My Lords, I very much share the concern of the noble Baroness. I have an example that I raised at a meeting with the Minister. I am grateful for the trouble she has taken to allow us to engage with her and her officials. I made the point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, has done, that there are many other worthy forms of community involvement in energy.
The example that I gave at the time was the Plymouth Ovo Energy project—the Plymouth Energy Community, which even contains the word “community”. I was struck by the reply I received from one of the Minister’s officials. Both my noble friend and the official realised that perhaps I deserved a rather fuller reply. I am pleased to say that I received one in a letter from the official, written on the same day. Perhaps I may quote from it because it begins to give an explanation regarding the question that the noble Baroness has just asked. The letter states that there are,
“strong examples of ways in which the community energy sector is innovating, growing and maturing. However, I would say that they focus on different areas of community energy. The Community Electricity Right concentrates on new renewable electricity generation schemes and involves communities as investors”.
Never let us forget that we are talking about the statutory scheme, not the current voluntary arrangements. It is the statutory scheme that is in the Bill. The letter continues:
“On the other hand, Plymouth Energy Community mainly focuses on the supply of electricity from existing schemes and principally involves communities as energy consumers”.
My immediate reaction is: why is this so narrow? The letter goes on to explain:
“Energy supply and generation are dealt with quite differently within the regulatory and policy framework. As such, it would not be appropriate to include the Plymouth Energy Community directly within the scope of the Community Electricity Right”’
The letter then makes what is really the most important point:
“I would just like to add that DECC is taking separate measures to promote local supply. For example, we have formed a dedicated Local Supply Working Group formed of DECC officials, Ofgem, Academics, Local Authorities and community energy groups to explore the regulatory barriers limiting local supply. They will be reporting to the Secretary of State in March next year”.
As I said a moment ago, that goes some way to meet the concern that I expressed. However, I then have to go on and ask my noble friend the Minister this question. What other forms of community involvement are being considered? Here I refer to the task force’s report, which we had only on Monday. On another occasion I expressed my displeasure that it had all come so late, two days before we have to debate the whole subject. That report has a lot to say about various forms of community sharing. They are described in annex A of the report, although at this hour of the night I would not dream of reading it all out.
We must remember that we are at this stage, and the task force is solely concerned with the voluntary system. It had nothing to say—I suspect because it felt that it was outside its terms of reference—about the statutory power for which power is being taken in this Bill. The main point on this amendment is: what other forms are being considered? Yes, the letter is referring to the supply side. The noble Baroness asked about cheaper electricity. When winding up the debate in Committee, I referred to the McAlpine schemes and their proposals to offer cheaper electricity to communities within the reach of the particular scheme that was being developed. It is a very familiar concept in many other areas of the world—notably, nuclear power stations in France. They gained popular consent by being generous with the prices that they charged.
That leads me to my final point. There is no doubt that large parts of the renewable energy industry are dead against any form of statutory straitjacket being imposed on them. They would much rather continue with and demonstrate the success of the voluntary scheme with which they are engaging. I had a very strong statement from the Solar Trade Association. It says that the task force report is an interesting starting point but that,
“it must be given time to be put into practice”.
I think later on we shall say that we have won that argument—we have got more time. Secondly, it says that,
“Government and the community energy sector need to be flexible and proactive in supporting this and in establishing an evidence base”.
Thirdly, it says that,
“no evidence has been provided by the Government that the extensive yet unspecified powers within the proposed Bill are needed or will lead to increased investment”.
Similar points have been made by other parties that have been advising me.
Echoing the noble Baroness, one has to say: what other forms of community involvement are being considered? Will the Government recognise that what they have said is intended to be a backstop provision only if the voluntary system is seen not to be working? Is that still very much their approach on all this? There is no doubt that the provisions of the Bill have worried the industry.
9.45 pm