My Lords, I will not detain the Committee greatly with this Amendment. It seeks to ensure that, when electricity storage systems are planned, it is with the full knowledge and consent of the local fire authority, so that fire and public safety risks are understood and mitigations are put in. Surprisingly, there is no duty for promoters of these schemes to consult the local fire authority, so my amendment would correct that omission.

As the grid is reinforced, the ability to stabilise and isolate the electricity supply from surges and shocks is essential, and a number of short-term and long-term technologies exist to smooth the path of electricity from the generator to the consumer. The people of the Iberian peninsula will attest to the consequences of failing to have network stabilisation in place, especially when dashing for renewables. Some of these smoothing technologies contain highly flammable materials such as lithium. Hydrogen is another but, given the time constraints today, I will focus on the lithium side for the purposes of proving the point.

Not a day goes by without a fire being caused by a lithium battery. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, is promoting a Lithium-ion Battery Safety Bill; this does not seek to trespass on that, but it demonstrates that fires caused by batteries are a thing. The issue is clear: when a lithium battery, for example, catches fire, huge quantities of water are required to extinguish it. Your Lordships will recall the car-based conflagration at Luton Airport, where the multi-storey car park was totally consumed. Whether or not that fire was started by an electric vehicle, once it took hold the batteries in those cars quickly made the fire unfightable for longer—more so than had petrol or diesel alone been involved.

The dangers are further illustrated by the number of fires in bin lorries. Even a small computer battery can consume an entire refuse freighter. Airline passengers are now routinely warned about the dangers of phone batteries catching fire and imperilling the whole aircraft in an inextinguishable blaze. Imagine the scale of the flames if an entire grid-scale battery storage facility caught alight.

This issue needs to be taken seriously, and the Bill as drafted fails to do so. It just glosses over the consequences of failures in long-term and short-term energy storage, including large-scale battery systems—especially those storing huge electrical capacity and containing flammables. You do not need to be a bright spark to realise that an electrical spark can spell danger.

Many of the proposed LDES and BESS schemes are in the countryside, where the existence of fire hydrants is limited. Rivers and ponds may be far away across the fields or along narrow lanes. Water carriers may be miles away and, during a dry period, deep-seated and hard-to-fight fires can spawn secondary blazes that can run wild across a whole area. In towns, the proximity of businesses, schools, homes and buildings adds a further dimension of public safety to the mix. In both cases, consideration of the leakage of lithium, in particular to the underlying aquifer, from the firefighters’ runoff water is essential.

Of course, there are other risks: the availability of water carriers, of appliances and of specialist equipment in areas which may be staffed by part-time retained firefighters are just a few. This amendment would therefore enforce a duty for an applicant for an energy storage facility and the local fire authority to fully assess the risks, including fire and public safety, and to pay a reasonable fee to do so. If the Government resist this stipulation, we risk damage from uncontrollable fires to people, property, businesses and the environment at significant cost to the wider taxpayer and local government—costs which should be borne by the developer.

I have had representations from councils that the costs of providing water storage lagoons, additional appliances and staffing should be fully borne by the applicant, not the taxpayer. I have not gone that far with this amendment, but I wonder whether the Minister would meet me to explore this if other noble Lords feel that it is a good idea, in which case I would consider bolstering this proposal on Report. For the moment, if we just take the issue of fire safety for these high-value, high-consequence electricity storage systems, we would be doing not just this House but society a favour. I beg to move.