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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: While the Minister is composing his reply and doing the maths, it would help me to decide on the tone of my withdrawal of my amendment if he would say what he meant by the phrase that the Government could not accept the amendment in this form. Does he mean that if the amendment was in another form, it would be acceptable, or did he mean that the amendment would be unacceptable in any form?
Lord Triesman: Let me start by telling noble Lords that all of them have done the maths right and that it would have been perfect arithmetic if I had read them the right figure. I apologise—what can I say? I misread it, and when I tell noble Lords the right figure they will feel that their arguments are all the stronger rather than weaker. It was not £112 million but £122 million, so there was an extra £10 million that noble Lords could have pleaded in aid. I thought that I had better make a clean breast of that immediately.
I shall deal with the issues, even with the addition of the £10 million, which noble Lords will be delighted that I have discovered in addition to the sums that they worked out. First, it might be possible to discover what proportion of the £60 million has gone in capital grants, where it is intended to go. I was going to say that noble Lords will understand that I do not have the exact figures in front of me, but I am now briefed that, roughly speaking, half of that £60 million will be used on offshore wind capital projects. That is at least the beginning of an indicative figure. It may be that a more precise figure is available, but that is roughly half of it. I cannot tell noble Lords at this moment how the remaining half, approximately, will be deployed, but it is all in the service of renewables, which was the explicit intention of the provision. The allocation of much of the rest will be decided in the coming months; those decisions are not far away.
Secondly, I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that my point was not that the money that might be used to repair the hole in the buy-out fund should come from the £60 million, and I apologise if I spoke with insufficient accuracy. I had not intended to suggest that. I was referring to the more complete sum overall. The burden of my argument was that none the less, in a market-driven mechanism, any intervention by the state in the replacement of sums inevitably has some impact on the operation of such a market. Some might very well argue that the impact could be to restore confidence, while others might argue that one could never work out the proper way in which to fix the prices that would operate in circumstances in which trading was taking place normally and without that intervention. The case that the Government are putting forward in Grand Committee today is the latter of those cases—that it would be a distortion. In
any case, I hope that I have clarified that the money would come not from the £60 million but from the remaining sum.I understand the argument that it is important to know how the sums would be spent overall. None the less, I do not think that it would be possible to go further than to repeat the point that £30 million will be held as a reserve and that decisions on the rest have not yet been taken.
I did not want to give the impression that an amendment in a different form would find its way into the Bill at Report. My point was that there is a huge amount of sympathy with the concept of trying to utilise funds to make sure that the renewables commitment is most effectively deployed. But at this stage, the expenditure of more than the sums I have referred to is not contemplated.
Baroness Byford: I thank the Minister for trying to break down my question on where the money was going. However, I want to press him further; if he is not able to answer me this afternoon, I am quite happy about that.
There is £30 million left that can be made available towards renewable projects. My question is twofold: is that knowledge in the public domain and, if it is, can individual companies make an approach? If so, who do they approach and how do they go about it? Or do the Government want to keep the money as a reserve, to be used at some time in the future? There are quite a few companies which are trying to convert chicken waste into heat, for example, and many other projects are being carried out. This is a question of waste that could be used to be of benefit in the broader sense. Such projects often struggle because of not having enough funding to make them financially viable, and if there are moneys available elsewhere, that knowledge should be in the common domain. I wonder whether it is.
Lord Triesman: All I can say at this stage is that I have provided the figures and they are now a matter of record, so in that sense they are in the public domain.
I have also said that at this point, there is no decision on the use of the remaining sums. I cannot really speculate about what anybody in the industry might do on having had the sums set out this afternoon. All I can say is that, at present, decisions have not been taken.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, who have spoken in this debate. I thank the Minister for his reply, although naturally I am disappointed at his explanation that the Government could not accept the amendment in this form and for expressing the view that they were unlikely to accept it in any form.
As we interpret the Minister's words, anything above £60 million will probably simply be reabsorbed by the Treasury. Given the Government's other stated priority of hitting the Kyoto targets, it is a great shame when they know that renewable energy projects will have to be front-loaded in terms of funding; while they are at the development stage, such projects need more money. Some mechanism—and I accept that my amendment may not provide the right one—that frees up the surpluses that develop is extremely important.
So although I accept that the Scottish situation is very different for the reasons which the Minister outlined, I will want to return to the issue on Report to explore the extent of the shortfall in applications for renewable energy projects. I shall research the issue in the mean time, to see whether the targets which the Government have met could be better met if the funding were more generous. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 134 to 141 not moved.]
Lord Davies of Oldham: This might be regarded as an exceedingly convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until 3.30 p.m. tomorrow.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel): The Committee stands adjourned until Tuesday 2 March at 3.30 p.m.
- The Committee adjourned at twenty-nine minutes before eight o'clock.
Written Statements
Monday, 1 March 2004
Northern Ireland: Recent Developments
The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has made the following Ministerial Statement.
On Friday 20 February the Police Service of Northern Ireland made a number of arrests in connection with an alleged assault and abduction. The case is sub judice.
Four people now face serious charges, including grievous bodily harm, possession of articles likely to be of use to terrorists and unlawful imprisonment. The PSNI are following a number of very definite evidential lines, including video material and the items, clothing and other forensic material recovered at the scene. The Chief Constable of the PSNI has made clear to me that he is satisfied that there was Provisional IRA involvement in the incident.
These events are a matter of serious concern. As far as the overall situation is concerned, my assessment of the various paramilitary organisations' ceasefires, in the light of information I have received, remains unchanged. But all the indications are that there has been a serious breach of the requirement set out by the British and Irish Governments in paragraph 13 of the Joint Declaration for an end to all forms of paramilitary activity.
Such behaviour is wholly unacceptable. As the Government have repeatedly made clear, parties cannot be half-in, half-out of the democratic process. All paramilitary activity must stop.
These developments have inevitably had a serious impact on this week's discussions with the Northern Ireland political parties within the review of the operation of the Belfast agreement. At those meetings, we listened carefully to the views of the parties and, in particular, to their concerns about the implications of these events for the establishment of the trust and confidence required to achieve a successful outcome to the review and to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland.
Both Governments are now asking the Independent Monitoring Commission, which was established in January, to examine Friday's incident in the context of the preparation of its first report on paramilitary activity. We have also asked the commission to bring that report forward from July to May. The report is expected to take account of all paramilitary incidents and activities within its remit since the commission's establishment. The commission is obliged by law not to do anything in carrying out its functions that might have a prejudicial effect on any legal proceedings.
Both the British and Irish Governments are very clear that the achievement of a sustainable basis for
political progress in Northern Ireland requires a full and permanent cessation of all paramilitary activity. As part of the wider agenda of the review, it is vital that we intensify engagement with the parties on this core issue, and we envisage that next week there will be a significant focus on it.
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