| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
The Government need the barrage to attain their target of obtaining 20 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020—full stop. With no barrage, I doubt whether the target will be achieved. Secondly, the country needs a balanced and secure energy supply derived from a broad spectrum of sources, everything from second-generation nuclear, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, just referred, to first-generation barrages, of which this would be the first.
Thirdly, the public, who are now alert to and well informed on environmental issues, need a process of information and consultation on the Severn barrage that is open and transparent. There, for the second and last time, I will agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. I do not want to harm her reputation by agreeing with her too often, but she is absolutely right to say that we need a level playing field in any ongoing process of consultation. It needs to be open and transparent; if it is not, not only regional but national consent would, probably, be withheld and life would be difficult for this or any future Government who sought to have the barrage.
Fourthly, the green movement, writ large, needs to move on and embrace a new realism about where future energy is coming from, while being vigilant over potential environmental degradation and determined to seek environmental enhancement at every turn. The Sustainable Development Commission is showing a broad-minded lead here, which pleasantly surprised me. Some members seem to have joined what might be thought of as the new realist environmental movement, changing their minds from where they were about 20 years ago. No one should pour contempt on them for doing that. After all, John Maynard Keynes was once teased or derided for changing his mind on some great economic issue. He said, “My Lords”—well, he did not say that; coming from King’s College, Cambridge, he probably said, “My Dears”—“I think that when the facts change, I need to change”. The facts have changed in the last 20 years.
Fifthly, we should remember that the landscape around the Severn, to which the noble Lord, Lord Livsey of Talgarth, referred, is largely manmade. That includes some of the estuary margins. Equally, some severe tidal environments would be damaged, destroyed or altered in various ways. If that is the case, there must be offsetting contributions to habitats and environments elsewhere, even though it is certain that that exact environment can never be replicated. There would also be much gain through the establishment of new protection zones in the area. We shall have to get acclimatised during this debate to the terms “habitat offsets” and “environmental gains”, in exactly the same way as anyone who serves on local councils is used to “planning gains under Section 106 provisions”. There should be a clear grasp of what those phrases mean.
13 Dec 2007 : Column 389
Sixthly in this little litany of needs, the Government need the construction industry, if this is to go ahead, to be confidently engaged as genuine long-term partners. Behind the industry are shareholders and investors who will need to have confidence in the business case behind the construction of the barrage. I have great confidence in the abilities of our equally great British construction companies, such as Sir Robert McAlpine, Taylor Woodrow or Balfour Beatty, all of which have shown great interest in at least the potential of becoming involved in the barrage construction. If the process gets going, those companies will have to take on massive financial and construction risks over a sustained period, during which I suspect that the £15 billion headline figure may multiply more than a little in the uncertainties of such a great construction project. No one should underestimate this. If we want the barrage to be funded and constructed by the private sector, the Government and everyone else must be realistic about the risk that companies and shareholders take on. There needs to be a high degree of certainty about the appraisal process and the subsequent planning process. In this, the management of risk will be paramount, as the Minister understands all too well, with his distinguished past.
Seventhly, on the other side of the construction coin, the construction industry writ large needs continually to recognise the need on its part for openness, transparency and genuine engagement with regional and environmental concerns. Over the past few years, the construction industry has been going through quite a public period of self-examination, commissioning various reports, and much angst over what has been seen sometimes as tough and adversarial attitudes to customers and between companies. That has been apparent from the housebuilding end of the industry through to the large-scale and tough concrete-pouring end of the industry, wherein certainly lies the barrage. If the construction industry wishes to help to promote the barrage, it must be thoroughly modern and listen to all the concerns that arise, whether from the environmental world or the ports, which feel that their activities may be adversely affected. It is sometimes like treading on eggshells and, if we are to proceed, the industry has to recognise the need for openness and transparency in all that it does.
Eighthly—I have never said that word before—although we are allowed to recognise the secondary benefits of the barrage, from coastline protection at high tide, upstream river flood protection, the creation of jobs and so on, we need to recognise that they are secondary and no reason at all for proceeding with the barrage.
Ninthly—another word that I have never said before—and lastly, a word that I have often said, I favour, as is manifest, the general concept of the construction of the barrage. However, if it is to go ahead I should like to press the Government to give undertakings about when the appraisal process is going to get under way and what sort of appraisal process it is going to be. Will an appraisal organisation be set up to satisfy public and private investors’ concerns—some sort of independent steering group appointed by and reporting to the Government and through the Government to
13 Dec 2007 : Column 390
3.44 pm
Lord Moran: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, for giving us an opportunity to discuss this important issue. I declare an interest as president of the Welsh Salmon and Trout Angling Association and the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust and as the owner of a small fishery on the upper Wye. My main interest is in fisheries and wildlife generally, especially in Wales, where I live.
I have been concerned for a long time about the likely impact on migrating fish of a conventional Severn barrage. In 1986, 21 years ago, I asked in the House whether the Government would satisfy themselves that, if a Severn barrage were to be built, migrating fish would be able to pass through it without excessive loss. A year later, I asked whether the Government were aware of research in the United States suggesting that fish passing through Kaplan turbines, a type then planned for the barrage, had an instantaneous mortality rate of between 11.5 per cent and 80 per cent, and that 43 per cent of salmon smolts passing through such turbines lost 20 to 28 per cent of their scales, while 75 per cent of the survivors had gross or microscopic lesions.
In 1992, when moving a Motion on barrages, I said that to the best of my belief scientists had so far found no way in which a yard-long fish, swimming strongly against the flow, but being sucked slowly back through the turbine, could avoid being cut up by rotating turbine blades. Therefore, there could be 100 per cent mortality and the runs of salmon in three famous rivers—the Severn, the Wye and the Usk—could be wiped out. All this is still true not only for salmon but for other species of migratory fish, notably the delicate and vulnerable allis and twaite shad, the endangered species for which the special habitat conditions found only in the Usk, Wye and Severn sustain three of just four viable breeding populations. There are also two species of lampreys.
The report from the Sustainable Development Commission and its accompanying research report 3—all 250 pages of it—give us valuable and up-to-date background. Reading these reports, one is left with a conviction that any measures taken to mitigate or to minimise the losses to migrating fish would not be effective. Research report 3 makes it clear that mesh screens across turbine intakes would be unlikely to work. So irreversible damage would lead to the local extinction of all the migratory fish. For wading birds, some have suggested that we merely have to provide an area of mudflats the size of Dorset. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, gave short shrift to that proposal. Still less is creating an alternative habitat for fish a practicable option. We cannot seriously contemplate creating replicas of the Severn, Wye and Usk, nor can we replace the unique genetic make-up of these rivers, which is what brings fish back to the rivers where they were born.
13 Dec 2007 : Column 391
The Severn estuary is beautiful and rich in wildlife. It has also unique features such as the Severn bore. It is protected by a whole range of statutory designations, which were described by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey; the marine Bill may provide more. Apart from that, the Wye and the Usk are SACs in their own right. It is the habitats directive that creates problems for the barrage project. The SDC deals carefully, on page 131 of its report, with the argument that EU directives do not take adequate account of the challenge of climate change and the suggestion that there might be a one-off derogation from EU environmental legislation. On page 144, the report concludes,
- “that it would be untenable for the Government to take a decision in favour of a Severn barrage unless it is prepared ... to demonstrate its commitment to upholding the integrity of the environmental legislation and the processes it has signed up to. Failure to do so would undermine the Directives, set a dangerous precedent to other EU Member States and countries elsewhere in the world, and would not deliver a Severn barrage consistent with the UK’s agreed framework for sustainable development”.
- “if compliance with the Directives is found to be scientifically or legally unfeasible, then proposals for a Severn barrage should not be pursued”.
So far as migrating fish are concerned, this means that unless a way can be found for them to avoid passing through the turbines, to travel up to the rivers with which they have a genetic link and then to return, a conventional barrage within the Severn estuary should not be built.
The environmental downside of the barrage project and its enormous costs were evidently decisive in persuading the Government four years ago that it would not be fruitful to pursue plans for it, as announced in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, on 13 January 2004.
We are required to do all that we can to deal with climate change and reduce carbon emissions, but there are many alternatives, not least nuclear power and especially tidal stream technology, as discussed in the SDC report. Those need to be carefully considered.
As a nation, we have had a series of disasters, for which the Government have, I am afraid, been responsible: the debacle of our intervention in Iraq, the loss of two disks containing the personal details of 25 million people that were sent out by HM Revenue and Customs, the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease caused by infected drainage at government-controlled institutions at Pirbright, and so on. The Prime Minister promised the Liaison Committee this morning that failure in public service delivery would no longer be tolerated. He added:
“The culture of the second-best is not acceptable to me. It is a culture of excellence that we want to achieve”.
That is encouraging, but it seems all too likely that a Severn barrage would fail, most probably on environmental grounds. We do not want another big failure. Let us for once get something right. We should concentrate on some of the other promising technologies now being explored and leave the waters of the Severn, the Wye and the Usk to the birds and the fish.
13 Dec 2007 : Column 392
3.51 pm
Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, I add my own words of appreciation to those already expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, for giving us the opportunity to discuss an increasingly urgent problem. Throughout the world, there is a shortage of electricity. It is not a matter for the UK alone. We know that China plans 544 new coal-fired power stations, plus the immense output of the Three Gorges dam. They are all indicative of the situation in the world. As nations develop, so the demand grows and the environment is under increasing threat.
In the Severn area in Wales, two of our nuclear power stations have already stopped production—Trawsfynydd and Hinkley Point A. The other three, Hinkley Point B, Oldbury and Wylfa, are nearing the end of their useful lives. We have a problem: as they go out of service, what is to replace them? Some people support new nuclear power stations, but others see the problems that go with them. I shall not go into them at length, other than to say that I pass Trawsfynydd possibly more often than anybody else in this Chamber. I think that my great-great-grandchildren also will pass it before it is able to be demolished. Nuclear power stations are expensive to maintain. For many years to come, we will have to face that problem.
A number of alternatives have been mentioned today: land-based wind farms— which are not always popular in every area—offshore turbines, hydropower and solar power. Even in the very sunny resort of Llandudno from which I come, I assure noble Lords that there is not enough sunshine to merit a great solar project.
Such projects are already proposed. The Gwynt y Mor project in Llandudno Bay would consist of 236 wind turbines, each of which would be the size of Blackpool Tower. That area has been recommended also for tidal stream technology. However, the local community is saying, “236 wind turbines? It will be the biggest one in Europe”. Do we not need somehow to maintain close contact with local communities, whose environment will be undermined or changed by such developments? Perhaps we should incorporate a referendum in such projects. It might be able to say whether 236 turbines are too many, whether 100 or 80 are enough, or perhaps that there should be none at all. The local people must be kept on our side as we move with these developments.
We must accept that if we oppose nuclear power stations because we see the big problems there, we have to prepare to accept an alternative. One alternative, which we have not really discussed this afternoon, is energy saving. Perhaps this is not the debate in which it should be done. We think of domestic energy saving, but industrial and commercial concerns use far more electricity than a household. We have seen some progress with home insulation and energy saving in the home. I have suggested here, perhaps once or twice, to some derision, that as bulbs fail in the great illuminated seaside resorts, we need to replace them with energy-saving bulbs. I would not mention Blackpool, but I would mention Llandudno; there are tens of thousands of bulbs in these places. That should save a tremendous amount of electricity in those areas.
13 Dec 2007 : Column 393
There are, of course, other ways of doing it. Back to the Severn Estuary: the use of tidal power is, of course, the most appealing option of them all. We have mentioned three possibilities here this afternoon: the barrage; the lagoons; and tidal streams. As has been stressed time and again, this is an urgent matter. If China, India and the developing countries in Africa all need electricity, we must provide our own alternative, and do so very soon. Looking at the reports produced, the more I read, the more I tend to think that our best option lies in tidal streams. It is a matter for urgent, immediate, thorough and possibly final investigation. The decision must not be delayed because it is not a crisis for the future, but a crisis that is already here.
3.57 pm
The Earl of Liverpool: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Livsey of Talgarth, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this fascinating subject today. I found myself agreeing with much of what he had to say, particularly on the subject of tidal lagoons, of which I have been an enthusiastic supporter for some years now. Not surprisingly, I also strongly agree with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, on that.
As many noble Lords have already said, we have the second highest tidal range in the world around the shores of the UK, particularly in the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel. This is a highly prized asset, which we have been too slow to take advantage of. We have just had the Minister’s announcement of plans to increase offshore wind power substantially. New wave power devices are receiving support and subsidy from the Government. However, wind and waves cannot be guaranteed, whereas the tides can; you can set your clock by them with absolute certainty, into the next millennium and beyond. It is a 100 per cent green and free source of energy, so I sometimes ask myself why we are being so pedantic about using it and, instead, concentrating our energies on the wind sector. I find that incomprehensible.
Of the three ways in which our tides can be harnessed to supply electricity, I am on record in this House as favouring lagoons. This is because, far from being environmentally damaging, they can promote new ecosystems, they do not impede the passage of shipping and can be positively beneficial as the landward side of any lagoon can be used as a safe haven for ships, and even used as a marina. They would help to reduce coastal erosion and produce electricity for about 20 hours of every day. As far as I am aware, Tidal Electric Ltd is the only company actively seeking to build such a lagoon at the moment. As the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, said in his opening speech, they want to locate it in Swansea Bay and have been working on the project for at least the past seven years. They are not seeking any funding from Her Majesty’s Government, although if tidal streams are being supported with funding—which they are—lagoons are equally deserving.
However, I was pleased to read some encouraging words on that possibility in the SDC report entitled Turning the Tide, which says of tidal lagoons:
“To help fill this information gap, the SDC believes there is a strong public interest in developing one or more tidal lagoon demonstration projects in the UK”.
13 Dec 2007 : Column 394
It recommends that the Government take this forward by providing financial support to encourage private sector or joint initiatives.
The company, Tidal Electric, says that it should be possible to construct the lagoon for about £100 million, which is relative peanuts when set against £15 billion to build a barrage, and that it would have a capacity of 60 megawatts with an output of nearly 200,000 kilowatt hours per annum.
This is an opportunity the Government should have been grasping with enthusiasm. Instead, the DTI, now BERR, has been consistently negative about Tidal Electric’s proposals, even going to the expense of commissioning a report in April 2006 that—surprise, surprise—concluded that the company had seriously underestimated the costs. One of the main bones of contention in the report is that it does not accept what Tidal Electric is saying, which is that lagoons can be built using a rubble mound construction for the retaining walls. That is a completely different and less costly building method than that necessary for tidal barrages, which are built almost entirely of reinforced concrete. When the company conducted its feasibility study it appointed two engineering consultants, WS Atkins and Montgomery Watson Harza, both Goliaths in the field of civil engineering, to advise on the project. Both agreed that the rubble mound method was the most suitable and cost-effective option.
The upshot of all this is that the company has now reached something of an impasse. It needs seed corn funding of about £2.5 million from private enterprise to complete the environmental impact assessment and deal with planning issues, but the negativity at the ministry guarantees that that is most unlikely to be forthcoming.
We know what delay means in terms of lost chances to make early reductions in our emissions, and we know lagoons can produce electricity for about 83 per cent of the time whereas, using only the ebb flow of the tide, the barrage will produce power for only about 25 per cent of the time. We know that we need a working model of a tidal lagoon so that we can properly evaluate them, and that none exists at present. After all, there are a number of other sites around our shores for lagoons which, if built, could collectively produce 8 per cent to 10 per cent of our entire electricity needs. That is what tidal electric is offering with the Swansea Bay lagoon and, as I understand it, it has the support of the Welsh Assembly. We are being offered a gift. I say to the Minister, with all the seriousness I can muster, please do not look this gift horse in the mouth. The Swansea Bay lagoon is outside the area that requires scoping and a comprehensive study for the barrage. We should be giving Tidal Electric the encouragement it deserves and let it show us what it can do. So far as I can see, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
I shall now talk briefly about the Severn barrage project. Like my noble friend Lord Cope of Berkeley, I give it cautious support. I have concerns about bird and marine life habitats and about the silting and sewage buildup. Shipping seems unlikely to welcome the project as it will delay ships’ arrival in port, be that Bristol, Newport, Cardiff or Gloucester. The
13 Dec 2007 : Column 395
The clock is ticking. We need to proceed with all possible haste with the scoping studies, environmental impact assessments and the SDC report if we are to get anywhere near reaching our renewable targets by 2020.
4.04 pm
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I do not remember whether it was a law of physics or of mathematics that was drummed into me at school—for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. After some years’ experience in this House, I sometimes think that that is also a law of politics, but that is life.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |