Clause 1
Energy Bill
9:00 am
Malcolm Wicks (Minister of State (Energy), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Croydon North, Labour)
Good morning. It is good to get into the Committee stage proper, although the evidence sessions are an interesting innovation. It is a great pleasure to serve under your Chairmanship, Mrs. Humble.
Let me introduce clause 1. Under part V of the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, coastal states can claim certain rights within an area known as the exclusive economic zone, which extends from the edge of the 12 nautical mile limit to the territorial sea for a further distance of 188 nautical miles. Article 56(1) of the UN convention provides that these rights include, among other things, the exploration and exploitation of the sea bed and its subsoil and the waters above it. It also provides jurisdiction for the establishment and use of installations and structures in the area. The UK has previously claimed a number of rights under article 56(1), such as rights to the offshore generation of electricity, under the Energy Act 2004, but has not yet claimed rights in relation to unloading and storing gas.
The clause makes provision to claim those rights by providing for the ownership to be vested in the Crown within areas designated as gas importation storage zones by means of an Order in Council. Subsection 2 sets out the activities to which those rights relate—namely, the unloading of gas to installations or pipelines, storing gas whether or not it will be recovered and exploring for suitable sites for unloading or storing gas.
I draw hon. Members’ attention to the fact that the clause covers both the storage of combustible gases, such as methane and butane, and the storage of non-combustible gases, such as carbon dioxide. Without this provision, it would not be possible to implement the licensing regimes set out in chapters 2 and 3 of this part of the Bill.