UK Parliament / Open data

Energy Bill [HL]

Proceeding contribution from Baroness Worthington (Labour) in the House of Lords on Monday, 19 October 2015. It occurred during Debate on bills on Energy Bill [HL].

Absolutely. I pay tribute to the Minister for the manner in which he has conducted those discussions. However, it is true that the Bill that appeared before us read like something from a time gone by. There was no reference to future challenges or, indeed, present-day challenges. We have improved the Bill through the process of collaboration. We need to continue that process and look at the primary objectives.

Earlier today, the Minister was kind enough to give me an example of another regulator which is a private company with a single shareholder. It was the Prudential Regulation Authority. My understanding is that that is merely a temporary measure and that the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill, which will come before this House very soon, changes that temporary arrangement. It is therefore clear that regulators are not commonly private companies with very loosely defined objectives that do not refer to any kind of stewardship or regulatory function but merely refer to conducting, developing and investing in equipment and bringing people together to collaborate. Those are not the primary objectives I wish to see for a regulator of this size and complexity. It is for that reason that I am minded to test the opinion of the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, agrees that decommissioning should be included in the primary objectives—it is not at the moment—but disagrees on CCS, so we are halfway to accepting that these primary objectives are not fit for purpose. The Government seem to be saying that the amendments are not needed and, at the same time, that to put them in the Bill would cause huge amounts of change. Those two things cannot be true. This is merely a way of making sure that the objectives match the functions we expect the OGA to undertake. This is such a significant issue for this aspect of the Bill that I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
765 cc472-7 
Session
2015-16
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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