My Lords, we have had an interesting, brief debate which actually had a few twists and turns. The Minister asked me whether I was satisfied with his response and I regret to say that I am not satisfied at all, for reasons I will give in a moment. Before that, I will deal with the interventions from the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I was not sure whether he was for or against this Amendment, but I regret that he fatally undermined the Lithium-ion Battery Safety Bill, brought forward by his noble friend Lord Redesdale, which now must be pointless from the Liberal Democrats’ point of view. I would have thought he would have been standing full square behind my amendment, which highlights the dangers of lithium.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, quantified the value of battery storage in terms of amp hourage and capacity. However, the value of battery storage is not necessarily purely in the storage capacity; it is in the smoothing of voltages at an aggregate level, across a whole grid, and maintaining the hertz. It is a difference of only 0.2 hertz in the Iberian catastrophe that caused the contagious knock-on effect that brought down the entire grid in Iberia, in Spain and Portugal. So we must not look at battery storage in terms not only of current but of stability.

The noble Lord, Lord Roborough, was very good in talking about what happens about all the batteries in the world. Of course, my concern is whether we have all the water in the world to put out these fires if they start—of course, I accept the pump storage sits aside from this, in the Dinorwigs and other things.

This is a probing amendment, but I am not satisfied at all with the Minister’s response. He might want to dwell on the fact that the HSE has this desktop analysis; in advance of an application at the formative stages, it might do a desktop study. But it does not have the practical task of putting out these conflagrations when they catch fire. With huge amounts of stored electricity, fires are common, and when they happen, they are catastrophic. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred to the ship that sank off Holland; over 3,000 cars went down with it. It burned for days and the hull glowed white-hot—and that was at sea.

Once this thing gets going, it is really important to sort it out. I do not accept for a moment that the HSE is the competent authority to put out these fires. The Minister referred to applying additional burdens on fire authorities if we go through this process. It is the fire authorities in Norfolk and Essex that have asked me to raise this issue, because there is no statutory duty for the promoters to consult them. They are concerned about it; they have public, fire and environmental safety at the forefront of their minds. The law does not permit them to execute what they consider to be their statutory duties.

I reassure the Minister that I will withdraw this amendment because we are in Committee, but the more this debate has gone on, the more I feel that a meeting to progress this is important. At a later stage, who knows, we may wish to test the view of the House. I hope we can meet later on this matter. In the meantime, I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 82A withdrawn.

Clause 25 agreed.

Amendment 82B not moved.

Clause 26: Benefits for homes near electricity transmission projects