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Energy Bill [HL]

I was not going to speak on this amendment, but I have to say that there is a lot of water up in the North Sea and I am not sure why the two cannot coexist. You cannot move the oil and gas fields, but a lot of windmills can be moved because there is rather a lot of wind up there, which tends to be spread over a bigger area. I think that it is incumbent on the mover of this amendment to be more explicit about in which areas he would envisage a degree of overlap or competition. At the moment, he is seeking to legislate by assertion, not by evidence, and seeking to tell us that there could be some need for reassuring of investors. Frankly, there are lots of other reasons why investors are a bit leery of offshore wind farms. The technology, the durability of the metals and the exposure to all kinds of elements mean that the North Sea is more inhospitable than a lot of areas where offshore wind developments have taken place so far. However, perhaps the noble Lord can tell us where there is likely to be an overlap; that is, where there is a clear need for wind power in addition to reservoirs of oil and gas. I have to come back to the point that not all the output of the North Sea is used for energy-generating purposes. A lot is used for the high-tech existing industries. We are in the process of losing Pfizer, but the petrochemical complexes across the United Kingdom are sources of high-tech, well paid employment for large numbers of people. These jobs exist and they will carry on as long as oil and gas is coming through to be reprocessed. National security and various economic objectives would stand up just as robustly and strongly as anything in relation to renewable targets, from which I do not demur. I have yet to see where we would find that there would be a conflict on such a scale as to require amendments of this kind. If there is a case, it has not been made. If there is not a case, I think that it is part of the anti-oil and gas mentality of certain sections of what chooses to call itself the green and renewable movements in this country. Therefore, it has to be balanced out. I do not think that the case has been made adequately for such an amendment.