My Lords, I do not think that I have any relevant interests to declare, but I draw attention to the published record.
We have heard why the Minister feels that we should not persist with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, which was passed by this House with a substantial majority. Noble Lords may also have read the Minister of State’s speech in the other place. Having read the arguments, I concluded that there was little between the Government and those supporting the amendment. For that reason, I am today offering a differently worded amendment that to many of us seems both to meet the spirit of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and to satisfy government concerns.
I am doing that in my capacity as unofficial chairman of this House’s unofficial cross-party Energy Bill group, which first carried out the unofficial pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill at the request of the then Energy Minister in our House, the noble Lord, Lord Marland. The group has held widely advertised regular meetings with the Minister and officials during the passage of the Bill, and I take this opportunity to place on record our gratitude.
I also thank the Minister for yesterday convening another meeting of the group and for securing the attendance of the Minister of State for Energy. We heard what he had to say, and he heard what we had to say. We offered him the amendment that is before you today, but his officials advised him not to accept it. I think that to pretty much all those present the reasons offered for not accepting it were pretty thin.
The fundamental purpose of the present amendment —and, indeed, the original Teverson amendment—is to make clear that a role for unabated coal in the national energy mix is not foreseen beyond 2025. Indeed, that is the Government’s position. In the other place, the Minister indicated that he expected the overall contribution of coal to our electricity generation in 2025 to be about 3%. In the unlikely event that external events made it look as though unabated coal would be needed longer, the Bill already contains provisions to deal with that unlikely eventuality.
Noble Lords may ask why we are bothering with this now. It is simply to provide an additional crumb of confidence to those who are contemplating investing in new, gas-fired power generation. It is a bad time for investment in energy utilities and it would be helpful to have a clear indication that gas will be our main means of fossil-fuel generation from the 2020s onwards. It is probably unnecessary to point out that this amendment could have no real effect on energy prices in the foreseeable future. This is mostly because the amendment would have no effect on generation until well into the next decade and partly because power price is largely determined by the swing producer, which is gas. At present, coal is cheap and is making an increased contribution to our power generation. However, you will have noticed that this does not translate into lower electricity prices but rather into better margins for coal-fired power stations.
The Government have said it is urgent that this Bill should become law. We agree, and a simple way of ensuring this is to accept this constructive and simple amendment. I beg to move.