Energy Security

My hon. Friend is right. As I said, we have been talking about the issue since 2003, and we must have stability. However, high energy prices are our short-term problem, and we have no way of addressing it—or it would appear that we do not at the moment. I shall come to the issue of the energy gap, but we also have the long-term problem of how we produce our energy from here on in. On the issues of oil and gas prices, energy generation and the rest of it, the Government ought to consider whether our supplies are too heavily traded and speculated on because of this country's market liberalisation. Other countries are not affected by such activity, but I read somewhere the other day that every barrel of oil in this country is traded 12 separate times before it is consumed. Obviously, somebody is going to try to make a profit out of each trade, and that is probably why our prices have been shunted further and further upwards. I remember speaking two years ago to representatives of a company in my constituency, who told me that one of their concerns about high energy prices was that the biggest gas customer in this country was Barclays bank. The banks were buying all the gas and speculating on it, because of the issues about future supplies. Members have already referred to the countries that supply our gas and to the fact that they are not exactly the most stable countries on which to rely for long-term supplies. The Government have to take urgent steps in the forthcoming months. They must look at what is happening to our industries and at the problems that we will face unless we get our energy prices down. On the issue of the energy gap, I am opposed to nuclear power and have been for a long time, but we have waited so long and our energy supplies have dwindled so much. Coal-fired stations are closing because of the large combustion plant directive, and the nuclear stations are coming to the end of their useful lives, so we have to do something, and if that something is a nuclear plant, let us get on with it. By the same token, nobody has been stopped from building a nuclear power plant in this country; the market simply has not wanted to do so, because of the disguised costs of nuclear power and the cost of nuclear waste, which we cannot ignore. If we were to examine the cost of the coal industry, we would have to take into account the disposal of all its waste. On what has happened over the past 11 years since 1997, I remember that back in the 1980s, the then Central Electricity Generating Board falsified the figures that were used to compare renewable and nuclear sources in order to make nuclear look more favourable. The wave energy machine of that time—electricity would be created from wave power—was heavily referred to as Salter's Duck. The origin of many renewables issues and of the current situation go back a very long time. We have talked about renewables, coal and nuclear power. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) made a good speech about nuclear energy, and I endorse everything that he said in what was quite an interesting contribution. We should have renewables sources of energy, but even if we carpet this country with windmills, we cannot hope that they will meet our energy requirements for the next 30 years. They clearly will not. We need some heavy duty generating capacity to replace what we are going to lose, and the answer lies with coal. This country and the rest of the world are going to burn coal for a long time, and the coal industry is buoyant: about 600 million tonnes will be needed simply to fuel the power stations that have been built in the past two years. That is a lot of coal, and we have to face the fact that we are going to be reliant on it. Kingsnorth power station has been opposed because it does not have a carbon capture and storage facility, and it has been suggested that every planning application for a coal-fired power station will be held back unless it includes carbon capture and storage. That is a major problem. If we stop coal-fired generation on that basis, there will still be concerns about nuclear generation, and in the end, we will not have achieved very much. The answer is of course carbon capture and storage. It is not a proven technology, but the Secretary of State referred to what I understand to be a competition. He was challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) about pre and post-combustion carbon capture, but pre-combustion carbon capture already exists, and it is operating in my constituency in the form of a coke oven. By converting coal to coke, much of the carbon and many of the gases are extracted from the coke before it is burned, and they are easier to get rid of at that point in the process. I am too young to remember town gas and the burning of coke to create gas, but my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Hamilton) will well remember it. The technology removed many pollutants from coal before it was burned and, as that technology is currently under consideration, it should not be too difficult to enhance it. Funnily enough, all the clean-coal technology plants in this country, including the coal gasification plant at Point of Ayr and the fluidised bed at Grimethorpe, were closed in 1990 by the previous Conservative Government, who decided not to conduct clean-coal technology research. We have to look at all aspects of generation, including renewables and nuclear, but we must get carbon capture and storage under way. We must realise that burning coal will be a major issue, and that we will have to rely on coal for a very long time. Finally, one line in the Government's amendment makes me raise my eyebrows. It says that this House"““believes that the Opposition's failure to show clear leadership on energy could put at risk Great Britain's energy security.””" Why we are calling on the Opposition to show leadership on energy matters is completely beyond me, and I would worry about voting for that later. Perhaps the Minister will explain that line to us, and then tell us why it is the Government who need to show a little more leadership—and show it now. Let us make the decisions on new generating capacity.