My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his introductory comments. As we start the first day of Report on the Bill, it is welcome to hear from the Government a reiteration of their commitment to action on climate change and to decarbonising the UK economy.
I add my voice to those of noble Lords who have spoken ahead of me in reflecting on the way in which the Bill has been conducted. I am probably not alone in not having had much of a weekend; I am sure that the Minister has had similar issues to deal with. I take these issues incredibly seriously, as people know, and it makes me genuinely unsettled and discomfited to know that I am not able to do the best job that I can because of the timescales that we are working under. I think that many noble Lords share that feeling. As I have said before at the Dispatch Box, we are where we are—but it could have been so different.
In these opening comments on Report, I want to reflect on the question of why we are making such haste. Why is such an important body as the OGA being created in such a piecemeal way, with amendments coming forward and new issues arising in a very febrile and fast-changing environment? There seems to be no time for the Government to take stock and review. It is because the timing of the Bill is not about the major portion of it, which is the OGA, but Clause 66 which closes the RO a year early. It was closing anyway in 2017, so we are in rather a rush to make that deadline in order for this not to be a complete waste of our parliamentary time. That is why we are racing through. That is why we have not had enough pre-legislative scrutiny and why there are so many fundamental issues that have not been properly addressed in Committee. That is why we are facing an inundation of amendments now. It is a very regrettable situation and one that I personally take very seriously, as I am sure the Minister does, too. I only wish that perhaps people in other parts of the Government took this issue as seriously as those who are represented here today, because it is not good enough.
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Turning to the amendments that we have begun to discuss under the first grouping, we should remind ourselves that Clause 1 of this Bill begins by creating a limited company that shall be named the Oil and Gas Authority. The words that are used in relation to the OGA often describe it as a regulator or a body that is there to do a job for government, yet when you look at its legal structure it is a private company in which there is only one shareholder—the Government. That is a very odd structure for a regulator. A private limited company with one shareholder is not—to my knowledge—the usual way to set up a regulator whose
job is not simply to disburse funds but to engage in activities on behalf of the department to oversee a very complex and rapidly changing environment in the North Sea. That is where my disquiet really resides. It is not clear what this body is being set up to do: nor is it clear why the Government have chosen this particular legal structure.
This is illustrated by Amendment 6, one of the amendments that the Minister has tabled today. Here we are being asked to agree that the staff of this body should have access to Civil Service pensions and compensation packages. I will just reread part of Clause 1(2), which states that,
“the Oil and Gas Authority is not to be regarded as acting on behalf of the Crown, and … its members, officers and staff are not to be regarded as Crown servants”—
because of course this is a limited private company with one shareholder. The Minister alluded to the fact that this is a body that will be going out to recruit new members of staff and will be hoping to attract the best in industry. What will the remuneration packages be for those staff? If this body is not to be seen as a representative of the Crown and its staff are not Crown servants, is it free to set whatever remuneration packages it wishes or will it be governed by the remuneration packages of civil servants? In government Amendment 6, however, we are being told that despite not representing the Crown or being civil servants, staff will have access to the pension schemes—which seems to reopen the idea that maybe it is in fact a regulator that is seen as an arm of the Government.
I suspect that the answer to my disquiet and questions is all to do with how the Treasury is currently overseeing its budget spend commitments and that the desire is that this should be off balance sheet and therefore that the expenditure or costs or activities will not be counted towards government spending. I am asking the Minister: what is the rationale for this legal structure and what will the status of the staff be? It certainly cannot be the case that on the one hand you are allowed to offer private sector salaries to attract the best in the industry while on the other you are also able to offer Civil Service pension provisions.
We will get on to the primary objective of the OGA a little later, in the fourth group, but my fundamental concern is that it is not at all clear why this body is being established, or that it is fit for purpose. The amendments in this group appear on the surface to be rather administrative yet they touch on a very real issue: is this a regulator? Should it be considered as a non-departmental public body or is it, in fact, a body that is being created with the potential to be privatised and sold off in the future? That would lead to a very different discussion and to a whole host of other concerns being raised by noble Lords scrutinising this legislation.
The Minister might say, “That is mere speculation, and why would the Government seek to set something up in public statute and then privatise it?”. I simply remind Members of the House that we have had exactly that situation with the Green Investment Bank, and this week we will see amendments brought forward which will mean that the Green Investment Bank will be changed by primary legislation so that it can be
privatised. Therefore it is not too much of a conspiracy theory to think about the future of the OGA and where it might be going and to ask the Minister to give us complete reassurance that this is intended to be a regulator and to remain something of which the Government have oversight, and that the single share that they own will not be diluted nor sold to the private sector. I would like to hear that reassurance from the Minister today.