Great British Energy Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. Green energy over time will lower costs. There is an initial hump to get over with investment, but the trouble that we need to address is our increasing and continued dependence on the vast fluctuations in foreign gas markets. We saw what happened with the war in Ukraine, and we saw that the noble Lord’s Government had to invest £40 billion towards subsidising bill payers—money that was invested for no long-term benefit. We must get away from those things and we must have energy security. These are investments in Britain and in reducing our bills, and they are worthwhile doing. It is really important that GB Energy invests in these emerging technologies. That is why I have raised my amendment on GB Energy’s ability to borrow; if GB Energy cannot borrow it will not be able to make these key investments.

Amendment 20, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Offord of Garvel, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, is about the annual report and financial assistance provided to GB Energy. We expect this to happen, so do not feel that the amendment is necessary.

We support the spirit of Amendment 37, but expect the Treasury to require all these areas to be reported on. Having reflected on what was said in Committee and the Minister’s response, we expect GB Energy’s reporting requirements to be similar to those of the Crown Estate. It would be useful if the Minister could confirm that.

Amendment 39, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, is one of the strongest Conservative amendments to be tabled on Report. We have some sympathy with proposed new subsection (1), which is similar to an amendment I moved in Committee. At that stage, it did not win the Minister’s favour—I suspect that that might be the case again today. Where I slightly part company with noble Lord, Lord Frost, is in relation to the annual review for the chair of GB Energy. My view is that an important and good annual review would not be one that was fully made public. To me, that seems a slightly strange request, and may be counterintuitive to the object which he seeks.

I am going to stop there as I have run out of time and there are a lot of amendments in this group.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I support Amendment 1, in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes. I should declare at this point that I live about five miles away from Sizewell B nuclear power station and one that is about to be built, Sizewell C, and less than a mile away from other energy infrastructure that is still going through the planning process.

A lot of my time at the other end was taken up with considering the importance of energy, not only for a long-term sustainable future but the security issues rightly referred to in these objectives. The reason these objectives matter is that this is an unprecedented situation, where we are handing, in effect, a blank cheque to an arm’s-length body. Admittedly, it will have strategies set by the Secretary of State, but, as has been pointed out, there will be absolutely no reference to Parliament in its consideration. That is why the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Frost has attraction, in proposing at least having a direct connection with two Select Committees of the other place and a relationship with the chair of GB Energy. As my noble friend pointed out, these are the reasons that the Government gave us for having this new entity. Therefore, it would make a lot of sense for the Government to accept this amendment directly.

On Amendment 17, where I disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is that I do not believe we should get into legislation that dictates the amount of taxpayers’ money that will be spent. I have seen that happen before in legislation, and then all of a sudden money starts getting wasted. The whole purpose of this financial vehicle is to de-risk and bring in external private investment. That is a sensible approach, especially given the amount of uncertainty, which I appreciate the Government are trying to address in other ways. Nevertheless, for something such as energy security, a significant amount of investment is going to be required right across not just Great Britain but the United Kingdom, and this is a critical moment for our nation. That is why, while I think there will be money well spent, we should not be dictating a minimum.

The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, is really sensible. This company will be in an unusual situation—not unique, but unusual—and the extra information required, particularly in proposed new paragraph (d), is the core essence of why this company is being set up: it is stepping forward to try to get others to do so.

If anything, what has evolved over many years is the need for transparency and understanding. The amount of trust that people have in how their taxpayers’ money gets spent really matters in the contract that Parliament and government have with the electorate—the taxpayer. So, elements such as this will enforce the rationale rather than just necessarily seeing energy bills tick upwards, unfortunately.

So if Amendments 1 and 37 are pressed, I will certainly support them—although, regrettably, not Amendment 17 from the noble Earl, Lord Russell.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 39 in my name. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for putting his name to it, and thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his warm comments on at least aspects of this amendment.

The broad aim of Amendment 39 is to do what a lot of other amendments have sought to do, both in Committee and no doubt today, which is to ensure that GBE gets the kind of scrutiny that a major public company would get: that is, its internal procedures, processes and purposes get a degree of public attention and comment. I worry that we are setting up a company over which there will be relatively little oversight and perhaps rather idiosyncratic governance compared with a normal public company. So it is with that in mind that I have tabled Amendment 39.

There are two aspects to the amendment. One is about pre-appointment scrutiny and the other is about what happens once the chair has his feet under the desk, as it were. I share the view of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that the first part of this is the most important part of the Bill.

Before getting into the substance I should declare an interest, which is that I am an unpaid director of the group Net Zero Watch—I am sorry for not mentioning that at the very start.

On the first aspect of this amendment, its purpose is to make sure that the appointment at least attracts a degree of scrutiny and comment from relevant Select Committees. When I put this amendment down in Committee, I had in mind only the Treasury Select Committee in the Commons, but I have picked up the suggestions made by others that the Environment and Climate Change Committee also ought to have a role in this. I emphasise that this amendment would not give those committees a block. The right to make the appointment does not go to those committees; it is the right to comment on a decision that the Secretary of State proposes to make and which he or she will still be able to make after the Select Committees have looked at it. That degree of public scrutiny is important. The chair is a public figure in many ways, and in fact we have seen, from some of the statements he has made already, that he intends to use that public platform to make comments. It seems right in these circumstances that there should be a degree of political scrutiny of this.

The Minister said in Committee that this was not in line with the guidance of the Cabinet Office for such appointments. But I suggest that, even under the hard rein of the internal regimen of the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, guidance written by a department cannot constrain the Government, or indeed the legislature. Indeed, we see that in real life, because the appointments of the chairs of Ofgem, the Climate Change Committee and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and so on, are all made in accordance with such a procedure. So there is really nothing novel here: it is the right thing to do for a major company of this nature and I hope the Minister will think hard about the defensibility of the position as it currently stands.

I will speak briefly to the second part of my amendment, which is really probing. The current arrangements for the accountability of the chair seem rather unclear. I guess formally he is accountable to shareholders, but the shareholder is obviously the Secretary of State and a chat with the Secretary of State is perhaps not enough for accountability for a company such as this. It may be that the auditors are not best placed to do that and it may be that there should be a degree of confidentiality to it, but there surely should be something that is formal and agreed and which can produce a degree of political debate. Perhaps the Minister can say exactly how this accountability will be achieved in practice, if it is not via some formal process of this nature. I repeat, to conclude, that the first subsection proposed by my amendment is the most important, and indeed, really quite substantively important to the nature of the body we are creating.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to say that I too have put my name to this amendment and I am delighted that the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, have been able to negotiate this compromise. It is important that this is in the Bill; it will make a difference and I am very pleased to see it here. It also reflects the language that was used in the Crown Estate Bill and that is particularly useful for GB Energy because of the strong connection they have with one another. I welcome the words that the Minister used at the Dispatch Box, mentioning the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021. I welcome the monitoring that is taking place on this.

I have some sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. These are obviously all very difficult conversations, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, put that quite well. Actually, the way we talk about it, the spirit in which we put these things into place and how we make them work in practice are the big challenges that we all have, going ahead, but I am very pleased to see this here.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 40 and 47. I have recent ministerial experience of the Environment Act and the powers available under it, which is why I tabled some Questions for Written Answer. I was somewhat confused by the responses from the Government. When I asked whether they would publish their assessment, under Section 20 of the Environment Act, about not having the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection, I was informed by the Minister that the information was “legally privileged”. It surprised me that the Government, who are committed to the environment—I do not dispute that—are not prepared to share with the House why they do not think this will have an adverse impact on the natural environment. I went further, asking which provisions would be “environmental law” or would impact, and I was referred to Clause 3.

Under the Environment Act, the Minister is not required to ask the advice of the Office for Environmental Protection, but I would be grateful to know whether he, or any other department, has done so. Again, that sort of information would be useful to this House, recognising that we still do not have the strategic priorities—we have the objects, but nothing wider than that—in our consideration of this. I know for sure, from living in Suffolk—I referred to this in my earlier contribution today—of the significant impact that this energy infrastructure can have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not going to say anything at this point because it is getting late in the evening, but I was pretty staggered by that last intervention. I found it pretty rich, coming from a Minister who signally emasculated Defra and knocked the legs out from underneath it. The statement of environmental principles to which she referred was significantly reduced as a result of the work that happened around that period. So I actually think that we should thank the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and—

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I am very happy to have that discussion outside, but I think it is a complete impugnment of all that we did achieve. I assure the noble Baroness that the strategy for our ground-breaking biodiversity plan is under way. I wish the Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, well in getting on with some of this stuff. It is ridiculous to try to suggest that the work the Conservative Government did in Montreal did nothing; it did a hell of a lot for the environment and I want the Labour Government to continue it and to succeed—we all do. That is why this amendment that the Government propose is not enough.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

Strangely enough, I find myself agreeing with the noble Baroness’s sentiments on this amendment. We should thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the Minister for reaching an agreement so that we can get something in the Bill. Amendment 40 would have been a lot stronger, but at least we have got something. We now need to ride heavy shotgun on what is contained in the framework to make sure that that happens.

I cannot take a lecture from the noble Baroness, because I know for a fact that Defra was severely prejudiced in its ability to do any of this work by the way that she operated when she was in that department.

National Grid Proposals: North East Lincolnshire

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers]

As my right hon. Friend says, it must be stopped, and that is what I and my constituents want.

My concerns reflect those of my constituents, a significant number of whom have been in touch with me in recent months to voice their understandable anger and concern at the National Grid plans. The main villages impacted are Brigsley, Ashby cum Fenby, Barnoldby le Beck and Waltham. These are attractive traditional villages that face being blighted by monstrous metal structures and cabling. While it may not be the legal case, the reality is that projects on this scale require popular consent if they are to be delivered well. There is no point in bulldozing through public opinion; this will lead to further resentment and distrust. There are alternatives and they must be considered. Decisions such as these are an opportunity for Governments to show that the views of local communities matter and that there are ways of delivering the much-needed improvements to the grid that take account of those views.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I am further down the east coast but I recognise the problems my hon. Friend is describing in terms of the impact on north-east Lincolnshire. In Suffolk Coastal—I see that my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) is also here—we have been concerned for some time about the lack of vision in using new technology to avoid the devastation not just of pylons but, thinking of Friston and Saxmundham in my constituency, of converters and other substations. Those would have a truly damaging impact on greenfield sites, and we should be doing everything we can to get them on to brownfield sites closer to where the electricity is being used. My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) has indicated that must be stopped. I agree, and I also suggest we should at least have a moratorium until the 2025 strategy is ready.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the intervention and she is absolutely right: a moratorium is the way forward.

I have attended one National Grid consultation meeting and met representatives privately. It is not ideal that its plans remain vague as to the exact route; more concrete proposals would be beneficial to all involved. The National Grid has also given the impression to some local residents that this is a fait accompli, and I am sure the Minister will reassure them that is not the case. I also want to reassure them that is not the case. The consultations that National Grid is holding in the constituency and up and down the country must be meaningful, and they must be certain that Members from across the House will ensure they are meaningful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend has summed up exactly the point of this. It is a tribute to each and every one of my colleagues, who have been constructive and have engaged in a pragmatic way. Whoever is in my position when we return after the election should take forward this opportunity to conduct a review to ensure that communities’ voices are heard and we deliver those cheaper community options.

[Dr Coffey]

I greatly appreciate what the Minister is saying. He is showing great wisdom and has grasped all the issues, even though he has been in the role for a relatively short time.

There are problems in that connections are still being offered for stations that have not even been granted planning permission, but the key point that I want to make to the Minister relates to what is happening in the middle of the consultation and planning processes. Before he leaves office—and he will continue to be a Minister at least until the decision of the electorate on who will form the next Government—will he and the Secretary of State please make every effort to ensure that Members of Parliament do not lose their voice in the consultation, and that, if necessary, the Planning Inspectorate is instructed to add time in recognition of the pre-election period that is under way?

[Justin Tomlinson]

My right hon. Friend was a wonderful boss when I had the pleasure of serving under her stewardship in the Department for Work and Pensions. She has made her plea crystal clear, and I hope that common sense will be applied. In effect, things are paused during a general election period, and whatever the format and whoever is the decision maker, that person should always be mindful of community engagement.

That brings me back to the core point: the review gives us an opportunity to obtain up-to-date facts, recognising modern technology and the lessons that can be learned from Germany, and recognising the lifetime costs so that we can be confident that we are doing our best to deliver lower consumer bills, which are crucial not just to helping with the cost of living but to ensuring that we carry the public with us in respect of net zero.

Large-scale Solar Farms

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson, in this important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) on securing the debate and being wise enough to persuade the Backbench Business Committee to devote an entire three hours to it, recognising the strength of feeling that right hon. and hon. Members have. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) on his previous work, never mind on his speech today, because I know that he has been pivotal in trying to ensure that aspects of planning policy are adapted, recognising the impact on the land we have today.

Why are we in this situation? Quite a considerable discussion has already happened about different classifications of land and the return on land. Ultimately, as a Conservative Government and a Conservative party, we want to ensure that we achieve net zero and recognise the balance that we need in our energy mix, which will continue to need the use of fossil fuels for many decades to come. We must ensure that we are on that sustainable journey to electricity generation both locally and nationally in that regard. It is important that solar has a role to play in that but, as has been accurately pointed out, one of the aspects that understandably concerns people is that all too often the economics of some of the plans that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and its predecessor Departments set off on lead to quite a different outcome from that expected.

It goes back to the Labour Government: in trying to encourage people with feed-in tariffs to go on to roofs, they massively incorrectly calculated what would happen. That led to Chris Huhne, the then Lib Dem Energy Secretary, having to basically curtail the plan—I think it may have been the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) who actually killed it off entirely—because frankly the budget had already been blown. That is important in some of the considerations that we need to think about, and that is why it is really important that the Government have an agile approach to understanding how different offers are taken up. We must recognise the financial impact but also the disproportionate way in which the policy intentions and outcomes are delivered.

Why do people want this wonderful agricultural land to be used instead for solar farms? Access to sun is one of the good reasons—the sun is there to grow food, and it is great for power. However, probably the key element at the moment is the guaranteed return that farmers get which is, on average, still about 8%. That is considerable. Many of us would love to have such a guaranteed return.

The other element at the moment is tax relief, which is really important for agricultural land. That tax relief, to be passed on from generation to generation, was intended principally for farming, to make sure that agricultural land was passed on instead of being sold off. Here, because the leases are done in a particular way, we are seeing that such land does not get excluded from the passing on of tax relief. That is an important financial calculation that people make.

[Sir David Davis]

My right hon. Friend makes a brilliantly important point, which I had not thought of before, on this question of tax relief—basically, inheritance tax relief. That has meant that vast quantities of the countryside of Britain are owned by people for a single purpose—to avoid inheritance tax—which actually drives the financialisation of the countryside that has driven this policy.

[Dr Coffey]

I think the policy on tax relief is a sensible one. Just recently, I lobbied to get aspects of nature, such as the edges of fields, to be included in that. Farmers and landowners were suggesting that they could not participate in the environmental land management schemes because they would not get that relief, unlike the solar farms just down the road that covered entire agricultural elements and could still participate. There is a balance to be had. The impact on tenant farmers has also been pointed out. The return, and the pricing of land, is a key element. It is concerning for those of us who represent rural areas in particular, and for those trying to make sure that the sums add up.

There has been quite a lot of discussion about the classification of land. I think it is fair to say that the maps are quite old and do not differentiate between grades 3a and 3b. When I went back into DEFRA 18 months ago, as Secretary of State, I asked what we could do, bearing in mind the fact that we had been tasked with producing a land use framework. I was told it would take several years to redo those maps, which was somewhat disheartening. I will not pretend that I put any more energy into that, at that time, in the preparation for a land use framework.

There was quite a lot of discussion between me and the previous Secretary of State. The analysis indicated that the estimates were that about 1% of the land being used for agriculture would be consumed by potential conversion to solar farms. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister what that proportion is right now, including the land used for connections that have already been granted by National Grid.

National Grid talks about capacity; it says it has tons of solar, compared with what can actually be connected. That leads to the concentrations that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) mentioned. Even now, National Grid continues to keep offering connections in areas where a substation or a converter station is going to be built, rather than for many of the other applications that would cost too much money and would not be economical to connect to the grid. It is a concern for me that, all of a sudden, we get energy islands, not deserts, right in front of our eyes. The purpose of these areas, as part of the natural countryside, producing food and other elements of benefit to our country, is all of a sudden being turned into these energy islands.

I should say that there is plenty of grade 4 and grade 5 land in my constituency that gets used for food production. I know that DEFRA is keen to improve the productivity of land and that is why there have been a series of grants in that regard. However, I think it is critical that between DEFRA and DESNZ they start to match up, in the Ministers’ considerations of the NSIP plans, what is happening in that regard about the food security element. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister committed to having a food security index, to be produced annually, and I think the use and projected use of land is critical in that element.

In thinking through what is happening in my own constituency, where there have already been solar farms, I am not going to say they are all bad. They are not. The issue is the growing cumulative effect, the acceleration and the almost blank cheque that is being given to many of the developers and is enticing farmers and landowners. I want to single out Friston. My hon. Friend the Minister will know of my ongoing battle with National Grid about aspects of energy infrastructure in my constituency. By the way, none of it includes a single pylon; we are not talking about pylons here, but there has definitely been a pile-in on the people of that village, and National Grid has now offered two further connections to solar farms of just under 250 MW.

Where do we go from here? I am conscious that the national policy statement for renewable energy infra- structure, EN-3, covers a lot about solar. It does not even exclude grade 1 land from consideration, but it is up to the developers to show that they have considered brownfield sites and I think, Minister, we need some strength and confidence that that really is being done. I know that the Planning Inspectorate provides advice to Ministers to make the final decisions, but it has to be a far more transparent process than what people experience today. It feels like a tick-box exercise; it feels like a rubber stamp. That may not be the intention of the Minister or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but it is critical that we address that.

The Secretary of State spoke last October about wanting to make it easier to cut, I think, up to £3 billion of costs a year by trying to get more solar on brownfield sites. It would be helpful to understand from the Minister what, since the Secretary of State’s speech and the direction of travel that she, he and the Prime Minister have set, has happened with the applications for not only planning, but connections. Have we seen that change happen, or have we continued to see more and more solar farms being proposed instead of agricultural production?

The Government have done other positive things. My hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, leading this debate, questioned some of the grants that were being given for barn solar, as I think we christened it at the time. That was deliberately intended to provide grants to help farmers to generate electricity for use on their farms; it is not designed in any way then to be connected anywhere. I think that is a sensible use of taxpayers’ money from the £2.4 billion, on average, that is distributed in England every year. It is absolutely key that we try to help farmers with their resilience, but we should not be doing that on the basis that taxpayers’ money will be used to fuel higher returns from not actually producing food or looking after livestock.

When it comes to thinking through what the next steps could be, I have already asked the Minister a few questions—I appreciate that he may not have all the information to hand today, but I, like others, am seeking a moratorium on connections until there is a steady state of understanding what is happening in this fair and beautiful land. I am not in DEFRA anymore, so I do not know which of the various stages the preparation of the land use framework is in, but a vital issue is the use of energy and that balance versus of course housing and other elements, because we can actually have multi- faceted land, productive in more ways than one.

It is important that we take this opportunity without trying to get away from the target that we have set of getting to 70 GW by 2035, but let us not go at breakneck speed and end up breaking our necks in this regard. It is important that we try to ensure that there are sensible routes forward from National Grid on connections. Right now, I get the impression that it is just approving or dishing out connections to anybody at all, without necessarily thinking through what the impact will be on food security or on our countryside.

[Gordon Henderson (in the Chair)]

I am expecting the Minister to take about 15 minutes, so out of fairness I will give the Opposition spokesman the same amount of time.

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[Andrew Bowie]

My hon. Friend makes a specific point about his constituency, on which I cannot comment, but I am sure that his concerns have been heard. They are certainly not new concerns; they have been raised with me in the past. As I said, we are genuinely and clearly listening to those concerns in the entire process.

[Dr Coffey]

The Minister is right to talk about how NPS EN-3 refers to the planning application process. One of the points that I made was about the connection process. Connections are being offered left, right and centre. Communities then see that as happening automatically in future, and indeed National Grid is building its infrastructure around the connections it is giving out, regardless of future planning applications. I appreciate that the Minister might not be able to reply today, but he and the Department need to look at the connection process. That is why I called for a moratorium on anything further.

[Andrew Bowie]

My right hon. Friend knows that I am no longer the Minister responsible for the network or the national grid, but I will ensure that her concerns are passed on to the relevant Minister. Ofgem and the electricity system operator are engaged in a considerable review of how connections are offered across the country, because there is a problem with that system. That is recognised and is being addressed.

Let me briefly touch on community benefits, which have also been raised. It is important that communities can participate in and benefit from the deployment of new low-carbon energy technologies in their local area. However, the Government do not have a formal role with regard to community benefits for solar and other large-scale renewable energy projects. We believe that those are best agreed at a local level, between the renewable operator and the local communities, so that they can be tailored to each community’s individual needs. They cannot be taken into account and, I am afraid, are not relevant to the planning decisions. A number of solar developers already provide community benefits on a voluntary basis. We are working with Solar Energy UK, the industry body, to provide further guidance and advice on community benefits for solar developers and communities and to develop a more consistent approach across the country that is fair to all parties.

Draft Strategy and Policy Statement for Energy Policy in Great Britain

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 General Committees

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. Members of the Committee will know that I am not a member, so I will not have any view on the consideration at the end. However, I will say that today, unusually for Government procedures, this statement is on the Order Paper for it to go through tonight without any further debate after this Committee has debated it. That is why this is one of the most important debates in which I will participate in this entire Parliament, and why I am here today.

I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Minister in her place. She will be well aware of many of the local issues. Very kindly, she met me before an Adjournment debate that I was due to have until I got laryngitis and could not do the debate. She will be conscious, in relation to east Suffolk Coastal, that stretch of the coast, that it is quite possible that within about 15 years that small, 5-square-mile area will be responsible for the generation and transmission, via interconnectors, into this country, for the UK electricity network, of 30% to 33% of the UK’s entire use of electricity. As a consequence, local people are understandably concerned about the scale of the development that is happening in an area that already has significant environmental protections. That is why in many ways I welcome parts of this policy statement. Some bits are missing from it, and I would like the Minister to reflect on that. I will say this now, so that the Whips can message the powers that be. I do want the Government to consider not moving the motion tonight and to take the opportunity to reflect on what has been said not only in this Committee but elsewhere, in debates, and indeed in the other House.

Thanks to the Act under which we are discussing this statement, an affirmative resolution is required in both Houses. That is welcome. Unfortunately, the national policy statements that happened recently were not debated in this House and also have significant consequences. That is in contrast to the previous national policy statements that were made and debated in 2011. The particular policies to which I am referring rely on the Government to timetable that debate, and that is under the auspices of the Planning Act 2008, so I am pleased that under the more recent Act, under which we are debating this statement, we certainly get the opportunity to debate.

I know that this document replaces the social and environmental guidance of 2011, but I have a few questions of procedure that I would just like to understand. Right hon. and hon. Members may know that I left Government in November 2023. I have been part of collective responsibility, collective agreement. That does not mean to say that in all my time in office I have not been pursuing some of the wider principles that concern me about the development of infrastructure in that regard. Indeed, in relation to the industrial strategy, talking about offshore wind, I made sure that it was included that both onshore and offshore impacts of transmission were to be considered by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in considering the environmental impact that was happening. I am pleased to see that this document does, vaguely, refer to the environment, but I would like to understand from the Minister—in terms of the rules that were passed thanks to the Environment Act 2021 and, due to my time in office, the environmental principles policy statement—what assessment has been made by Ministers specifically in regard to this development of this policy.

I would also be grateful to understand which Cabinet Committee cleared the final document that we are debating today. Was it Domestic and Economic Affairs, or was it Home Affairs? I am conscious that in my time in Government I had back-and-forth with the then Energy Secretary about the national policy statements, which I accept that we are not debating today. Hon. Members may know that I do not have perfect memory any more, after an illness—I had a brain abscess six years ago—but I do not recall specifically going through that, so I would be grateful to understand which Cabinet Committee cleared the legislation to come forward.

One of the aspects of why the environmental principles policy statement matters is that it is designed to ensure that we protect and enhance our environment and protect England’s unique natural assets. The part of the country that I represent is generally as flat as a pancake, yet it is about to have multiple energy converter sheds that are about four times the size of the outer edges of Parliament Square and the Treasury. There is not just one shed; there are multiple. I cannot see in any part of this statement, apart from at a generic top level, that in some way the new ESO will be required to even consider that in any level of detail.

I should be grateful if the Minister would publish any assessment made with regard to the environmental principles policy statement for transparency, so that it can be open to consideration by my constituents and others. Indeed, I am conscious that other Members of the House, from Lincolnshire and Scotland, including one of the Energy Ministers, are concerned about the development of such infrastructure. Certainly, the precautionary principle in the environmental principles policy statement is designed so that when evidence or consideration are given, aspects can be postponed, and I believe that that requires some substance to be added.

One of the historical elements of Ofgem is that it has always been driven simply by price or value, which is a challenge at times. I appreciate that that has an impact potentially on energy bills in the future. However, there is a risk at times that people know the price of something and the value of nothing. That is what we need to be concerned about as we take forward this holistic, whole-system approach, and that is why I generally support the statement before us. For the first time, it is taking us into a situation in which we will have that sort of spatial energy plan, However, at the moment it does not feel like the ESO is taking that into account in any way, nor has it taken it into account in some of its decision making so far. It is not covered in the policy statement in terms of sections 164(1)(c) and 164(1)(d) of part 5 of the Energy Act 2023. It does not seem to consider

“the whole-system impact of a relevant activity”

nor

“the desirability of facilitating innovation in relation to the carrying out of relevant activities.”

I know that my constituents, and constituents elsewhere across the country, have been promoting for a long time the idea of an offshore grid. I have also pushed that in the past to what was Suffolk Coastal Council—it is now East Suffolk Council—and worked with right hon. and hon. Members from East Anglia in particular on that. I am also concerned that despite all that and the past work that we have done, the Government and the ESO, as it will be constituted—it is the independent element of the National Grid today—will simply plough on. I am conscious that the substation being placed in a village called Friston at the moment offers connections to Sea Link, LionLink, Nautilus and various offshore wind farms. I cannot quite remember how many; I think there are about four or five. It has just announced— except that it does not announce; it has quietly put it on its spreadsheet, but at least there is some transparency —a further two solar farms of 249.9 MW each. Once again, there is a brand-new addition, and the place has not yet even been built. That is the frustration.

Members of the Committee may just think that I am being a nimby; I am not. This has nothing to do with pylons in my constituency, but I appreciate that it does in the constituencies of other hon. Members. We already have pylons. Under the proposals so far, there is no plan to have any more pylons, although I appreciate that there may a risk of them in the future. My constituency is the home of Sizewell C, which is referred to in the policy statement regarding nuclear. That is about how important it is, and the investment that the Government are putting into it. They recognise the need for energy security and generation so that we are not reliant on the likes of Putin, so that we try to become more resistant to the energy shocks that we have experienced in the last year or two, and so that we recognise the impact that it has on consumers and the security of what we are trying to do.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned Sizewell C. A huge environmental impact study was believed to have put back the planning process. Does she have any insight into what that may do to the ability to bring nuclear reactors online in the planned timeframe?

[Dr Coffey]

I am conscious that the planning timeframe is one of the reasons for creating the process that we are going through. I can honestly say that EDF spent a lot of time going through it and planning ahead, and I give credit for that. I have constituents who always have and always will oppose nuclear, and more have done so recognising the impact it will have. However, I was assured by our regulators, the Environment Agency and Natural England that the mitigations put in place and the modifications along the way would be sufficient to recognise the area of outstanding natural beauty and all the designations that we have, while accepting that there might be some disruption. I am conscious that the issue is of concern. Candidly, I think there is more concern about the Sea Link project, not only in my constituency but in that of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), which, as it stands, would struggle to get any environmental clearance at all.

We have a combination of factors. I agree that we need a whole energy plan in the future, and the Government are, rightly, in order to achieve net zero, trying to accelerate this strategy. However, what worries me is that they are accelerating it without necessarily having done the work. I give credit to the Government for making this strategic change, which was absolutely necessary as we move away from gas and coal. Inland, we had a hub and spokes approach. We are now bringing in most of our energy from the coast and abroad, so we do need to work through the impacts of that. What I am concerned about is the acceleration that is being proposed in a different way. Communities want certainty. What they do not want is a botched job along the way, which is the risk of aspects of what we are being asked to endorse today.

I will turn to the policy summary of responses. I will not be brief; I apologise to hon. Members, but I have told them that this one of the most important debates I will speak in. In question 1, 60% of the people who expressed an interest said that they felt the strategy and policy statement identified the most strategic policies and outcomes for Government in formulating policy. However, in question 2 on the role of Ofgem in achieving that, only 40% agreed, and on the role of the future system operator, which is being rebranded as the National Energy System Operator, only 46% agreed.

I want to ask the Minister how the responses to the consultation have been taken into account, and what changes have been made as a result of the feedback. I am conscious that people think that consultation is just a rubber stamp, and to some extent it is. However, the Government are supposed to show that they have considered the views that people have put forward and justify why they have rejected them, which is why responding to consultations takes so long. I want to get an understanding of that.

In the summary of responses, the Government talk about the establishment of the national ESO. My understanding is that it is supposed to be established by the summer of 2024. I have been in Government long enough to know that summer can actually mean up until December. However, if it really is being established within the next three months—by the summer recess —why do we need to decide this matter now? I appreciate that it has already taken a considerable amount of time, but we should ensure that we get it right, so that we do not have to go through another consultation within the next 12 months. I think that would be helpful.

The hon. Member for Southampton, Test has already mentioned the timing. I think I understand; I think it is fair to say that, since the Energy Act that created this new body was only created by the Government in 2023, it is sensible that this has been done now, but it is still somewhat incomplete.

One aspect I would like to understand further is the automatic element of offering connections. In December 2023, the Government responded to the transmission acceleration action plan, which they had rightly been considering. It has been the practice that someone can just say, “I want to connect,” and National Grid or the new NESO has basically had to say yes, and has had to cobble together where that can go. That leads to a really inefficient situation. Once a connection is done, we can pretty much guarantee that almost any big shed can be built in that area without anticipating any normal planning process. I appreciate that the policy of nationally significant infrastructure projects —the NSIPs—is a democratic way of operating, but it does not feel like that when the connection is already offered several years in advance; it comes across as a fait accompli. That is really frustrating for local communities. That is true in my own constituency and right along the east coast, and I expect more Members in Lincolnshire will start to feel the same.

NESO is intended to be independent. One of the key elements here is energy security—it is a key policy that NESO, with Ofgem, has to effectively deliver. There is no indication in the policy statement of how that energy security is translated, if those bodies are supposed to be independent. I hope the Minister can reassure me that NESO and Ofgem will have sufficient knowledge of pretty secret stuff that the Government discuss in the National Security Council on the security of energy.

One of the things I know we have to be mindful of are foreign actors who regularly try to intervene in the cabling between the UK and the continent. How will NESO and Ofgem have access to that sort of knowledge?

I understand that one of the developers, LionLink, is deliberately trying to bring its cables in at Southwold or Walberswick in my constituency, because it would need to cross 13 or 14 other cables to connect further south. I am concerned that we already have on our seabeds what feels like a version of the M25 on steroids. We need to be mindful of that when we consider any further connections.

There is another aspect where this needs some revision or improvement. The Government should ultimately be in charge of the strategic spatial energy plan—the SSEP —and it should not be delegated to the NESO. It is ultimately for Ministers to make decisions. We should be mindful of trying to hold to account those officials who do things on our behalf, but I do not think it works for communities for the answer to be, “It is not my decision.” It is only not their decision because they have decided to give it away. There are challenges there. In its evidence to the Select Committee, National Grid suggested that the SSEP should ultimately be owned by the Government. It went further, in saying that it should be absorbed into national and local planning guidance in order to accelerate decisions for the transmission needed. The policy statement needs to make it very clear that, ultimately, the Secretary of State should sign off the SSEP in the future.

I am conscious that an interim SSEP is supposed to be being prepared. Could the Minister tell us where we are in that process?

This statement is, I believe, intended to help facilitate efficiency in the queue-based system. But what happens when the developer changes its mind? In the south North sea, ScottishPower Renewables set about creating part of the East Anglia array. We worked with the company locally to plan for the future, so that we did not have multiple or mass disruptions. The intention was for direct current to be transmitted and pulled in from the wind farm and to go straight through cabling to the principal energy converter at Bramford. A substantial amount of design and work was done, and there was engagement with communities, because again it involved significant disruption; to give the Committee a sense, when they lay a cable, they dig out a patch with a width about the length of this Committee room. The intention was to bring in more cables, so it would be a much bigger size and then they could pull through the cables as and when they were needed. Instead of having three different routes, we would end up with just one route, but it would be bigger. We could think of it as the M25 compared with the A12—or perhaps the A1 is a better analogy for the hon. Members here.

In the contracts for difference auction, ScottishPower did not get the price it was looking for, so it decided to say, “Oh, we’ll rip that up”—bearing in mind that it had already been through the NSIP—“and go to AC, because that is less money for us.” It still causes the big disruption, because the construction had already started; but as a consequence, the company needed to create new connections for the rest of the windfarm. That has led to us ending up with the converter station in Friston.

That is the problem. I do not understand what direction is being given to the ESO, or indeed to Ofgem, in this policy statement about what happens when, after a community has gone through all that, a change is made to the NSIP. Basically the developers can change their mind and hold the Government to ransom, because otherwise they would not have proceeded with the project at all, and we know we need to get to net zero. That is an example where co-ordinating and planning was done—years ahead of where we are today—and yet we were screwed over by ScottishPower Renewables. That is why there is a lack of trust in what is happening in the acceleration of this plan.

Turning to the document itself, I want to raise a few issues. I am conscious that Ofgem says what developers can and cannot do—there is a famous story about Chris Huhne creating a “pretty pylon” competition about a decade ago. EDF put forward the cost of using the pretty pylons rather than the ugly pylons, and I do not know exactly what happened, but Ofgem would not allow EDF to raise bills to pay for the pretty pylons, so that felt like a waste of time.

On page 11, the statement talks about the need to

“secure that all reasonable demands for electricity and gas are met;”

and I think that is the sensible part. The National Energy System Operator, as set out in the Energy Act, will be required to

“carry out its functions in the way that it considers is best calculated to promote the objective of ensuring security of gas and electricity supply”—

which is absolutely right—

“meeting our statutory decarbonisation targets and promoting coordinated, efficient and economical systems”.

That is where it starts to get tricky. There is no mention of the environment in there, or of how, if at all, NESO may be instructed to do the environmental principles policy statements.

The statement goes on to say:

“NESO will be a public corporation…independent from other commercial energy interests”—

again, that was one of the key points in the Energy Act. My constituents seem to think that BlackRock is making a lot of these decisions, solely on the basis that BlackRock is one of the key owners of National Grid, but that has always been separate. However, it also says:

“The government will be sole shareholder of NESO, and thus retain ultimate responsibility, however it will not exercise control over NESO’s operations. NESO will be licensed and regulated by Ofgem”.

That is where I have more difficulty. We do a lot of planning permission, setting out a variety of elements and other rules on how independent organisations are supposed to operate. I do not expect the Secretary of State to have to sign off the location of every single pylon, but it concerns me that at the moment I cannot see a specific role in this statement for how the Secretary of State will be involved in the strategic spatial plan. Ultimately, we need to be able to hold the policy to account in Parliament, and I am worried that that is simply not happening and that it is being pushed away.

Page 13 of the statement mentions

“a Centralised Strategic Network Plan…for electricity transmission onshore and offshore, building on ESO’s current role in delivering the Holistic Network Design”.

In the 2022 leadership contest, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) basically said that we should move to undergrounding everything—no pylons—and that is certainly one approach. The present Prime Minister, however, suggested that he would re-consult on innovative and alternative solutions to the scheme that National Grid had put forward. I am not aware that that has happened. He also committed to various groups that he would do all he could to reduce the amount of infrastructure required onshore. That has certainly not happened, nor has it taken into account section 164(1)(c) of the Act on innovation.

This is not trying to construct something from scratch; the offshore grid connection is already happening in other countries in the European Union. The statement does not take account of our wider approach to development of trying to promote brownfield development over greenfield. At the moment, the approach of the NESO is whatever is cheapest for the developer, not thinking about wider energy transmission loss that happens once DC is converted to AC.

Instead, the NESO should be thinking about taking electricity into Tilbury, Isle of Grain and even Bradwell, where existing transmission network needs to be upgraded. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) is keen to see small modular reactors there in future, but the point here is the existing brownfield sites. In my constituency, this is all greenfield development and all about taking out farming land. Some farmers have been prepared to sell, and I understand that, but others will be blocked from doing what they love and cherish on that family farm that has been passed on from generation to generation. Compulsory purchase plan orders are already being submitted and that is soul-destroying for farmers in Suffolk Coastal.

Consideration of where the connections should go seems, as I say, to be in the interests of developers, rather than those of the country as a whole, but another aspect—back on page 13—makes me wonder what consideration has been given to food security in the development of this policy. Have the whole-system impacts been thought through? Nothing has been developed so far about the offshore grid, and that is really missing. We should not be thinking just about the next five years.

I know that the acceleration is all about trying to get to 2030, and I appreciate—I say this frankly to the Opposition—that since the Conservatives came into Government in 2010, we have generated 99% of the amount of renewable energy that has been created, as opposed to what had happened previously. However, I am also conscious that as we hurtle towards that date, we are not taking into account the whole-system impact or the lifetime understanding of the value for the future.

On page 14, under the heading “Cross-cutting”, the document states:

“The purpose of this is to enable government and Ofgem to draw on the specific expertise of NESO and allow policy decisions to be based on robust evidence, with NESO’s independent consideration of whole system network impacts”.

In response to what the Minister or one of her colleagues asked for, a comparison grid was mentioned. It has been well documented that undersea cabling from wind farms in Scotland down to Lincolnshire, to Humberside, is happening. We were trying to understand collectively, as a group of MPs in East Anglia, why no consideration seems to have been given to what is happening in East Anglia. That has happened but it is odd that as part of that approach, NESO is basically saying, “Yeah, we are doing this, but it won’t make any difference.” Again, that frustrates the local community, and is more evidence to suggest that we were right all along.

I am conscious that there will not be one solution that pleases everybody. I get that, and we must have those wider considerations, but it does feel that my constituents are being shafted in this proposal. As I said, I am not being a nimby; we have Sizewell C. I am concerned that some of the short-term elements do not include a longer term cost or environmental impact, and that needs to change in this policy statement.

On page 16 and the appropriate use of competition, I would love to hear from the Minister what happens to those developers who simply pull out when it does not suit them. What are we doing to ensure that they do not pull out and ruin people’s lives? Going on to page 18, I agree with the strategic approach, for creating a more efficient system. Surely, it would be more efficient to have the energy brought into London and parts of the south-east much closer, because the energy drop-off in transmission is not efficient. We should get that connection much closer.

I have already asked a question about when the interim SSEP will be published. On page 24, I support the elements on supporting nuclear. As I said, the environmental regulators were content for that to go ahead. I am very supportive of the hydrogen strategy on page 21. I was surprised recently, however, by a change of view from National Grid and NESO about whether hydrogen can play any meaningful role, which concerns me. I am conscious of developments that need to happen as part of Freeport East, but I think that change has sent the industry rather cold. I am worried that we are cutting off hydrogen too early. I appreciate that the road map that the Minister has in her policy overall is important to try to deliver a low-carbon, hydrogen-heating neighbourhood trial by 2024 but, more broadly, I hope the Government will continue to press, to ensure that hydrogen is a part of our future.

In Section Two on page 26, I am conscious of some of the energy tariffs. Do not get me wrong: I am not seeking to inflate energy prices massively, simply because of constituents concerned about developments in Friston, Saxmundham, Southwold, Walberswick and Aldeburgh. People who visit those places know how flat and beautiful the area is, and how important to nature. I am doing this because I want a whole-system approach that would take that longer-term assessment.

I am sure the Committee will be thrilled to know that I intend to wind up. I want to ask the Minister please not to move the motion on today’s paper. Even if colleagues are just reflecting on some of the comments made today, and perhaps the incomplete response to the consultation, this matter should not be rushed. Once we have laid this, this will not happen for some time. I am conscious that there is a lot of work going on. In the short term, I would like the Minister to direct National Grid and NESO not to offer any more connections until the interim spatial strategy energy plan is granted.

That is really critical. It is important that we do not just keep ploughing on making the same mistakes that so many elements of the policy statement are due to correct. Why keep adding things, which I already think are in error, that could quickly undermine the success of the spatial strategy?

I am grateful for the patience of the Committee. This might not be a No. 1 topic in Members’ constituencies, but it is a most important one in Suffolk Coastal. I am grateful to be able to speak today and set out clearly why I believe that more needs to be done to the policy statement and with the attitude of the ESO and Ofgem so that we can go forward together and have a brilliant energy system for the future. The Department and every hon. Member here wants to see that, but we need to make sure it is done right.

Civil Nuclear Road Map

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

I am sure the Minister will speak for himself on that particular point, but that is not a characterisation I would share. What the competition and Great British Nuclear are doing is giving a very strong signal to businesses such as Rolls-Royce not only that this is a sound technology to invest in, but that there is potentially a very robust market for it in the UK. That is what I would like to see and why I said earlier that when these technologies are considered we need to think about the broader impact on UK manufacturing and jobs that supporting and backing these technologies would bring, not just the manufacture of modular reactors and electricity.

I have met Rolls-Royce and seen its SMR plans and designs. They are incredibly exciting. As the right hon. Gentleman says, this is technology that has been developed for the Royal Navy, and its applications for civil nuclear are very exciting indeed. I hope that it is very successful with it. I would certainly be very happy to see a Rolls-Royce SMR in my constituency at Dungeness.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I do support the introduction of small modular reactors, but I hope the House would not want Rolls-Royce to be given preferential treatment by the Office for Nuclear Regulation in its generic design assessment, because we need to ensure that it is safe. Does my hon. Friend agree that while Sizewell C is now getting under way, it is important that the contractors do honour what they say they will do, such as sourcing the water and ensuring that skills and jobs are happening locally, in order to give people confidence? We know how long these projects have taken to get off the ground.

[Damian Collins]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, particularly on her point about the labour markets, and in the Sizewell area that is incredibly important. I know from Dungeness in my constituency that it is the certainty of having long-term employment that attracts some of the best talent and encourages people, including apprentices, to join the industry. The Minister will probably want to comment on the substance of my right hon. Friend’s remarks.

In the time available to me, I want focus on the site lists consultations element of the civil nuclear road map. The Government are saying that the criteria that were applied to nuclear sites in 2011 should still apply today, and in most cases that is true. Safety, access to water—where appropriate—and grid connections could all be important considerations when it is being decided where the sites could be, along with habitat implications and, in coastal areas, flood risk. All those are constants. The one factor that has completely changed since 2011 is the size of the footprint of the nuclear facility itself.

In Dungeness, an important factor has been the existence of a special protected area as a consequence of the unique shingle peninsula on which it sits, which is the second biggest in the world and a habitat that is unique in Europe, let alone the UK—the biggest shingle peninsula in the world is Cape Canaveral, in the United States. The protections are there for areas of the shingle banks that have never been disturbed. However, there are plenty of areas surrounding existing nuclear sites that are, in effect, brownfield sites where that disturbance has taken place. As they are not in special protected areas, I believe that future development would be possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I commend the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for initiating the debate. It may not surprise him that I will approach it from a different angle, providing the opposition, as it were.

In my view, this should be called the nuclear road map fantasy. Even if we put aside my objection and that of my party to new nuclear power, all the evidence and all the understanding of the development or non-development of nuclear power in the UK over the past decade point to the fact that this will not happen. As the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, the 2011 plan never came to fruition. It is obvious that the nuclear ambitions have not been fulfilled in the past 13 years.

Every pro-nuclear enthusiast seems to ignore the fairly recent market failure whereby Hitachi walked away from Wylfa and Oldbury and Toshiba walked away from Moorside. Notwithstanding the intended competition for the construction of all these new nuclear sites, EDF and China General Nuclear remained the only show in town, and EDF is still the only show in town as the only company willing to build large-scale nuclear. EDF has a blank cheque when it is at the negotiating table, because there is nowhere else for the Government to go. Large-scale nuclear ambitions also ignore the fact that as a concept the EPR design has been a failure, with every single EPR project in the world being over budget, late and experiencing technical difficulties. Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 was 15 years late. Flamanville in France is 12 years late and at four times its original budget. Taishan in China was held up as the delivery exemplar when it was commissioned, but has been plagued by safety concerns owing to rod damage, and has been offline as much as it has been online since it was commissioned.

We were told that the lessons learned from all the problems with all the other EPR projects would be put into place in Hinkley and that it would be much more efficiently delivered, so let us look at Hinkley Point C. In 2016, its estimated cost was £18 billion, but EDF has recently updated that estimate to £48 billion in today’s prices—a mere £30 billion overspend. Instead of generating power in 2025, it will now be as late as 2031. As costs have continued to spiral, the Government’s attitude remains that it does not really matter for the taxpayer, because all the risk sits with EDF.

However, China General Nuclear, which is a partner in the project, has already reached its cap on the money and capital it is willing to put in, so clearly EDF is now having to find a lot more borrowing than it anticipated. Frankly, it beggars belief that the Minister and the Government claim not to be speaking to EDF about this, especially when just last week the chief executive of EDF, Luc Rémont, stated:

“We’re confident we can find a pathway with British authorities on Hinkley Point C and Sizewell.”

When will the Government admit that Hinkley Point C will need some sort of bailout to allow it to get to completion, or is the intention to throw more money at Sizewell to offset Hinkley’s financial black hole for EDF? The Government also need to come clean on why they put back the contractual payment cut-off dates for Hinkley by six years. Do they know that there is potentially further bad news for Hinkley?

The lessons learned have not worked out for Hinkley, but now we are told that it has been a good learning project and that Sizewell C will be different and will be delivered efficiently, learning from the lessons of the delivery of Hinkley. Again, this is head-in-the-sand stuff. The last Government estimate for Sizewell C was £20 billion, but we now know that Hinkley will cost nearly £50 billion, so it is quite clear that Sizewell C will cost £50 billion—a lot more capital than the Government have intimated they are required to raise. It is no wonder that pension funds have been running a mile from investing in Sizewell C.

[Dr Coffey]

It is not a straightforward comparison, because I think Sizewell C is still in line with its 2015 prices. It is fairly standard to try to stick with an estimate, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman. As the local MP for Sizewell C, I am concerned that there have been significant delays at Hinkley. I appreciate that the SNP does not approve of nuclear power at all, but I would like to understand why he is concerned that the Government will have to bail out Hinkley C, when that is clearly not the situation. I would be interested to explore why he thinks that is the case.

[Alan Brown]

I quoted the chief executive of EDF, who says he hopes to find a pathway with the British authorities, which suggests that EDF wants to be talking about getting more money. The reality is that if there is a £30 billion overspend, EDF must recover that money somewhere, if it can afford to deliver the project without getting a bailout and in line with the 35-year contract it has for selling electricity. If the company has been able to swallow that level of overspend, it shows that the site rate originally agreed in the £18 billion estimate for construction was way too high, because the original £18 billion was supposed to cover contingency as well. Something does not stack up, given that there is such an overspend and such a delay. The delay means that it will be even longer before EDF starts getting payment for the project, so something is not quite right and we need to get a better understanding of that.

I disagree that Sizewell C is still in line with its 2015 prices. At the end of the day, although some lessons can be learned and replicated, the site for Sizewell C is smaller, more constrained and geologically different. It is surrounded by marshes and adjacent to an internationally renowned nature reserve. It is also in one of the fastest-eroding coastlines in Europe, which is subject to rising sea levels and more extreme weather events. In other words, I would argue that Sizewell C is a daft location for a new nuclear power station. With the groundwork and initial civil engineering that will be required, it is not a straightforward carbon copy of Hinkley. We need to know the official estimate for Sizewell C. Taxpayers deserve some transparency, especially given that the Government have already allocated £2.5 billion of taxpayers’ money to EDF for the development of the project, just to get to the stage of a final investment decision. Enough money has already been ploughed into Sizewell C, yet there is still a lot of uncertainty.

On the wider programme delivery considerations for these large-scale nuclear sites, Hinkley will have taken 15 years to complete, if it is completed, by 2031. Even if we are optimistic about Sizewell C, which will be delivered much more quickly, it is still going to take at least 10 years, so it could be between 2035 and 2040 before it is delivered. These timescales alone show the folly of relying on nuclear for decarbonisation and of planning for nuclear to deliver 25% of generation output capacity by 2050, as set out in the road map. It also shows the folly of the road map stating a delivery target of 3 GW to 7 GW every five years. It is a fantasy target, as is 24 GW overall, unfortunately.

The concept of 24 GW, or 25% of generation output, is the wrong model, given that nuclear power is so inflexible. Such a large nuclear output on the grid means that, at times, even greater constraint payments will be paid for renewable energy companies to turn off their turbines.

Large-scale nuclear cannot deliver the intended five-year targets, so how will those targets be met? As the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) outlined, the road map talks about small modular reactors. The name sounds innocuous, but do people really believe that a footprint the size of two football pitches is small? It clearly is not, and there is not yet a single licensed prototype in the UK. Good luck in the competition for SMRs, considering that none has been licensed and approved for construction in the UK.

Of the designs that the Office for Nuclear Regulation is considering, the only one to have reached stage 2 is the Rolls-Royce proposal, with the ONR’s stage 2 assessments due to conclude in July 2024. Stage 3 timescales are still to be confirmed, so the reality is that SMRs are just a glint in the UK’s eye at the moment. There is no understanding or certainty on timescales, even if SMRs do come to fruition.

NuScale is supposedly the world leader in SMR technology, and it has just given up on its proposed SMR in Utah because costs have ballooned to £7 billion. The cost of electricity generation has rocketed, too. Our road map tells us that the UK will pioneer and lead the way on new nuclear and SMRs, but that does not make sense. The Government estimate that SMRs will cost £2 billion a go, which makes no sense given the cost of the project in Utah. The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), is in his place, and I welcome the questions he has put to the Government. The Government need to consider this closely, and I look forward to their response.

Why does the road map outline two possible funding models—contracts for difference and a regulated asset base? At a £92.50 per megawatt-hour strike rate over 35 years, Hinkley Point is way more expensive than renewable energy at circa £40 to £50 per megawatt-hour over just a 15-year concession period. When we debated the legislation on the regulated asset base funding model, the Government told us that the CFD model does not work for nuclear as it is too expensive, and that switching to RAB would save £40 billion to £80 billion over the lifetime of a nuclear project. If that is the case, why are two funding models listed in the road map? Are the Government now concerned that RAB transfers too much risk to the bill payer? Are they concerned about repeating what happened in South Carolina where, under a regulated asset base model, a company abandoned the construction of a nuclear power station and ratepayers were left paying for a power station that was never completed? What is to stop that happening at Sizewell?

The road map outlines the need for a geological disposal facility, but there are no plans in place to show how such a facility will be identified, constructed and paid for. What is the estimated cost of a GDF? How big will it need to be? Will it be one facility or will there be more, depending on how many nuclear power stations are built? Worryingly, the road map talks about having interim storage in the meantime. This shows that there is still no solution in place for disposing of radioactive nuclear waste, other than burying it for hundreds of years. Our current decommissioning legacy is estimated to be £124 billion, so why do we want to create another generation of nuclear waste for future generations to pay for? There is always a risk that a future Government will need to pick up the tab for decommissioning, no matter what companies sign up to at the outset.

Finally, we are told that nuclear is required because of its reliability and because it produces power when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. Over the last 12 years, however, each nuclear reactor has been offline for roughly a quarter of the year, so the dependability of nuclear is not a given. Indeed, Heysham and Hartlepool power stations are offline and have been since December, so two out of three in the existing fleet in England are offline. Before Hinkley comes online, seven of the original eight nuclear stations operating just a few years ago will have gone offline. If we can operate with such a depletion of the existing nuclear fleet before Hinkley comes online, that undermines the argument that we need nuclear to supply the baseload. The Government clearly do not think that the lights will go out when the rest of these nuclear stations are being decommissioned before Hinkley comes online. To me, the road map seems to be all false aspiration and not enough substance, and it flies in the face of the reality of what we know about the operation of nuclear in the past few years and how the market really sits at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I apologise for the Secretary of State not being here. I will write to the hon. Lady promptly in answer to her question.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Transparency is important in the development of the energy sector. National Grid is refusing to publish its assessment of Bradwell as a potential landfall site for cables and interconnectors. It must be logical to prioritise brownfield sites with existing connections to the electricity network. Will my right hon. Friend please require National Grid to publish fully its assessment so far?

[Graham Stuart]

When my right hon. Friend thinks that something is important, she does not let it go. That message will go out clearly from this Chamber, and I will happily work with her to see whether we can find a resolution and give her the information and insight that she requires.

COP28

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the success of the loss and damage fund being operation-alised, but also to highlight the fact that it does not match the need for the quantum of finance. He asked me how we will be working on that. We have been delighted to contribute £60 million, of which £40 million will be going directly into the fund to help get it going. However, if we are to get it to the scale we require, it is going to need more than donor finance, which is why we have explored, and will continue to explore, options for innovative financial flows. So much of the change we have made there, even if there was an opportunity for increased debt, would not be debt financeable anyway, and that is why, as he said, we must make sure that those who are most vulnerable are rightly dealt with.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the increase in production from oil and gas in the North sea. We are not seeing an increase in production; we are actually seeing production expected to fall at 7% a year. It is falling faster than is required globally. The IEA says that countries should be looking for a 3% to 4% reduction, and we will be reducing at 7%. As he knows, the UK has cut its emissions more than any other major economy on earth, has the most ambitious plans of any major economy to 2030 and, I believe, is the only one to have put into law a 77% reduction in the mid-2030s.

It is in that context, as we lead the world in reducing demand for oil and gas, that, none the less, our dependence on imports will grow. So it makes no sense whatsoever to see Scottish workers thrown out of their jobs in oil and gas, while we simply bring in imports from abroad with higher emissions, and lose the very subsea and engineering capabilities that we need for floating offshore wind, carbon capture and hydrogen. There is a complete disconnect in this crazy opposition to the maintenance of an already declining industry, which is fundamental to delivering the energy transition. Even if I have little hope for the right hon. Member for Doncaster North, who has always managed to have inconsistent and incoherent thoughts in his head all at the same time, I am hoping that perhaps the Scottish nationalist party can come to its senses and support Scottish workers and the energy transition.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I strongly welcome this statement. I congratulate the Minister and my noble Friend Lord Benyon on the negotiations, but also officials such as Alison Campbell and many of the officials in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who played a blinder in working towards and securing the agreement. I also want to pay tribute to the Minister for single-handedly making it possible for so many MPs to attend COP28. I pay tribute to him for doing that, recognising his previous presidency of GLOBE International UK.

I would like to say to my right hon. Friend that I was particularly proud of the mangrove breakthrough moment. I am conscious that the combination of nature and climate going together started very strongly in Glasgow and has accelerated. May I seek assurances from my right hon. Friend that we will commit to the £11.6 billion international climate finance funding? I know we have already started spending some of that. Will he also consider some of the approaches to things such as saltmarshes, the UK’s equivalent of mangroves, to make sure that continuing integration is part of our policy?

[Graham Stuart]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. I also thank her for her attendance at the COP and her continuing passion and ability to communicate the importance of nature as a value in itself, but also how, dealt with in the correct way, it is complementary to development and to the maintenance of carbon sinks. Nature, and making sure that an understanding of it is central to our thinking, is so important.

My right hon. Friend thanked my officials, and she is right to do so. When Dr Sultan al-Jaber made the historic announcement of the UAE consensus, the central text of the various texts we agreed was that on the global stocktake. Having thanked the two Ministers who led the work on the stocktake, he immediately thanked Alison Campbell and Mr Teo from Singapore for their fundamental role. Our officials and my team were very much involved in drafting and pulling together words, and I was delighted to be supported by them as we met those from Saudi Arabia to China, India and other partners. I pay tribute to all those countries that, just like us, had to move from their initial positions to find a consensus.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the presence of MPs. My first COP was in 2005 in Montreal, and I remember feeling then that the elected parliamentarians, who make the political weather, were not properly accounted for. When I look back to that historic Climate Change Act 2008, I am proud of the fact that my then party leader, the noble Lord Cameron, was the first party leader to support it—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) could just be quiet for a moment, I was talking about parliamentarians. It was a combination of Friends of the Earth working with Back-Bench parliamentarians and a new green Conservative party, and an early-day motion—an instrument here that is often looked at askance—that triggered the Climate Change Act, which has been significant not only for the UK, but for the world.

COP28

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Please. The Minister will answer as she sees fit. I am sure that at the end you will want to raise a point of order. That is the time—you cannot have a second bite of the cherry. I went out of my way to ensure that this issue was covered, so please—I am sure other Members will ask questions, and it is up to the Minister how she answers them. I am not responsible for that.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this second opportunity for the House to discuss COP28. At the debate on 16 November, when the Government granted a full day’s debate, only three Back Benchers spoke—me, and the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon). There was not a sign of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is now complaining about the responses to her questions. By the way, the debate on 16 November finished early because of how few people spoke.

Does my hon. Friend agree that “vote blue, go green” is the best way to deliver net zero? Does she recognise that nature-based solutions are vital to achieve net zero? Does this not just show again that the Green party is all talk and absolutely no action?

[Amanda Solloway]

As I have said, it is incredibly important that we head towards our commitments. Between 1990 and 2021, we cut UK emissions by 48% while growing the economy. I agree with my right hon. Friend that if we trust this Government to deliver, we will ensure we are heading on the right path. The other thing to mention is that net zero is an engine for growth and the revitalisation of formerly industrialised areas of the UK. Cutting emissions is important not just for the climate, but for our economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

The Government are collaborating with industry to identify solutions to unblock barriers to offshore wind deployment. I know that the UK Infrastructure Bank is providing support to the Port of Tyne. The FLOWMIS project is currently live, so I cannot comment on it, but I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss these issues.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made a lot of progress in trying to bring together a holistic network, but it is too late for communities in Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex. In that regard, will she request that the electricity system operator publishes its survey of the Bradwell site, and that it undertakes a fresh one, with a full cost-benefit analysis, as a pilot for future connections?

[Andrew Bowie]

As my right hon. Friend knows, the ESO has conducted an investigation into Bradwell and its suitability, but I am happy to meet her again to discuss Bradwell, the location of future projects, and how we might work together to ensure that her constituents see the benefits of any future energy infrastructure built in that part of the country.