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Severn Barrage

My Lords, I am open to correction, but I have to say that I went down on a boat and I am fairly sure that it was with the Environment Agency, which was taking me to discuss that possibility. It may be that the tentacles of the organisation are not necessarily discussing everything that is going on with the head, but that is not at all unusual in a vast and widely spread operation. These discussions are going on and if we consider the east coast-west coast and the problem of tidal generation and time, and we then put a barrage across the Thames, we do a lot if we use the barrage for a power generation to smooth out the peaks and troughs in generating capacity. If we then put a barrage across the second big estuary up the east coast, which is the Humber estuary, we would have virtually continuous flow tidal generation capacity across the country. We would then be in the realms of 10 per cent of United Kingdom electricity use. Of course there are all these other systems: there is tidal stream, wave and so on and all of them will undoubtedly have a part to play, as will wind and solar polar. I particularly wanted to speak this afternoon because it is easy to look at a particular project and discuss it in a particular way, but the context in which we stand today is remarkable and unique and we cannot stand still. Somewhere along the way we are going to have to take decisions. If we are lucky most of those decisions will be right, but we need to recognise that we will be exceedingly fortunate if the word ““always”” applies.