Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on the electricity market of system operators and network owners owning and operating electricity storage.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to set a deadline for distribution network operators to transition to distribution system operators.
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, capacity markets and contracts for difference have been a roaring success and came in during the coalition years when Ed Davey was Secretary of State—we would expect no less. The regulations will pass today, but it is absolutely right to question any rise in cost, particularly when a small proportion of it is passed on to the consumer. It is always important to keep an eye on...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 7. I also support Amendment 9, which will be covered by my noble friend Lord Fox. I totally welcome government Amendment 6, which brings in the reporting system, and hope that the Minister will take Amendment 7 as really as sort of an aide memoire, as if it was something he clearly forgot to put it into Amendment 6. So many areas remain of...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, this has been a good debate and a master class in damning the Government with faint praise. In the future our energy supply, transmission and storage—everything—will change. The future will be different from the past. The big six will no longer be the big six but, we hope, just six among the many. There will be on-grid and off-grid, feed-in and feed-out. The customer will be at...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 108, to which I added my name. We have become used to relying on the EU to oversee our compliance with directives—including those highlighted in Amendment 108—and that what we commit to is delivered. We are tested and, if we are found wanting, there are consequences. However, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee said in its 19th report:...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I support Amendment 58 in the name of noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I was greatly relieved by the noble and learned Lord’s rebuttal because my interpretation of what we are doing is that we will not have the protection of the recitals and the preambles. Our problem is that any law leaves room for interpretation. EU law in particular is often a reflection of the manner of its birth: it...
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have made any estimates of the potential cost savings that could be made by securing a greater supply of large scale, long duration electricity storage.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment, if any, they have made of the potential benefits of implementing a regulatory definition of electricity storage based upon the definition currently used for interconnector capacity.
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty's Government how many gigawatts of large scale long duration electricity storage, of over four hours, was on the National Grid last year; and what assessment they have made of the total requirement for this year.
Baroness Featherstone: I support Amendment 11. Part of Amendment 7 said something similar. It is very important that we are satisfied on this point so that we know for sure that there can be no interference and no misdoings—if that is the right word.
Baroness Featherstone: Having listened to the debate across the House, I think it appropriate that I ponder what the Minister has said. For the moment, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 7 withdrawn.
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, there is ongoing concern over nuclear safeguard regulations—more accurately, both Houses are generally concerned at the deluge of regulations resulting from the Brexit legislation—and there has rightly been a great deal of criticism. This amendment seeks to put further protection around the regulations to give assurance. That assurance needs to take two forms. First, in advance...
Baroness Featherstone: I rise from these Benches to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester. Given the amount of discussion across the Committee about uncertainty and concern, this well-worded amendment gives the opportunity to reassure the Committee on standards and nuclear safeguards. I hope the Minister will feel able either to use these words or to simply accept this as a drafting amendment...
Baroness Featherstone: I thank the Minister. I listened carefully to his arguments in response to the amendments. I think that our work is not done; I did not hear a meeting of minds at this point. What I did hear was a universal view from across the Committee that surety and certainty are not there. We will probably want to come back on this on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment....
Baroness Featherstone: I thank the noble Viscount for giving way. Is he aware that the Government’s declared intention is to reach the Euratom standard, regardless of this debate?
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister, in listening to the Second Reading debate in this House, could not have failed to get the message that leaving Euratom, necessitating the re-creation of its safeguarding capabilities and duties in another body set up to mimic it exactly, is an absurdity and a folly. If he were in any doubt, around 11 pm last night a number of noble Lords—among them, my...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, somewhat more interesting than I expected given the spat with the Minister. I think that arose because the Government have focused this Bill too narrowly, and arguments have been advanced as a consequence of that. It was impossible to listen to this debate and that in the other place and not recognise the scale of the folly that leaving the...
Baroness Featherstone: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the powerful contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, every word of which I agree with. I fear that my contribution will be more like “Just a Minute”—there is no hesitation but definitely quite a lot of repetition and a certain amount of deviation. I would like to believe the Government when they say that everything will be all right, everything...
Baroness Featherstone: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the ability of companies to apply with consistency the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
