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913 National Policy Statements 1 DECEMBER 2010 National Policy Statements 914
nuclear, decentralised energy and CCS, as well as on
other things, if only we had the time to discuss them in
this short debate.
Martin Horwood rose—
Huw Irranca-Davies: I will not take another intervention
because there are other people waiting to speak.
Meanwhile, part 3 of the overarching energy policy
statement details new electricity projections. It outlines
the need for 59 GW of new capacity by 2025, of which
as much as 33 GW will be from renewables, thus leaving
a significant potential gap, on top of the energy gap
that we already acknowledge, if the Minister’s best laid
plans do not come to fruition. This raises the question
of how the Minister can avoid re-carbonising instead of
de-carbonising the energy sector if an unabated dash
for expensive imported gas rushes in to fill the looming
energy gap. The dash for gas and the energy gap could
be made far worse if any of the “what ifs” were to
happen. The Minister has honestly and openly accepted
that gas will form part of our journey to a de-carbonised
future, but how will he ensure that we do not stumble
into a new generation of unabated gas use by default?
As a former Minister, I recognise the problem of
dealing with highly complex issues and scenario planning.
I therefore ask the Minister to share with the House his
scenario planning and risk analysis for the energy market,
before we come to debate the national policy statements
in detail on the Floor of the House in January. If there
is to be real democratic accountability, the House needs
to see the complete assumptions on which the Minister
is making his case for the NPSs and for the energy
market underpinning them. We assume that these have
been done. If nuclear, CCS, decentralised energy or a
whole host of other variables were delayed or undeliverable,
what is plan B, plan C or plan D, and would any of
them allow us still to reach our aims on energy security
and low carbon energy?
In that regard, what is the Minister’s response to the
recommendation of the Committee on Climate Change,
in response to the proposals for national policy statements
on energy, that the Government act on the Committee’s
proposal that the widely accepted concept of fully
de-carbonising the electricity sector by 2030 should be
made explicit in Government policy and NPSs? It has
been widely accepted anyway, and it would drive the
achievement of the 2050 targets on greenhouse gases.
The Committee asserts that making explicit that
commitment would drive forward decision making on
new generating capacity and give certainty to investors
regarding the Government’s overarching energy policy.
Dan Byles: The shadow Minister has highlighted the
concern that many of the Government’s plans are predicated
on CCS working and on investment in nuclear coming
through, and he has asked what plan B is. Can we look
forward to hearing from those on his own Front Bench
what their plan B would be if they were in government?
Huw Irranca-Davies: I can give the hon. Gentleman a
guarantee that we are committed to assisting the
Government to deliver this, but to ignore the potential
scenarios of not making good in any one of these areas
would be to bury our head in the sand. There are real
concerns that there could be delays in one of these
areas, and if that were to happen, we, as a constructive
Opposition would have to work jointly with the Government
to fathom a way in which we could still deliver de-carbonised
energy, hit our carbon reduction targets and deliver
energy security and affordable energy. I have not even
touched on the issues of the green deal and the green
investment bank that were raised by other Members
earlier. That is why we need to see the Government’s
working assumptions, the detail behind the Minister’s
development of these NPSs and, as soon as possible,
the proposals for electricity market reform.
I am pleased that the Minister is talking a lot about
the intentions behind the NPSs, but we are really up
against time. I know that he will once again stand up
and say that that is all the fault of the previous
Administration, but actually it was the previous
Administration who put in the foundations for what the
coalition Government are now rightly taking forward.
We will look to the Government to make good, and we
will be constructive in helping them, but the House and
the Energy and Climate Change Committee need to be
able to wrestle with the facts as well as with the broad
thrust of the statements. I have spoken longer than I
intended to, and I look forward to hearing the comments
of other Members.
6.3 pm
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con): We
have had a tour de force from the Minister and the
shadow Minister on many of the issues in the national
policy statements for energy. I shall restrict my comments
to an issue that affects my constituency, which is the list
of suggested nuclear new build sites and, in particular,
the Dungeness site. At present, there is an A station and
a B station at Dungeness, and the site was included on
the previous Government’s original list of 11 sites to be
consulted on. Before the general election, it was removed
from the list after the initial stage of the consultation,
and it has remained off the list of potential sites to be
taken forward within the national policy statement in
the draft consultation that has been presented to Parliament.
I have already discussed the issue in debates in the
House and in Westminster Hall and I do not want to go
over all the ground again, but I do want to deal with
some specific points raised by the draft national policy
statement which may be of interest to other Members.
Let me say first that I am grateful to the Minister for the
interest that he has taken in the subject, for his time, and
for agreeing to meet me later in the month, along with
representatives of Shepway district council and Kent
county council, to establish whether any progress can be
made.
I note from the draft statement that the Government
consider the site of Dungeness nuclear power station to
be a credible site for a new power station should the
principal concerns about it be addressed during the rest
of the consultation period. Those concerns lie chiefly
with Natural England’s objection to the development in
a special protected area, a Natura 2000 reserve with a
European designation. Dungeness is the only site under
consideration in the initial consultation in which
development would take place within a protected area.
There are problems with the other sites that the Government
believe can be solved, but the problems affecting Dungeness
remain.