Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-09-14
Topic: Energy
Robin Teverson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have also put my name to this proposal, therefore I will speak on it on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, as well as myself We come to one of the most important parts of the Bill, which concerns wind power. Although I fully accept there were strong arguments against onshore wind in the Conservative manifesto, that is very regrettable and it is important to have consistency in government policy. One element of that manifesto was that climate change measures and renewables should be at least cost. As I pointed out to the House before, onshore wind costs some £65 per tonne of CO2 saved whereas with offshore—still one of the Government’s favourites; I have no criticism of that—the cost per tonne of CO2 displaced is almost double that at £121. In terms of financial support, onshore wind cost on a ROC basis is about £40 per megawatt hour and offshore is more than double that at some £85. That puts into context this part of the Bill and the two clauses that we start to consider here The irony is that in many ways I would welcome this clause because it repatriates planning decisions around certain energy generators—onshore wind above 50 megawatts—back to what many of us see as the democratic base of decision-making, which is local planning. In some ways, that is quite a positive thing. However, the inconsistency and the agenda behind it concern me. It seems that the Government are in favour of this reallocation or repatriation because they want to put greater obstacles in the way of this far more cost-effective and efficient form of energy: onshore wind. Yet in other areas of energy policy, not least fracking—I am not against fracking in principle—the Government try to move things in exactly the opposite direction. Due to the frustrations felt with Lancashire County Council, we have the irony of the Government trying to move decision-making up to the Secretary of State whereas onshore wind, which seems bad in terms of Tory ideology, is moving the other way and back to local authorities. That inconsistency concerns me My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness will doubtless come to this on the next clause, but it also means that the outside world, whether that is financial institutions within the UK or worldwide, starts to look at British Government decision-making as being very inconsistent and changeable, in a way that is not necessarily financially correct but comes from a bounce and ricochet of policies. It seems that we have a confusion and inconsistencies in UK energy policy that will deter investment. I know that that will be a continuing theme this afternoon. I have questions to ask the Minister. First, paragraph 130 on page 18 of the Explanatory Notes says: "The Government currently expects that applications which have already been made under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 but not yet decided when the Bill provision commences, will continue to be considered under that Act" However, I understand that we have no detail of how that will be done. Again, we have uncertainty in this area. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister on where we are in that Again on detail, the other thing I find difficult about this clause is that even if we accept that this level of planning should come down to local authorities, despite that inconsistency, I understand that it is also the Government’s intention that approvals for onshore wind should be given by primary planning authorities only if they are also in line with agreements on neighbourhood plan areas. Now, no one is a greater fan than I am of the neighbourhood planning brought into being by the coalition Government. That is a great move forward and has been successful in housing and other areas so far Perhaps I may have some clarity from the Minister. I know that large areas of England do not yet have neighbourhood plans; in fact, many planning authorities do not have local plans. I should like to understand the detail of how onshore wind farm developers, who can surmount all these other hurdles, deal with this area. Neighbourhood plans must not be in conflict with local plans, so what happens in areas that do not yet have neighbourhood plans? I know it is obviously a DCLG issue, but I would be very pleased if the Minister could write to me and tell me how many neighbourhood plans have been passed and what proportion of the English landscape that covers. Indeed, I would like to know the same for local plans, a number of which are waiting to be agreed by the Secretary of State.