Energy Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the thoughtful and informed contribution of the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill), who made some relevant points. Like the Bill, I will be mercifully brief. I declare an interest at the outset, as I will mention nuclear power and the nuclear industry throughout my contribution. You would be surprised if I did not, Madam Deputy Speaker. Sellafield is in my constituency and I therefore declare rather more than my interest: I declare around 17,000 interests—the number of jobs that it provides in my constituency and in west Cumbria, including for many of my family and friends. I am a former employee of the site—a third generation nuclear worker The Bill does not specifically affect nuclear generation. Many hon. Members have pointed out that previous Bills have attended to that. However, the measure raises issues, particularly on public subsidy, which are germane to future electricity generation from nuclear and other sources. Before I continue, I thank the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby for saying that Cumbria is open for business. We were badly affected by the floods. Our economy relies very much on tourism, and the roads, hotels, hostels and guesthouses are open. Please come and spend money there this Christmas. There is a limit to how far we can play the blame game. There has been some of that in the Chamber this evening about specific elements of policy, in particular how we have arrived at the current nuclear policy. Having said that, the genesis of the malaise in the nuclear industry, which we have begun to remedy, is in the previous Government's failure to address the long-term waste disposal issues. I think that we have resolved that with the laudable and overdue creation of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the effective prosecution of a properly informed, thoughtful, well understood long-term radioactive waste management policy for this country. That commands support from hon. Members of all parties. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) raised the issue of nuclear fuel, and the environmental consequences and security of supply issues affecting the new generation of nuclear reactors in this country. The answer is very simple: we already reprocess our spent fuel and, moreover, we continue to manufacture fuel in my constituency at Sellafield and at the Westinghouse facility at Springfields. I shall make a brief pitch for something for which I have been pushing for four and a half years. There are 40,000 tonnes of uranium oxide—that is a commodity, not waste—and 100,000 tonnes of plutonium oxide, which is also a commodity and not waste. If we turn those materials into fuel, not only do we obviate the need to dispose of them, saving £3 billion to £4 billion, but we could run three new nuclear reactors at Sellafield over a 60-year period, eliminating the need to emit more than 0.5 million tonnes of CO2 in the same period while providing 6 per cent. of the UK's electricity-based generation. That is a prize worth pursuing. In addition, we could provide perhaps the most comprehensive and effective way for the nation to meet its non-proliferation targets. That policy should be championed by any Government of any colour in future. With that in mind, I welcome the Bill's main objectives. The establishment of carbon capture and storage technology—and consequently ours, and the world's, ability to reduce emissions of CO2—the protection of millions of customers from energy price exploitation, and much needed steps to end fuel poverty are at the heart of the Bill. It is a scandal in the world's fourth largest economy, at the beginning of the 21st century, that anyone in the UK should be affected by, or live in, fuel poverty. It is even more distressing to note that, inevitably, it is the least well-off , including thousands of elderly people, who find themselves in fuel poverty for lack of what is a basic essential need. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) pointed out, the days of cheap energy are well and truly over, so it is right for the Government to mandate energy companies to discount bills for some people on the lowest incomes. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for taking up cudgels against electricity providers. That has been mentioned fleetingly, but I believe that he was right to intervene. His intervention was significant, and will be welcomed by people living in fuel poverty. As has been said, about 1 million households receive discounts and other help with their energy bills. However, that voluntary arrangement will end in March 2011. The Bill will ensure that when it does so, discounts for the most vulnerable will continue in law through compulsory social programmes, which should be welcomed by Members on both sides on the House. It is right that we should spend more to take people out of fuel poverty, and I welcome the fact that new resources will be targeted at the most vulnerable consumers. I have mentioned the elderly, and I pay tribute to Age Concern for its interest in this issue over many years and its advocacy on behalf of elderly people in fuel poverty. Not only is it morally and socially right that we attend to the most vulnerable people in fuel poverty—as I have said, very often they are elderly people—but I am sure that there is a body of work about to be done somewhere demonstrating the value to the nation in policy areas such as the NHS of taking elderly people out of fuel poverty. It must be significant, and somewhere there must be a figure that we can put on that. It must also be said that the fight against fuel poverty is a real test of the deregulated market. Historically, consumers have benefited financially from increased competition driving down the unit price of electricity. I do not think that anyone would doubt that, but in recent years the deregulated market has not so much driven down prices as resemble a multinational cartel. I am not suggesting for a second that the creation of fuel poverty was ever an aim of the market or of its constituent parts, but it is a consequence of the way in which it has conducted itself in recent years. There are two alternatives to that model: first, the complete re-regulation of the energy markets, which may well be the inevitable consequence of continued failure; and secondly, the creation of a stronger regulator, with more socially responsible practices deployed by the energy utility companies, and a stronger framework established by Government designed to protect the most vulnerable consumers—not quite a public-private partnership, but not far from one. That is what the Bill strives to achieve, and I support it. The House should make no mistake: the strength of feeling about fuel poverty is such that unless that second alternative works, re-regulation will become a necessity. This is the last chance for the energy utilities to prove that the current model of regulation can be effective and even beneficial, so I urge them to make it work. They must not follow the route of the banks. If the market cannot deliver for the people of this country, we will have no choice but to intervene. Carbon capture and storage is a phenomenally important issue, and a great deal has been said about it today. If that technology can be proven to work, it may well rank in importance alongside the invention of the internal combustion engine, the advent of powered flight and the splitting of the atom. Given the nature of the challenges posed to human life by climate change, it may in time prove to be even more important than any of those landmark achievements. Again, it is right for Government to facilitate CCS. The Bill will introduce a financial support mechanism for up to four commercial-scale demonstration projects for CCS, and it will also permit the retrofit of additional CCS capacity for those projects, should it be required in future. The benefits of CCS, as we have heard, are enormous. It will create truly green jobs. In the UK, 30,000 to 60,000 jobs in engineering, manufacturing and procurement will be created by 2030. It will leverage investment for the UK, and could create £2 billion to £4 billion a year for the economy, or a total of £20 billion to £40 billion between 2010 and 2030. It will develop a genuinely new industry for Britain, thus providing a massive regional opportunity for Tyneside, Teesside, the Thames Gateway, the firth of Forth, the Humber, Merseyside and other locations with industry sources that are CO2–intensive, and offer a great opportunity for the establishment of British CCS business centres. In my view, those are jobs in the right areas. CCS will also bring an end to unabated coal. The conditions that the Government propose are the most environmentally ambitious of any country in the world, and it is right that at the advent of the Copenhagen conference we should lead. Our plans will make the UK a world leader in technology that will help us to avoid the most severe effects of climate change. Something that has not been mentioned is the fact that CCS technology could be of real benefit in helping to facilitate or smooth the transition to a post-oil economy. When, inevitably, we begin to exploit tar and oil shale reserves and so on, CCS technology will be vital in enabling us to use them. I fear, however, that the public at large do not yet know enough about CCS. I am concerned that there is a belief that CCS is a panacea or a silver bullet for the climate change challenge facing us all, but it is not like that. The Government are right to support and subsidise CCS, as it is a strategic and environmental necessity for the nation. Again, I draw a comparison with the nuclear industry. CCS must command well-understood public support, so there is a job of work to be done. In many ways, as the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby suggested, the challenges of CCS make the challenges of radioactive waste disposal look like a walk in the park. We know a great deal about radioactive wastes—their properties, their effects, their half-lives, how to contain them, for how long, and the costs and engineering challenges associated with containment. As much as I support CCS, can we really say the same of it right now? How and where will carbon be stored? What are the public liability implications? How will it affect the unit price of electricity? What are the effects of storage on the environment? What would happen in the event of a leak or catastrophic failure? We must address all those questions, because CCS is too important to fail. However, it does not follow that it will succeed just because we want it to. Nevertheless, the signs are encouraging. I support the necessary subsidy of CCS, and I place on record that I support subsidy in principle for any technology that will help us to ensure the security of our energy supplies and help us to combat climate change. Let me be explicit. If it is necessary, I would agree with state support for the nuclear industry and all aspects of it—although I do not believe it is necessary. I refer to power generation, fuel reprocessing, fuel manufacture, waste disposal and decommissioning. Will such an approach work? Ask the French. The Secretary of State heads for Copenhagen well armed, able to demonstrate leadership and able to make British industry central to whatever policy initiatives and agreements emerge. We should all support him in doing so. These issues require cross-party political consensus, so it is a matter of regret that so many front-line Conservative figures are leading what can only be called a counter-revolution in the scientific and political consensus regarding climate change. It beggars belief that the Leader of the Opposition will not publicly denounce these senior figures in his party and his hand-picked non-dom environmental policy advisers, who have holed his attempted rebrand below the waterline—the rising waterline. Instead of supporting the Government in an effective and non-partisan fashion for the benefit of the planet and entirely within the national interest, the Leader of the Opposition is presiding over a party that increasingly believes that the established science which attributes climate change to manmade activities is a sham. It is worse than neo-conservative flat earth science. So obsessed are they, many of them, with the size of government that they do not believe that the Government can achieve any good, even when the future of the planet depends upon it. That is not a philosophy. It is an illness. The right hand does not seem to know what the extreme right hand is doing. The Leader of the Opposition currently resembles the Quisling of the climate change deniers, so if he seriously wants to bridge the chasm between his rhetoric and the reality of so many in his party, he should have the basic decency and courage to do that publicly. We need a consensus or else we invite failure. If we fail—