Hinkley C Connection Project — House of Commons, 2016-01-14
Topic: Transportation
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important local issue in the Chamber today. I should start by saying that, while I am very critical indeed of the plans for connecting Hinkley C to the national grid, my support for Hinkley C itself is unwavering. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose)—who has just done a fine job at the Dispatch Box and is leaving the Chamber—my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), who have been engaged in the battle over these pylons for many years, as have my predecessors as the Member for Wells. I also congratulate, and pay tribute to, the councils and parish councils, particularly Mark, Badgworth and Biddisham, the Allertons and Cross and Compton Bishop parish councils, which have all worked tirelessly to represent the views of their parishioners over the past seven years so that their objections can be known. Equally, I congratulate the campaign groups and the fantastic public engagement that has meant that church hall and village hall after church hall and village hall have been filled with people wanting to make very clear their views on this pylon line With the announcement looming, therefore, I wanted to raise today a few issues that I think are yet to be resolved. I know there are certain constraints on the Minister given that the Department acts in a quasi-judicial role in this decision, but I hope she will be able to consider the issues I raise, and talk about the technical issues even if not in specific reference to the Hinkley Connection project itself. I am also grateful for the response I have had from my noble Friend Lord Bourne to the letter I wrote to the Secretary of State last week, in which he has assured me that the representations that have been made to the Department since the conclusion of the planning inspector inquiry—and which I assume will be included—will be considered My remarks will fall into three areas: first, Government policy as I see it; secondly, the fact that these pylons are untested and unwanted; and thirdly the importance of visual amenity and the impact that damaging that would have on our local economy It is clear from the Secretary of State’s recent speech which reset the Government’s energy policy that there is enthusiasm for marine energy generation. Offshore wind is the method that has been mentioned most keenly, but I think I am right in saying that there is an excitement for the opportunities presented by tidal and wave technologies, provided that—the Minister will nod, I am sure—they do not ask for too much money in delivering them. None the less, if marine energy generation is to be a key part of the Government’s vision for the renewables sector in the future, it stands to reason, given the fantastic natural resource in the Bristol channel and the Severn estuary waiting to be harnessed by these technologies, that we might put in place a transmission infrastructure now that will service everything that might come in the future, rather than just Hinkley Point itself. Yesterday and the day before I was with the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change on a trip to Brussels, and although the "team Juncker" banners around the place were not too welcome to these Eurosceptic eyes, our meeting with Vice-President Šefcovic, who is responsible for energy union, was very refreshing indeed. He made some very interesting points about the plans that the EU and the Governments of the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, France and Germany have for a North sea energy grid. If we are looking at putting infrastructure in place under the North sea to facilitate marine generation and interconnection between the different countries that surround the North sea, why should it be so difficult to do so in the Bristol channel and the Severn estuary?