Clause 85 - Exploitation of areas outside the territorial sea for energy production
Energy Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Mr Stephen Timms (Minister of State (e-Commerce & Competitiveness), Department of Trade and Industry; East Ham, Labour)
As the hon. Member for Vale of York rightly said, a legislative framework is already in place to govern the development of renewable energy resources—wind as well as tide and wave power—around our coast to a 12-nautical-mile limit of territorial waters. Beyond that, international law governs our rights and obligations, and it is the UN convention—UNCLOS—that gives coastal states the
right to explore and develop wind, tide and wave resources to produce energy in a 200-nautical-mile offshore zone, which we are calling the renewable energy zone.
The hon. Lady asked about the distance, and it is 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. In practice, the zone will not extend for anything like 200 nautical miles around much of the UK coast because it would run into other countries. In those cases, the zone boundary will extend to the median line.
The hon. Lady asked about the significance of vesting powers in Her Majesty, which is the form used. Subsection (1) vests in Her Majesty the rights set out in part V of UNCLOS to explore and exploit the water and wind resources of the renewable energy zone. The practical effect is that the Crown Estate will have similar powers to those that it exercises already as owner of the sea bed in territorial waters to negotiate site licences with developers who want to build projects in the renewable energy zone beyond territorial waters.
Wind power is the most advanced renewable technology at the moment, but we are looking further ahead than that and putting in place a framework to enable wave and tide projects to proceed when they become feasible on a significant scale. The constitutional basis is to ensure that the responsibilities will be exercised by the Crown Estate for the renewable energy zone in the same way that they are in territorial waters.
The hon. Lady asked about other aspects of part V of the UN convention. I should make it clear that we are not constructing an exclusive economic zone; we are exercising only the rights that the convention gives us on renewable energy to establish a renewable energy zone. This part of the Bill puts in place the arrangements to do that.
The fishing provisions in part V, to which the hon. Lady referred, do not apply. As she said, several of the issues will come up under later parts of the Bill, but I do not think that there are problems in restricting ourselves to the renewable energy powers that the convention gives us.
I hope that I have covered the points raised by hon. Members and that the Committee is content to agree to the clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 85 ordered to stand part of the Bill.