Clause 16 - Annual Plans
Energy Bill [Lords]
11:15 am
Mr Laurence Robertson (Shadow Minister, Economic Affairs; Tewkesbury, Conservative)
The amendments relate to the annual plans that the NDA must prepare for each financial year. They would require the annual plan to be approved not only by the Secretary of State but by Parliament. Given the Minister's sympathetic consideration of my amendment to require the strategy to be considered by Parliament, I hope that he will be sympathetic about allowing the annual plan to be laid before Parliament.
My amendments are intended to be helpful. I accept that there may be circumstances when the NDA needs to revise its plan, but I suggest in my amendments that it will be able to do that through reference to the Secretary of State. However, amendment No. 71 recognises that the NDA may be required to revise its plan
''if required to carry out work, or receiving a designation, considered to be urgent.''
The amendments are grouped together rather strangely, in that I am suggesting that the plan must go before Parliament, but also accept that there are times when urgent consideration might be necessary. In such circumstances, the NDA will be allowed to amend the plan. Having considered the amendments again, I would probably concede—before the Minister says it—that we may need to consider the way in which they are drafted, but the spirit is there and I should like to hear the Minister's response.
It being twenty-five past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.