My Lords, perhaps I can deal with this quite swiftly. Both the ETS and the NLF, the Nuclear Liabilities Fund, reported to me in my previous department so I have a rough idea of what is going on. Let us deal with the EUAs and the ETSs first. I also sit on the government assets committee and we looked at selling some of our EUAs. We drew the conclusion that the price was not right, the market was not big enough and we would not be able to get a substantial figure into the market. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rightly says, an opportunity may come along later.
Clause 4 permits financial assistance to be provided in any form,
“as the Secretary of State, with the consent of the Treasury, considers appropriate”.
If we were able to do it and if—that is a big “if”—the Treasury agrees, the Secretary of State could divert funds into it. Amendment 6 permits the Government to use a proportion of revenues from auctioning emission permits to fund the bank. There is already provision within that.
This is creative thinking and I am very grateful to my noble friend for that because he is a great creative thinker. I turn to the Nuclear Liabilities Fund. Clearly, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, quite rightly said, two things are going on here. One is that this is a fund that is committed to nuclear liabilities; it is committed to the nuclear industry and, therefore, it has a range of opportunities in the nuclear industry in which it could invest. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, referred to Wylfa and other investments in new nuclear. I had discussions with the chairman of the NLF about developing the fund into nuclear investments, including, for example, a MOX plant, which is something that we were committed to when I was in the department and, indeed, new nuclear. That is entirely for the NLF to decide for itself.
The problem I have with the NLF diverting funds here is that this is an investment bank and it is what it says. There is no such thing as a guaranteed investment. Some investments go up and some investments go down and if the NLF lost money, co-venturing with
the Green Investment Bank on things that it did not understand, of course the liabilities would not be met. Despite the fact that we may consider it a very boring return on the investment at the moment, it is planned to match some of the liabilities. But I do not want the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, to go away thinking that actually the NLF is enhancing its investments, but think that it has enough on its plate with the nuclear industry.
Therefore, given the commitments that I have made on Clauses 4 and 6, I hope that, despite the fact that two very important points have been raised—and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, who has expertise in this field—the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.