Great British Energy Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Pippa Heylings and Uma Kumaran

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Uma Kumaran]

Q Welcome, Mr Maier. It is good to hear your reassurances about communities being kept at the heart of this. You have told us about renewables, about offshore and about clean energy. As we have heard, it is a short Bill, but I would welcome your thoughts on what the Bill tells us about the objects and the strategic priorities of GB Energy and whether, in your view, it gives you enough detail to carry out your work.

Juergen Maier: It certainly gives me a very clear direction, along with the framework document that we will develop together with the Secretary of State and the Minister. The short answer to your question is that it is pretty clear. The purpose is clear, and that is the most important thing: the purpose, at the end of the day, is that we will accelerate the amount of clean renewable energy that we put on the grid, and that we will create as much prosperity and as many jobs through it as possible.

[Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

Q Welcome, Mr Maier. The main thing for me is the public accountability of GB Energy. You are very clear that the Bill gives you strategic direction. How do you feel that it also provides for public accountability for the money being invested or co-invested?

Juergen Maier: We are seeing pretty good evidence of that right now, aren’t we? At the end of the day, this is now a pretty well-established model for being absolutely state-owned and independently run. “Independently run” means excellent governance, and obviously as start-up chair I am going to ensure that that is the case. That does not all need to be in the Bill, because we know what it means. We have the Companies Act 2006 and numerous Acts about how good governance works. We will ensure through our board and our non-executives that there is proper governance, and of course there will be many opportunities for reviews by the Secretary of State and ultimately for the usual sort of public scrutiny.

Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Pippa Heylings and Uma Kumaran

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Uma Kumaran]

Merci.

Alistair McGirr: If I may add to that, there is the question of the role of the state. Not everything has to be through GB Energy or the national wealth fund. In terms of the GB Energy policy framework, the creation of the National Energy System Operator can help to drive a lot of economic value through the transition here in GB by taking a much more strategic approach to how infrastructure is going to be deployed. GB Energy is one element of that, but I think the wider value can be brought together by a more strategic approach through the policy framework.

[Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

Q You talked about the objects within the scope of the law, about facilitating and encouraging, and about frontier innovation in technology and energy generation, but you also talked about de-risking. You did not mention onshore wind, so I am wondering whether that would lead also to onshore wind. There are also tidal programmes, such as the reef from Aberthaw to Minehead, that are stalled. Do you see these as part of helping to facilitate and de-risk within the scope of GB Energy, too?

Tristan Zipfel: For sure, yes, they could be part of the scope. Choices will need to be made, of course, on where those investments are directed, and I think it is important to direct the investments where they will have the maximum impact. When it comes to onshore wind, for instance, perhaps it could be a case not of investing where the private sector is already doing a good job on its own, but of looking at areas where there is a need to develop infrastructure to unlock these onshore wind opportunities, or of looking at Government-owned land that could be used to develop new projects. As you said, Alistair, it is going to be complementary to what the private sector is doing, but there will be pockets of opportunities for GB Energy to really make a difference, even in an area like onshore wind, I think—100%.

Alistair McGirr: I agree with that answer. The question would then be: where is the biggest bang for the buck? Is it building large onshore wind projects that actually have developers in that space and have a route to market? That is probably the question for GB Energy: is that the best use of taxpayers’ money, rather than other things that can be done in terms of investment in frontier technologies?

You mentioned tidal. There is the question there of an absence of a business model. If there was this supported business model, there might be an opportunity for private investors to come into that space. There is the issue that just because the private sector is not doing it does not mean that the public sector should do it, because ultimately, if it is a bad deal for private shareholders, it is probably a bad deal for taxpayers as well. I think this is about making sure that the technologies that are useful are brought forward with business models that provide a return for whoever the investor is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Uma Kumaran]

Q It is good to see the UK as a global leader once more, being the first in the G7 to end coal and in ensuring, as you have said, that the transition has been a just one. This is an increasingly perilous time globally to rely on foreign countries for our energy and energy security, and that remains a concern. I am looking at the object in clause 3(2)(d), on

“measures for ensuring the security of the supply of energy”.

For our constituents watching at home, which I choose to believe they are, what does the Bill actually mean for energy security? What does it mean for our constituents in the years ahead?

Michael Shanks: Our constituents and the wider population are watching every moment of this sitting, I have no doubt.

That is an important question. Security of supply is one of the critical questions that we have to answer. We have this challenge at the moment of how we bring down bills; how we move towards our climate targets for clean power, which is essential; and how we ensure security of supply. The only way—the only long-term solution—is for us to move to cheaper renewable energy at pace. Every single year that we are dependent on volatile fossil fuel markets, we open ourselves to the kind of exposure that people have still been paying the price for in the past few years. That cannot continue.

We will not be able to flick a switch overnight. We have come in after 14 years of chaos, frankly, in so much of government, and we are doing as much as we can to move at pace, but this is the journey that we need to be on. As I have said, 2030 is ambitious, but it is absolutely achievable. I was heartened when every single one of our witnesses today confirmed that although this is an ambitious programme, they see GB Energy as a critical part—not a silver bullet; of course it is not, and we never said that it is—in moving us toward energy security, cheaper bills and the climate leadership that the public want.

[Pippa Heylings]

Q I would like to understand whether you see this as the missing limb in clause 3, on the objects. I heard you mention in the Chamber that the fifth objective of GB Energy is community energy, so we are missing the fifth objective in clause 3 around community energy. We heard from all the witnesses about how crucial this community piece is, both to de-risking and to reducing the delay. I wonder whether you would be open to an amendment and would consider putting it in here. I do not think that this would make it more difficult to hold the flexible, wide-ranging framework that we have had, so I want to see if you are open to that.

Michael Shanks: There are two separate things here: the objects in the Bill, which are around the restrictions placed on Great British Energy, and the five key functions, which are outlined in the founding statement. I was referring to the five key functions, one of which is the local power plan, which is how we think we will deliver a lot more community-owned energy.

The important thing about the Bill is that we do not want inadvertently to create a list of things that we think are good to have—I do not disagree with you at all about the importance of that—but that actually end up restricting it in ways that we do not expect. There is that danger with Bills like this; it was the same with Great British Nuclear and the UK Infrastructure Bank, where they have a clear, focused remit. There is nothing in the objects that prevents community energy projects—in fact, they are intrinsic to several of them—but we think that adding more and more detail, including the amendment that you propose, is not the right way to go. But it is clear in the founding statement, in the evidence from Juergen Maier and in numerous answers from the Secretary of State and me that this is something to which we are absolutely committed.