Reading the speeches in yesterday’s debate in the House of Lords (“That this House takes note of the cost of renewable energy and its effect on energy costs in the United Kingdom”) I was struck with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Having written Voices From An Echo Chamber two and a half weeks ago, I found largely the same voices making themselves heard; the same overwhelming majority of peers who didn’t feel that one of the most important issues currently facing the country justified them bothering to turn up and say anything; there was the same failure to address the issue that is central to the debate; the same failure to appreciate that the UK can’t “deal with” climate change on its own; the same insistence that whatever the effects of net zero (which are clearly barely – if at all – understood by those peers who made the effort to say something), it is nevertheless essential, because….because…well, climate change. Reading the speeches was a deeply dispiriting experience. I have saved you the grief – what follows is a potted summary of a truly pathetic performance. I will mention biographical details of speakers only if they didn’t feature in the earlier debate.

Lord Frost

As Lord Frost called for the debate, he commenced proceedings, by saying that the discussion was timely due to Trump’s election;due to increasing levels of doubt in the EU regarding the policy commitments already made; and due to the new government’s plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030, with NESO (the National Energy System Operator) having just offered the first detailed commentary on that plan. Large-scale renewable energy capacity and a re-vamp of the grid are central to the plan. NESO’s report simply relied on figures supplied for the government for that purpose, but it is a matter of regret that there is a large measure of disagreement about the underlying figures.

There are two reasons for the differences of opinion, and difficulty in fully understanding, the underlying figures, and Lord Frost looked at each in turn. First, the levelised cost of electricity generated by renewables, and the associated question of renewables’ subsidies. He suggested – correctly – that the levelised cost of renewables is, simply, “the cost of building and operating wind and solar, discounted over time”. The NESO report relies on figures published in 2023 by the DESNZ (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) which claim that offshore wind can generate electricity for £44 per MWh in current prices, yet AR6 awarded contracts for offshore wind at £82 per MWh in current prices. That’s bad enough, but published accounts of renewables companies suggest an actual production cost of £100 per MWh, and figures published the very day before the debate regarding payments made to offshore wind farms under contracts for difference suggest that production costs are actually around £150 per MWh. There are other such disparities. DESNZ assumes a capital cost for offshore wind of £1.5 million per MW of capacity, yet published accounts suggest the real figure is around £3 million, or twice as much. At the end of 2023, the Moray West Wind Farm, still at foundations level, had already cost £1.6 million per MWh [a mistake on his part I assume – I think he meant per MW of capacity]. If the seemingly correct higher figures are used, then NESO’s figures would rise by about £15 Bn p.a. Capital expenditure would no longer be the projected £31-34 Bn, p.a., but instead would be £45-50 Bn.

Another point of difference regarding this issue is the capacity factor. DESNZ assume a capacity factor of 61% for offshore wind, i.e. every year they will produce 3/5 of their nameplate capacity. But recent wind farms are running at a capacity factor of 45% when new, and that figure falls over time, perhaps to 40% over the life of the wind farm. Just that one simple difference between the assumption and what may be the reality means that we would have to build 50% more offshore wind farms than assumed to generate the electricity built into the assumptions – and of course the costs would be consequently higher too. Professor Gordon Hughes and Andrew Montford wrote about these issues to the Permanent Secretary at DESNZ on 16^th September, but haven’t yet received a reply.

The gap between assumptions and realities may explain the extent of subsidies. The OBR [Office for Budget Responsbility] says that “environmental levies” currently stand at £12 Bn p.a., or around £400 for every UK household. If the cost of offshore wind is really £44 per MWh, why do we need all these subsidies?

Secondly, renewables are intermittent, and this intermittency imposes additional costs elsewhere on the energy system: “back-up, interconnectors, other non-renewable generation, and measures to ensure grid stability, together with the costs of rebuilding and reconfiguring the transmission system”. Everybody agrees that there are some such costs: the question is how big are they and what are the consequentials? They arise principally from the intermittency of renewables, of which there are two kinds. The most well-known is the problem (which we experienced last week) that when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, renewables don’t generate much electricity. Then we need back-up, currently mainly gas, and there is a capital cost attached to this, because it means we are maintaining a dual system. Because gas has to be switched on and off at short notice it is rendered inefficient, and this reduces revenue. This cost is currently £1 Bn p.a. and the OBR says it will rise to £4 Bn p.a. in three years’ time. The other intermittency problem is the reverse – when renewables produce power we don’t need, when they produce too much power. Then we pay the generators not to generate, and this too has a cost – currently £2.5 Bn p.a., projected to rise to £3.5 Bn. In three years’ time.

The more renewables we have, the greater this problem will become. “That is why it is a simple fallacy, though a seemingly widely believed one, that building more renewables reduces costs and brings more security. It is surely clear that the reverse must be true.” And that’s not the end of it. There are wider knock-on costs, what NESO calls “demand management”. In short, energy rationing, by compulsion, by price rationing, or both. The NESO plan for this by 2030 is for around 10 GW of demand management – about five times as much as now. This is different from earlier types of differential pricing. They were aimed at incentivising energy use at times when supply was high and demand was low, e.g. overnight. Now the plan is to reduce demand at times when demand is high and supply is low. This imposes costs on both industry and other consumers – it’s difficult to quantify the cost, but it is a real cost, it’s potentially significant. It should be factored into the cost of renewables, but it isn’t.

Lord Frost said he was aware of only one attempt to quantify these costs – by the then BEIS in a document titled “Energy Generation Costs 2020”. It showed that renewables were more expensive than modern gas-fired power stations, even relying on the implausible assumptions used by DESNZ.

In conclusion, this is all deeply unsatisfactory. In the case of offshore wind the discrepancy between claimed costs and actual costs might be as high as £100 per MWh. Subsidy costs are a lot higher than are generally acknowledged. Wider grid costs are of the order of £3-5 Bn p.a. and rising. There is disagreement about the levelised costs, with one side of the debate believing they are low and falling, and the other side – which includes Lord Frost – seeing high and rising costs and greater levels of complexity. The government is dashing to decarbonise the grid relying on an assessment based on disputable cost assumptions and failing to take into account wider costs and issues.

He said he made none of his points from an ideological opposition to renewable energy, but because it seems to him that it is expensive and problematic. If he is wrong, then that would be excellent news, but he has not yet seen any eveidence to persuade him.

The government should consider establishing an expert committee perhaps with officials from DESNZ, NESO and the climate change committee, with a red team of outside experts to provide challenge. That might achieve a degree of consensus on a transparent basis, enabling the country’s energy policy to be established on the best possible analysis and the best possible knowledge.

Lord Whitty

A former trade unionist and Labour Party politician, he was made a life peer in 1996. He started by declining to go into the detail of Lord Frost’s arguments, and asserting that the total cost of renewables (including carbon capture and storage etc), even if twice as expensive as the estimates of the last Conservative government, would still be cheaper than the “estimated” cost of gas. I wonder why he referred to the estimated cost, rather than the actual cost? Sometimes precise words are significant. Unlike Lord Frost, he didn’t quote any specific prices. He did assert that the UK electricity price is so high because it is linked to the global price of gas, and said that it doesn’t matter whether that gas comes from the North Sea or abroad.

He acknowledged a problem, insofar as the UK has failed to develop storage, switching capacity and aspects of the grid. He said we should have concentrated more on nuclear power, and tidal power – which would not be intermittent. But renewable energy would be predominantly cheap, and there was until recently a political consensus around this.

Other problems include the failure to provide for a UK supply chain. But congratulations are due to the government with regard to the recent announcement on investment in manufacturing blades in Hull. Providing new jobs for North Sea workers is important, and a new generation must support the renewables sector. We need to return to an all-party consensus for a renewables trajectory that until recently seemed to be agreed by all.

Marks out of ten? Not many. He made a number of general statements, denied the accuracy of Lord Frost’s claims, but didn’t address the detail of those claims at all, with no use of real-world data.

Baroness Hayman

Another speech followed that declined to address the troublesome issue raised by the opening speech. I wasn’t going to quote at length from these speeches, but I found the way in which the issue central to the debate was simply swept aside by Baroness Hayman to be so deplorable, that I feel it’s worth quoting at some length after all:

…we had the advantage in this country, and it is one reason why we became such a leader, of basing those decisions on a fundamental agreement across parties of the huge significance of the issues relating to climate change and the opportunities that there were both to save the world—that sounds very dramatic, but it is not necessarily incorrect—and to hold back and stem the potentially disastrous consequences of global warming by taking action now….I fear that today he [Lord Frost] has asked us to take a very narrow focus on the cost of renewable energy and the effect on energy costs in the UK. I do not dispute that these are important issues, but I will not spend my precious four minutes going into the arcane debate about the latest LCOE figures from DESNZ or the implications of the latest strike price from AR6 CfD…

[Of course! If the facts are too difficult to contradict, change the subject instead].

She felt that Lord Frost’s interpretation of the figures was too gloomy, and suggested that it isn’t shared by various experts [who, as it happens, have a vested interest in not being gloomy] – NESO, CCC, IEA, International Renewable Energy Agency, the Grantham Institute, ECIU and the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association. No, there is value in the renewables transition – savings to consumers, energy security, sustainable jobs, economic performance, leadership in this arena. [Easy to say if you decline to look into the detail of the costs]. Marks out of ten? Fewer than I would award to Lord Whitty.

The Lord Bishop of Norwich

He is one of the “Lords Spiritual”. He gave an early indication of what was to follow by pointing out that he is the lead Bishop for the environment and a member of Peers for the Planet. He didn’t mention the cost of renewable energy at all, even though that is specifically what the debate was supposed to be about. He claimed instead that there were costs of of not embracing renewable energy, especially as a “global neighbour”. There followed the usual stuff about 1.5C, the poorest being adversely affected by climate change, the alleged problems created by climate change – more health problems, migration, conflict, war, misery, costs running into the trillions. By investing in renewables now we will see the benefit of lower costs in due course. “The lesser the impact of climate change, the less our national security risks, the better our public health, the more secure our food supplies and the more progress we can make restoring our native biodiversity.”

Pious words, as might be expected from a bishop, but not a lot of logic. If the rest of the world doesn’t follow the UK’s “lead”, then climate change won’t be mitigated at all. Instead we will have the double costs of dealing with whatever climate change throws at us, the cost of failed mitigation measures, an unreliable and expensive energy system, and basically the worst of all worlds.

He didn’t comment on the cost of renewable energy, but urged the government to “consider our global responsibilities as part of the cost-benefit of renewable energy”.

Marks out of ten? Fewer than I would award to Baroness Hayman.

Lord Howell of Guildford

He is a Conservative politician, David Howell, a life peer since 1997. He declared his interests as adviser to Mitsubishi Energy, which he described as “one of the biggest producers of equipment and kit related to moving to a clean energy world.” He referred in less than glowing terms to Great British Energy, which I suppose was to be expected of an opposition party politician. Apart from highlighting some interesting statistics, I’m not sure he cast any light on the topic, and he certainly didn’t focus on the question of cost. Generally speaking he came across as an enthusiast for renewable energy and for the need to make quicker progress. The statistics he cited suggested a huge increase in energy demand [I suspect he meant demand for electricity – sadly many people conflate electricity and energy]. He felt it would have to be met by nuclear power, but seemed to be disparaging regarding both Sizewell and Hinkley Point. He concluded:

We need six new switching stations, a new grip on pylons and an entire makeover of the National Grid system. None of these things appear to be going forward very fast and we therefore face the fact that we will have huge electrical growth for which someone will have to pay, and it will cost a great deal more.

Marks out of 10? Not very many, but more than I would award to the Bishop of Norwich.

Lord Hain

He is the former Labour MP and government minister, Peter Hain. He was made a life peer in 2015. He cited Lord (Nicholas Stern) and his economic review to say that the costs of inaction with regard to climate change would be greater than the costs of action. Lord Frost is wrong and the Bishop of Norwich is right. Renewables are getting cheaper, gas is becoming more expensive, nuclear is very expensive and the costs of future nuclear decommissioning has been estimated by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority at £105.3 Bn. Decommissioning costs of offshore oil and gas are spiralling, the last Tory government subsidised fossil fuels to the tune of £20 billion more than renewables. Marine energy has enormous untapped potential – just look at the Severn bore. Britain’s dependence on fossil fuel markets has left us exposed to price spikes and the likes of Vladimir Putin. We need renewables that we can control at home. The recent NESO report proves that we can have cheaper and more secure electricity for households. A wide range of groups [with a vested interest in doing so] have backed this – business leaders, trade union leaders [he clearly hasn’t been listening to the union leaders complaining about the lack of green jobs and the destruction of real jobs], the IEA, National Grid, Scottish Power, SSE. He didn’t address Lord Frost’s costs data at all. Instead he ended with the usual political spin:

We need Labour’s pro-energy security, pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-climate and lower cost policy to tackle the climate emergency with real urgency. Prioritising green, clean renewable energy is about choosing investment over decline, new skilled jobs over low productivity ones, growth over stagnation, and cheaper over more expensive consumer prices—or, as the noble Lord, Lord Stern, might have said to the Cabinet meeting that I attended in 2006, investing in the short term to save over the longer term.

Marks out of ten? Astonishingly, fewer than I would award to the Bishop of Norwich. Probably zero. As I said in Part One, what does it say about the House of Commons if the worst speeches in the House of Lords are made by former MPs and professional politicians?

Lord Moynihan

Confusingly (to me at least), he is not Lord Moynihan of Chelsea. He is a Conservative hereditary peer. He declared an interest as chair of Acteon, “which operates across global marine energy and offshore infrastructure services.” Central to the discussion is the understanding that renewables generate intermittent power while hydrocarbons supply much-needed baseload. As the share of renewables increases, we always need the availability of baseload. He made reference to last week’s poor performance by renewables, with gas producing 53% and wind 18%, while nuclear at 13% was too low. SMR delivery is being stifled by bureaucracy. We have to maintain gas plants for the windless days.

The NESO report makes clear that the government’s plans to decarbonise the grid by 2030 will involve annual investment of more than £40 billion, with nearly 2,700 miles of offshore electric cables and 620 miles of new onshore cabling. The alternative [is it an alternative or a consequence?] is storage. While he agrees with Lord Whitty that the technology is improving, we are long way from affordability and scalability. It is therefore irresponsible to turn our backs on domestic gas production. We currently risk stranded assets with regard to gas, and they won’t be substituted by renewables but by expensive, polluting imported LNG. This makes neither economic nor environmental sense.

He concluded with what I regarded as a confusing final paragraph that left me unclear where he stands with regard to the dash to a decarbonised grid:

Renewable energy sources come with massive upfront capital investments which cannot be excluded in any cost comparison. Maintenance, decommissioning, grid costs and life-cycle replacement need to be costed. It is true that the marginal cost of producing electricity from wind or solar, once the facilities are operational, is extraordinarily low. In summary, we have to create a resilient, sustainable energy system which has to underpin energy security. The key, as ever, will lie in the strategic investments we make today, in both technology and infrastructure, and in private sector investment to ensure that we are not merely reacting to market forces but proactively shaping the energy landscape for generations to come. This, I would argue, is a future well worth striving for, and I wish the Government well.

Marks out of ten? Perhaps five. He grappled with the issue with more coherence than some other speakers, but still didn’t get to grips with the detail, and left me confused at the end regarding his standpoint.

Baroness Whitaker

She is a Labour life peer, having been appointed by Tony Blair in 1999 in recognition of her work in publishing and in the civil service. She agreed that we need to understand the costs (and the benefits) of moving to renewables, both in the long-term and the short-term. She agrees that there will be costs, and says the question is who will bear them? She cited the Chief Executive of CorPower to suggest that there is a mega-trend towards falling costs and suggested that in the UK this is where we will be with wind power and eventually with marine energy.

Sadly there isn’t time for a detailed analysis of the costs [surely there should be? Isn’t that what the debate is about?] but NESO says the price will fall, we will be removed from volatile gas prices, and we also need to consider the benefits to be derived from gains in energy security and health. The investment will yield profits and therefore tax receipts.

We also have to factor in the risks from climate change of unimpeded fossil fuel use – the extensive UK floods, homes abandoned due to rising sea levels, lives lost from extreme heat, including probably in the UK, and international disruption. [But what if the rest of the world doesn’t follow suit? How many more Lords and Baronesses are going to adopt the logical failure of assuming that we in the UK need to do this to save the planet, even if the rest of the world doesn’t join us? Also, what if – as I suspect – the “climate crisis” isn’t so bad as they believe?].

Finally, wave energy is the Cinderella of renewables. The CfD doesn’t give it a fair chance because it hasn’t yet scaled-up to the level where it’s costs can come down. It should be ring-fenced, so that research can be speeded up.

Marks out of ten? More than for Lord Hayman and the Bishop of Norwich, but not many more.

Baroness Finn

A Conservative politician, elevated to the Lords in 2015. She declared her interests, including in Project Tempo, “a non-profit organisation which researches public attitudes towards the energy and climate transition.” She said we need an honest debate about the trade-offs. She sought to make two observations:

First, the British public overwhelmingly support the ambition of reaching net zero, but support declines dramatically if they are asked to pay for green policies through higher taxes, prices or energy bills.

Second, British energy prices are going in the wrong direction, and have been since well before the Ukraine war. Energy department data shows that between 2010 and 2023 domestic electricity bills almost doubled in real terms. UK’s industrial electricity costs are among the highest in the world, more than four times those of the US or China, and higher than all other G7 economies – a profound challenge.

As well as damaging productivity and economic growth, these high prices risk undermining public support for the transition. Rising green levies (identified by the IFS) and higher energy costs identified by the NESO report are therefore very worrying.

We should pursue a mix of technologies that will reduce energy bills, protect national security, and drive economic growth. Unfortunately the government’s ideologically-driven plans will achieve the opposite. She urges the importance of new nuclear power.

We must tell the truth about the challenges, not pretend that inconvenient facts don’t exist. The government’s policy involves borrowing huge sums of money to subsidise technologies that are not viable on the open market, or on importing more from China. The claim that bills will fall by £300 is bogus. She wishes to see environmental action, but fears that the rush to accelerate the transition risks undermining it.

Marks out of ten? Maybe five. She was clear and had thought about the issues, but still didn’t focus on the detail regarding what the debate was supposed to be about.

Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard

A newly created (this year) life peer, an Ulster Unionist and a former MP. He says renewable energy is linked to climate change as an issue; he is concerned about climate change and he supports renewable energy. But it comes at a cost. We have to devise that cost in a practical manner and not set targets that cannot be achieved. In Northern Ireland nearly all the targets that have been set have been missed.

Also, renewables sometimes come with an environmental cost – he cites a hydro plant in the 1950s that has decimated the salmon and eel industries in Lough Erne. A huge environmental disaster. We need to think carefully about these things.

It isn’t always windy and the sun doesn’t always shine, so we need back-up mechanisms. Wave energy might be more reliable. He mentioned the Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI) in Northern Ireland, which was an absolute disaster. He attended a seminar last year led by executive and government officials in Northern Ireland. It said that in just three years, by 2027, government departments in Northern Ireland will spend £2.3 Billion to implement climate change policies, and that doesn’t cover the cost to businesses, householders, and the public generally.

Marks out of ten? Well, he was focussed on the question, but not in any great detail. Another five.

Lord Browne of Madingley

He referred to his interests as set out in the register, and made four points.

First, the cost of supplying electricity from renewables is far less than the cost of supplying it from fossil fuels or nuclear fission. Different assumptions can affect the calculation, but regardless, renewables are still cheaper. [Did he deliberately use the word “supply”? Renewables are undoubtedly cheaper once they are up and running, but arguably not if you take into account their high up-front capital costs and the costs of disruption to the grid, back-up etc].

Second, renewable costs have come down by at least 60% over the last decade, due to economies of scale and improved technologies. There is no reason to believe that won’t continue, and reducing battery costs could solve the long-term battery storage issue.

Third, the deployment of renewables is vital to avoid the impacts of climate change. Their deployment in the UK gives us credibility in the energy transition industry.

Fourth, to achieve greatest impact and the lowest cost of deployment we should create a national energy institute. We have low-cost renewables – we must not throw away the change to have other low-cost technologies.

Marks out of ten? Seven. I disagree with him, and he fudged the question of cost, but he was clear and focussed.

Lord Moynihan of Chelsea

He started by setting out his stall and going for the jugular:

Each day, the direct and indirect cost of renewables expands upwards and outwards, with subsidies, constraints, payments, curtailment, demand-side response, artificial inertia, and on. There have been rising prices every year from 2002 to 2020, at a time when—contrary to the assertion of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—gas prices were broadly flat. Now, we have the highest electricity prices in the developed world.

Then he jumped on Mr Miliband’s claim that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, and that prices [to consumers] would go down by £300 [per annum]. The Centre for Policy Studies said that the claim was “nakedly dishonest” and “pure garbage”. Unfortunately Lord Browne just made a similar assertion. Claims that net zero can be achieved at a modest cost are based on DESNZ figures, which are divorced from reality. He cited experts who challenge the figures, but noted that even so they are accepted as gospel throughout our institutions. But if current costings, rather than those of DESNZ, are applied to the Royal Society’s recent study on a net zero grid, the overall cost rises to what is arguably an unaffordable level.

We are basing public policy on hopeful predictions that have little grounding in reality. Policymakers should surely demand to know what net zero would cost, using real numbers. It is unforgiveable that successive Governments have failed to prepare a cost-benefit analysis of net zero that is based on real, hard data.

Net zero is a religion. It’s the only explanation for its proponents’ head-in-the-sand approach. It has destroyed entire industries in the UK – cars, aluminium, steel, North Sea oil – and for what? China’s carbon emissions are five times those of the entire EU; India is about equal to the EU, but rising fast. The UK is a rounding error. Why are we spending huge amounts on a policy that is destroying our economy and which won’t “save the world” (per Baroness Hayman)?

We have to be honest about the cost. We have to decide whether we can afford it and understand its impacts on the country and the economy. Remarks in the debate to the effect that we mustn’t concern ourselves with the cost because we have to save the planet, are based on emotion, not fact or reason. We must accept that there will be a cost at which we decide that net zero is unaffordable. We must find out, using facts, whether current plans take us into that territory. We need a speedy inquiry into the costs to see whether their impact is affordable. He doesn’t believe it is.

Marks out of ten? Eight. A little bit emotional, not wholly focussed on the details of the costs, but certainly focussed on the issue.

Lord Rooker

A former Labour MP, a life peer since 2001. I make another, and major exception, to my self-imposed brief of summarising speeches rather than quoting them in full. Lord Rooker’s has come as such a pleasant surprise (I give it eight out of ten, two marks knocked off for his love of pylons and his failure to address the detailed costs question) that I think it deserves to be read in full:

My Lords, I am voluntarily involved in a small Archimedes screw on the River Teme, generating electricity at Ludlow.

Given that the UK cannot build railways as fast as the Victorians, I am on solid ground in my belief that clean electrical power by 2030 is a non-runner. The UK is world class in setting targets, which is not the same as delivering actions. Last week’s report from the National Energy System Operator is claimed by some as saying it is all possible—that is pie in the sky.

What is expected in the 1,873 days until 1 January 2030? The list has to be delivered—all of it, simultaneously and in full. Market reforms need to unlock £40 billion a year in investment. Onshore wind capacity has to double. Battery capacity connected to the grid has to grow fourfold. Solar capacity has to be tripled. The high-voltage grid has to be upgraded and expanded twice as much in the next five years as we have seen in the past 10 years. Carbon capture and storage targets have to be achieved using technology that has not yet been delivered at scale. We have to contract as much offshore wind power in the next one or two years as we have seen in the past six years. We need a fourfold increase in the flexibility of demand using smart meters that actually work. When the wind drops and the sun does not shine, batteries and pump storage hydro will have to be there to compensate. The nuclear plants will be required as back-ups.

That will all have to be delivered at pace, on time and at the same time—come off it. This is the UK in 2024, not the UK of the Lunar Men 250 years ago at the start of the Industrial Revolution. The UK no longer has a culture of building or people like Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

I have never yet heard a Minister address the issue of intermittent renewables. Who pays for the intermittency? It is never addressed. Huge amounts of kit cannot be manufactured in the UK. There is an international shortage of substation transformers and the ships needed for offshore installation. There is a massive shortage of homegrown skills to make all this possible.

I keep hearing that planning has been dealt with. Really? I know I am alone in this, but I see pylons and wind turbines across the countryside as truly majestic. Not everybody agrees, but burying the grid at sea is far less secure than having it where you can see it. We know that the massive undersea cables for the world wide web have been interfered with by Putin’s Russia. A lot of these doubts have been set out in detail by many people, including Professor Dieter Helm in one of his blogs. Nothing has changed since then except the Government and the creation of NESO.

Let me be clear: I am not a climate sceptic—I was the first Minister ever to speak on the Climate Change Bill, for the simple reason that I introduced it in this House in 2007. It is 1,873 days and counting.

Lord Swire

A former Conservative MP, a life peer since 2022.

There is absolutely no consensus on the costs at all. He doesn’t share Lord Rooker’s view of the “majesty” of pylons marching across our countryside, and suspects that their appearance will coincide with the public losing its enthusiasm for renewable energy. Policy hasn’t been thought through. “Why are we locating substations for bringing offshore renewable energy onshore, when countries such as Holland and Belgium are planning vast offshore substations? They are absolutely huge. Why is it current UK policy that, instead of pooling the power from the 18 or so wind farms around the country and having limited interconnectors, the National Grid is offering an individual connection to each offshore wind farm?”

We need to look at the technologies for burying or trenching cables. There are environmental benefits, and the visual impact on our landscapes needs to be factored into any analysis of the costs. NESO says if the timetable slipped to 2034, the cables at East Anglia could be buried instead of being overhead, and that would save £600M. “So, we need an honest debate about the various costs, but I urge anybody who is keen on increasing the amount of renewables transmitted to this country to think very carefully about how we do that if we are to carry the public with us.”

Marks out of ten? Six or maybe seven. Too short to be truly impactful, not enough focus on the detail of the costs, but thoughtful and with some interesting points.

Lord Oates

He disputes Lod Frost’s claim that his position is not ideological, since he claimed in his speech in the last debate that in his view we are not in a climate emergency. We should have had more debate when we adopted net zero, but the likes of Lords Lilley and Frost and the GWPF are seeking to confuse all the science, a bit like what the tobacco industry sought to do. Lord Frost’s claims about costs aren’t very illuminating – Lord Browne was much more convincing. The costs of combating climate change will be high, but the costs of inaction will be higher. We have to factor in the costs of burning fossil fuels. Look at what Exxon did. We have known about these costs for a long time. It’s all very much like big tobacco. The Bishop of Norwich is right that the most vulnerable will suffer most from climate change. He worries about children in Zimbabwe who have contributed nothing to climate change but who will suffer from it. This is why we have to be leaders in renewable energy. We have to be honest and open about the costs, benefits and values.

Marks out of ten? Not many. More appeals to authority and to emotion, no attention to facts with regard to costs, no understanding that the UK alone cannot prevent climate change. No better than his effort in the previous debate.

Lord Offord of Garvel

A number of speakers have raised concerns about the government’s aim to accelerate its plans in this area. NESO’s report talks about it being “immensely challenging” and some experts are concerned that the plans are too aggressive. We are some distance from where we need to be to decarbonise the grid and we estimate it will cost an extra £50 Bn. The Scottish government has had to retreat from some of its short term targets. We don’t want to set false targets that we can’t achieve. He worries that the public doesn’t understand what Great British Energy is, and they think it will reduce their bills by £300 [per annum]. To achieve the target, investment will have to be doubled in five years. He doesn’t think it’s achievable. The numbers will need to be interrogated and backed up. If we (or GB Energy) are going to spend £8 billion, should it not be spent on eliminating the bottlenecks in the grid? Curtailment payments, and storage issues, need to be given a great deal of thought.

Energy in the UK is too expensive – as are food and housing. Any UK government should seek to bring these costs down. Why are UK domestic consumers paying 43% more and industrial users 83% more than their French counterparts for electricity? Levies are set to rise by £3 Billion, which is £100 per household. Energy prices will go up, not down. In the House of Commons the other day, government MPs voted against an amendment to hold the government to its word and ensure that GB Energy secured a reduction in domestic bills by £300 per annum. Why, when the government promised that would be a strategic priority for GB Energy? When the Lords debates GB Energy next week, he will be asking these questions again.

Marks out of ten? Maybe five. A little rambling for my liking, but at least he tried to concentrate on the question of cost.

Lord Hunt of King’s Heath

He is the Minister of State charged with responding on behalf of the Government. He said Lord Frost thinks we should invest in gas and nuclear. He agrees about nuclear. He notes the detailed analysis of the cost of renewables. He didn’t deal with it in his speech, but promised a considered written response. [I think that’s unfortunate – it would have been much better to have his response preserved by Hansard here in the record of the debate, rather than somewhere else where it might pass by unnoticed].

There are many different interpretations of costs, including the costs of not taking action – that is one of the dividing lines between those participating in the debate. It’s interesting that Lord Frost made no reference to climate change, since that’s the context in which we develop these arguments. To Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, he denies that the government policy is based on religion, but that it’s a rational response to say that we have to take action and to speed it up.

He agrees with Lord Frost that this requires a lot of investment. But the broad consensus of august institutions is that we have to go down this route. He quotes the Climate Change Committee then NESO’s report. He notes that people can find evidence in the latter to support their arguments, but says the nub of it is that investment of £40 Bn or more per annum will create economic and job opportunities across the UK.

He mentioned the debate on levelised costs, but again said he would circulate a paper. In response to Lord Rooker, he agrees that it’s challenging, but says it can be done. As for taking the public with them, he accepts that there will be costs, but they are inevitable. He is taking the need for nuclear energy very seriously, and the government is pressing on with Sizewell C and Hinkley Point C. A decision will be made regarding Wylfa in the next few months.

Wave energy technology may have a role to play, but we need to concentrate on wind and solar at this stage. 640,000 people are employed in the UK in green jobs (“we reckon”) and that number will accelerate as we progress towards 2030. If all goes well with regard to nuclear, another 100,000 could be employed there by the 2040s. Many skills of North Sea workers are transferable.

Marks out of ten? Surprisingly, I’ll give him a six. Much of his answer was inevitably political, he dodged the costs issue, but his focus on nuclear was interesting, and he did try to respond to points made by each of the speakers.

Lord Howell of Guildford

He intervened to say he was encouraged by the positive words used by the minister with regard to small modular reactors. Did this represent a new position?

Lord Hunt of King’s Heath

It’s worth quoting the response in full, because of its importance:

I hope I have not just announced a new position. The position is that they are now going through a technology appraisal, which will take a matter of months. At that stage, the Government will then have to make decisions about what will happen in the future and on the funding, and we will have to have discussions with our friends in His Majesty’s Treasury in relation to that. Before that, I hope we will be having discussions about a final investment decision on Sizewell C.

Lord Frost

As the instigator of the debate, he also wound it up. He summed up as I might have done had I been in his place:

If I might be allowed just one reflection, on those that we have heard from proponents of the transition, it is that I detected perhaps a reluctance to tackle some of the specific details of costs and numbers that I mentioned but rather appeals to authority and nebulous assertions about the costs of not acting in relation to our global responsibility and credibility in this regard. I feel that is a little unsatisfactory as a basis for transforming our entire energy system, which is why I suspect we will need to come back to this and related subjects before long in the future.

Conclusions

The new government’s central vision is said to be to grow the economy, because a growing economy will increase the tax yield without having to increase tax rates. Energy costs must be at the heart of any discussion regarding policies to generate growth. The government says that its net zero plans will both create jobs and reduce costs, thereby stimulating growth. Its critics (of which I am one) profoundly disagree, saying that the opposite is true – it will destroy manufacturing jobs, it will significantly increase the cost of energy (while causing much environmental damage in the process), and it will depress economic growth. Whoever is correct, an understanding of the issues is vital to inform policy choices. Central to that is an understanding of the implications of an accelerated net zero programme for energy costs. Perhaps it’s my background as a lawyer that makes me think that attention to detail is important, hence my frustration at speakers who were reluctant to focus on the detail and preferred to make general and platitudinous points.

That so few peers regarded this as a sufficiently important topic to warrant attention, and that among those who did there seemed to be precious little joined-up thinking and concentration on the topic in hand, is a damning indictment of the House of Lords. Perhaps the best that can be said for this sham of a debate is that it nicely made the argument for the abolition or substantial reform of the upper house as soon as possible.