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Energy Bill
2:15 pm
Charles Hendry (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Wealden, Conservative)
This is our next attempt at a probing amendment, to which I am sure the Minister will have an incredibly effective answer already prepared. Clause 12 relates to the appointment of inspectors
“to assist in carrying out the functions of the Secretary of State under this Chapter.”
Clause 26, to which amendment No. 13 refers, relates to inspectors with regard to carbon capture and storage facilities. The clauses give the Secretary of State powers to make certain regulations with regard to the inspectors. Specifically, they say that they
“may make regulations about the powers and duties of inspectors, the powers and duties of any other person acting on the directions of the Secretary of State and the facilities and assistance to be accorded to persons mentioned”
in those paragraphs.
What we are suggesting is that as it stands, it does not include any guidance or rules about the appropriate length of service of an inspector. I am inherently uncomfortable about open-ended appointments where people are appointed for an unspecified number of years. With the best will in the world, whatever qualifications they have and whatever energy and drive they have when they take on an appointment, people will lose some of that over a period of time. These two amendments would give the Secretary of State the power to determine an appropriate length of appointment for an inspector—we leave it to his discretion, or indeed to that of a SOSREP, to decide what that time scale should be.