My Lords, in moving Amendment 16 I will speak also to Amendments 20, 21 and 30 standing in my name.
Amendment 30 further clarifies the scope of the modifications that the Secretary of State can make to certain licences for the purposes of facilitating or supporting the enforcement and/or administration of the hydrogen levy. Before making a proposed modification, the Secretary of State is required to consult the holder of any licence being modified. This will help to ensure that relevant bodies are engaged on proposed modifications. To ensure sufficient scrutiny of proposed modifications, the Secretary of State must also lay a draft of the modifications before Parliament, where they will be subject to a procedure similar to the draft negative resolution procedures used for statutory instruments.
I turn to Amendments 21, 20, and 16. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, again for their amendments in Committee. Having considered those amendments, the Government are introducing a new clause on the hydrogen levy provisions, which I hope noble Lords will find satisfying. The new clause will enable revenue support regulations to make provisions for amounts to be paid to levied market participants by a hydrogen production counterparty or hydrogen levy administrator. This includes the pass through of payments received by a hydrogen production counterparty from hydrogen producers under revenue support contracts, such as payments made to the counterparty when the market price of hydrogen is higher than the strike price. This will help to ensure that regulations can make provisions for fair and efficient payments and reconciliation arrangements.
Subsection (3) of this new clause was prompted specifically by consideration of Amendment 62 from the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, in Committee. This provision enables the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring that customers of levied market participants benefit in accordance with these regulations from payments made to levied market participants by a hydrogen production counterparty or levy administrator. I beg to move.