Clause 3
Energy Bill
9:45 am
Steve Webb (Chair of the Election Manifesto Group, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
We now move on to the part of the Bill that deals with the licensing process. Our amendment relates to the conditions that must be satisfied before a licence is issued. Amendment No. 19 relates to gas licences. Amendment No. 20 is identically worded and relates to carbon storage licences. It was very sensible and wise of you, Mrs. Humble, to group them together, so that we do not have the same conversation twice.
The amendments would ensure that, when the licensing arrangements for the offshore storage of natural gas and, subsequently, CO2 are made, they take full account of the environmental risks and, in particular, that they are integrated with future legislative arrangements for protecting the marine environment. What we are driving at is the fact that we have this Bill and then a marine Bill. Clause 3 talks about the regulation of the marine environment, on which will follow further legislation later this year. How will those interrelate? Should we be concerned that this Bill might not deal with things that are not then picked up in the marine Bill?
As I understand it, the marine Bill will not cover the sort of issues before us today, such as gas storage. Therefore, if we do not get that right in this Bill, it might not be done at all. That is why we tabled these two amendments, which would simply require that, before a licence is granted, the licence issuing authority should consult other Departments with an environmental interest, of which DEFRA is the most obvious. It would also be required to consult different environmental agencies, including those with responsibilities for the marine environment.
I hope that the Committee will forgive me for returning ad nauseam to my main theme, which is that energy and the environment are the responsibilities of different Departments. With the best will in the world, the incentives, interests and focus of those two Departments are not identical; they could not be. The danger is that the body that decides whether to grant a licence under the Bill will have a raft of considerations, such as safety—that consideration would be common to both Departments—and energy considerations might be given greater weight than environmental ones where there is a potential trade-off between the two. Obviously, if they go hand in hand, it is not an issue. However, if, for example, a big leap forward in energy security or supply could be achieved at some modest environmental cost, there would be a trade-off.
Without our amendment, the energy Department might be inclined to grant a licence where the environment Department might give greater weight to consideration of the environmental damage and say no. To give an imperfect analogy, we had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform about the Severn barrage—a clear case in which energy issues might point one way, but consideration of the environmental damage the other. A trade-off must be sought, and if the energy Department has the lead and has no environmental duty under the Bill, the worry is that environmental considerations might, at best, be secondary.