Energy Infrastructure

Virginia Crosbie Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

Before I begin, I would like to say llongyfarchiadau—congratulations—to my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) for putting forward the application for a debate on energy and net zero and energy infrastructure. He is a proud champion for Wales in this place.

I express my thanks to the Department for pledging an extra £790 million to the budget for net zero. Time is of the essence when it comes to cutting emissions, and for me and my constituents on Ynys Môn, this is a very welcome step in the right direction. That spending on energy infrastructure could not have come at a more crucial time. As we are all well aware, investing in the energy transition is the best shot we have at creating a low-carbon, high-growth economy. It will enable every corner of the UK to remain at the forefront of global innovation and re-industrialisation.

I think we can all agree that the energy transition will require significant investment from the private sector and, with the right policies, this will pay back our local communities in spades. Last year, net zero attracted more than £50 billion of new investment in our low-carbon sectors and it will be worth a whopping £1 trillion to British businesses by 2030.

People would be hard-pressed to think of anywhere that symbolises the opportunities and benefits that the energy transition can bring more than Wales. She embodies it both in her landscape and her people. Her coalfields formed the backbone of British industry, mined for over 100 years by hard-working Welshmen like my grandad.

Limiting Wales’s contribution to British energy in the time since to coal alone would be to do her a disservice. Ynys Môn houses a wealth of projects that bring investment and highly skilled, well-paid jobs to her residents. The Morlais wave project will harness the tremendous tidal potential off Anglesey’s coast to produce enough clean, low-carbon electricity for five times its population. Holyhead hydrogen hub and Minesto are also making great strides. The BP Morgan and Mona offshore wind farms even further out to sea symbolise Britain’s budding reputation as a global wind power player. Inland, Lightsource BP is scoping out proposals for a solar farm and battery storage facility adapted from an old oil terminal. Last but not least, the Wylfa nuclear power station generated clean, low-carbon, firm electricity for Britain’s grid for more than 40 years.

The UK has a long and proud record on nuclear power. The first commercial station in the world was opened by the late Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield in 1956. We have one of the most respected safety regimes in the world. It is the gold standard against which other countries’ nuclear projects are measured. We must not forfeit our record on nuclear power. The Government’s stellar commitment to launching Great British Nuclear, as well as the construction of new plants at Sizewell and Hinkley, is warmly welcomed. Great British Nuclear will unlock exciting opportunities for the UK to become a world leader in small modular reactors and opens the door to new nuclear plants in incredible sites such as Wylfa.

We quite literally cannot afford to let opportunities to deploy more of this power slip through our fingers. This is our opportunity to produce clean electricity on British soil for British businesses and British people. New nuclear at Wylfa would enable Ynys Môn to cement herself as Britain’s energy island. Once called the breadbasket of Wales for its fertile farmland, Anglesey again has the opportunity to supply homes and businesses with vital fuel through her clean, home-grown electricity production. With all but one of our nuclear power stations going offline at the end of this decade, new nuclear at Wylfa would represent an opportunity for us to preserve our nuclear prowess and ensure secure supplies of electricity for decades to come.

As if all that was not enough, the most recent jewel in the crown of Anglesey’s low-carbon credentials is her newly announced freeport, which is expected to bring over 13,000 jobs and over £1 billion of investment to the island. I have campaigned hard for that in my time as the island’s MP, raising it more than 37 times here in the Chamber, and I am grateful to the UK Government for their vote of confidence in Ynys Môn.

But all of this—the wind, wave, solar, tidal, nuclear, hydrogen, free trade, jobs and investment—will amount to little if the grid infrastructure to support it is not there. New low-carbon energy will be choked if there is nowhere for it to go. We need to build more infrastructure in the next seven years than we have in the past 32.

If Anglesey is to embrace its energy island reputation, its wealth of potential projects cannot be bogged down in an endless planning process. The planning process for offshore wind farms often requires developers to submit more than 1,000 documents, including an environmental impact assessment made up of 10,000-plus pages. Sizewell C took more than 44,000 pages of planning documents to get approval. Laid out on the ground, that would be eight miles of paperwork.

Communities should be properly engaged and consulted on projects, but pushing endless amounts of paper is unlikely to deliver the energy transition that the public want and desperately need. Connections to the national grid also need to become much faster if we are to be in with a chance of competing in the global race for net zero investment. Projects are being given 10-year wait times for a grid connection, holding back private sector investment in the energy transition. Connection dates well into the 2030s are now common due to the length of the waiting list. If that goes on, the UK will not hit its targets and we will not decarbonise fast enough to bring down bills and secure our energy supplies.

However, the Government have made some really welcome progress on this issue. Giving Ofgem a net zero duty will encourage the system to upgrade and modernise, so that it can handle all the fantastic new low-carbon electricity we are going to generate. Capital expensing for renewable projects will cut the cost for developers to build the vital projects we will need to make electricity cheaper and more secure. We should make that tax cut permanent.

On top of that, I am very pleased about the launch of Great British Nuclear next Thursday—fittingly, at the Science Museum. It is a very welcome step towards showing the world that we are serious about recognising and rewarding the contribution that nuclear power can make to decarbonising our energy system and levelling up our communities. The best way to kick that programme off would, of course, be by granting Ynys Môn the opportunity to really knock our socks off by commissioning new nuclear at Wylfa, the best site in the UK.

I welcome the opportunity to scrutinise the Department’s spending. This Government have made bold commitments to the green industrial revolution, from which my constituents are directly reaping benefits, but barriers to delivery remain. I implore the Government to recognise the sense of urgency and consider those barriers in the coming year. Diolch yn fawr.