Energy Bill [HL]

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, express some concerns about the removal of the amendment in the Commons. Although I have listened to the argument that it would detract from the intention behind the OGA, I seriously hope that the Government will look back at the primary objectives that they have given it and conduct a timely review—I know that that will happen.

Since we last considered the amendment, we have had two important events. The first was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone: the cancellation of the carbon capture and storage project. I do not intend to debate the whys and wherefores of that, but it is clear that there has been a significant dent in investor confidence. People have invested in good faith in this technology knowing that, to meet our long-term climate targets, we need a form of capture and storage for certain sectors of our industry.

The second big event is the signing of the Paris agreement, when the Government and the Secretary of State, Amber Rudd, played an enormous role in making it the success that it was. That states a very clear target for the world: that we must get our anthropogenic sources, our sources of carbon emissions, matched and cancelled by anthropogenic sinks. That largely means capturing and storing carbon and putting it underground. We need to take that Paris equation seriously.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

I suggest to the noble Baroness that a third event has happened—we have the early results from the Canadian carbon capture and storage project, which is by far the most advanced in the world. They are very disappointing in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide reduction and the cost that it has taken to achieve it.

[Baroness Worthington]

I note that, but I would just say that we are not Canada and we are very fortunate to have the North Sea as a reserve to use, which I believe would make it more cost efficient if we could do it in a timely fashion—obviously, not wanting to gold-plate anything, but making the best of the resource that we have in this nation. As I said, we need some reassurances from the Government. I am part of the group that the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, has now set up, which is looking at the whole issue afresh. We do not want to push carbon capture and storage for its own sake, but only in so far as it gives us options to decarbonise at least cost. I hope that the Minister will be able to say some words of reassurance about that process and the seriousness with which the Government will take the recommendations of that group.