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Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is convenient now to speak to Amendments 73 to 95, 98 to 103 and 105 to 135 together. First, on the upstream petroleum infrastructure, Amendments 77 to 87 have been made in the other place to correct some unintended consequences of the drafting of these clauses. Your Lordships may recall that Calor Gas was concerned that an LPG project in which it is investing might unintentionally be caught. We have resolved this problem. We have also separated the upstream and downstream regimes for third party access so as to enable the new upstream regime set out in the Bill to be considered by Parliament in parallel with a separate legislative exercise that affects the downstream sector only, and which is required as part of the implementation of the EU gas directive. The clause covering nuclear-funded decommissioning programmes was removed by the Government in Committee in the other place, Amendment 102; and was reinstated in an improved form on Report, Amendment 93. The amendment places a requirement on the Secretary of State that he cannot enter into an agreement under the clause unless he is satisfied that the agreement includes adequate provision for the modification of the funded decommissioning programme in the event that it ceases to make prudent provision. Two new provisions—Amendments 94 and 95—were also introduced to facilitate the reuse of existing capital assets for CCS where they are suitable. The first of these amends the decommissioning arrangements for offshore energy structures to remove the possibility that the previous owners and operators of those facilities for petroleum production could be made liable for their decommissioning once they have been used for carbon capture and storage demonstration. The second enables the owner of an existing pipeline to compulsorily acquire rights from affected landowners to transport carbon dioxide through the pipeline rather than the substance which he already has rights to use the pipeline for. On the small provision on the regulation of security at civil nuclear construction sites—Amendment 92—there are potential security risks from early on in the construction of new nuclear sites. The Secretary of State currently has no powers to make regulations to require owners of new civil nuclear sites to put security measures in place while sites are under construction. This amendment will permit him to do so. Amendments 100, 101 and 133 extend the renewable heat incentive legislation to cover Northern Ireland, enabling it to make its own regulations to incentivise renewable heat. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, raised an important issue in this House, and I am pleased that we have been able to fulfil his request, that Amendment 99 was passed in the other place unambiguously to allow national park authorities and the Broads Authority to generate and sell renewable electricity, which I hope noble Lords will agree is an exciting and positive change. The remaining amendments in this group: Amendments 73 to 76, 88 to 91, 98, 102, 103, 105 to 132 and 134 to 135 in this group are minor and technical and I do not wish to take up the House’s time with these, so I shall simply go on to say that I hope noble Lords will be content to accept these amendments as passed in another place. I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 73 to 95.