Schedule 16 - Applications and proposals for notices under section 96
Energy Bill [Lords]
3:00 pm
Mr Richard Page (South West Hertfordshire, Conservative)
I must confess that I was rather puzzled when I read amendments Nos. 144 and 145 because I could not quite work out their purpose. I thought that they might be intended to tease out an understanding of this situation and to advance the position that they would bring about, rather than to be definitive amendments. I have listened with great interest and I am not certain that I am that much further forward than when the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead)
started, but I fully accept that that is my mistake, my error and my weakness, on which the whole Committee can agree without any difficulty.
I am all for placing duties on the Secretary of State where necessary. The Committee will remember that when we started on clause 1, I was one of the people who said that the Secretary of State should have a duty to ensure the integrity and security of electricity and gas supply. As we know, the Minister weaselled out of that one fairly quickly. The Secretary of State has instead been given carte blanche and will have little responsibility if there is any trouble.
In this case, however, I cannot see why the hon. Member for Southampton, Test wants to tie the Minister's hands by creating what I can describe only as a ''go, no-go'' situation. I cannot see why the flexibility of the middle route should not be available. Had the Liberals tabled the amendment, I would think that it was a wrecking amendment designed to cause all sorts of trouble, but obviously the hon. Gentleman does not want to wreck the Bill; he wants to improve it. I will therefore listen with great interest to what the Minister says in accepting or rejecting the hon. Gentleman's comments.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test produced the example of a safety zone. That may be necessary, but does he really think that it would be sensible for the Minister to be able either to do nothing except tick the box, or to have a public inquiry? [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman looks at his amendment, he will see that that is what it would achieve. It would mean that the Minister had either to reject the objections that were put forward, or to go to a public inquiry. There seems to be no halfway house.