is that the changes we have made are not materially different in terms of achieving our targets—we are absolutely committed to making sure that we do so. As he rightly points out, the biggest announcement we have made on achieving those targets is the one relating to the grid, which will allow for much greater and quicker electrification of society when it comes to the impacts of other proposals.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Philip Dunne Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Southfork—excuse me, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). I was delighted to learn that he will support the Bill, and he is quite right to do so. I was pleased to learn that he reads the report of the Environmental Audit Committee. I commend them to other Members who have not had that opportunity.

I also support the Bill. As the Secretary of State said, it is a monumental piece of legislation—the largest piece of energy legislation in my political lifetime and that of most people in this House, I suspect. Energy is at the heart of our economy. It drives the competitiveness of this country versus our peers. As we have seen from the impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, when things go wrong, those countries that cannot account for their own energy security and resilience are left at the mercy of the autocrats. That is not a position that this country should be in, given our geographic position and access to resources.

The Bill is a vital first step in the journey to the vision that the Secretary of State set out in “Powering Up Britain”, but I may disappoint him slightly by saying that it lacks what is really needed: a vision to get us to 2050. We need a 27-year plan to establish how we will drive electricity generation and get it to the places that it needs to go, in order to achieve net zero Britain. I hope that during the passage of the Bill, if additional comments and suggestions are made to the Front Bench, they will take them in a positive spirit in that direction.

The scale of the challenge is enormous. We need five times the current electricity generating capacity to decarbonise our economy, ignoring any increase in GDP during this period. The UK is trying to do that in a globally competitive environment, as we just heard from the right hon. Member for Doncaster North. This is a time in which international investors, whether state-owned electricity companies or financial investors, are looking for the markets to invest in energy generation that will provide them with the quickest route to completion of the deal, whatever kind of a deal that is. One big challenge that the Bill seeks to resolve is removing some of the barriers to implementation and reducing some of the risk. That is where it has a great deal to offer. The key is to provide confidence to the international community and the domestic supply chain that this country knows where it is going, will facilitate the way to get there and will do it quickly.

I have three quick points to make in my six minutes. The UK has allowed our existing nuclear fleet to age without previous Administrations taking the necessary decisions. The Labour party was completely incapable of taking decisions about nuclear and, frankly, in coalition the Lib Dems were no better, and applied the brakes. I welcome the Government’s having made the difficult decisions to start the process of renewing our nuclear fleet.

I welcome what the Secretary of State has said today on the competition launched to identify two projects by November from a design perspective. I urge him and his nuclear Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie)—who is very welcome in his place—to ensure that the UK takes advantage of this opportunity to recover our leading position in nuclear technologies, by giving some clarity on what happens after the design competition has made its determinations. We need to maintain the development of novel technological solutions so that the UK once again becomes a nuclear energy hub of expertise.

I wrote to the Secretary of State last week on the subject of solar power. In connection with that, the EAC has launched an inquiry into the grid, which, as others have said, is not in a fit state to cope with the massive electrification of the economy. I encourage external observers and commentators to provide evidence to our inquiry into enabling the sustainable electrification of the UK economy, which will focus on the role of the national grid and reducing barriers to access. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North identified some statistics. Today, attaching an onshore solar farm to the grid in the UK takes 13 years. The queue is that long. As one can imagine, that is something of a deterrent to anybody thinking about doing that. We have to cut that significantly, and planning is a big part of that.

Cutting the time to provide consents while enabling communities to have their say is the Rubik’s cube challenge that the Bill seeks to address. Similarly, we must ensure that we have confidence in supply chains to supply the capabilities that we wish to introduce in this country. As has been said, finance is internationally mobile. The money is there to fund the projects but only if those projects can be delivered.

Finally, I have a quick note on community energy. I declare that I am a member of the Ludlow Hydro Co-operative, which is a very good, small-scale scheme providing electricity to local communities. Their lordships have made some suggestions to encourage other such schemes, and I hope the Minister will look upon them favourably.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Dunne Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

From April, under the successor to the energy bill relief scheme, the Government are committed to providing support that is in line with support to other domestic consumers. The Government are working on the successor to that scheme, and if anybody has any issues, of course, they can contact the energy ombudsman if they are concerned.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to increase renewable energy production.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

I am pleased to tell my right hon. Friend that growth in the renewables sector continues year on year, with the latest data showing that 3.4 GW of new renewable electricity capacity was installed last year alone. We will build on that further: we have now taken our highly successful contracts for difference scheme and put it on an annual basis, so allocation round 5 will open next month.

[Philip Dunne]

Oil and gas producers benefit from an investment allowance for investment in renewable projects in the UK, but existing renewable generators do not. Will my right hon. Friend make representations to the Chancellor, so that he can level up that anomaly and enable my right hon. Friend’s admirable renewable energy ambitions to be realised?

[Graham Stuart]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. As he knows, tax policy is a matter for the Chancellor, but I am working closely with him, along with the Secretary of State, to ensure that the electricity generator levy strikes the right balance when supporting households and businesses struggling with their energy bills. It is worth remembering that, as I have just mentioned, our main mechanism is the CfD, which provides support for renewable generators in a way that is certainly not true of those in the oil and gas sector.