---

Mr. Blizzard: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. O'Brien: Very briefly, because the hon. Gentleman has already had a go—it did not work then.

Mr. Blizzard: As chair of the all-party group on the offshore oil and gas industry, I have had several discussions with that industry. Everyone in the industry has told me that they are more than happy with the wording of the new energy chapter, which was negotiated by the Government. Indeed, I have received letters setting that out precisely. The industry is not unhappy with the new wording of the energy chapter.

Mr. O'Brien: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for telling me what he has heard, but I have naturally held my own consultations on the matter, as he would expect, and we are receiving representations of a different character. The interpretation of what the Government have agreed—I am glad to say that it has not yet been agreed by the British people—has yet to be determined, so we must wait to see what happens. I suspect that the record will show that the argument was not as clear cut as the hon. Gentleman hopes, against all expectations.

The fact that there is an energy chapter in the European constitution makes an annual report on the availability of supply of electricity and gas in the UK all the more vital. Again, I pay enormous tribute to the work of my colleagues in the other place, especially my noble Friends Baroness Miller of Hendon, Earl Attlee and Lord Jenkin of Roding, and Members of this House, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury, who deserves special recognition, for using their patient negotiating skills to secure the commitment to that annual report. They also secured numerous other key amendments that I shall not have time to cover, which have improved the Bill immeasurably.

I must put it on the record that we have experienced the Government's habitual practice of tabling important and serious amendments on Report at the last minute, despite the fact that many could, and should, have been tabled much earlier in the process to allow full scrutiny. Additionally, they have yet again imposed a deliberately mean timetable on the House, which has meant that important groups of amendments, especially those tabled by the minority nationalist parties, have been excluded from debate, although their consideration would have formed an important part of the Bill's passage. The annual report does more than any other aspect of the Bill to put pressure on the Government to pay due regard to their role in setting the medium to long-term framework through which markets remain able and are further enabled to deliver security of supply.

That is important, because the Government's record in that respect is suspect. On their watch, normal operative standby has fallen sufficiently low to provoke concerns among academics and industry experts, as well as in a recent report from the other place. They have refused to rule out the possibility of blackouts as soon as this winter. Our nuclear reactors are mothballing, to the
 
13 Jul 2004 : Column 1375
 
extent that they will contribute just 2 per cent. of our energy supply in less than two decades. The contribution of renewables to the energy mix has remained disappointing, at 2 to 3 per cent. since 1997.

With every passing day, the hole in the nation's energy mix looms closer—it is debated whether there is a low or high probability—and every day, the Government's response is to set an ambitious or stringent new target. Two headline examples from last year's White Paper are the commitment to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050 and the pledge that renewables will contribute 20 per cent. of our energy supply—at least, that is now the aspirational target—by 2020.

The Government also want to achieve at least 10,000 MW of installed, good-quality combined heat and power capacity by 2010, despite the fact that they have opposed an Opposition clause tabled in another place, which my colleagues have sought to influence them to reinsert, that sought to exempt CHP when determining the electricity from a supplier that is subject to the renewables obligation. The Government have a poor record in encouraging the CHP industry to invest. Striking that clause from the Bill will do little to encourage investor confidence, and still less to help the Government reach their CHP target for 2010, which it is currently estimated they will miss by 20 per cent.

Needless to say, the Government are on target to miss their targets, but given their record, they are also on target to move their targets—downwards only, of course. Meanwhile, the energy intensive users group has recently calculated that electricity prices will be pushed up 40 per cent. by 2010 because of the EU carbon emissions trading scheme. We are also set to become net importers of gas for the first time. That is not inherently a concern, but we may be relying at times on supplies from unstable or distant parts of the world.

We are still waiting for legislation that will produce a strategy for moving towards a low-cost, low-carbon, balanced mix of energy supply. That is the big elephant in the Chamber that the Bill does not seriously address. Indeed, members of the public with an interest in energy matters, of whom there are now many more than there were a few years ago, may read the Bill and wonder why it has so little to say about the topics driving public concerns about energy supply.

For example, since Second Reading, important contributions have been made by a range of parties, including Lord Browne of Madingley, Professor James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia theory, and even, in the past few days, as the Secretary of State mentioned, the Prime Minister himself. Those contributions have, at the very least, sought to highlight the challenge of climate change and the range of options for supply in the future, not excluding the need for a debate about new nuclear build.

As the Prime Minister put it, nuclear power must be on the agenda

"if you are serious about climate change."

That reflected the statement by Professor Lovelock, which has set a tough challenge for those who regard themselves as seeking exclusively to push green credentials. Why, then, is the issue not on the Prime
 
13 Jul 2004 : Column 1376
 
Minister's agenda? Why were the only references to keeping open the option of new nuclear build contained in amendments tabled by the Conservative party but struck out by the Labour Government? Why did last year's White Paper, which the Prime Minister described as a "milestone" in energy policy, make only a passing reference to keeping the nuclear option open?

As I confirmed on Second Reading, my party and I are happy with that approach. For the avoidance of doubt, and given that the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services kept suggesting that we did not have a policy, I point out that the Leader of the Opposition has said on the record, and in terms, that nuclear energy will be a vital part of future energy and electricity supply.

Mr. Timms: On Second Reading, the hon. Gentleman said that his party was neither for nor against nuclear power. Does that remain the position, or has it changed since Second Reading?

Mr. O'Brien: I would have thought that the Minister, who usually has a good memory, would recall my words. I not only said that I had an open mind, but put it on the record that the Opposition, too, were completely happy with the idea that the nuclear option should be kept open—something that the Government have been saying. As has been mentioned, we have given an assurance that nuclear energy will be a vital part of energy policy under a future Conservative Government. That is a lot clearer than what we have heard from the Government.

We are keeping the nuclear option open while our present facilities are run down and the number of qualified nuclear scientists in the UK diminishes. I pay tribute to the former Energy Minister, the right hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), for his speech, which I was able to catch on the monitor. He said that we must ensure that we do not lose our capacity for new nuclear build through the flight of the necessary engineers and scientists whom this country has developed and retained in the past, thereby gaining competitive advantage. That significant point gave reality to the idea of keeping the nuclear option open. Last but not least, why did the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs tell us to

"come back in another generation"

if, in the national interest, we need to debate new nuclear power generation?

Neither the public debate nor today's debate have focused only on nuclear energy—far from it. A series of prominent figures, including the environmentalist, Sir David Bellamy, and the editor of The Ecologist, Zac Goldsmith, have expressed concern about wind turbines on environmental and aesthetic grounds. At the same time, Jorgen Abilgaard, director of Econ, which acts as consultant on wind and renewable energy for the Danish Government—Denmark's proportion of wind power is the highest anywhere in the EU—says of wind power that

"it is not a long-term solution to any of the problems of climate change".

It is alarming that the White Paper and, to a lesser extent, the Bill, choose to focus so exclusively on wind power as the long-term replacement for carbon-based
 
13 Jul 2004 : Column 1377
 
fuels. Clearly, wind has an important role to play in meeting the UK's renewable energy targets, but in the face of growing public opposition, Ministers are deluding themselves if they believe that it is the unique solution to making the transition to a low-carbon economy.

We might have had the chance to explore some of these issues had the Liberal Democrats not called a rather unnecessary Division just before the end of Report, perhaps to avoid the exploration of their own embarrassment over wind turbines, which they seem to favour, because they are renewables, so long as they are not in Liberal Democrat-held constituencies. Wind turbines are unsightly to growing numbers of the public, and their power generation is worryingly intermittent. They are also uneconomic, as is reflected by clause 177 on the adjustment of transmission charges.

---