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Mr. Hood : My hon. Friend is obviously referring to the champagne dinners to which Tory Members were invited in return for supporting the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill. Associated British Ports is always being mentioned in debates on private Bills. I referred earlier to my part in the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill, of which the Prime Minister spoke so affectionately in Swansea last week. Associated British Ports was given lifelong, copper-bottomed guarantees that it would be looked after if the barrage went ahead. Like my hon. Friend, I feel concerned when Associated British Ports keeps cropping up ; someone is making a killing.
Mr. Patchett : We can speculate on the question of killings, and on that of champagne dinners--or lunches. Where does one have champagne? I am not too sure.
Mr. Michael Brown : I can tell the hon. Gentleman where he can get champagne. If he read The Sunday Times last week, he will know about an important party held by the Leader of the Opposition and attended by various actors and actresses. Many of the great and the good were there, including the Mandelson brigade from Walworth road. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was not present. Nor was I--we were not invited. The Labour party was drinking champagne in Berkeley square. I am only sorry that the hon. Gentleman was not invited either.
Mr. Eadie rose --
Mr. Patchett : No, I should like to respond to the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown).
The people to whom the hon. Gentleman has referred paid their own way. They were not paid for by an outside company. None the less, I anticipate drinking a few glasses of champagne in the months ahead, following Labour victories in by-elections and subsequently in a general election. Perhaps we shall not see the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes then.
Mr. Eadie : Is not my hon. Friend's answer to the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) that in the past six, seven or eight months the Tory party has had nothing to celebrate, whereas the Labour party has been celebrating its resounding by-election victories?
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. May we get back to the Bill, please?
Mr. Patchett : I anticipate many more victories.
Mr. Dickens : We seem to be talking more about champagne than about water in the Humber estuary. Will the hon. Gentleman give us his views on the Bill?
Mr. Patchett : I was simply responding to questions about champagne. I did not introduce the subject, but I am grateful for the expert knowledge of the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes.
Mr. Illsley : Is not the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) complaining so much about the party to which he referred because, despite being such a well-known freeloader, he did not get a ticket?
Mr. Patchett : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information. I am not too familiar with the ambitions of the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes.
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It seems that the Government are guilty of misusing the private Bill procedure because they have quietly supported private Bills on energy. Despite their talk about the free market, they have a hidden energy programme.The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman) challenged Labour Members to declare their interests. I make no apology for talking about the effects of the Bill on the energy industry, nor do I apologise for expressing concern about the misuse of the procedures of the House. The hon. Member for Stroud has now disappeared.
Mr. Hood : My hon. Friend is looking for the hon. Member for Stroud, who has just walked into the Chamber and I am pleased to see him here. The hon. Gentleman may be excused for leaving the Chamber at 9.30 pm as I understand that an amendment to the Finance Bill is being discussed in Standing Committee whereby members of Lloyd's are asking for handouts from the taxpayer.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I very much hope that the hon. Member for Barnsley, East (Mr. Patchett) will not seek to pursue that matter.
Mr. Patchett : I am pleased to see that the hon. Member for Stroud has returned. The hon. Gentleman challenged Labour Members to declare their interests. He keeps running in and out of the Chamber to hand scripts to Conservative Members. One of the script writers must be Hansard, because the points that he was reading appeared in Hansard on Second Reading.
Mr. Knapman : Will the hon. Gentleman turn his attention from Lloyd's to the National Union of Mineworkers? I have been asked to give certain undertakings, but can the hon. Gentleman assure us that Labour Members are not getting a kickback from the NUM? If they are, they will be disappointed, because most of the NUM's money is missing.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. We should return to the contents of the Bill rather than debate these other matters.
Mr. Patchett : I was moving on, but I want to point out to the hon. Member for Stroud that I have not mentioned Lloyd's. The hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes referred to champagne ; I did not mention Lloyd's or champagne.
Mr. Patchett : I hope that the hon. Member for Stroud will have the dignity to apologise.
Mr. Knapman : If the hon. Gentleman will apologise for the assertions that he made about me, I shall apologise for the assertions that I made about him.
Mr. Patchett : I have made no assertions. Some of my colleagues may have mentioned Lloyd's, but I did not do so.
I was saying that the hon. Member for Stroud challenged Labour Members to declare their interests. Unfortunately, when I said that, the hon. Gentleman was
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not in the Chamber. He returned and made gross accusations, accusing me of slandering him in some way. I did not mention Lloyd's.Mr. Patchett : I am taking insurance.
The hon. Member for Stroud challenged Opposition Members to declare what interest they had in or contact with Killingholme. I tried to clarify the matter and explained that, as a Member of Parliament, I was worried that private Bill procedures had been misused by the Government. [Interruption.]
Mr. Ronnie Campbell : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is a conversation going on in the Chamber.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : There have been conversations all over the House. I hope that hon. Members will concentrate on the hon. Member for Barnsley, East (Mr. Patchett).
Mr. Patchett : I am grateful to you for trying to bring some order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was talking over the heads of hon. Members who were perhaps expecting their next champagne supper. As a Member of Parliament, I am entitled to feel worried if there is a misuse of the procedures of the House. Some private Bills have been introduced with the tacit agreement of the Government. That is a misuse of our procedures, and I declare my interest in that respect.
Mr. John Carlisle : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Patchett : I have given way a lot. If I may, I shall finish my point.
As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it has always been my policy to be brief and to the point. Constant interruptions have prolonged my remarks. That makes me suspect that there will be no champagne suppers tonight, so Conservative Members have come to have some fun in the Chamber. I do not find this matter funny. I am trying to get on with a serious debate-- [Interruption.] Perhaps I could listen to the conversation that is taking place.
Mr. John Carlisle : The hon. Gentleman referred to his distress at the idea that Conservative Members were perhaps heavily whipped to attend the next debate on the teachers' pay motion, so we shall all be here to vote for this excellent Bill, which was eloquently supported by Conservative Members but commented on in a stuttering and faltering way by Opposition Members. Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the strength of the Whip is determined by the Opposition? If they had chosen to let the excellent teachers' pay motion go through on a one-line Whip, perhaps there would not have been as many Conservative Members here.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Let us return to the Bill.
Mr. Patchett : Conservative Members have been more than a little frivolous in the debate. That is shameful. I have been trying for a long time to conclude.
I tried to make it clear to the hon. Member for Stroud that I had doubts about the misuse of the private Bill procedure. I have doubts also about the use of private Bills on energy, given that that involves serious matters. Associated British Ports opened the ports to foreign coal, and the Bill must be seen in the context of effects on the energy industry and on the country. I understand, although I have my doubts, that the Government are
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fighting inflation. Who is paying the bill? It is the 2.5 million unemployed, not Conservative Members. One of the contributors to inflation is the deficit in the balance of payments.Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman is inviting the House to debate the Government's counter-inflation policies. He should return to the subject of the Bill.
Mr. Patchett : I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but we are debating the generating industry.
Mr. Eadie : The point that my hon. Friend is trying to make was made earlier in the debate and is about the Bill's general impact on Nottinghamshire. My hon. Friend is saying that we cannot debate the Bill in isolation because it has an impact on areas other than the one to which it relates.
Mr. Patchett : I am grateful to my hon. Friend, with whom I agree. The Bill is part of a hidden agenda. About 15 minutes ago when I started my speech I sought to explain to the hon. Member for Stroud why we have such a determined interest in the Bill. There is room for concern and I hope that the lovers of the House and its procedures will watch the situation closely and think seriously about their attitude to the Bill, which is following the same lines as many other private Bills. The private Bill procedure is being misused. 9.11 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory) : This debate on the Bill is one of a series. I spoke in the two debates in January and February. A certain pattern and routine has developed and some of the points are a little familiar. I do not have much to add to what I said in the two earlier debates, especially as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman) gave much excellent information about the Bill when he opened the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) gave another comprehensive and technical analysis which confirmed his reputation as something of an expert on the subject. When he strayed from his notes he scored some effective political points, but I shall not follow that line.
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Crawley) : Does my hon. Friend agree that to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) is to walk in the foothills of immortality? Does he further agree that our hon. Friend is a jewel in the life of the House and should be encouraged to participate in every debate? It is monstrous that he does not sit on the Treasury Bench.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory : I always agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames). It is an honour and a privilege to be in the same debate as my hon. Friend the Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth.
The Bill's scope is narrow. It simply seeks to provide water cooling works for two power stations for which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy, after scrutinising all the necessary considerations, gave permission early last year. No environmental objections have been raised to these water works and no planning objections were raised by the local authorities concerned. The ancillary works are plainly necessary for the effective
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and efficient operation of the power stations which have been given consent. The Government therefore believe that this is a good Bill and that it should be passed.9.14 pm
Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) : I do not intend to delay the House, as many of the points concerning the impact that the Bill may have on electricity generation were discussed in the two previous debates and I do not intend to go over them again.
The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman) discussed my position in respect of Second Reading and Humberside county council, and claimed that I had said that I would contact that council. What I said was : "I have not, nor has the council contacted me about my Second Reading speech or my actions in that connection. I would be more than happy, however, to receive representatives of that authority--as I did in respect of"
other
"legislation".--[ Official Report, 27 February 1991 ; Vol. 186, c. 1054.]
I have received nothing from Humberside county council to date.
Mr. Knapman : Apparently the hon. Gentleman has not heard from Humberside county council, but has he heard from his hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley)--the invisible men--about this issue?
Mr. Barron : The hon. Gentleman will recall that, when my hon. Friends' names came up previously, I explained in some detail why they and some of my other hon. Friends were not happy about National Power and PowerGen because of the deception used to get the Associated British Ports (No. 2) Bill through the House. ABP's representatives said during the Committee stage that Associated British Ports had no plans in respect of the Humber coal terminal, but we found out a few weeks later that both ABP's representatives were taking a 40 per cent. stake in the coal terminal on Humberside. As I said then, my hon. Friends were against deception of that sort. As for delay, I told the hon. Member for Stroud that if the Bill had been thought out properly when initial planning permission for the two generators was sought, the measure would have got through Parliament sooner. This Bill in effect completes planning permission for the six generators mentioned in it. The fault lies with the promoters, and we should also blame the Leader of the House, a Cabinet Minister, who received recommendations from the Procedure Committee last year on changing private Bill procedure in the House, yet has failed so far to act on those recommendations. As a result, several private Bills have been held up by hon. Members coming in at 2.30 pm and shouting, "Object," or putting down blocking motions. The sooner the Leader of the House sorts out our private Bill procedure and acts on the recommendations of the Committee the sooner we shall sleep easy at night--but that is up to the Government.
We objected strongly to the Government's apparent dash for gas in the form of new generators--a dash initiated by the electricity generators and supported by the Government. That will lead to a depletion of a premium fuel in this country which, in turn, will mean that in time we will come to depend on imported gas.
Mr. Eadie : My hon. Friend said that in time we would be dependent on imported gas and that is correct. There
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will be a greater dependence on imported gas. But is my hon. Friend aware that we are importing gas at present which will affect our balance of payments?Mr. Barron : That is right. My hon. Friend will know that I went in some detail into the question of gas reserves in Britain on Second Reading and I do not intend to do so again now. I raised that matter because the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) said that the generation of electricity is a national problem, and it is.
Mr. Frank Haynes (Ashfield) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Members for Crawley (Mr. Soames) and for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) have no particular interest in the Bill, but they are interfering. I am trying to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), but the hon. Member for Crawley has not stopped yakking since I came in. I should have thought, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you would have taken notice of that. We are trying to concentrate on what is being said by my hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box. I wish that you would deal with that behaviour.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : I take the point. I had noted the behaviour of the hon. Members for Crawley (Mr. Soames) and for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) and I was becoming increasingly distracted by it. I very much hope that they will desist and let the rest of us listen to what is being said.
Mr. Soames : Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With great respect to you, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) is the Member of Parliament most intimately concerned with the Bill.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. That does not entitle him or anyone else to misbehave in a manner that distracts the House. [Interruption.] Order. When I deem it appropriate I shall reproach other hon. Members in a similar way, but I hope that the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes will leave it to the Chair. I hope that I shall now be given the opportunity to listen to the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron).
Mr. Barron : If the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown), who does not appear to be listening to the debate, had the interests of his constituents at heart he might have promoted the Bill instead of dodging it and leaving it to the hon. Member for Stroud, who comes a few hundred miles away from the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
In January this year I said :
"we are reluctant to give our approval to the Bill, as it will enable the construction of two gas turbine generating stations without"--
I emphasise that--
"the House giving due consideration to the implications of increasing gas generation of electricity."--[ Official Report, 14 January 1991 ; Vol. 183, c. 680.]
Sadly, we have not yet had such a debate. One does many things reluctantly in life and perhaps the Bill will go through. There may be some reluctance to support it among Opposition Members, but that is due to the absence of any general debate about energy strategy and, in particular, electricity generation. That is particularly
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important, because since the Government privatised the electricity supply industry there have been major question marks over what will happen in the future and there have been major redundancies within the industry, with power stations closing and thousands of people being made redundant from power stations and offices. But we have not yet had a debate about Britain's energy strategy. Instead, the Government have only been prepared to sell off the industry so that many people, some of them Labour supporters, I accept, but many of them Conservative supporters and institutions, have been able to make a killing at the expense of the public purse. There have been increases in electricity bills, such as the 11 per cent. domestic increase that we have had this year, as a result of privatisation, but we still have not yet had a debate about the future of Britain's energy. That is wrong. It is an omission which must be put right, but it appears that that will only be done after the next general election.On Second Reading the hon. Member for Stroud attempted to explain why the Bill provides for six sets of intakes and outfalls when only two are presently needed for the proposed two power stations. The hon. Gentleman said that that was so that National Power and PowerGen could develop the site further without coming back to Parliament. It seems strange to me that we are being asked to grant powers for hypothetical future projects additional to those that have been authorised. That presumably means that any future projects will not be subject to any environmental assessments as the applications will already have been granted. It also means that the preamble is extremely misleading. There was a point of order on the subject at the start of our proceedings on the Bill tonight. The preamble says :
"each of the two companies"--
that is, National Power and PowerGen--
"proposes to construct on the lands vested in that company a gas turbine generating station".
But the hon. Member for Stroud suggested that there would be more than one station each. Why else would planning applications be sought for six sets of intakes and outfalls?
It is clear that the preamble is misleading. The Committee did not take notice of the wording, and there is nothing that we can do about it now. One of my hon. Friends asked last week whether anything could be done about it, and nothing could, but the preamble still seeks to mislead. We shall have to wait and see whether the other power stations are gas-fired.
The hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes was screaming and waving his hands about some years ago when there was talk of a low-level nuclear dump near the site in his constituency. He threatened to cause a by-election by resigning to fight the Government if permission was given.
Mr. Michael Brown rose --
Mr. Barron : The hon. Gentleman might have something to say about the measure having been rushed through if the next four power stations proposed for the site happened to be pressurised water reactors.
Mr. Brown : I do have something to say : but for the fact that my constituents and I defeated that proposal through a campaign against nuclear waste, the Bill would not have been introduced. The proposal was for a nuclear dump on
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the site where we shall now have the flower of power stations. Those power stations owe their existence to the campaign I ran five years ago.Mr. Barron : The hon. Gentleman claims much credit, but if my memory serves me well, he was ably assisted at that time by the then Government Chief Whip, whose constituency faced a similar threat. The right hon. Gentleman, too, used his influence to have the project stopped, yet now he is the pro-nuclear Secretary of State for Energy, who goes round telling us how nuclear power stations are good for the country. Five years ago he did not think that low-level nuclear waste dumps were good--they were certainly not good for his prospects of being re-elected.
Mr. Ronnie Campbell rose--
Mr. Barron : I shall not give way on that point, because I said that I wanted to keep my speech short, and I want to move on to the rest of my argument about the Bill. On second thoughts, I am being unfair to my hon. Friend. I shall give way to him, because I know that he is concerned about Northumberland.
Mr. Campbell : I was simply going to ask whether we were talking about a case of "not on my back door"?
Mr. Barron : The NIMBY--not in my back yard--syndrome became active among Conservative Members before June 1987, and no doubt it will be active again now until June 1992.
The second part of my argument is about the environmental impact of the choice of cooling towers for the sites. Her Majesty's inspectors of pollution produce notes for guidance on what constitutes the best available techniques not entailing excessive costs--BATNEEC is the acronym, I believe. Those notes say that cooling towers should be of the dry type, and that justification must be provided for wet cooling towers. Dry cooling is essentially air cooling and does not involve sending large clouds of steam into the air.
The Minister is not likely to point out that the guidelines, which I shall quote later, originally referred to oil and coal-fired rather than gas- fired stations. But the cooling systems on different types of fossil-fuel power stations are all the same. There is as yet no new technology other than that referred to in those notes. The new controls under part I of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 will apply from 1 April 1992. When HMIP issues the notes for gas turbine stations, the guidelines will be similar to those on the present cooling systems. In that respect there is no difference between gas turbines and other types, as I have said.
There are a number of environmental considerations to be taken into account in considering power plant cooling systems. They include intake effects, discharge effects both thermal and chemical, water consumption, plume and drift, land use and noise.
The whole House will remember that, on Second Reading, that master of detail, the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth, discussed at some length the subject of cooling. He did not mention the possibility of dry cooling. He contrasted two systems--direct cooling and indirect cooling, both of which, I understand, are wet systems. He did not mention the environmental
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disadvantages of the clouds of steam emanating from the cooling towers of the wet system, even though Her Majesty's pollution inspectorate's guidance note state :"the operator should justify the use of wet cooling towers and should identify the means to be employed to prevent adverse effects due to water fog or droplets and should identify how monitoring will be undertaken".
In his Second Reading discourse the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth merely suggested that the wet indirect system proposed at Killingholme would be cheaper and would produce less water than the direct system. It would seem, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman's account of the environmental options and effects was less than complete. Perhaps that is not surprising, given the hon. Gentleman's mastery of detail in that debate.
The generators may well be able to justify the use of wet cooling towers but it does not appear that they have been asked to do so. It seems that alternative systems were not properly canvassed in the environmental assessment for the project prepared for the application to the Secretary of State. So in authorising not two but six sets of intakes and outfalls, we would appear to be pre-empting future decisions regarding the most satisfactory cooling systems for the extension of the power station, and that could lead to emissions of much larger clouds of steam in the future.
I see that the hon. Member for Johannesburg, South is in his place. It seems, indeed, that he is nodding his head. I must say to him, and--perhaps more important--to the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes, who is sitting next to him, that these are very important issues in terms of making environmental assessments for the building of any large combustion plants covered by the directives to which the inspectors are putting their minds at present. If the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes had any concern about his constituents--he keeps telling us that he has--he would have looked into the matter but not just in respect of the two cooling systems that have been accepted. He would have looked into the possibility of having dry cooling systems for any further developments on the site to protect the interests of those who live in the locality.
Mr. Moss : The hon. Gentleman is normally an expert on these matters, but I am afraid that tonight he is misleading the House on the environmental question. Does not he realise that combined cycle gas uses only about a third of the steam to generate electricity? Moreover, the water required to cool the steam down is 5 per cent. of that required in all other conventional stations, including the coal-fired stations of which he is so enamoured.
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