Energy Bill [HL]

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:30 pm on 20 April 2004.

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Photo of Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil Conservative 5:30, 20 April 2004

My Lords, I tabled the amendment partly as a hopeful nudge in moving the Government in a sensible direction and partly as a continuing protest against their lack of an energy policy, which is characterised by their White Paper and by this Bill. It is a feature of that policy that hopes are taken as facts and aspirations as achievements. As even Ministers should appreciate, there is a difference between the two. The Government have ill-founded confidence in what they have said. That confidence tends to blot out any apprehension that they may have got things wrong.

With North Sea oil diminishing, the Government are apparently content on dependence for three-quarters of the raw material needed for a generation from overseas sources a long way away through a pipeline that has not been built. It seems that scant attention has been paid to the inconvenience—I put it no higher than that—of being at the end of a line. This country's needs will necessarily come last, not only in the minds of producers but in the minds of all the consumers on the way.

The Government seem to have made the almost endemic error of disregarding the possibility—perhaps I should have said "probability"—of the cost being seriously underestimated. I think that they have also disregarded the possible, or certain, interruptions that will result from disputes, accidents and terrorist activities. I find it very odd that the Government are consumed with the notion of terror and the activities of terrorists in many contexts but not at all in this one.

The second limb of the Government's energy policy is their entertainment of high hopes in relation to renewables. They seem altogether to have overlooked the fact that wind is rather an irregular affair and that it will not be amenable to control by them. They seem to be blissfully confident that, because they come from natural sources, renewables will not cost too much. However, I believe I am right in saying that recent studies suggest that they have that wrong and that, in fact, it may be a very expensive business to bring electric power from the windmills which they are to erect. I believe that the Government have also neglected to recognise the increasing hostility to their proposals. People in the countryside, in particular, will come to dislike the prospect of their whole environment being populated by these awful windmills.

I do not propose to elaborate at length on all the arguments which were repeated endlessly by very skilled people during the Committee stage of the Bill. Personally, I am very sorry—I never lose an opportunity to say this—that the Committee stage was banished to the appalling, toothless procedure in the Moses Room with no Divisions and no teeth at all but just an endless mass of talk with those involved getting nowhere.

In the circumstances, I think it is amazing that we should be going in a reverse direction to that followed by almost every other country. In my view, in turning away from nuclear, which has provided a reliable base load over many years and creates no emissions, the Government are making a cardinal error. It has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, today and by many others throughout these debates that there are no emissions from nuclear power stations and therefore they lend a degree of much-needed credibility to the Government's Kyoto commitments.

Perhaps the Government will cast their minds back to 1973 when the French realised that it was dangerous to rely to any very large extent on imported supplies. Rather than continue a dependence on Middle East oil, the French showed themselves to be decisive and determined. They then went nuclear in a big way. People talk about the long time taken to move into nuclear, but I think that the example of the French is forgotten. With a real will, in 12 years the French achieved 61 per cent nuclear generation, and that proportion has now risen to three-quarters.

I appreciate that the Minister must be extremely pleased that this is the last chapter of debates, which have gone on almost endlessly. He must be bored to tears with repetition and he must feel like giving me a fairly chilly welcome today when I verge on repetition myself. I do not intend to go on for long but, having paid the noble Lord's patience—and, if I may say so, his good manners—a tribute, I want to say that his speech at Second Reading disappointed me profoundly. It had all the sound and atmosphere of a funeral oration, saying goodbye to our nuclear capacity.

Of course, I accept that from time to time the Government come out with the glib saying that they are "keeping the nuclear option open", but I think that they use that as a means of protecting themselves against a charge of blind and pig-headed complacency. I hope that the Minister will correct me if I am in any way wrong here, but—this is very sad—the Government seem to be totally silent on what they are doing to keep the nuclear option open. I should be very interested to know what thoughts they have on modern types of reactor. I should like to know what time or money they are spending on research into waste handling, which they rightly regard as a very serious problem. A third question is: to what extent are they concerned with the almost certain loss, if we continue in this way, of very valuable skills?

At this stage, I cannot resist the temptation to quote the noble Lord's words, which, by now, I think have become quite familiar. He said:

"One reason why the Government are not disposed to maintain a significant nuclear component over the long term is precisely because we have not worked out how to deal with long-term waste and do not have public confidence in our ability to do so".—[Official Report, 15/1/04; col. GC 164.]

I hope that the noble Lord will at least be moved to produce some kind of palliative comment to remove the rather depressing impression that those words gave, honest as they were.

In my view, it is no answer to say that an amendment such as this will not fit into the Bill. I have no particular regard for the Bill and, if the amendment made a bit of a mess of it, that would not bother me overmuch; nor would I be bothered too much by the argument that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority should not be given a duty which would involve it in making a mess when its primary duty will be clearing up a mess which has already been made. That is a two-edged argument. People who are familiar with the messes might be the best ones to limit the mess in the first place, as well as clearing it up afterwards. I just say that I am not particularly impressed by that argument.

I go back, not particularly interestingly, into my own past. A very long time ago I was a junior Minister in what was then called the Ministry of Power. I regret that there is now no single department responsible for the very important matter of energy. I was rather confused that it should be shared between the two departments of the DTI and Defra. What bothers me is that this crucial subject is being lost sight of and is in danger of almost being forgotten in what I would describe as the "visionless sprawl of the Department of Trade and Industry". I have begun to suspect that the right honourable lady who presides over that ghastly heap has bidden her myrmidons under no circumstances to mention the word "nuclear" in her hearing—at least until after the general election, when it is possible that the facts may render the subject decent enough to be mentioned.

I end simply by saying that I recognise that for the Government to say now that they will take a serious look at nuclear would involve another U-turn. However, such a U-turn would be most particularly welcomed and they would be congratulated—I would certainly be the first to do so—on their enlightenment. However, I suspect that that is too much to hope for.

I make it quite clear that if by any chance I were to be successful in nudging the Government towards accepting the need for nuclear—and saying so now—I should be very pleased that I had made some progress with the amendment. But, if they do not, I shall wish to divide the House, even at the risk of defacing the beauty of the Bill. I beg to move.