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Draft National Policy Statement for Fossil Fuel Electricity Generating Infrastructure (EN-2)

My Lords, I have the privilege of being the last Back-Bench speaker in what effectively has been a four-day marathon. I say in all sincerity that the Hansard records of these Committee debates and one general debate are going to be reference documents—I was going to say reference books—for a lot of people for a long time. I hope that I do not now make a mess of it so that they do not get to the end and say, "Oh God, he’s awful". I start with the documents themselves. I find it rather funny-peculiar that we have managed not to put anything in our sustainable energy document about either estuarial barrages, tidal or tidal stream. I know that the Minister has explained that, but if we can deal with all the complexities of offshore wind and bringing it ashore, and if we can deal with a host of nuclear power stations along the coast where one might hope that the bulk of the materials used in their construction, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, will be carried to them by water, largely meaning by the sea—it is not that difficult to construct a reasonably long jetty even if you have quite an area of marshes out front; certainly most of Bradwell’s materials arrived by sea when that was constructed—then I do not see what was so difficult about dealing with either the question of an estuarial barrage or indeed tidal stream. I suspect that the real reason for their omission is what I call the "backs to the wall" effect that we have all felt. The Minister’s back is to the wall on this because we have time pressure; my back is to the wall because I feel that time pressure too. We have just got to the end of the drafting time and the thinking time.