Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-19
Topic: Energy
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, who speaks with great knowledge and great passion. I refer to my interests on the register, in particular that I am president of National Energy Action I take this opportunity to welcome what is a significant Bill, about which our expectations are extremely high. We are looking to achieve security of supply with stable prices against the backdrop of the implications arising from the war in Ukraine. Clearly, the impact on households, families and businesses has been considerable, so I particularly welcome the package of measures to which my noble friend referred in introducing the Bill this afternoon I take this opportunity to ask my noble friend to what extent the Bill will encompass not necessarily new sources of energy but sources of energy that I believe we have not developed to the extent that we should. I am thinking in particular of energy from waste. The reason why I am firmly committed to energy from waste is that it solves two problems in one go. It not only takes waste that would otherwise go to landfill—in many instances, these sites are now full—or that cannot be reused or recycled, but it creates a new source of energy at the same time. One successful example is in North Yorkshire, in the heart of my old constituency of the Vale of York, at Flaxby. In that case, the energy that was created was fed into the national grid, which I think is a mistake. I believe that it should be fed to the local community, to enable it to feel the benefits from this locally sourced energy. I believe that, as others have suggested this afternoon, we should learn from other countries. I am particularly pleased that just this week the EU has signed a memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan, securing a more stable gas supply than from other unreliable and less dependable sources—let us face it, that means Russia. Gas imports from Azerbaijan will be doubled to 20 billion cubic metres by 2027. That has to be extremely welcome Others have referred to Denmark—and, being half Danish, it would be remiss of me not to refer to Denmark too. Denmark was completely caught out in 1973, in the original oil crisis. It did not have natural sources of oil or gas to the extent that Norway and other states did, but it turned that around in a short period and now relies almost totally on renewables, including distance warming and energy from waste. In Denmark, the local community benefits from the reduced cost of heating, energy and hot water in their homes. I believe that that immediately makes the community accept what in this country there can be huge resistance to, such as a chimney being part of a facility, as I found out to my cost I would like to take this opportunity to ask my noble friend the Minister a number of questions that arise from a first reading—on this occasion, a Second Reading—of the Bill, if I may. He referred to the part of the Bill that talks about offshore wind. What research has been done on the impact of offshore wind farms on marine mammals and wildlife? In its latter days, the Energy and Environment Sub-Committee took evidence in which we heard various academics state that they estimated the damage to marine mammals and wildlife to be considerable. I suggest that, before we consider having any further offshore wind farms, we consider what research lends itself to the damage that can be done I take issue with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said with regard to onshore wind farms. One of the dangers of both offshore and onshore wind farms that we are not necessarily told about when planning permission is first sought—I hope that, on a different occasion, there will be an opportunity to amend this in the levelling-up Bill—is that, once an offshore farm reaches shore and when an onshore farm is onshore, each relies on ghastly overhead wires and pylons to transmit the electricity to the national grid or, in the case of North Yorkshire, to some distant southern part. We must accept that 30% of the electricity is lost in transmission; it is utterly wasted. We have to look carefully at why we still rely on the overhead transmission of electricity. I remind your Lordships of the damage caused by Storm Arwen, when thousands of houses lost their electricity—for six days in some cases—last autumn. To a large extent, that was because we in the north are completely dependent on transmission via overheard wires On the role of Ofgem, my noble friend the Minister referred to it being appointed to regulate the heat networks. For what reason does the Bill not give heat network customers equal market protections as would apply to gas and electricity customers? For example, the Bill should include a price cap and rules to regulate customers fairly to ensure that debt is collected at a rate that is affordable to customers. If it is in the Bill and I have missed it, perhaps my noble friend could explain to me where it is As I am sure all noble Lords have, I have received a number of helpful briefings for this afternoon. I refer to one of them, from the Association of Convenience Stores. It points to the part of the Bill—Part 10, I think—on fuel retailers without a wetstock management system. Can my noble friend the Minister confirm that they will be requested to provide information on their fuel stock levels only in emergency circumstances? I remind him that the association includes more than 7,000 convenience stores that trade from fuel sites, which provide 88,000 jobs across the UK I also want to look at how the Bill seeks to empower the raising of new levies on customer bills, in particular the new levy on gas bills to fund hydrogen. Will my noble friend give the House an assurance today that these new costs will not be put on the standing charge? As he will recall from the statutory instrument that we debated in Grand Committee last week, I believe that standing charges have already been increased by too high a level and that any further increase should be seriously considered before being imposed on a standing charge I am delighted to see that Ofgem has raised an investigation into potentially unjustified increases in the direct debits of households by six energy companies. I am struggling to think which the other companies are—I thought we were down to about six major energy companies—so I look forward to the outcome of that investigation with great interest. With those few remarks and those few questions, I give the Bill, for the most part, a very warm welcome this afternoon.