Scandal one is that a relatively high number of deficient cavity wall insulation arrangements came to light in a particular part of the country. Scandal two is that a parasitic law firm decided to make a good living by zealously pursuing people it thought might conceivably have a claim for failed cavity wall insulation, and tried to push those people down a path to restitution in a wholly cynical and unacceptable manner. I am pleased to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax that the Solicitors Regulation Authority is investigating that company, SSB Law, but that does not address the fact that other firms also pursued that practice. Ironically, SSB Law took over a number of claims from a company that had pursued this model and gone bust in the process. One might say, therefore, that it is a scandal, upon a scandal, upon a scandal.
The way this worked is set out in a letter from CIGA to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax, which describes how the model operated.
“Claims lead generator often unqualified promises large payouts if homeowner signs up to pursue a claim for failed cavity wall insulation.
Details passed to a RICS surveyor who does not visit the property but prepares a claim schedule based on detail provided by the lead generator.
Claim is handed to a claims solicitor”.
SSB Law, as mentioned, was a claims solicitor that took on a number of these cases, including those of another company operating this model, Pure Legal, having apparently been offered the opportunity to do so by the Solicitors Regulation Authority itself.
The claims solicitor then sends a letter to the installer and
“informs them to put their insurer on notice and that the claim will be in the order of 60k for damages caused by poorly installed insulation—schedule of costs does not reflect the property and damage is often not evident.
Homeowners are actively discouraged from notifying the guarantee provider”
—in this instance, CIGA—
“and instead promised a large pay out.
Just before the claim goes to court, the Claims solicitor drops the compensation amount to just over 10k (They do this to encourage the installer or insurer to pay out and also so that they can still claim costs through the fast track legal route). Costs are typically around 70k at this point”.
That is the model, and it is a scandalous model. No one should be allowed to operate that kind of arrangement in this country, in this age. Solicitors’ companies are supposed to be protecting the interests of their clients and not just trying to make a living parasiting on the distress of homeowners dealing with cavity wall insulation problems. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has a substantial job to do in not just investigating this particular company, but hopefully broadening this out to investigate how solicitors are able to get away with this kind of arrangement, in this kind of way. As we have heard this afternoon, when that arrangement does not work out very well, they go bust and leave all those householders facing those huge bills.
Are the Government able to pursue any form of intervention to assist householders protecting themselves from the claims coming back against them? In a number of instances, those claims are from the installers that have basically been attacked by these particular law firms. The installers have defended themselves, but then the law firms went bust. They have put in a lot of money, and naturally they want some of it back. It is an almighty mess as to who is really responsible for all this, although we know that overwhelmingly the responsibility lies with the dodgy law firms that have pursued this kind of practice and given false guarantees and false promises to householders. Perhaps the Ministry of Justice could look at what sort of practices make this sort of arrangement possible.
We all want to see confidence in cavity wall insulation for future programmes, although we differ among ourselves on the extent of those programmes. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton suggested that it was the Liberal Democrats, in alliance with the Government, that really pursued cavity wall insulation. That was true, but it was based on the programmes of the previous Labour Government, under the cert and assess programmes that carried on until about 2012 and 2013. That produced an enormous number of generally very good cavity wall insulation programmes, but it has crashed since that date. Certainly, the Opposition hope to revive those publicly funded and sorted-out retrofit measures under a future Labour Government.
I think there is agreement on all sides that we want the general public to see that cavity wall insulation is a good thing for their homes and for them, and indeed will be a good service for the nation in making our homes warmer and more liveable. It is important that everybody has confidence that that system is going to work as well as it should and, if it does not work as well as it should, that there is proper redress. I ask the Minister to pursue seriously whatever can be done to seek additional redress for the householders who find themselves in this difficult situation. I also ask the Minister —perhaps working in conjunction with the existing guarantee agencies—to ensure that, for the future, the public have the best level of protection they can get when cavity wall insulation goes wrong: a guarantee that, under most circumstances, people undertaking cavity wall insulation can rest easy that their cavity wall insulation should work rightly for them, but that they need not worry if it does not because help will be at hand to put it right.
]]>The Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency came into being in 1995. As hon. Members have mentioned, it provides guarantees for cavity wall insulation. There have been 6 million since it was set up, over a 25-year period. The agency has a good record of ensuring that redress is carried out speedily and properly, where problems have arisen.
Unfortunately, not everybody knows about the agency or has had their wall insulations guaranteed through CIGA. Indeed, they might have had cavity wall insulation installed before guarantees came into place. The picture today is quite good regarding guarantees, but that does not remotely address the problem before us this afternoon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax said, this is essentially a scandal on a scandal. It is the problem of cavity wall insulation going wrong in a certain area. When it does go wrong, several cases often appear in certain areas because the installer—
]]>Cavity wall insulation has played, and will continue to play, a tremendous role in keeping people’s homes warm, reducing bills, fighting fuel poverty and uprating homes so that they are fit for a low-carbon future. Indeed, the vast majority of cavity wall insulations work perfectly well and do a good job for the homes where they are fitted. Of course, cavity wall insulations need to be done with the right materials, by the right people, in the right places and according to the right standards. I regret to say that there are circumstances—rather more in the early days than now—where those criteria were not adhered to, and problems arose with properties in which cavity wall insulation had been placed.
]]>However, that is not what the Secretary of State said yesterday at the Chatham House meeting. The Government’s own analysis published yesterday shows that 24 GW of existing gas capacity could be maintained via life extension and refurbishment, and 9 GW of new capacity is already in the baseline under existing capacity market arrangements. That is an uncontroversial position and analysis, and hardly something worth making a huge fuss about. But again, that was not what the Secretary of State talked about at yesterday’s Chatham House conference.
Given that analysis, could the Minister enlighten us with the number of new gas plants that the Government are hoping to build, given there is no mention of that in the 1,500 pages of documents that were published yesterday? That is an important point, because it appears to show the Government’s intention to go beyond what is already in the analysis and build a large number of new gas-fired power stations for the future.
There is a great deal in the review of electricity market arrangements published yesterday that is worth discussing, not least the Government’s glaring failure to bring forward low-carbon flexible technologies such as long-duration storage, which everyone knows we will need. It is a shame that the Minister has not properly addressed that. Will he give us clarity on whether this is a meaningless announcement within existing policy arrangements? Or, as has been said, is it an attempt to conjure a culture war out of climate and energy policy, with announcements with no substance or value that show that the Government have no serious plan for energy in our country?
]]>By the way, the White Paper under the previous Labour Government said in 2008 that the process should get under way rapidly, with community consent, and that a geological disposal facility should follow shortly after. Nothing has happened since then, but it is vital, as we contemplate the kind of programme that we are envisaging for nuclear and the decommissioning of all but one of our current nuclear fleet, that a storage facility gets under way. We need rather more in the road map than the sparse words right now, or we at least need a renewed specific pathway for a disposal facility to be published. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether he is positively inclined towards that idea and whether he appreciates the urgency of making progress on a secure geological disposal facility.
]]>I need to say at the outset, for the elimination of any doubt, that the Opposition consider that nuclear will play a significant role in our low-carbon economy for the future, and we therefore support its development over the future period. However, the very substantial questions that have been raised this afternoon are about what that development will consist of, how it will be organised, and what sites may or may not be available for its development, as well as a number of related issues.
It is good that we now have a nuclear road map, but I think it is fair to draw attention, as other hon. Members have done—the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee,
By the way, contrary to the suggestion that the previous Labour Government did nothing on nuclear, in 2009 there was a nuclear national policy statement that set out the sites that should be made available for new nuclear and started the process of discussing those sites with developers. The problem is that since then, yes, there was a revised EN-6 national policy statement, but not a single electron of nuclear power has appeared between 2009 and the present. We are talking about a target for the future in the context of serious delays as far as nuclear is concerned.
Yes, we must talk about that target and what the energy mix will consist of for the future, but we must also talk about whether those things will materialise in the way envisaged, and about how we can overcome the substantial delays that seem to be baked in to the process of nuclear development. It is not clear whether that target will largely be filled by gigawatt-sized plants or by small modular reactors and advanced modular reactors. It is not clear what consideration should or will be given to the mix of nuclear, as it will sit in what will be a very different power mix from hitherto. What planning will be undertaken to ensure that such a mix will be optimal, given the need to have power systems that can act compatibly with other forms of power?
The road map commits to at least one gigawatt power station in addition to those under way at the moment, but as we have heard this afternoon, substantial delays in existing large nuclear plants are the order of the day. Hinkley is now 10 years delayed, Sizewell C does not yet have financial closure, and it does not look as though there will be any power from that until the early 2030s. The good news is that Sizewell B is likely to have a 20-year extension on its life. It is currently due to close in 2035, so that will be effectively the equivalent of a new large power station generating in the late 2030s onwards.
So far the Government have put £2.5 billion into Sizewell C and not one stone has yet been laid on another. I imagine there would be a need in principle for similar sums to be laid before future gigawatt nuclear power plants, if that is what the Government envisage for their 24-gigawatt strategy in the main. It is not indicated on the road map whether the Government are able or prepared to do that. Indeed, the money that has already been put into Sizewell was not planned.
On the other hand, while we are having a competition to determine what support, if any, should be given to the winner of the competition for SMR developments, an agreement in principle has been reached to build four SMRs on Teesside at no cost to the public purse, by the American company Westinghouse Electric Company, and Community Nuclear Power. It at least appears—competition or no competition—that there may be circumstances in which, at no cost to the public purse, nuclear power in the shape of SMRs can come forward. That is another reason why the competition needs to go ahead as quickly as possible, to get what we are doing in the UK as up to speed as possible with what people are doing elsewhere in the world.
What the agreement that has been reached in Teesside currently lacks is a clear route forward about sites. That is a proper subject for another delayed action, which, as mentioned in the road map, is the updating of strategic planning statements concerning nuclear. The last such statement, a revised EN-6, was published and adopted in 2011, and it identified, as the 2009 document had done, a number of specific sites for gigawatt power stations. However, it runs only until 2025. Indeed, a number of those sites were initially earmarked for nuclear plants, but the consortia advancing them withdrew.
We are now in a different age. The priority now is surely to identify sites, or at least to put in place clear conditions under which SMRs in particular might go ahead. I see from the road map that an intention for the development of an updated EN-7 appears to be that it will establish clear criteria for such sites. That is of course delayed, as with so many things related to nuclear planning and action. It is not with us at the moment, but it should be. I hope the Minister will give us a firm indication of when it will be published and adopted by this House.
An area where we have had delays and prevarication in the past is nuclear fuels. I am pleased to see in the road map a firm commitment to support the development of new forms of nuclear fuel and support for the production of existing fuel, such as high-assay low-enriched uranium, which at present is available only from Russian sources. Securing those fuel developments for Springfields nuclear fuels and establishing the funding that will make it work is an important piece of work under way early in the path of the road map, and I see the Minister has already laid a revised designation for Springfields in respect of enabling new uranium conversion facilities to be developed. All of that is a good piece of work by the Minister, and he should be applauded for it.
On the subject of delays, one of the most egregious is the absence of any progress on the identification and establishment of a nuclear repository. In the words of the road map:
“A process is well underway to identify a suitable site in which to develop a GDF”—
a geological disposal facility—
“that has suitable geology and the support of a local community.”
Those words vary little in content from the original White Paper in 2008 that stated that such a process was to get under way.
]]>On climate change, on energy security, on jobs and on bills, this Bill has nothing to offer but false promises that frankly insult the public’s intelligence. To support this Bill, we would need to believe that we can double down on the causes of the cost of living crisis and still solve it; that we can somehow defy geology in the North sea and change the fundamental nature of international energy markets; and that we can ignore all the science and credible experts on climate change and still meet our commitments, including our commitment to transition away from fossil fuels made by the Minister at COP28 a few short months ago. It is clearly nonsense, but it is emblematic of a Government who have run out of ideas and run out of road—a Government who can see the many real challenges our country faces, but have no answer to them beyond confected political drama. In their misguided pursuit of a political dividing line, they have shrunk our country on the international stage, made us hypocrites in the eyes of the world and opened the door in this country to a new divisive politics on climate change that I sincerely believe the Ministers sitting opposite me today are not comfortable with, do not want as their legacy and will come to regret profoundly. This Bill will deliver nothing, but it threatens much. For that reason, I urge the House to vote against it.
]]>The argument that the marginal unit of gas must always be LNG is simply not correct, because the Bill makes no provision whatsoever for the shape of UK gas demand at the point at which the gas is extracted and used. It effectively assumes that our national demand for gas will remain unchanged in perpetuity. When we are in a crisis caused by our reliance on fossil fuels and committed to a net zero transition, that assumption is patently wrong.
]]>The Bill, as I have said, will achieve none of its stated aims, but it is far from consequence-free. The consequence is that it makes a mockery of our country’s commitments to take serious and responsible action on climate change. That is exactly the point the former right hon. Member for Kingswood, Chris Skidmore, made in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister. That point should not be a partisan point. Indeed, it has not been a partisan point, because a number of Members on all sides of the House, including a number of Conservative Members, can see the direction in which this short-sighted Prime Minister and Government are going, and want no part of it.
Some Members are trying to make changes to the Bill. As I have said, one has resigned, and a number are working hard to turn around the direction of this Government in resiling from our country’s climate change commitments—commitments they so recently signed up to, at the recent COP—on moving away from oil and gas. Regrettably, the Prime Minister and the Government, including this Minister, are not having any part of that. I am particularly disappointed that the Minister is not having any part of it, because of his long and honourable commitment to these matters on the international stage over such a long time.
“reinforce the unfortunate perception of the UK’s rowing back from climate action”.—[Official Report,
The reality is that the cost of living crisis we are in is to a large extent caused by our country’s deep exposure to the volatile international price of gas. The International Monetary Fund has said that this exposure meant the UK was harder hit by the crisis than any other western nation. Just today, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has found that this country has spent an additional—in addition to normal spending—£75 billion on gas since the energy crisis began. Four extra days of gas supply by 2050 cannot possibly make the slightest bit of difference to this price. As I have highlighted, the Secretary of State herself conceded that point on the very day the Bill was announced.
The supposed arguments on energy security and jobs are similarly flimsy. The reality is that, as we have begun to discuss this afternoon, the North sea is an extremely mature and declining basin. Gas production will fall by 95% by 2050, even with new licences. The notion that this is a firm basis on which to build our energy security or protect jobs is clearly absurd. As I have outlined, we need a fair and balanced transition for North sea oil and gas workers that recognises the essential role they will continue to play in operating existing fields, which no one disputes will remain a vital part of our energy mix, and puts them at the heart of our clean energy future.
To safeguard the jobs, skills and livelihoods of the communities that have been the backbone of our energy system for decades, we need a Government with a proper industrial strategy to maximise the low-carbon economic potential of the North sea. Labour will create a national wealth fund to invest in low-carbon industries, it will launch a British jobs bonus to ensure that the supply chain benefits of renewable investment finally come to our shores, and it will create a new publicly owned energy company, GB Energy, headquartered in Scotland, to invest in home-grown clean energy and give us real energy independence. That is the answer that the country needs and that the communities who have served as the backbone of our energy systems for decades need. Political theatre, whether in Westminster or Holyrood, helps no one and does a disservice to the people looking to us for answers to the very real challenges we all face.
The final argument that the Government have made in favour of the Bill is that it is somehow, as we have begun to unwrap, a climate-positive piece of legislation. This argument rests on a series of partial and deliberately gameable tests, as we discussed in Committee, with skewed conditions that look only at a narrow band of emissions, ignoring methane for example; that look only at production emissions, ignoring the impact of actually burning the fuels we are extracting; and that look only at liquefied natural gas, ignoring the fact that the majority of our imports are pipeline-delivered. It includes no test whatsoever for oil, which makes up the majority of remaining reserves. That is why I have sympathy for the civil servants who wrote the Bill, who had to squeeze various things into it such as ignoring gas that was coming into pipeline, only having tests against liquefied gas and ignoring the methane emissions in the various versions of the arrangements in place for measuring emissions from production. I was very disappointed that the Minister gave no reaction at all this afternoon to that particular point on methane.
]]>“if North Sea production is to cease”.
North sea production will not cease—
]]>We are looking at how to make sure that the North sea continues to produce well and efficiently the oil and gas we will need for the future in declining amounts, while at the same time transforming that economy to produce new forms of energy for the future and maintaining security of production. That will be the big task for the future Labour Government—I am pleased that