Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-09-07
Topic: Energy
Bryony Worthington (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for introducing her amendment. I shall speak to amendments also in this group: Amendments 5, 6, 8, 20 and 21 in my name and Amendments 4, 10 and 11 in the names of my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Grantchester. This could be described as another pot pourri of amendments. I echo the noble Lords who mentioned that, had we had a bit more time and not been caught trying to table all our amendments in the last week of the Recess, we might have come forward with a slightly different grid with different groupings. However, we are where we are. What all these amendments have in common is that they relate to Clauses 4 and 9, which set out the core functions of the OGA and—Clause 9 in particular—the matters to which the OGA should have regard I do not intend to go over again the importance of CCS and the need to facilitate development of storage and transportation, as we have obviously rehearsed those arguments. However, if we do not change the primary objective, as set out in the Petroleum Act and amended by the Infrastructure Act, we will probably have to amend the Bill in numerous other places to ensure that CCS is properly taken into account. Clauses 4 and 9 are two places where we would expect something in the Bill to reassure us that this will be taken with due seriousness, and that the OGA will have the right legal backing needed to do its job properly Amendment 4, which is in my noble friend Lord Whitty’s name, refers to the need for decarbonisation strategies. Having spoken to him, I know that the purpose of probing on this is that it is absolutely clear that, as we face climate change and start to absorb the implications of what we need to do, there is a great need for a holistic view of our pursuit and extraction of hydrocarbons. We are either going to change drastically our demand for hydrocarbons by moving into other sources of energy, or we will be capturing and storing the waste gases and putting them somewhere where they are not released into the atmosphere. I think both have quite profound implications and it is right that the OGA must have regard to the meeting of climate change targets and carbon budgets, and to the need for decarbonisation of energy. This is meant to be a Bill for the 21st century, not for the last century. Therefore, if we are to list specific areas to which the OGA must have regard, it would seem odd if climate change mitigation and decarbonisation were not specifically mentioned Amendment 5, which is in my name, is, as I said, an alternate way of ensuring that geological carbon storage is included within the matters to which the OGA has regard. Amendment 6 is similar to Amendment 4 in that it asks for consideration of the Climate Change Act and the targets within it We then turn to Amendment 10, which is in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty and refers to energy efficiency. I think I am right to say that my noble friend would have preferred to write a wider amendment about energy efficiency in general, because that is a long-held area of great interest to him. There is certainly a need for any energy Bill to consider the role of demand reduction and energy efficiency but, as the scope of this Bill is relatively narrow as it stands, this amendment relates to increasing energy efficiency within the areas of extraction of oil and gas, as related to the OGA. Amendment 11 relates to carbon capture and storage policy again The last two amendments in this group, Amendments 20 and 21, relate to Clause 9. They seek to make sure that the interpretations in the Bill are sufficiently clear that when we talk about licensees and operators, and data sharing and meetings—all the various powers being given to the OGA—we know it is explicit that those powers include those activities that relate to CCS. As I say, this could be made a whole lot simpler if we were to change the primary objectives but it seems that there are many ways of skinning this particular cat, and many of them are presented here today. That is the purpose of tabling these amendments and I look forward to the Minister’s responses to these matters relating to Clauses 4 and 9.