Robert Syms
Main Page: Robert Syms (Conservative - Poole)(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Tom Greatrex
That depends on the decisions made on the first and second groups. On the third group, so far there has been relatively little investment, but I know that a number of companies are actively considering making it. They are waiting, partly for the completion of this Bill and regulations arising from it and partly for the detailed work on the capacity market, before making those investment decisions. As I said at the outset, that is why it is important we get the Bill though as quickly as possible, after considering these final points.
The Minister gave several reasons why the Government were against the amendment. The first, which he referred to almost in passing, was on technical and drafting grounds. In that regard, several points have been made by those anxious to ensure that existing investment is not disregarded, but I think that those points could be properly reflected in the regulations that would arise were the amendment to be successful. The second was that the amendment was unnecessary, because existing price control policies, notably the carbon price floor, had the same impact in effectively limiting coal plants to about 40% to 45% load factor. If so, perhaps the Minister, whose antipathy to the carbon price floor has been well-rehearsed—he has been reminded of it a couple of times recently, including this morning, so I will not embarrass him by doing it again—could help to persuade the Chancellor that the unilateral, untargeted measure of a carbon price floor is not needed because the Government could use the approach in the amendment instead.
The third argument was that the amendment would present a risk to security of supply. As the Minister is aware, the amendment would not bite until 2023, and if his boast earlier today in Westminster Hall—on investment decisions about to be announced for the enabling process—are accurate, that would give scope for any gap to be filled. I say that not least because we would continue to have that coal capacity operating in winter and at peak times through the capacity mechanism the Government are introducing.
The fourth argument concerned costs. The Minister neglected the point that the price of electricity was pegged to the price of producing energy from gas. However much coal is in the system, coal generators sell at the gas price, so bringing more coal into the system would not necessarily mean lower energy costs for consumers. It is worth restating that the EPS goes no further than the Government’s own prediction for scaling back coal in the energy mix. It is effectively a back-stop or, with some intelligent thinking, possibly an alternative to what they anticipate will happen in response to the EU emissions trading scheme and carbon price floor combined.
This morning, the Minister spoke in a debate, which I thought was a very good debate, about issues of balance in energy policy. He also spoke earlier this week, to a slightly different audience, about the order in which he saw the elements of the balance: security of supply, affordability, climate change, in that order. He is right to talk about balance, investment and impacts, and the very purpose of the Bill is to ensure we strike that balance in the most affordable and sensible way in order to secure a diverse and balanced energy supply for the future, while recognising the realities of climate change and the measures we need to take to address it, and to protect us from the vagaries of the volatility inherent in globally traded commodities. He will have seen this week’s figures from the International Energy Association on global energy demand projections over the next few years. Contrary to the impression he gave, the amendment is in line with the Government’s stated aims. It is proportionate and sensible and is certainly worthy of further consideration for inclusion in the Bill.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
I rise to support the Minister in his disagreeing with Lords amendment 105. This country has always had a balanced energy policy, with several things feeding into the mix, and I think it important that we continue that. The problem is, however, that we have not built enough capacity over the past 15 or 20 years. The changes under the Thatcher Government to the grid and the electricity market were successful in maintaining relatively low prices, but there has not been the same investment in capacity. That was made substantially worse by the last Government, who managed to produce a White Paper without mentioning nuclear power as part of that important mix.
We now face a difficulty. At some point, we have to close the Magnox stations. In addition, we have policies that are making coal less attractive, so that capacity is going off and needs to be replaced. Although there are plans and many firms are talking about building capacity, it is not being built. If we are not careful, we will have a gap, in that we will lose capacity and then have to either import or face the genuine risk that the lights will go out some time in the next several years. That is a serious thing. We can have all sorts of debates in this Chamber about the economy, quantitative easing, funding for lending and everything else, but if we cannot generate enough electricity to keep the lights on and industry running, that will be a poor indictment of the British economy.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
My hon. Friend obviously knows quite a lot about this subject. How much reserve capacity does he think we should have? Is it 10%, 20% or something else? Is there a figure that he would recommend?
Mr Syms
It is small in capacity terms for the economy. Normally, that is when the grid starts getting a little nervous. In the years ahead, the grid might have to be a lot smarter about managing our assets and resources to ensure that we can provide electricity. Renewables have their role, but they are sometimes less predictable than nuclear or coal-powered stations. That is one reason why, as the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) mentioned, there have been occasions recently when coal has provided 50% of our electricity, which is rather more than the 25% that it is providing now.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making the case for ensuring spare capacity in the electricity grid. Would he therefore not concede that we need the same capacity in the gas grid as well? Recently, the Government refused to recognise the case for building extra gas storage capacity. Many people in the industry feel that that is a big mistake.
Mr Syms
It is important both that we have generating capacity, preferably domestically based, and that we increase our storage capacity for various forms, including gas. Of course, Ministers are also custodians and have to stand up for the consumer. If a company makes a costly proposal that will be reflected on people’s bills, Ministers have to take a view on whether that is the right or wrong thing to do. I hope that we get back to that debate and provide more storage.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
I agree with much of what my hon. Friend says. Does he agree that one of the problems is that, unfortunately, Ministers and shadow Ministers have all been too quick to accept the arguments of the powerful green lobby about CO2 causing global warming, which clearly has not been the case for the past 15 years? Does he agree that we should now prioritise cheap, secure energy for our manufacturing industry, whether from coal, gas or any other means?
Mr Syms
Clearly, policy has to have a proper balance. There is a role for renewables and trying to provide the cleanest possible energy, and the Government have policies to ensure that. However, I return to my essential point, which is that we now have policies that are driving out older capacity—it might be less efficient or dirtier capacity—but we are yet to put in place the new, clean, gleaming capacity to produce for the future. If we are not careful, whoever forms the next Government—I hope that we will—will find themselves with a very real problem. I do not want the Chancellor of the Exchequer standing at the Dispatch Box talking not about tax or how the economy will grow, but about the constraints caused by our not investing in providing power for a growing and successful future economy.
I listened carefully to the Opposition spokesman; I just think that Lords amendment 105 is not appropriate. I return to my central point: we need to sweat our assets and keep them going until we are sure that we have the capacity to keep the lights on.
Dan Byles
On my hon. Friend’s point about investment, we hear about the oft-quoted trilemma in energy policy—the requirements for energy security, affordability and decarbonisation—but does he agree that we should actually be talking about the quad-lemma and that the fourth leg of our energy policy should be investability? If we do not have a credible and investible energy policy, we might as well switch the lights off and go home.
Mr Syms
Absolutely. At the end of the day, we must have the capacity to generate for what people want. We can make savings with insulation and things that we do with electrical equipment. We can do an awful lot to save energy, which will take care of some of the demand. However, with a growing, successful economy—there is every reason to look at the British economy with great optimism—I suspect that we will need more capacity. Not only do we need plans for investment; we need people breaking the ground and building these things, so that they can provide for what we want.
I have reservations about the amendment. I know that people talk about 2021 or 2023, but that will come very quickly, so although the investment and capacity might not come that quickly, my general view is that we should be a little cautious about the Lords adding more constraints, costs and limits on an important source of power at this point.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I am a little bemused by some of the talk that we are hearing this afternoon about the capacity crunch and the extent to which the amendment might exacerbate it over the next period, bearing in mind, first, that it would not take effect until after 2023 in any event and, secondly—this has perhaps gone rather unremarked—that the power plants that are not producing and that are offline and either light mothballed or deep mothballed are not coal-fired but gas-fired plants. About six of them are mothballed—even though those operators could operate perfectly efficient gas plants for their own operations—not because they cannot produce on a reasonable basis, but because of the spark spread for gas and electricity prices. Therefore, it is not a capacity crunch because there is no capacity; it is a capacity crunch, potentially, because of the way that plants operate relative to each other.
Nothing in the long-term prognosis has changed, in terms of what we have to do in the longer term or how we have to deploy capacity. Getting the right amount of capacity and the right amount of reserve capacity in the market is a combination of ensuring that capacity is properly utilised and that new capacity comes on stream in the right proportion to support the changing nature of our energy production market. As regards that progress over the next period, up to 2030, one of the remarkable things written in most DECC documents to come out on the matter concerns where we need to go in decarbonising our energy supplies.
DECC’s central target is an overall level of emissions of 100g per kWh by about 2030. Everyone knows what that means. Unless we hear this afternoon that the target has changed, there will no longer be room for large amounts of unabated coal to continue to operate in the system, whether in new, existing or refurbished plant, without carbon capture and storage in the period leading up to 2030.
There is currently a disjunction between what DECC says about its target and what the policy appears to suggest when it comes to whether those coal plants will become able to play a part in our future energy mix with carbon capture and storage, or will no longer play a role as base-load generators but either convert to other forms of supply—as Drax is doing in moving to biomass—or run at much lower levels, as peak and back-up plant, over a period, to keep within the overall targets. The amendment connects what we think that we are doing with what we ought really to be doing over the coming period and starts to dissolve the disjunction between what we think is in policy and what appears to be in policy.
One of the effects of uncertain signals about the direction in which we are going in respect of, for instance, decarbonisation targets is that people do not invest in one thing rather than another; they do not invest in anything. They do not do what they might otherwise have been doing, because they are not sure what the signals are telling them. I believe that the amendment gives a certain rather than an uncertain signal in regard to the long-term future of coal, thus enabling those who are thinking of investing in coal over the coming period to be clear about what to do, rather than unclear, as they are at present.
Ministers seem to be saying today that there will be much more operation of coal, and perhaps some new investment in coal, but they know that it cannot really be unabated, and they know that it cannot really operate for all those hours over the period. How certain can an investor be that what he invests in will not to be stranded in the intervening years? It depends whether we believe what Ministers are saying, or believe what is in the documents that they claim to support in their daily work at the Department.