Barry Gardiner
MP for Brent West · Labour · United Kingdom
“Sir Desmond, imagine that the top brains in the country’s security and intelligence community produced a report that told you how to save the world. You would want to see it, right? Well, the report we are discussing is not about how to save the world; it is about what happens if we do not.”
“The nuclear threat will rise as clashes between nuclear powers become more frequent. Those are the cold assessments of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Government were right to think that those assessments might scare people—they scare me—but they were wrong to think that they could hide them from the public.”
“The Minister will know that the grant structure on which UKRI is based gives out grants for a maximum of three to five years. Very few are for five years—most are for three years or under—yet the sort of long-term scientific development that my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is making a superb case for the importance of funding for her deep earth facility. I had the privilege of going to the National Oceanography Centre’s deep oceans facility, and the innovative science there on carbon sequestration is superb.”
“The Prime Minister has spoken powerfully about the devolution of power and giving back control. Will he therefore ensure that the proposals for commonhold and leasehold reform, for which 5 million leaseholders in this country are waiting with bated breath, do give that power and control back to those people, through the right to enfranchi…”
“We know how much land there is in the UK, and we know the extent of our inland waters and seas, so we can know how much we have to do to protect them, as we are required to do by target 3 of the global biodiversity framework.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,406 lines we hold for Barry Gardiner, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 69 of 109.
“London Assembly members on the fire authority were originally set to debate the proposals at a meeting on 22 November, but the Mayor has now said that the authority should defer this until after the local government finance settlement is known on 20 December. This means that the Mayor will avoid any scrutiny and, in effect, bury the announcement in the Christmas holiday season so that no proper public debate can take place until after the middle of January, with the final decision being taken in March. I trust that the Minister will regard this as reprehensible and make the necessary representations to the Mayor’s office to ensure that such a cynical move is not carried out. The Mayor has a public face of bonhomie and charm, but Londoners will not be fooled by such manipulation to stifle debate about their safety.”
“These are Barking, Battersea, Croydon, Dagenham, Dockhead, East Ham, Edmonton, Hammersmith, Harold Hill, Harrow, Heston, Holloway, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Leytonstone, Millwall, Mitcham, Old Kent Road, Orpington, Paddington, Plaidstow, Purley, Shadwell, Stratford, Walthamstow, Wembley and West Norwood. We also know that the 17 stations on their own could achieve only £30 million of savings and we can therefore deduce that on top of the 17 stations earmarked for closure, a further 68 out of the 113 stations in London have the threat of closure still hanging over them. This is unacceptable. I ask the Minister to recognise that such uncertainty is bad for these communities, and to urge the Mayor to announce his definitive plans as early as possible.”
“Well, we know that there is a leaked hit list of 17 fire stations that have been earmarked for closure. In alphabetical order they are Acton, Bow, Belsize, Clapham, Clerkenwell, Downham, Islington, Kensington, Kingsland, Knightsbridge, New Cross, Peckham, Silvertown, Southwark, Westminster, Whitechapel and Woolwich. If these stations go, 17 appliances go with them, along with 600 firefighters. After this hit list was leaked, the chairman of the London Fire Authority, James Cleverly, provided a further list of 28 fire stations that he said would definitely not be closed.”
“There is a view that to serve as an officer in the fire brigade, one has to be good at taking risks. Nothing could be further from the truth. To serve as an officer in the fire brigade, one has to be good at assessing risks. It is for this reason that, when I heard of the £65 million cut that the Mayor has proposed to the budget of the London Fire Brigade, I sought the views of those best able to assess the risks that such a cut might involve: the officers themselves. I want to begin by thanking the crew at the Wembley fire and rescue station for the time they spent with me and Labour Assembly Member for Brent and Harrow, Navin Shah, earlier this week outlining the very real concerns that they and their colleagues have about the impact that such cuts will have on the service they provide and on public safety. What do we know?”
“Will the Minister assure me that he will make representations to the Mayor that the computer modelling system that is being used should be independently audited? That would do a great deal to enhance public confidence in the proposals.”
“I desperately want to see a solution to the scourge of bovine TB. Sometimes we find it difficult to accept that we do not have a solution to a problem. Ultimately, I believe that oral vaccination of both cattle and badgers will bring us that solution, but any frustration at the lack of a current solution should not lead us to adopt a false solution. The proposed cull is a false solution, and I shall vote against it.”
“I welcome that commitment, and I trust that he will therefore recall that the independent scientific group pointed out that culling required “co-ordinated and sustained effort” and that what it called the “modest overall benefits” came only from a clinically executed trap-and-shoot exercise. Free shooting of badgers was no part of the scientific trials that form the only basis for a sound policy. Indeed, the Game Conservancy Trust stated: “A…problem with shooting at or near the sett”— that is, free shooting— “is that a wounded badger will almost certainly attempt to bolt underground, preventing a second shot (and preventing safe disposal of the carcass).” If the Secretary of State persists with the cull next year, I would urge him to use the next nine months to change the licence conditions and stop the free shooting of badgers.”
“Those controls should be supported by measures to improve biosecurity on farms, particularly around feeding and water troughs, which hon. Members from both sides of the House have mentioned. Let me be clear: I will vote against a cull, but I recognise that the Government may get their way. Therefore, when and if the Government go ahead with the cull next year—and in the following three years, because it will take place over a four-year period up to 2016—I would ask the Secretary of State to do one further thing in the next nine months: change the licence condition to allow only cage trapping and shooting, rather than what is referred to as the “controlled shooting” of badgers. He has said that he wants to proceed only on the basis of sound science.”
“I simply ask that the Secretary of State provides financial support to farmers carrying out their duty to put in place those increased controls, including on cattle movement through zoning and herd attestation, the pre-movement testing of herds before new cattle are allowed to join them, the quarantining of purchased cattle and the shorter testing intervals. All those things were set out in the ISG report as ways to improve the situation—not as solutions, but as improvements. I am glad that the Government are taking renewed efforts to put them in place, but I hope that when the Secretary of State winds up the debate he will recognise that they will be burdensome and costly for farmers, who should therefore be recompensed and incentivised appropriately to ensure the success of those measures.”
“It is a tremendously serious issue. It was the Labour Government who authorised the trials in the first place. We did so because we wanted to see if they would work, and the decision that was ultimately taken was an honest one based on what we understood of the science of the trials. The ISG report concluded that substantial reductions in cattle TB could be achieved by improving cattle-based controls, and I welcome the measures that the Government will be putting in place from next January to increase those controls.”
“Bovine TB is a £100 million problem in cash terms but a much larger human problem for dairy farmers, who are devastated year after year by having to destroy herds that they have nurtured for years and sometimes generations. I do not wish to engage in an either/or dispute, but to speak about what can be done between now, when the cull has been stopped, and next year, when, if the Secretary of State is correct, a cull will go ahead. Before that, I want to respond to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who said that the Labour party was close to a cull but chickened out. That was not a fair remark. I was a Minister when the ISG report came in, and I remember the hours and weeks of deliberation on it. We never saw this as a virility test, and it should not be seen as such by any Government.”
“Does my right hon. Friend recall that when the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change discussed vertical integration, one energy company chief executive was asked why a company such as EDF, which generates most of its electricity from nuclear power, should benefit from the high price of gas, which sets the market rate for the sale of the wholesale supply into the retail market. The answer, of course, was that Ofgem would not allow cross-subsidising from one side of that barrier to the other. Is that not why the tough new regulatory powers that we have called for are exactly what the Secretary of State should introduce?”
“I agree that it is important to free up liquidity in the forward market—I do not think there is any dispute about that—and, in so far as that goes, it is welcome. However, it will not address the problem of a generator such as Centrica making a £1.5 billion profit while the retail prices of British Gas rise, because it will not be possible to see that integration—it can show its profits where it likes. The Secretary of State talked about integration of the retail and wholesale market. He has to address that, otherwise we will not resolve this problem.”
“The hon. Gentleman quite rightly said that wholesale electricity prices are based on the wholesale price of gas, but will he explain why a company such as EDF, which supplies electricity to its customers yet generates from nuclear, should benefit in exactly the same way from the higher price of gas, which of course it does not pay?”
“The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on security of supply, which is an essential part of the future of the market. He said that the price of gas would go up and down in accordance with the cost of procuring it on the open market. Can he explain why the wholesalers who generate the electricity by means of that gas do not drop their retail prices when wholesale prices have dropped in the international markets?”
“Nuclear base load is an essential part of the mix, but the Government are set to negotiate a strike price for the nuclear feed-in tariff in the region of £100 per megawatt-hour. The cost of the two EDF reactors at Hinkley Point has risen by £14 billion and is tied in with the strike price. That is madness for a 40-year lifecycle project when onshore wind is already performing at as low as £94 per megawatt-hour, and figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change suggest that offshore wind will achieve £100 per megawatt-hour by 2020.”
“Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) will not now proceed because of the Government’s failure either to match fund or to submit the appropriate information to secure the bid. CCS is vital because coal is vital—vital to India and to China—and whatever we do with renewables in this country, unless we come up with a CCS solution for coal-fired generation around the world, any paltry reduction in emissions achieved by the UK will not stop climate change. That is why we need a global perspective on our own energy policy. The CCS technology that we can put in place could drive the entire green economy to which both sides of the House claim to have signed up, but of which we see very little evidence.”
“Yes, increased liquidity in the forward supply market will help promote competition on the retail side, but it will not solve the abuse that vertical integration is allowing. By tackling that issue, retail unit prices will not rise by as much as they otherwise will—although if we are honest, we should say that they will still rise on a per unit basis. Security of supply includes the investment of £200 billion over the next decade in our energy network and of £110 billion in our electricity infrastructure. That is to replace the 30% of generation that will go off stream by 2024. We need base load, yet today’s rumour is that the EU new entrants reserve carbon capture and storage project in the constituency of my right hon.”
“That has to be part of a sensible reconfiguration of energy policy in this country, which cannot be achieved through encouragement and incentivisation alone. We need compulsion to ensure that those standards are driven throughout the market, which the Government have refused to address. We need honesty. Unit prices for energy will rise, because world demand is rising with increased wealth in Asia, which is a good thing, and with increased global population, which is not such a good thing. That means that we have to structure the market to ensure that it is maximally efficient. Vertical integration allows a company such as Centrica to show obscene profits for its wholesale side, while making what the regulator considers to be “normal” profits in its retail arm of British Gas.”
“That means that energy efficiency has to be an integral part of the reconfiguration of the market. Security of supply is the third objective that I wish to put forward. We require a mix of energy from both within and outside the UK. We need both base load sources such as coal and nuclear and intermittent sources such as wind and hydro, as well as dual-purpose sources such as gas. How do we go about configuring the market in that way? First, I want to hear the Government talking about standards—building standards and product standards. Why is the percentage of excess winter deaths lower in Finland than in the UK? That seems like madness when we compare the climates, unless we understand the importance of the role of building standards.”
“If one is going to reform the energy market, it seems to make sense to configure that market according to one’s objectives. When the Secretary of State spoke earlier, it was extraordinary that he did not set out the clear objectives of the reconfigured energy market. I will set out mine. The first objective is on carbon targets. We have our 2020 targets and our 2030 targets, and the Committee on Climate Change has been clear that we should look to set a target of 40 grams to 60 grams of carbon dioxide per kWh and move towards achieving our renewables targets. If we are to reconfigure the market, let us do it to achieve that objective. The second objective is on fuel poverty. The price per unit of energy will rise, but fuel poverty must come down.”
“The Secretary of State is right to say that we must address the problem of bovine TB. Will he, therefore, this year, while this delay is in place, use the funding that would have been made available for the cull to improve biosecurity in the cowsheds and byres of farmers, and set minimum standards for biosecurity, which the Krebs report said was a very important element in controlling the disease?”
“The whistleblowing legislation gives protection to those within an organisation who seek to expose a culture of wrongdoing. Will the Secretary of State look again at that legislation to see whether it can go further and impose a duty on individuals to blow the whistle in situations such as this?”
“The Home Secretary wants to opt out in general, but opt back in, in particular, which implies she believes that specific measures are very much to the benefit of UK crime prevention and justice. Has she made an impact assessment of what will happen in the period between those measures not being enforced, and the point at which they are reintroduced? Will that impact assessment be made available to the public so that they can participate in the consultation she has mentioned?”
“Will my hon. Friend answer a question on amendment 11, which proposes to add the words “within the United Kingdom” to clause 1(1)? One of the most important areas of infrastructure over the next decade will be energy, and the infrastructure required to meet our energy need will include interconnectors for electricity and gas pipelines that will come across Europe from the Caucasus. I presume that the Bill, as it stands, could incentivise investment in interconnectors and gas pipelines, but would it still be able to do so if the amendment were agreed to, even though parts of the pipelines would obviously be within the United Kingdom?”
“Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), but it seems to me that the question needs to be answered.”
“My hon. Friend will be aware that the perimeter of Northern Ireland is defined as the six counties, and that the continental shelf offshore was never included in the original agreement drawn up by the Foreign Office. [Interruption.] I realise that my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) knows this only too well. What that means is that we need clarity in respect not only of amendment 11, but of the “Short title, commencement and extent” provisions. At the moment, the Bill would preclude offshore wind development from the Northern Ireland coast. These matters may seem abstruse, but as constituted, the Bill does not make it clear that such infrastructure development would qualify for support. That question is as much one for the Minister as for my hon.”
“I welcome the speech by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), who sought to tease out the Minister. Unfortunately, I am not sure that the Minister has provided the clarification that was sought. In clause 1, subsection (1), which provides that money may be provided by Parliament, is negated by subsection (5), which states that it would be provided on the say- so of the Treasury. This is a Government Bill that avoids real scrutiny by Parliament. I suspect that that is the objection of the right hon. Member for Wokingham, as well as my own. I am grateful to the Minister for his clarification on interconnectors and gas pipelines. That is an important point.”
“The Leader of the House will recall from his previous position the importance of physical activity in promoting the health of the nation and programmes such as Move It that deliver it across the spectrum for thousands of young people. Will he therefore consider a debate on the Olympic legacy, particularly in relation to what that legacy can mean for the health of the nation?”
“I met a delegation of Afghan MPs this summer, and I think the Secretary of State is absolutely right to focus on women’s rights and the protection of women. Can she say what targets have been set, and what progress has been made towards meeting them, for reducing deaths in childbirth and infant mortality?”
“I simply want to say that during all the time I have served on the Committee, it has always been aware of the Chairman’s interests, and at no time have any of us felt that those interests have in any way impeded or compromised the work of the Committee. He has been absolutely scrupulous in declaring those interests and making clear his position. I deprecate the journalism that has sought to besmirch the work of the Committee, which I believe is what journalists have tried to do, by suggesting that there has been any compromise. I welcome the fact that the Chairman has made such a statement.”
“I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recalls the “World Energy Outlook” report and our interview with its head, Fatih Birol that drew particular attention to the fact that as Russian gas from western Siberia is gradually going offstream, the eastern Siberian gas fields will then come onstream. The likelihood is that there will be a decrease in the gas from Russia that comes into Europe and that, as the countries of Asia—China and India—see a rise in their need for gas, the eastern Siberian stream will increasingly be pulled down there. The position of Russia will therefore put Europe in a very different situation vis-à-vis gas.”
“Additionally, the Chancellor announced in his 2012 Budget further exploration and production subsidies of £65 million to develop the west of Shetland fields. The market failures addressed by those subsidies are unclear. On the contrary, fossil fuels appear to have an entrenched subsidy culture in which such taxpayer handouts are regarded as a right, rather than a means of addressing an otherwise unlevel playing field. By contrast, the total subsidy paid to onshore wind amounted to less than £400 million in 2010-11, or £6 on the average household’s annual bill. That gives a better sense of the subsidy onshore wind currently enjoys against the £3.6 billion in consumption subsidies that fossil fuels enjoy before factoring in the cost of carbon emissions.”
“On a number of occasions, the Minister has remarked on the way in which the technology adversely affects communities in the countryside. Long-term subsidies are not good. I think we can all agree with that. In my view, we should not subsidise any energy in the long term. Subsidies should never be a permanent feature of any market. Subsidies should be introduced only to address market failure and they should be withdrawn gradually as such market distortions are addressed. I hope even the Chancellor and the Treasury accept the economic rectitude of those remarks. Whether they can square that with this country’s ongoing fossil fuel subsidy is an entirely different matter. Last year, the OECD estimated that, in 2010, UK subsidies for coal, gas and petrol amounted to £3.6 billion.”
“The debate was not phrased in that way; it was phrased, “How much can we cut from that subsidy?” Should the subsidy be cut by 10%, which is the Department’s public position? Or should it be the far more severe cut of 25% proposed by the Treasury? Interestingly, the Department won the day in that political debate. In a straight fight between the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, most people in most circumstances would back the Chancellor, but in this case the Department won. We need to consider the economic case for onshore wind. The new Minister has previously commented on onshore wind. We subsidise the technology, which operates intermittently. Wind does not blow all the time and cannot provide the base load of electricity supply.”
“I do not want to go over the ground that the Chairman of the Committee and the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) have already covered—I entirely agree with most of what they said, particularly the hon. Lady’s call for certainty in policy. She is absolutely right; that is one of the key things that will hold back—is already holding back—the investor community from pressing ahead with the sort of investments that we need, if we are to see the £200 billion investment come on stream and ensure that we have the continuity of a secure supply of energy over the next decade. I want to focus on subsidy and the importance of getting subsidy right. Earlier this summer, there was a contretemps between the Treasury and the Department of Energy and Climate Change on the subsidy for onshore wind.”
“I am delighted to speak in this important debate, and I am particularly delighted to welcome the Minister to his position. His work within his previous skills portfolio was much respected, and I think that many of us hope that he will bring not only the dedication that he showed in that role, but his focus on developing green skills, into this new portfolio, where he is considering the UK’s energy supply. It is a difficult time to be taking on the brief, and I think that we all sympathise with him for taking over at this juncture, with so much on his ministerial plate. I assure him that the Committee—both sides of it, I think—will seek to co-operate with him to ensure that he gets his feet under the ministerial desk as quickly as possible and can take the brief forward.”
“I hesitate to speak for the OECD, but my understanding is that the £65 million is composed of production subsidies, VAT subsidies and other things. I am sure information on the figures is available from the OECD, because they are the OECD’s figures, not mine.”
“I come back to where I began on the question of subsidy: without a much more transparent understanding of the subsidies going to fossil fuels, and the lack of accounting for their cost in damage to health and the environment, and pollution; without factoring those things in; without a clear understanding of the subsidies necessary as technologies develop, and the reduction in subsidy necessary as they become more cost-effective; and without transparency about the real subsidies that the Government are offering the nuclear industry, and the structuring necessary to get the development we need, we will not have a successful energy policy.”
“The key matters on which the investment community focused in discussions with the Committee were construction risk and the period during which capital is exposed in the construction of new nuclear, as opposed to new gas, technology, and the different lengths of time needed to get production in place and price coming through. The investment community made clear to the Committee its belief that without Government subsidy—not covert subsidy by way of price subsidy through the EPS but real subsidy in relation to those risks and the extra cost of capital—there will not be the level of nuclear infrastructure development that the Government have said they want.”
“Whom did the Department think it was fooling by setting that figure? It is clear that it was set because it excludes dirty coal without carbon capture and storage, but it has a beneficial effect on investment in nuclear, boosting the price. In the past year and a half, the Committee has spent a lot of time talking to the investment community, which has been generous with its time and views and has made clear the way in which the risks associated with different technologies and energies manifest themselves. There are planning, construction, operational and price risks and, particularly with the nuclear industry, a decommissioning risk.”
“Its fossil fuel supply has substantially depended on stability in the middle east providing continuity of supply. The discovery and exploitation of shale gas in the United States significantly changes that perspective, and when we look to the future of European and UK energy we need to factor that in too. The drivers that caused the US to be so involved with middle east countries will shift. We need to recognise that, as much as we recognise the shift happening in the gas fields in Siberia, and the rise in demand from India and China. There is one further thing I want to comment on: the fourth pillar of the Government’s proposals on electricity market reform—the emissions performance standard, the carbon floor price and the way in which they interact. Is not it strange that the emissions performance standard was set at 450 grams per kWh?”
“We do not, for example, factor into the cost of fossil fuels the cost to the health service of people with bronchial or asthmatic conditions caused by carbon emissions from diesel and petrol engines. If we want to get a far better handle on our energy needs and supply, and the security of that supply, let us compare the true costs of the separate parts of our energy mix, and not simply look at the market cost. I want to go off slightly on a tangent and mention, in response to the shale gas debate, one other aspect that I think it important to draw to the attention of the House. As shale gas provides the USA with increasingly low-cost fossil fuel, there will be a substantial shift in American foreign policy, which has been fixated on the middle east—for good reason.”
“That trajectory has led some in the industry to project that onshore wind will be cost competitive with gas by 2020, which brings another element to our discussion. Indeed, the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) highlighted that differential and the possibility of seeing cheaper gas in the UK because of shale gas in the United States. Clear social and environmental costs are associated with shale gas in the United States, and the Committee flagged them up in its report on the potential for shale gas in the UK. However, at every point we should aim to factor the cost of pollution into the true cost of the fuels that we use. That is really how we should evaluate the cost.”
“If the UK is to develop world-leading renewable technologies, such as those mentioned by the Chairman of the Select Committee, particularly marine technologies, we need further subsidies to enable renewables to make that transition from prototype to full commercial scale. The renewables obligation subsidy introduced by the previous Government was designed to do that to some extent and supported new wind generation as the technology successively improved and economies of scale reduced production costs. It is worth noting that it is onshore wind’s positive trajectory in reducing costs that led the Department to argue that the subsidy could be reduced by 10% in the first place. As the technologies become cheaper, it is right to scale down the subsidies.”
“Unfortunately, the carbon price has neither been stable enough, as the Chairman of the Select Committee mentioned earlier, nor high enough to redress that market failure, even for the 40% of UK carbon emissions covered by the ETS. Fossil fuels are operating in a market tilted distinctly in their favour. Those who support renewables such as onshore wind that do not produce polluting carbon emissions are perhaps entitled to claim that there is clear justification for that level—albeit a very low level, as I have shown—of subsidy. Bringing new technologies to market can be difficult, and many technologies have died in the valley that lies between demonstrator a prototype and full commercial development.”
“Members of Parliament are not noted for admitting ignorance, but I am happy to do so. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a detailed breakdown, but that figure has been given by the OECD. As I said in response to his previous intervention, my understanding is that the subsidy is accounted for in VAT subsidies and in other production subsidies, such as the ones I mentioned. I cannot go further than that. I do not claim to be the economist or accountant who worked out the figures published by the OECD, to which I refer him. The real market failure is that the environmental, economic and social costs of greenhouse gas emissions are not properly factored into our fossil fuel price. The Government recognise that and have tried to attribute a price to carbon emissions through the EU emissions trading scheme.”
“The Committee said, in its recent report on climate change, that only 60,000 of the 330,000 solid wall insulations, which the Government indicated were necessary, had been installed. That is an important indication of how serious the situation is.”
“We all appreciate the need to ensure that the scheme is not open to fraud. That will be agreed across the House. What assessment, however, has the Department made of the number, the size and the scope of the charities that the Minister believes will be able to access the benefits of the scheme, with these conditions attached? The industry seems to think that the number, size and scope of such charities will be severely curtailed.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that because of the matching requirement the conditions to stop fraud in gift aid will already be followed through? There is not the capacity for the extent of fraud that the Treasury fears, because it is already captured by gift aid requirements.”