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Energy Bill

My Lords, in taking part in this debate, I declare my relevant energy interests as stated in the Register of Lords’ Interests and as recorded by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. The greatest security challenge for the 21st century will be the competition for natural resources, primarily water, food and energy. Global warming, population growth and increased competition for resources from elephant emerging economies make that inevitable. From Sakhalin Island to Ashgabat, from Baku to Caracas, from the Arctic north to the southern tip of Africa, we are witnessing a new global great game for influence and resources. There is nothing new about resource nationalism and the desire of producing nations to keep control of the lion’s share of the profits from their oil, gas and other natural commodities. We have been here before as recently as the oil spike of the 1970s. As the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, pointed out, with or will reaching a record $129 a barrel and with future prices touching $140 a barrel at least until 2016, the era of cheap energy seems well and truly over for the foreseeable future, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Birt. There is, however, no real evidence that we have reached peak oil, but the global level of competition for dwindling resources and ever more investment-intensive extractive processes in often-hostile political and geological territory is increasing. The issues that we are debating today in your Lordships’ House echo across Europe and beyond. Central to this discussion is balancing our long-term energy needs with our long-term environmental responsibilities. This debate has a particular resonance in the UK. It is relatively uncontroversial to say that the UK’s energy profile is going through a transition. I was fortunate and privileged to serve as the Energy Minister in the old Department of Trade and Industry—the DTI, since renamed BERR, or the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Replication.