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Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde) (Con): We have heard many interesting views, but I want to pick up on some comments made by the hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Mr. Hughes), because he and I share one part of a common agenda: security of supply of energy in this country is vital. I also want to pick up on an observation by the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping). In a telling intervention, he effectively agreed with a line that I have taken in previous debates: effectively, we cannot have a cheap energy policy in this country and, at the same time, energy security.

Other right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken have rightly said that this might be a debate for enthusiasts, each of whom promulgate their chosen source of energy, to which they or their constituency are committed. For my part, I remember as a boy, in 1956, reading in my "Eagle" comic about the arrival of Windscale nuclear power station, and a wonderful cutaway drawing promising limitless forms of energy in the future. That had an influence on me, and when I became the Member of Parliament for Fylde, and discovered that nearly all Britain's nuclear fuel was made in my constituency, I thought that the world has an unusual way of coming full circle.

There is another way in which we need to tackle arguments about energy security. Most of our remarks in this debate have been about security in the physical sense: about what happens if one system goes wrong, and whether others have enough capacity to replace the missing energy. I also want us to develop a policy of security in the economic sense.

One of my worries about the policy partly espoused in this Bill is that we are still wedded to a hydrocarbon economy. We may get the gas through a pipeline from wherever—it may be delivered by sea—but soon we will find that at least 70 per cent. of our electricity is coming down somebody's pipeline, and the cost of that will be determined by the world energy market. By definition, therefore, with the removal of coal, the rundown of nuclear, and the questions raised by others in this debate about how much electricity can come from renewable sources, we have surrendered the amount of the energy price over which we have any real influence to the world energy market, which is volatile, as we have seen in recent events.

I therefore draw a simple conclusion: whatever the outcome of the Bill, it must be about having the balanced energy portfolio that has served this country
 
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extremely well. I want to associate myself with the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) and the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell), who encapsulated in their own way many of my views about the future of the nuclear industry. The workers in my constituency have a remarkable safety record in the manufacture of nuclear fuels, and with the new investment in the fuels plant at BNFL at Springfield, effectively, no human gets near the manufacturing process. It is safe to make, safe to operate, and it has tremendous potential. Unless decisions are made, however, about the shape and scope of the future of Britain's nuclear industry, the fuels side of the business will not effectively be able to prepare itself.

What is the future of that fuels business? I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about that. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) commented on remarks of a positive nature in the other place, but I want the Minister to tell us a bit more about the future of BNFL's fuels division, which, under the new landscape of BNFL, is part of the Westinghouse division. Between 1,200 and 1,500 jobs in my constituency are still involved in the manufacturing of nuclear fuel, and those workers want a much clearer view of the future of the industry.

The Bill deals with the establishment of the new decommissioning authority, but there is a yawning omission. The Minister is right to establish a body to put into safer terms what is effectively a large nuclear dustbin at Sellafield—all the bits left over from the military programmes, which are dumped in those silos—and anyone who has visited it leaves thinking that something must be done with it. Having said that, the missing element relates to what the Government will do to speed up the process of consulting about what will be Britain's long-term nuclear repository. Without that solution, the new agency's work will be stifled before it begins. It has its bureaucracy in place, it works out how it will do its job; then where does it put the fruits of its labour? At present, the Government are still consulting on how to consult on the ultimate disposal of nuclear waste in this country. Finland, meanwhile, is just getting on with it.

Rather than trying to find a solution for ever and a day, will the Government not at last adopt the Nirex approach? That means saying, "If we can get something safe and recoverable, it will do for a century." New technologies come along, but at least we have an answer to the age-old question of what we should do with the leftovers of Britain's nuclear industry, while giving hope to a new nuclear power generation industry that affordable disposal of its waste materials—albeit in smaller quantities, given the new designs of nuclear reactors—can be accommodated.

My Select Committee also dealt with the question of biofuels. Like others who have spoken, I welcome clause 128. As I said in an earlier intervention, its objective mirrors views that I expressed during debates on the Finance Bill and in the Select Committee's report. I believe that a target that blends with both the diesel and the petrol ends of the road fuels business gives the Government an opportunity to replicate mechanisms that they have approved in the context of the renewables
 
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obligation. It is vital that they take that route, at least in terms of giving some decent pump-priming economic assistance to the industry.

I realise that the 2 per cent. and 5.75 per cent. road fuels directive is indicative rather than mandatory, but if we are to meet its requirements we shall have to have bioethanol in this country. We talk a lot about biodiesel and the use of waste fats. Helpful as that may be, we cannot achieve our objectives with petrol-driven vehicles without bioethanol.

As the Minister knows, there are other benefits. Apart from the use of output from the 300,000 tonnes of set-aside land, there is a potential benefit in the disposal of rubbish in this country. The lignocellosic part of the use of biofuels gives the Minister access to a waste-stream source consisting of wood, old materials and anything that produce sugar. Once the sugar is there, the fermentation that produces bioethanol can take place.

British Sugar has made it clear that if that industrial process does not start now, it will invest in Poland and we shall end up importing the bioethanol that we need to meet our target. At present, the Department is playing a leading role in World Trade Organisation talks that will ultimately lead to the reform of the European Union sugar market. It has been too long unreformed, but something must be done with the investment that will provide the feedstock for bioethanol. In parallel, something must be done about biodiesel. We must kick-start a UK industry that uses UK-grown oilseed rape. At present, bizarrely, we are exporting raw material feedstock to Germany and France so that they can make biodiesel when we should be doing it ourselves.

I hope that the Government will now take a lead and sort out the mess that is our biofuels industry. We have DEFRA saying how good it is for jobs in the rural economy, we have the Treasury setting the fiscal regime, we have the DTI presenting an energy policy—we even have the Department of Transport running a consultation exercise on the level of the biofuels obligation. Please can the Government get their act together, help the rural economy, and help themselves meet the carbon dioxide reduction targets by means of a UK-based biofuels processing industry?

8.14 pm

Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab): It is a great pleasure to take part in an energy debate in the main Chamber. Since my election, most energy debates have taken place either in Westminster Hall or here on Fridays, via the mechanism of private Members' Bills. It is rather sad that most of the advances—albeit small—in energy policy have been made in that way.

Most developed countries are engaging in a serious debate about energy—rightly, in my view. The Science and Technology Committee visited Japan during its study of non-carbon fuels. One of the memories with which I left Japan was of a very mountainous country. From Mount Fuji the land goes straight down to the sea: there is no continental shelf surrounding the islands. That rules out offshore wind, because there is nothing to which to anchor the turbines. Tidal power is ruled out as well.

The Japanese have obviously thought carefully about their energy policy. They have their old enemy, China, facing them, and they are conscious of the implications
 
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of bringing in oil and liquefied gas via the sea. They have decided to invest heavily in nuclear power as their main base load, but also to invest heavily in photovoltaic cells. We saw roofs being lowered on to houses—roofs that had been preconstructed in factories, manufactured entirely from photovoltaic cells. Inside the houses were other energy-saving devices. The Japanese have thought through their domestic energy policy, and are also investing a great deal in fuel cell technology. I would say that in those two technologies theirs is the leading country in the world: it is probably ahead of us and even America.

A large amount of public subsidy is going into photovoltaic technology. Photovoltaic energy is not yet able to beat all other energy processes, so the Japanese Government are subsidising householders to fit photovoltaic cells in existing properties, while all new properties are being provided with photovoltaic roofs.

Finland has also been having a serious debate about energy policy recently. It has been upfront with its public about the possibility of building more nuclear plants and providing its base load through nuclear energy. In fact, that is what it has decided to do. Its public debates have been far more successful than ours on, for instance, genetically modified crops. It has persuaded the people that the only way to secure its energy supplies for the future and to develop as it intends to, is to build nuclear plants. It is also solving—with the help of the public—the problem of disposing of existing nuclear waste from nuclear generating plants, which is a problem that faces us as well.

Within three years we will be a net importer of gas, and within seven we will be a net importer of oil. As others have pointed out, by 2020 we will be at least 70 per cent. dependent on imported energy. Indeed, it has been suggested that our dependency will be as high as 90 per cent. I cannot, on behalf of my constituents, endorse a policy that allows us to rely on so much imported energy. If I were to design an energy policy—and I suggest that the Government act along these lines—it would involve two important concepts, security of supply and diversity of supply. The thought of gas coming from anywhere in the world, even Norway—especially if it came through an above-ground pipeline—terrifies me. I think that "terrifies" is the right word, because, as we have seen in the middle east, it is easy to blow up such pipelines, not just at one point but at several points.

Let us imagine what could happen if we were 70 to 90 per cent. reliant on imported energy, mainly gas, and there were one or two explosions on the pipeline. They might happen in the Russian states, from which we will probably import, or in the middle east, from which we may import. For how many days would some of our major cities and towns be without energy? No Government can afford to develop a policy that allows us to depend so much on imported energy.

I am all in favour of renewable energy. We should be developing all forms of such energy, including the stuff that comes out of fish and chip shops. I was rather worried to hear the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) say that the exhaust coming out of those cars smelled like almonds. Any chemist will tell him that the smell of almonds is like that of cyanide, so there is a bit
 
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of a worry there. I am not suggesting that hydrogen cyanide was coming out of the exhaust, but it may have been.

We must consider the base load. There is no way we can have an intermittent supply of energy—wind energy, for example—to produce the base load. We must have something that we can instantly switch on and off. Gas is the best form of energy in that respect, so we cannot rule out the use of gas. In recent years, there has been a dash for gas because it is cheaper and faster to build the plants. The returns for the investment are much greater for companies. There must be public investment in energy. I am all in favour of building new, cleaner nuclear plants that produce only 10 per cent. of the nuclear waste that existing plants produce.

There is no such thing as a safe method of producing energy. Think about the Piper Alpha disaster in the North sea, the thousands, probably world wide hundreds of thousands, of miners who have been killed in methane gas explosions or other accidents. Energy comes at a cost.

The nuclear industry in this country has a fine safety record. Okay, there have been problems in the Irish sea, but the very small trace amounts of radioactive material that get into the Irish sea do not bear any comparison with what used to happen. We have made great steps forward.

I used to work in a department of chemistry that trained a lot of people for the nuclear industry. We had one of the largest radioactive suites in Europe, where we trained people to handle highly radioactive materials. Therefore there were departments who trained such people. Our courses were mainly degrees in chemistry or applied chemistry but they always had a module to train people for the nuclear power industry. The hon. Member for Eddisbury said that there are no undergraduate courses in that anymore. That is probably true, but there are modules on that in undergraduate courses. He failed to mention that there are still postgraduate university courses to train people in nuclear power. However, there are by no means enough. The nuclear power industry says that it does not have enough young people coming in to replace the people who are retiring.

Energy costs are rising. The cost of the Phoenix gas company's supplies of gas in Belfast and the surrounding area has gone up by 11 per cent. in the past 12 months. A 20 per cent. increase in October is on the cards and is causing controversy in discussions across Belfast.

If we have a 10 per cent. rise in gas or electricity prices, it puts 500,000 people back into fuel poverty. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that 750,000 people have been lifted out of fuel poverty. Rises in energy costs, which are inevitable, will put a lot of people back into fuel poverty if we do not counteract that in some way. I do not think that there is any way of avoiding rising costs.

Driving down costs of energy has had a downside: there has not been enough investment in research and development throughout the energy industry. It is therefore not all good news when the costs of gas, electricity or any other form of energy are driven down—the downside is a drastic reduction in research and development. We will feel that in future.
 
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8.24 pm

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