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Energy: Renewables (EUC Report)

My Lords, first, let me apologise to your Lordships, to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, and to the Minister for my discourtesy in not being present at the beginning of the debate. I was unavoidably detained elsewhere, to which place I have to return. I crave your Lordships’ indulgence to address the House now. Secondly, I have the pleasure to declare my normal interest for Wales—the geographical place rather than the mammals. The noble Lord, Lord James, might make one think that our committee is always conducted in a jocular way, but it was refreshing to hear him recount some of his serious experiences at his recent meeting in Budapest. In a recent newspaper article, Wulf Bernotat, chief executive of the world’s largest quoted energy company, E.ON, asked of the United Kingdom: "““You have old nuclear power plants, old coal, expensive gas, a need to invest in renewables to reach unrealistic targets, and a slow [planning] process. Doesn’t that sound like a problem to you?””." As we are all aware, the European Commission’s target ““20 20 by 2020”” requires the UK to achieve 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. As we also know, this figure comprises energy used for heating, cooling, electricity generation and transport. The European Union sub-committee of your Lordships’ House published a report on this target on 24 October. Our report concluded that the UK’s 15 per cent target should be regarded as a stepping stone, not as an end in itself. In fact, it is probable that it will not be achieved. In these uncertain financial times, can we view this as phase one of a process towards building a low-carbon economy in the UK? To do so, we shall need the will of our political leaders to look beyond 2020 to ensure that those people and organisations that commit investment and resources for sustainable and cleaner energy projects are not only encouraged to begin that process immediately but also assured of a stable and predictable planning environment in which to carry it out in the short, medium and long terms. Without such certainty, large national and regional projects, such as the Severn barrage and other methodologies to harness tidal power around our long coastline, will not even be worth consideration by those organisations capable of investing in and developing them. Focus and leadership will be needed to take us into a diverse energy programme not only to meet the United Kingdom’s renewables targets but, perhaps even more important, to increase substantially the security of our national supply. We must change our ways of doing business. We must change our ways of living. A mega-project can of course also help to regenerate regional economies. To take south Wales and the south-west of England as an example, recent university research indicates that both areas are at an economic tipping point. Investment to develop the massive tidal resources of the Severn estuary can be raised. This, in turn, would provide us with the basis for a low-carbon economy and a better quality of life for a substantial part of the UK. In addition to the national importance of a proposed barrage, by far the UK’s largest single source of renewable energy thus far identified, may we be assured that the Government are taking full account of the national employment opportunity that will accrue from the scale of the construction and machinery production required, as well as the enormous continuing and diverse scope for employment generation to follow? We have started the renewable energy process with wind power. We must accelerate diversification. We need to work rapidly to bring other options into the policy and planning process for the long term, both large-scale and small-scale, through new build and by improving the efficiency of what we already have. To return to the barrage for a moment, the project, which extends from the Welsh coast to Hinkley Point, not only could substantially simplify the task of providing cooling water for the next generation of nuclear stations proposed for that location, but would focus the task in establishing connections to the national electrical transmission system and protect both Somerset and south-east Wales from inundation due to a rising mean sea level. We have no time to waste. I return without apology to the Severn barrage as an illustration of the indecision that is regrettably so often a feature of our processes to address such substantial investments of this kind. The idea for such an investment was first mooted early in the last century, as I have mentioned on previous occasions in your Lordships’ House. Of course, we have to consider carefully the impacts of such a huge project, both positive and negative, on the physical environment. The feasibility study currently in progress is scheduled to have its interim findings published in the first half of 2010, but we cannot afford to continue our habit of assessing large projects at such a relaxed pace any longer. The world of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren is taking shape here today. We all have something to contribute—the corporate giant, research laboratories, planning offices, schools, Ofgem and the consumer. The Government’s job is not only to raise awareness of the arguments but to lead and facilitate the way forward; they must show us that we can all contribute and simplify the methods by which we do so.