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Mr. Robertson: I knew that I should not have said that. Can the hon. Gentleman be quick, as I do not get time added on?
Mr. Stunell: Absolutely. May I point out to the hon. Gentleman that all the amendments passed in the other place were either proposed by the Liberal Democrats or directly supported by them?
Mr. Robertson: Perhaps we will save the details for the Committee stage.
This debate is taking place in an atmosphere different from the one which would have existed before privatisation. Great advances have been made in the industry, but the whole House would agree that we need to go beyond this Bill. It is a start, and we welcome much that is in it, so much so that we will seek to hang on to quite a few of the amendments passed in the other place. I do not understand why the Government are having such difficulties with the amendments on combined heat and power, for instance. When I met representatives of
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the Combined Heat and Power Association recently, I was told that it had generating capacity that was not being used.
There is an interesting amendment concerning micropower, and as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) pointed out, there are navigation amendments. There is also a biofuels amendment. We shall look at all those closely, because we think that they improve what was rather a bland Bill.
The Secretary of State said that clause 1, which began as an amendment, was superfluous. It relates to the security of supply. We look forward to seeing how the Government manage to wriggle out of their duties in that regard.
Unfortunately, in this industry we do not have the free market that everyone assumes, or claims, that we have. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what will happen to British Energy when the NDA is established. Is it intended that the NDA will take over some of British Energy's liabilities? If so, will the Minister tell us whether he has taken legal advice from the European Union? I understand that a recent report—it may have been published only yesterday—suggested that such intervention might infringe EU rules. I do not say that to be awkward; I feel that it should be considered, although we support the establishment of the NDA.
We have heard a great deal about two aspects of electricity generation. One is wind—there has been a lot of hot air about that—and the other is the nuclear industry. I do not want to spend too much time discussing those two issues, but I should point out that we are not for or against one form of energy or another. What we are in favour of is security of supply.
At present, 22 per cent. of our country's electricity is generated from renewable sources. If that is to be allowed to decline, it is up to the Government of the day to tell us where they will find the extra electricity to replace it. Are we to have wind farms or windmills all over the country? They are intermittent, and building and maintaining them will be costly. Thankfully, they will not need to be maintained for very long because they do not last for more than about 20 years. Given those factors and the cost of the electricity they will produce, it will be up to the Government of the day to explain why so much energy is being focused on the development of wind power to the exclusion—seemingly—of other forms of renewable energy such as thermal and solar power, and possibly fusion—my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury mentioned that possibility.
It has been a privilege to take part in such an interesting and crucial debate. I hope that the Minister will answer some of my questions, and, more important, the many questions asked by Members in all parts of the House and representing every possible energy interest.
9.43 pm
The Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services (Mr. Stephen Timms):
I agree with the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) that this has been an interesting debate, featuring a range of constructive contributions from Members in all parts of the House. That reflects a growing interest in energy matters throughout the country, which I welcome.
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I pay tribute to my noble Friends Lord Whitty, Lord Davies and Lord Triesman for their work on behalf of the Government. A number of improvements were made to the Bill in the other place, although I should add that not all the changes constitute improvements. We shall look carefully at some of them in Committee.
I was pleased by the general welcome to the Bill given by the hon. Members for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) and for Tewkesbury. I shall return shortly to some of their specific criticisms. First, however, let me remind the House of the four goals for energy policy proposed in last year's energy White Paper. The first was putting ourselves on a path to cut UK carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050. The second was to maintain the reliability of energy supplies. The third was to promote competitive markets. The fourth was to ensure that every home was adequately and affordably heated. It is important that we achieve all four together. We are not looking to give up on one to achieve another. The package is designed to be, and needs to be, delivered as a whole.
We can point to excellent progress on implementing the White Paper, as the first annual report, which was published a couple of weeks ago, shows. The Bill puts in place key parts of the jigsaw to enable that progress to continue.
We now have scientific consensus that climate change is for real, that carbon emissions are causing it and that it poses an immense threat to all of us. My hon. Friends the Members for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner), for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) and for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) were right to draw that to the House's attention. That consensus extends to the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) was right to draw attention to the recent scientific contribution from the US—hoping that climate change will go away is not an option. The challenge of climate change requires an urgent and serious response. The Bill's provisions—for example, those on offshore renewable energy—are a key contribution.
Energy security considerations are also vital. Over the next few years, the self-sufficieny in energy that we have enjoyed thanks to North sea oil will end. In itself, that is not a worry. Among the G7 countries, only the UK and Canada are self-sufficient in energy, so we will move to a position that is the norm among industrialised countries. It is a transition that we can manage successfully, but we will need to ensure that we have sufficient diverse sources of gas. We also need to look for new sources of electricity generation under wholly UK management. For that reason, too, the Bill's provisions on renewable energy are vital. The wider issues of security will be an important theme of debates on the Bill.
A number of other provisions in the Bill are aimed at underpinning secure and reliable supplies: for example, part 4 on the special administration regime for energy network companies, and the arrangements for interconnectors in part 5. In addition, as we have heard, the Bill puts in place vital new arrangements, which have been widely welcomed, for setting up the nuclear decommissioning authority to get to grips with the challenges of our nuclear legacy. The NDA will drive
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work on clean-up, provide the long-term strategic direction that is needed and help to deliver long-term efficiency savings to the taxpayer.
The hon. Member for Eddisbury made the point that the security of supply clause—I think these were his words—is not a prelude to interventionism. That is not how the industry has read it, as I think he will know, and the industry is right. It is no good him telling the House that he did not mean to imply that, because the views of the industry have been clear. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State quoted Mark Clare of British Gas. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury quoted Paul Golby of Powergen. Powergen's brief makes the point that the clause as currently construed could undermine the independence of the regulator, make ad hoc Government intervention in the markets more likely and add to investors' perceptions of risks, making investment more difficult. The Chemical Industries Association has pointed out that more central planning inevitably has to be paid for by consumers. So it goes on. The provision would represent a huge shift backwards to state intervention, in which the Conservative party is not normally in favour.
I will be happy to talk to the hon. Member for Eddisbury about a way forward. He and his colleagues in another place were right to draw attention to the importance of security of supply. A shared way forward other than the one currently in the Bill may be available. Perhaps the hon. Member for Tewkesbury was alluding to that, too.
There have been a couple of references to the interesting PricewaterhouseCoopers survey. The head of the utilities at PricewaterhouseCoopers said that a consistent and stable regulatory environment is required to make the sector more attractive to investors. That is the point, and that is what we have to deliver.
I welcome what sounded to me like the hon. Member for Eddisbury's adoption of the White Paper policy on nuclear energy: that of keeping the options open, a position his party has strongly criticised. In fact, the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) strongly criticised it again today, presumably not having noticed that his hon. Friend had said that it was now his party's policy. It would also have come as something of a surprise to a number of his noble Friends in the other place. Nevertheless, I welcome that change of heart, if that is what it is.
We sometimes hear that if only the Government accepted the need to build new nuclear power stations, the twin challenges of carbon emissions and energy security could be readily resolved. We may well need new nuclear capacity, but I have yet to meet anyone who wants to invest in new nuclear power stations in Britain at the moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) made an important point along those lines. It is the same in the United States, where there is a strong pro-nuclear policy, but getting people to make commitments has been extraordinarily difficult. It will be a considerable time before there are new nuclear power stations in the USA, let alone in the UK. We need that dose of realism in the debate and I welcome the Conservative party's change of heart.
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