Clause 44
Energy Bill
4:00 pm
Charles Hendry (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Wealden, Conservative)
Welcome to the Chair, Mrs. Humble, for this afternoon’s proceedings.
My concerns about clause 44 and subsequent clauses centre on the extensive power that they will give to the Secretary of State, and I hope that the Minister will shortly be in a position to give us greater clarity on the proposals.
Our principal concern is that companies that will be asked, or will volunteer, to build nuclear power stations will want as much clarity as possible. The clauses give the Secretary of State tremendous powers to alter what is required of those companies. Will the Minister give us information on the possible time scales? Do the clauses relate to programmes before decommissioning starts, or will the power relate to changing the decommissioning programme once it is in place? There could be a major difference in how it is applied.
What if significant extra costs are involved which the decommissioning fund is not initially set up to cover and the programme becomes very expensive? That comes back to the Liberal Democrat amendment proposed this morning. How will those extra costs be factored in when the Secretary of State requires those companies to be involved in the fund? How much notice will the Secretary of State have to give of the changes that are being proposed? If the notice is given while the decommissioning is under way, is there provision whereby he can say, “This must start tomorrow or next week”, or will he expect those arrangements to allow for many years of planning before they come into force?