---

Energy: National Policy Statements

Yes, there were two speakers in the gap, but the noble Lord, Lord Broers, spoke as well. I did not include him as somebody who spoke in the gap. Hansard will get it right for both of us, with luck. To finish up, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for the Liberal Democrats said that he did not believe in the IPC anyway. So it has been rather an exciting afternoon, I think. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope that I can summarise the Conservative reaction to this policy statement, while the Minister tries to answer the many questions that he has already been given. This national policy statement has been a long time coming, we think. The high-level principles laid out in the overarching statement have been debated at length in this House and another place for several years now. Many of these policies were ones that the Conservatives had to fight very hard to have accepted by the Government. The commitment to roll out smart meters to every home by the end of 2020 is one example of where it took several months of concerted opposition to bring the Government around to a proper appreciation of the policy’s importance. Of course, reducing demand for energy is not a magic bullet that will solve the shortfall in capacity that we are facing, but it will help. The benefits to consumers, many of whom have struggled with high energy bills during this winter, are very real indeed. Smart meters, better information about energy efficient appliances, and an appropriate feed-in tariff for micro-generation are all necessary parts of a sustainable energy policy. I am also very happy to see a commitment to carbon capture and storage included. The Government's flip-flops on this technology have led to opportunities being wasted and at least one promising private venture has failed during that time. I hope that the four demonstration projects that this draft statement speaks of will be given the consistent support from the Government that was so lacking in past years. We welcome many other parts of this statement: the consideration of CHP, the explicit acknowledgement of the role of nuclear power, and the need for better gas storage facilities will all be important parts of establishing a secure, diverse and green future. There are also important gaps, which some noble Lords touched on. I look forward to the later two days of debate, when we will be able to explore in more detail exactly what is and is not included. Today however, I shall concentrate on the development of these draft statements and the Government's plan for their implementation. Getting to even this early stage has been a long and sometimes tortuous process, and we are not yet at the end of the tunnel. It has been over a year since the legislative framework for establishing the IPC was passed. Even when it is finally up and running—in March I believe—it will not have an approved national policy statement for energy upon which to base its decisions. The consultation on these draft statements has only just been completed, and there will not be a chance to debate them in another place until the next Parliament. When does the Minister expect the consultation and parliamentary requirements to be completed by? Labour's planning process is not only slow but also remarkably lacking in transparency. The high number of responses to the consultation that has just closed shows how much interest there is in these sorts of matters. Some 20,000 people, as the Minister told us in the document that he sent around, visited the consultation website; that is an extraordinarily high number, and I am very pleased to see this level of public engagement. Of course, I would be even more pleased if I felt that this public interest was able to properly influence planning decisions to the level it should. The system that Labour has implemented is still, in almost every sense, a top-down imposition. Conservatives would prefer to see far more engagement by the public in local planning decisions. Even at national level, there is scope for a great deal more public engagement and democratic accountability. In particular, decisions on nationally significant infrastructure should not be taken by a quango. Issues such as building a new nuclear power station at Dungeness or the placement of large-scale wind farms will always be controversial. Any decision will be unavoidably unpopular with some people and the Government should not be seeking to avoid any responsibility for those decisions by hiding behind the IPC. Not only will this strategy not succeed in deflecting criticism away from the Government of the day, it will open such decisions up to judicial challenge and will make the process even murkier. If the Conservatives win the election, we will address this democratic deficit by retaining the IPC’s fast-track process and its expertise. But we will return responsibility for national policy decision-making to where it belongs—to the Secretary of State. We would also improve accountability by submitting a national planning framework to Parliament for approval. It will set out our priorities and establish a simple and consolidated framework for local planning authorities to follow. As it stands, the Government have successfully avoided any tough decisions on energy for several years. As a result, we have wasted many years when we should have been encouraging the necessary investment into the energy generation and infrastructure that we so desperately need to keep the lights on over the next few decades. These draft statements are welcome as far as they go. But they are a very small step forward when we need to make giant strides to overcome the decade of delay.