Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, this is an excellent amendment and the Government are entirely in agreement with its broad principles. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Moynihan for his comment as a practitioner in this field. I should preface any remarks that I make with a reminder that, in my former life, I spent most of my time trying to sell insurance to oil companies and to make myself even richer, so I was all in favour of them buying as much insurance as possible. However, in my current role, I see that a balance has to be struck and that I was wrong at the time—or only partly right. My shareholders thought that I was right. The Government are in full agreement on this. We have seen the Select Committee’s recommendations and we are evaluating them at the moment. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, makes the point that we must not rush into this or have knee-jerk reactions. Of course, when the Government issue licences, a fundamental part of that is that the company awarded the licence becomes a member of the Offshore Pollution Liability Association; it has to purchase £250 million of cover and it then goes into a pool that offers greater cover. This pooling arrangement is fairly unique and it gives us a number of solid assurances. There are two imponderables that need evaluation. One is the quality of insurance cover. Obviously, if the insurance provider is not of A-graded quality, particularly with a longer-term liability situation, that would be a concern. That needs looking at rigorously. Then there is the matter of the quantum. Two things are going on, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said. The first is the inquiry that is happening in the United States. We would not want to prejudge what is happening in that inquiry, which we want to evaluate. Also, we want to evaluate the Select Committee’s comments, which are valid. I hope that the noble Baroness will understand that the Government take this matter seriously. She has been persuasive in taking an important line. It is very much in the country’s interest that the subject of pollution should be managed very carefully indeed.