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Energy: National Policy Statements

My Lords, I have been here long enough—not here in this House, but in this life—to remember the winters of 1947, 1963 and so on. We all have that experience. Exceptional winters have always arisen, and we should not believe that they are the norm. The question is that if the process that is universally, although not entirely, accepted by science is taking place, and if the environment is going to change and destroy these places, is it right to use that as an argument for possibly deferring or displacing a decision to put in another carbon-free power station? That is relevant to estuarial barrages, a subject that is dealt with peculiarly in EN-1 itself. It is particularly relevant to the Severn estuary. Paragraph 3.4.3 on page 23 of the report is a rather odd paragraph that deals with various forms of sustainable energy. Towards the end of the paragraph under "Wave and tidal" it says: ""Para 1.3.5 explains how this NPS relates to wave and tidal generation"." Paragraph 1.3.5 states: ""The generation of electricity from renewable sources other than wind, biomass or waste is not within the scope of this NPS"." So the question is: where is the NPS for those systems that include not just tidal but tidal stream, which might produce a great deal of energy, particularly in somewhere like the Pentland Firth? This goes back to my original statement. We know that these policy statements will require immediate supplementation or immediate revision. The Act provides for that. We need to be aware that that is on the cards. I apologise to the Committee for mislaying my notes. I shall stop now as I am wasting time. The real problem is that we are rushed and the Government have not given sufficient time to deal with these issues. With 6 May looming, we have a very difficult situation. It is possible that a successor Government will have to deal with this issue, if it is not dealt with before the election. Personally, I would prefer to see it dealt with so that any successor Government would know what they had to get on with. If an incoming Government have to deal with this issue, it will be extremely difficult for them to know what to do. We are where we are and my back is against the wall, as is the Minister’s. I hope that we can finish with the Minister saying that we will get some real decisions on this within the timescale that exists, not the timescale that we wish for.