Clause 1
Energy Bill
9:00 am
Charles Hendry (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Wealden, Conservative)
I join the Minister in welcoming you, Mrs. Humble, as our Chairman, and I thank the Minister for the way that we went through the evidence sessions. It is the first time I have gone through an evidence-taking session. They have been extremely useful; they have given industry and others a very good opportunity to tell us what they think, and that has helped us work more effectively together as a Committee.
My understanding of these Committees was that the Government would normally stuff them with placemen, who would simply vote with everything that the Government wanted, but what is very encouraging is that it is actually a Committee full of Members who understand energy, who care passionately about different aspects of it, and that is very good in terms of the issues that we need to debate.
Another thing that came out of those sessions was a sense that many of the things that we have concerns about are not included in the Bill, such as smart meters, feed-in tariffs and the role of Ofgem. I hope that the Minister will give us an opportunity—particularly in the light of today’s news on British Gas—to have wider debates about fuel poverty and social tariffs, because they are clearly matters of great concern to people.
As you said, Mrs. Humble, there are no amendments to these early clauses, but we wish to have some questions answered before we give the go-ahead to individual clauses. We certainly agree with the Minister that more needs to be done to make those areas outside territorial waters available for gas importation and storage.
Will the Minister tell us his assessment of the long-term role of the Rough gas field storage facility? Does he believe that it has a long life? Does he expect it to be there for many years into the future, or is part of his concern—and part of the reason for introducing these provisions—a feeling that the Rough gas field will have reached the end of its useful life before long? Will the Minister elaborate on how the process of identifying such zones will work? Who will be responsible for that and what process of consultation must be undertaken before approval as an appropriate zone for such work? Can he also provide some detail on the types of installation that such exercises will involve, especially the above-water structure?
There has been recent media coverage and some discussion during the evidence sessions about the Ministry of Defence’s objections to some of the offshore wind farms; not so much the actual objections—we all understand the need for radar and national security—but on the timing of some of those objections. Clearly, if significant parts of the new structures will be above sea level, the MOD might have concerns about them. Perhaps this would be an appropriate moment for the Minister to address those issues. These are simply a few points of clarification; but, in general, we have no objection to the clause.