My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for speaking to Amendment 21 and to the Minister for speaking to the government amendments in this group. Part of the reason why I did not have a weekend is that these are quite substantial amendments to be bringing forward on Report. It is regrettable that we are considering this much detail on Report. However, on the positive side, they reflect that the Government have been listening to the concerns raised in this House. Those concerns have been consistently about the fitness of the purposes set for the OGA. We have tonight managed to win a vote that will look at again at those principal objectives.
I do not wish to go over old ground, but the fact that here we do need to change those objectives in order to add a new category of people into Section 9C indicates a need for those primary objectives to keep pace with what we are asking the OGA to do. Here we are making it clear that the decommissioning of the North Sea in particular is complex and is going to be a difficult job. Far from its being a distraction to make it clear that this is part of the OGA’s job, this recognises that maximising the usefulness of that infrastructure going forward is clearly a fundamental aspect of what the OGA has to do. The concept of maximising economic recovery has indeed changed. Some of these amendments do change it, so it is only right and proper that the objectives of the organisation have been changed and should change.
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The Government’s amendments are comprehensive and thorough. I suspect they are trying to tread this very careful line over how we avoid causing undue costs when we are not yet clear about the future—nobody has a crystal ball or can be 100% clear about the future. We want to preserve infrastructure, but at the
same time we do not want to incur costs unnecessarily. This is not an easy thing and possibly why a little more time to reflect is needed—some more pre-legislative scrutiny might have helped us navigate this important area. None the less, we welcome the Government’s amendments and the clarity that they bring, although this further highlights the need for a review of the OGA, as has been mentioned, and I do not know whether we can wait for three years. I know that is the maximum time we will have to wait, but given the seriousness of the situation, the complexity of this and the speed with which we are having to scrutinise this legislation on Report, a review earlier rather than later is definitely called for. However, I am happy at this stage to withdraw Amendment 19. As I say, the Government’s amendments have gone some way to addressing our concerns.
I know we are not supposed to table probing amendments on Report, but Amendment 77 on the decommissioning costs was intended to enable us to have a debate about the decommissioning liabilities that are accruing. I sense that this subject will not go away and I imagine that, when the Bill transfers to the other place, people will comment on the open-ended nature of these liabilities. However, at this stage I am happy to withdraw my amendment.