Great British Energy Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Stephen Flynn and Perran Moon

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Flynn]

No.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

I am interested in the right hon. Gentleman’s premise. If Scotland is granted this amendment, surely the Welsh and the Cornish—in Cornwall we have onshore wind, offshore wind, geothermal, tidal, solar, tin and lithium, which are all critical to the UK’s move away from fossil fuels—will demand the same thing. The point is that it is GB Energy, not “Scotland Energy”.

[Stephen Flynn]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to clarify to the Committee whether he has just equated the nation of Scotland to Cornwall?

[Perran Moon]

Under national minority status—well, the right hon. Gentleman can draw his own conclusion.

Great British Energy Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Stephen Flynn and Perran Moon

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Flynn]

Q Again, you have spoken very eloquently about the opportunities that may or may not exist under GB Energy, particularly with regard to the risk appetite that needs to be there. You have perhaps delved into some areas in relation to planning and Crown Estate; where they sit within the devolved competency of the Scottish Parliament. I will not ask you to comment on that because that would be deeply unfair, but what you and others have done is delve into the strategic priorities and what you think they could be. Do you think it is helpful or unhelpful that at this juncture we do not have a full understanding of what those strategic priorities are, given that the Bill is going through in its current form?

Shaun Spiers: I think the more that can be done to set out the strategic priorities, the better. I do not think it necessarily needs to be in the Bill. The explanatory statement and the introductions and so on I think do give a reasonably good steer on what the strategic priorities are, but obviously this body is being set up at pace. The more clarity there is on what it is going to do, the better. I would not set unreasonable expectations of a body that is being set up really quickly, with a pretty clear short-term aim of 2030 power decarbonisation and of supporting that. However, in the longer term the priorities clearly need to be set out.

Ravi Gurumurthy: The NESO will be producing its plan in October, and you have then got the next carbon budget in February, so the actual pathway to 2030 and to 2050 will start to become even clearer in the coming months. It will need to be flexible, however. There will be technologies which emerge that shift our sense of what to focus on. You need priorities, but you do need quite a lot of flexibility in this system.

Marc Hedin: I made the point, I think, at the very beginning that we need a very flexible scope because there will be challenges to the energy transition. We need room to adapt. If this vehicle is to facilitate the energy transition, we need that scope to be relatively broad. I did mention a couple of safeguards, more like accountability, and I think that is still reasonable to ask. However, in terms of strategic priorities, I think the scope is broad enough and makes sense.

[Perran Moon]

Q As a proud Cornishman, I am very excited about the reopening of our tin mines and our lithium mines. I was very pleased to hear you mention critical minerals. Can you elaborate a little on how you think GB Energy can support the UK’s domestic critical minerals industry?

Shaun Spiers: By investing in it. It is more a question of the recycling, because there is a big recycling industry elsewhere. When the UK was the pioneer in offshore wind, it was easy to import critical raw materials and then not bother about reusing them and just import more. As the Foreign Secretary was talking about in his speech at Kew, there are now real concerns about the shortage of critical raw materials across the world. Because they are needed for so many technologies, and so many technologies that are essential to the transition, we need a plan for the transition that includes recycling plants. Lithium mining in Cornwall is great, but we also need not be exporting our critical raw materials to be repurposed elsewhere, and then reimporting the repurposed ones. There are 37 recycling plants in the EU, while in China there were 61 waste lithium battery recycling and processing companies two years ago, and it is a growing industry. It has not grown in the UK, it has not had attention, and I think that if GB Energy is committed to long-term energy security, which it is, then it could play a part in getting that industry going in the UK.

Great British Energy Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Stephen Flynn and Perran Moon

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th October 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Perran Moon]

Q In relation to clause 1(5), about the statement of strategic priorities, you just mentioned the Celtic sea round 5 tenders. I think I am correct in saying that they did not have any mandatory social value element. What would be your thoughts on social value being mandated as part of the strategic priorities for local coastal communities, particularly deprived areas such as Cornwall?

Dan Labbad: First, as regards the Celtic sea, there are social requirements as part of the tender process. I obviously cannot talk about them too much, given that we are in a live tender for procurement purposes, but there are social requirements as part of that tender.

To your question, it is fundamental. It will be a real failure if we end up deploying renewable energy on the seabed in the way we need to in the next 20 years and are not able to capture a fair proportion of that industrial complex for ourselves as a country. It would be a real pity if we did not build new jobs and new futures for young people across the country and if we did not support the distribution of that benefit across the country, including to coastal communities.

We have to bear in mind that there is a role for developers and a role for Government and the Crown Estate. For example, in the Celtic sea a 4.5 GW tender does not build a supply chain. It is not enough; the critical mass is not there. Again, that is why it is so important that Great British Energy and the Crown Estate work together, with our additional powers and being able to provide forward commitments to, for example, the Celtic sea. We estimate at the moment that it has the potential for another 12 GW of offshore wind, predominantly floating but also fixed. You need that type of scale so that both Government and private sector investment in the supply chain, including in coastal communities, will stick. That is why this partnership is so important and why we have to remember the size of that prize, so to speak.

[Stephen Flynn]

Q GB Energy’s objectives as set out in the Bill make it quite clear that it is intent on becoming a producer, distributor, supplier and storer of energy, and to achieve that the Crown Estate will be absolutely crucial. Can you provide a little insight on the recent powers on borrowing provided to the Crown Estate, and how that will help you and GB Energy to meet the Bill’s aims?

Dan Labbad: First, from the Crown Estate’s perspective —I know this is a little out of scope—we operate under an Act of Parliament and have an obligation to enhance the value of our portfolio nationally, on behalf of the country, into perpetuity. We must ensure that we, like any business, balance safe investments with more risky investments. There is no doubt that investing in the seabed in the way we are talking about is a higher risk activity than other things that we do.

The increased borrowing powers do two things. First, they give us the capital throughput to do more—to accelerate and offer more. Secondly, because we know that we will have a line of credit, they allow us to make commitments. To use the Celtic sea as an example, as we move from what we envisage we can do about 12 GW to the reality of knowing that we can do that, we can then say to the market that we are committed to that leasing programme over the next 10 years. That is huge. From a developer perspective, they are not chipping away. For argument’s sake, let us say that we have 4 GW divided into three bits. You are talking about small gigawattage for companies of the scale of Equinor, for example. Being able to provide a pipeline where we know there is more to come means that they invest more—that is what that does.

The other thing that comes with the borrowing powers is a broader investment remit, which allows us to turn our attention to supply chain opportunities and to support the industrial complex and jobs. Again, we have been restricted in what we can do there in the past, so that is fundamental. With regard to GB Energy, as I said earlier, the Crown Estate cannot do it all on its own. We need additional capital support, support with co-ordination and support with policy evolution. All those things are required, which is why the partnership is so fundamental.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Flynn]

My question has just been answered.

[Perran Moon]

Q My question is along similar lines. Thinking about attracting that capital investment, we are currently in a scenario where, in relation to clause 4, there is a need to de-risk some UK energy projects to unlock additional capital investment. Can you describe how you see the specific role of GB Energy in unlocking some of that capital investment?

Josh Buckland: I have looked through the project life cycle, and clause 4 gives a lot of flexibility around it. There is the early-stage development capital, which is quite difficult at this stage to develop at the scale required. Developing large-scale energy projects costs not just tens of millions, but potentially hundreds of millions through the development phase, so there is a role there that GB Energy could play in the deployment of development capital.

Potentially more important in a development phase is the ability to help projects to de-risk other things that they cannot control, such as their ability to access a grid connection, to get planning approval and to access the right supply chain domestically, to go back to the point about unlocking economic potential here. That could potentially be a significant role for GB Energy. That comes back to the governance question of where Government draw the line between a role for Great British Energy and the Government, because a lot of those issues are effectively for the Government to deal with, but that is an interesting dynamic to watch.

If we move through to the construction phase, there is slightly less of a role, in truth, because the level of capital required in building out projects once they have got over the initial financing barrier is potentially lower. I know the Government have talked a lot about that separately from the Bill. The exception is local and community energy projects, where clearly the barrier to unlocking investment is higher, and there is potentially a role there for Great British Energy that the Government have talked about.

The final piece is whether, once an asset has been built out and is operational, Great British Energy should have a role there. Again, that is potentially more a question about how you want the capital to be deployed. The Government could take a stake in a project, or invest to then seek a return, and utilise that money either to reduce energy bills or to reinvest. That is a question around prioritisation of public spending, because that might be a sensible thing to do, but there is a range of other things you could invest in that might look beyond the energy transition. Hopefully that gives you a bit of a feel. The role will definitely change depending on where you are in the asset life cycle.