Clause 17
Energy Bill
10:30 am
Malcolm Wicks (Minister of State (Energy), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Croydon North, Labour)
Good morning to you, Mr. Amess, and to the Committee on this sunny day. We discussed much about carbon capture and storage last week, but we now have the opportunity to consider it in more detail. While clause 16 will prohibit the storage of carbon dioxide without a licence to ensure that such storage is carried out in a safe and responsible manner, clause 17 will give the Secretary of State, or an authority to which the licensing function has been transferred under clause 33, the power to license the carbon dioxide storage-related activities.
In addition to such a licence, a lease or an authorisation in respect of the relevant offshore space to be licensed by the Secretary of State must be granted by the Crown Estate, because it has ownership rights within 12 nautical miles of the territorial sea and relevant rights—possibly up to 200 nautical miles—will also be vested in the Crown under clause 1. The Crown Estate will grant leases or authorisations on commercial terms to operators for the storage of carbon dioxide within those areas. Such leases or authorisations will prescribe the geographical space in which the CO2 can be stored, as well as specifying the period during which the site can be utilised.
The clause will ensure that the areas covered by the licence and the Crown lease can be easily co-ordinated. In the absence of such co-ordination, there would be a risk, for example, that the licence would continue to apply when the lease had expired. In such circumstances, the operator would have to discontinue its activities, as it would be on the Crown Estate’s land without the necessary authorisation from the Crown Estate.