New Pylons: East Anglia

Richard Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

That is absolutely right, but we also need to make the point that even if the evidence is made available and proves the point in favour of the present proposals, it is against benchmarks that are out of date and inadequate for the purpose. That is why I call this a patch and mend approach to the existing infrastructure, when the scale of the extra capacity required to be carried in the East Anglian grid is massive. It is a huge leap, yet there seems to be no strategic or controlling mind behind the planning of the national grid for the next 50 to 100 years. It is all on much shorter-term horizons.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I extend my sincere condolences to my hon. Friend, in common with colleagues.

The lack of a controlling mind does seem to be one of the biggest problems. Does my hon. Friend agree that the only reason that the network needs to be reinforced from Dunston in the north of my constituency, going right across Norfolk and into Suffolk, is because of the perverse decision to route existing offshore wind connections to that part of the network, instead of following National Grid Electricity System Operator’s own advice, which is to accelerate the provision of an offshore transmission network, which would save up to £3 billion in capital expenditure and a further £3 billion in operating costs? Does he agree that now is the time to revisit that decision?

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[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I am glad to lend my support to the arguments of many MPs whose constituencies are directly affected by the proposed pylon route of East Anglia GREEN. I represent the constituency of Broadland in Norfolk, which is not directly affected. The run starts at Dunston in south Norfolk, just south of Norwich, heads through Suffolk and into Essex. The reason I wanted to join the debate is to question the rationale for reinforcing the transmission network from Norwich south in the first place.

The consultation, which has already been much criticised and will be by other contributors, starts with the assumption that there is a problem that needs to be solved. That problem is additional power being applied to the network at Dunston, at Norwich south. The power comes from offshore wind farms, both those connected in the past five years, since the previous review by Ofgem in 2015, and the huge number of additional wind farms anticipated between now and 2030, and thereafter.

We know from last year’s National Grid ESO report of an anticipated 17 GW of offshore wind constructed in the southern North sea alone—part of the 50 GW by 2030 ambition—but there is a problem. Although we won the argument for a holistic network design leading to an offshore transmission network, with the Secretary of State making that announcement on the Floor of the House, we appear to have lost the battle when it comes to East Anglia. The holistic network design comes into force from 2030 onwards, we are told, yet the connections for East Anglia affect our counties between now and 2030. It is between now and 2030 that the 17 GW will be constructed and connected.

We have here the most classic example of putting the cart before the horse. Much better would be to look again at the design for East Anglian connection, follow the advice of the National Grid ESO report, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), and create an offshore transmission network. Accelerate it; do not accept the argument that it can be put in place only by 2030 and push for 2025. If we do that, on its own estimates, there are £6 billion of savings to be made: £3 billion in reduced capital expenditure, because it is much easier for a wind farm to connect to a grid that is already offshore, and £3 billion of further operating savings between now and 2050.

[Mr Bacon]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, with this enormous extra offshore capacity that is coming, if we do not follow his suggestion of an offshore grid as soon as possible, which is Government policy, we could be faced with the current nightmare being duplicated or triplicated? In a few years it could be said, “Well, actually the pylons we installed a few years ago are not efficient, so we need even more pylons.” How lunatic would that be?

[Jerome Mayhew]

Of course, Ofgem would say, “Well, we’ve done the calculations. We know that there isn’t going to be any more offshore wind, and we think this is going to be enough.” But in 2015, when it last looked at this subject and was asked to assess whether an offshore transition network would provide value for the money to the consumer, its advice to the Government was, “No, it would not, because we will never have enough offshore wind to justify it.” Well, how wrong it was. Just seven years later, here we are bitterly ruing that short-sighted failure to make anticipatory infrastructure decisions. We could have avoided all these arguments and be leading Europe in the development of this innovative design, which now is absolutely technically possible. In fact, I have spoken, with others, to the managing director of Hitachi, who told us that this is off-the-shelf technology now.

We come back to the consultation, which has just been closed, and the position of the regulators and National Grid. Their argument is essentially that it is too late to change the decision about connection points. We already have radial connections coming into Norfolk. Given that the power is being delivered to south Norfolk, the network has to be reinforced to draw the electricity south, hence East Anglia GREEN and 112 miles of pylons. However, I invite the Minister to take a step back and look at the rationale behind the decision to write contracts to allow the offshore wind farms to connect to Norwich south. All those offers must have been subject to planning permission, because the regulator knew, or ought to have known, that the connection point did not have sufficient capacity to deal with the anticipated measures.

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[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I reiterate the condolences of my colleagues to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on his loss. That was a brilliant speech by my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), and I associate myself with nearly everything that nearly everyone has said. I am smiling at my constituency neighbour—my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill)—whose constituency is behind Tesco and Morrisons in my constituency. We are neighbours, but if I were to go a few hundred yards to the east, my neighbour is a different Member of Parliament. I know Wortham Ling well—I walk my dogs near there.

I am interested in two aspects of this important debate. First, planning permission cannot be assumed and therefore a route cannot be assumed. I may have misinterpreted this, but that appeared to have come as a bit of a surprise to the Minister. He certainly looked round in alarm when one of my colleagues made that point. The second aspect is about time. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex mentioned judicial review. I do not want to repeat anything that has been said, but it is clear in the development in recent years of English administrative law—common law—that there is a law of consultation known as the Gunning principles, which are set out clearly and helpfully by the Local Government Association. There are four principles and they derive from a case in which Judge Stephen Sedley was in charge of the court: Regina v. Brent London Borough Council, ex parte Gunning—that is why they are called the Gunning principles. They are now clearly established and applied by the courts.

The first principle is that the proposals are still at a formative stage. The second is that there is sufficient information to give intelligent consideration. The third is that there is adequate time for consideration and response. The fourth, which has become increasingly important in recent cases, as opposed to earlier cases where the first three principles were given more weight, is that

“‘conscientious consideration’ must be given to the consultation responses before a decision is made”.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) made a point about time. He said that “there must be no holdup” in the development of offshore wind. Amen to that—we all agree. The one way we can be absolutely sure there will be a huge holdup is if the lawyers get hold of this. If the Minister wants to be bogged down in judicial review and legal battles for years to come with no progress towards our net zero targets, all he has to do is ignore what all of us are saying, and I guarantee that that is where he will end up.

[James Cartlidge]

There is another email about the reasoning for the eastern link, and another reason was given was about the speed of delivery of an offshore link against the speed of building pylons. It says:

“The subsea link between Torness in East Lothian and Hawthorn Pit in County Durham needs to be in place by 2027. The link between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Drax in North Yorkshire is needed by 2029. While onshore AC overhead line options were considered, those were discounted because they would not be deliverable in the timescales that were required.”

Does that not show that going undersea can actually be quicker?

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[Mr Bacon]

I have no doubt that my hon. Friend is right. If we want efficiency, effectiveness and economic progress, we should listen to the people calling for an offshore grid. After all, as several of our hon. Friends have said, it is already Government policy. What we need to do is follow through with the concomitant decisions that should apply when something is Government policy, rather than ignoring this area which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds said, will become the Saudi Arabia of England for offshore generation.

To conclude, because I do not want to overrun the time limit that you have set, Mr Stringer, we must make it clear that our constituents do not feel that they have been properly consulted or that offshore options were given any meaningful consideration. We want to be sure that any detailed report on offshore options is meaningful and thorough, involves our constituents fully and is written by independent experts. We also want it to embrace the idea of taking a first step towards a broad-scale East Anglian offshore grid, with, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk said, Sea Links 2, 3 and 4 carrying 6 GW and multi-noding with international interconnectors, in order to add further value, which must feature in any overall holistic cost assessment.

If we want to make progress on this, as everyone agrees that we need to do, particularly in light of the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and if we want to become more energy independent, more quickly, and hasten the drive towards net zero, which every single person in this room would like to see happen, we should listen to my hon. Friends, and the Minister should too.