Voices From An Echo Chamber dealt with the House of Lords debate on Net Zero. Part 2 dealt with the House of Lords debate on the cost of renewable energy and its effect on energy costs in the United Kingdom. Here, in Part 3, I report on the House of Lords debate on Great British Energy. Unlike the other two debates, which were triggered by Conservative peers concerned at the direction of travel under our current net zero extremist government, this debate was part of the normal procedure with regard to a bill on its way through Parliament – in this case, the Great British Energy Bill. Consequently the debate was commenced by the Minister of State at the oxymoronically-named Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Lord Hunt of King’s Heath. As with Part 2, I will supply brief details of the speaker only if they have not featured in an earlier part.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

He opened formally, moving that the Bill be read a second time, before anticipating the maiden speeches of Baroness Beckett and Lord Mackinlay. He then launched into the usual emotional justifications for anything to do with net zero – huge challenges, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Britain’s energy insecurity, the climate crisis. He says we’ve already heated the planet by 1.3C and it’s vital that we don’t exceed 1.5C [newsflash, the Guardian recently reported on experts who say it’s already too late – that target is “deader than a doornail”, in fact]. He thinks we have to get to net zero as fast as possible, because cumulative emissions determine global temperature rises. [He doesn’t explain how the UK’s achieving net zero in an expedited way will affect global temperature rises, given the ongoing emissions increases in much of the world]. He even quotes the Climate Change Committee (CCC) as saying (apparently in this very context): “The faster we get off fossil fuels, the more secure we become”. [He doesn’t explain the logic behind this statement, apparently thinking its obvious that this somehow protects us from the worst effects of climate change].

That’s why [I’m still failing to see the logical coherence] “the Government’s mission is to make Britain a clean energy superpower, delivering a decarbonised power sector by 2030 as part of an acceleration to net zero.” He then cites a litany of what he seems to think are achievements by the Labour government in its first four and a half months in power: lifted the [non-existent] ban on onshore wind; consented major solar farm developments; agreed “major developments” in carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) and announced funding for it; signalled support for nuclear power as essential baseload [three cheers to that]; achieved a record number of “clean” [sic] energy projects in AR6 (which was “hugely successful”); signalled reforms to the planning system and to the grid to speed up consent connections; launched Great British Energy (GBE).

GBE will be a new way of doing things at the heart of the “clean power mission”. [Given that information about what it’s actually supposed to do has been sparse to date, it’s worth quoting in full what Lord Hunt says it’s all about]:

It is a new, publicly owned and operationally independent clean energy company, designed to drive clean energy deployment to create jobs, boost energy independence and ensure that UK taxpayers, bill payers and communities reap the benefit of clean, secure homegrown energy. Headquartered in Aberdeen, with branches in Glasgow and Edinburgh, it will own, manage and operate clean energy projects across the country, generating abundant homegrown electricity and accelerating the energy transition. Backed by a capitalisation of £8.3 billion of new money over this Parliament, Great British Energy will work in partnership with the private sector, local authorities and communities to spread skilled jobs and investment across the country.

[Remember those claims. I suspect they will come back to haunt this government fairly quickly].

[I critiqued the Bill during an earlier debate stage in the House of Commons, and it seems the things I criticised were deliberate]:

It draws on best practice, is drafted to give maximum flexibility, focused solely on enabling it to develop and grow, to be financed, and to supply guardrails to ensure it achieves the Government’s ambitions. It sets out five key functions for GBE: investing in projects alongside the private sector; project development; supporting local renewable power plans; building supply chains, boosting energy independence and creating jobs; exploring how GBE and Great British Nuclear will work together [that last one surprised me – isn’t there an existing plan?].

It will be accountable to Parliament, overseen by an independent board, and benefit from industry-leading expertise and experience. The appointment of Jürgen Maier exemplifies this.

[He then made a series of claims as to what GBE will achieve – more hostages to fortune that I suspect he may live to regret]:

It will speed up the delivery of “clean energy” that he says we urgently need. Doing this, he says, and transitioning away from fossil fuels is the only [my emphasis] way to protect families [it’s always families – what about businesses?] from the risk of future price shocks. It will mobilise investment from the private sector. It will invest in technologies such as wind, solar, tidal, hydrogen, nuclear and CCUS [given that many of these are currently very expensive, an explanation as to how this will save money or enhance our energy security, would be welcome]. It will be established with £25 million, and it will have a further £100 million of capital funding to spend in 2025/26 [this is chickenfeed in the scheme of things – what happened to urgency?]. It will help to build a new era of energy independence, firmly establishing the UK as a clean energy superpower. It will ensure the creation of good jobs. We have made good progress over the last twenty years, but we have underdelivered on jobs [you can say that again!]. GBE will help to drive the reindustrialisation of Britain. [!] It will generate a return for the taxpayer and it will own, manage and operate clean energy projects around the country.

He turned briefly to the details of the bill:

Clause 1 allows the Secretary of State to designate a company as Great British Energy, limited by shares and wholly owned by the Crown. A company has already has been incorporated and it can be designated GBE as soon as the Bill receives Royal Assent.

Clause 2 ensures that GBE is not regarded as a servant or agent of the Crown and is subject to law in the same was ay any other company.

Clause 3 restricts its objects to “facilitating, encouraging and participating in … the production, distribution, storage and supply of clean energy … the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from energy produced from fossil fuels … improvements in energy efficiency, and … measures for ensuring the security of the supply of energy”.

Clause 4 enables the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance, in the form of grants, loans, guarantees and indemnities, as well as through acquisitions and contracts. This is key regarding the promised £8.3 billion of funding.

Clause 5 requires the Secretary of State to provide GNE with more detail on where it should prioritise and focus its activities via a “statement of strategic priorities”.

Clause 6 allows the Secretary of State, after appropriate consultation, to direct GBE, e.g. in the interests of national security.

Clause 7 requires GBE to lay its annual report and accounts before Parliament.

Clause 8 sets out its territorial extent and the date when it will come into force – with immediate effect when the bill is enacted.

He ended with a politician’s peroration:

The Bill will help ensure that every part of the UK has a role to play in delivering energy independence for our country. With GBE, we will harness the UK’s clean energy potential and ensure we are never again at the mercy of volatile global fossil fuel markets. It will speed up delivery and drive investment. It will create good jobs and build supply chains. It will protect family finances and ensure energy security, reaping the benefits for all.

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist

The Baroness is a Conservative politician, nominated for a life peerage in David Cameron’s resignation honours list, and she has sat in the Lords since 2016.

She said the Bill relates to one of the most critical issues this country must address: energy security. She criticised the bill for facilitating the spending of £8.3 billion to assist in ramping up unreliable renewables, to achieve an unachievable target of 100% clean energy by 2030. She is in favour of ambitious targets but this one is driven by political ideology, industry experts have described it as aggressive, unrealistic and expensive, and it will require a lot more than £8.3 billion. The bill contains little detail on how its aims are to be achieved – we haven’t seen a business plan or a framework agreement, and we don’t understand how the Secretary of State or GBE will be held accountable.

Over the past month – and at the same time last year and in March this year – we have seen another dunkelflaute. In March the capacity factor failed to reach 20% and for the last two weeks it has been virtually zero. The IPCC predicts that UK wind speeds will decline and that wind droughts will become more frequent. Relying on new interconnectors to Belgium and Holland won’t offer energy security if their wind farms suffer similar conditions and their needs are greater than ours. Only the proposed link to Morocco comes close to offering baseload power and exclusive supply.

During the election and many times subsequently, the Labour party and its MPS claimed that GBE would cut household bills by up to £300. But quotes in the press this weekend from the wind farm industry are damning, and NESO’s report says that supply chain issues could add a whopping £15 per MWh to the price of our electricity. I am therefore deeply concerned that the government voted against a Conservative amendment to make cutting bills by £300 a strategic priority for GBE. The same is true regarding an amendment to hold them to their promise that GBE would create 650,000 jobs. These are not trivial matters. The government has already put 200,000 jobs at risk through their plans to shut down North Sea oil and gas. It is crucial that the government is held accountable. It simply isn’t true that ramping up renewables will result in cheaper energy and greater energy security. Instead they will cost the British people, via contracts for difference nd constraints payments. The cost will be paid for by consumers through environmental levies on bills. The OBR has forecast that this tax will rise by 23% by 2030. Households can expect to pay an extra £120 per annum, a far cry from a reduction.

The cost of renewable energy projects will be incorporated into prices – network charges will be on top of environmental levies. The Government hasn’t modelled constraint payments, network charges and environmental levies. They have deprioritised new technologies such as SMRs. Nuclear is the lowest-carbon electricity source, and intermittent non-dispatchable energy sources can never compete with it. Shockingly, solar requires 17 times more material and 46 times as much land for the same installed capacity as nuclear.

The increase in the windfall tax is a devastating blow. It will cut investment in UK resources and make us more dependent on imports. This will compromise energy security and subject UK consumers to price fluctuations. If investment in UK oil and gas decrease, so will profits, and so will the tax raised from this source, and yet the government is relying on this to help fund GBE. £12 billion in tax receipts have been lost from the North Sea by pressing ahead with ending oil and gas licences, a move no other major economy has taken. This, combined with £8 billion which will be spent on Great British Energy, is a staggering £20 billion.

There is a deeply concerning lack of detail in the bill. It will be based in Aberdeen, but its chairman will be based in Manchester. Incidentally, Scotland [perhaps she should have said the Scottish government] is hostile to nuclear power. We are promised that GBE will make a profit for the taxpayer, but there is nothing in the bill that elucidates an investment profile or even a targeted rate of return. Why not? We have seen no explanation as to how this differs from the Infrastructure Banks, which was set up to do the same thing. The UK Infrastructure Bank Bill had important accountability and report measures which are removed from this Bill. Why is this and why should taxpayers be burdened twice? How will it link with the under-resourced Great British Nuclear? The word “nuclear” does not even appear in the Government’s new industrial White Paper, and the Minister reported at the all-Peers briefing last week that Great British Energy will not be investing in nuclear at all. What is going to happen to Wylfa?

Not a bad conclusion to her speech either:

[T]his legislation is premature, lacking in detail and fuelled by an unrealistic target which will be unnecessarily costly to the people, jobs and economy of this country. This is particularly concerning given the wide-ranging powers the Bill gives to the Secretary of State and the absence of accountability measures and a business plan. We need clarity from the Government on the priorities and intention of Great British Energy.

Baroness Hayman

As in the debates I recorded in Parts 1 and 2, she again declared her interest as chair of Peers for the Planet. Predictably, perhaps, she welcomes the Bill and its opportunities for accelerating “clean” energy and reducing emissions. Its objectives are laudable. She disputes Lady Bloomfield’s gloom. It will be far more costly for the world if we don’t take action on climate change. She does agree, however, that the Bill is very broad brush, and she thinks it’s important to see the draft statement of strategic priorities referred to in clause 5. She repeated what seems to be her lodestar, a phrase from the Climate Change Committee’s progress report earlier this year, that she quoted in at least one of the earlier debates:

British-based renewable energy is the cheapest and fastest way … The faster we get off fossil fuels, the more secure we become.

She thinks the projects GBE participates in will be of the greatest importance. She doesn’t think the provisions for accountability to Parliament are good enough. The requirements on the Secretary of State to consult should include an obligation to consult with e.g. the CCC, NESO and the wider energy sector.

She doesn’t doubt the Secretary of State’s intentions, but suggests he might look askance at a Bill like this if he were in opposition. This needs to be robust for the next 50 years, not just the next five [I won’t be here to win the bet, but I am sure GBE won’t be here in 50 years’ time].

£8.3 Billion is a lot of money, but it will be quickly spent. We really should know much more about the priorities and how it will be spent. It shouldn’t get involved with areas where the private sector is already active, and to maximise emissions reductions, it should prioritise areas that are more nascent and more likely to be helped by receiving government support.

The bill is silent in important areas. It tells us nothing about community energy projects; about the creation of green jobs; ensuring a transition for workers who will lose their jobs; ensuring that young workers are “skilled-up”.

[She lost me with this next bit, not because I don’t want to see nature restoration, but because she seems to be blissfully unaware of the way renewables are trashing our environment:] Climate change and biodiversity loss are two sides of the same coin. We need to incorporate “nature-based solutions and habitat restoration in the building of renewable infrastructure.”

The bill will help achieve a zero-carbon grid and free us from the volatility and unpredictability of fossil fuel prices [because as we all know, renewables aren’t volatile and unpredictable]. When the Bill is returned to the Commons, it should “establish an organisation that is effective, transparent and accountable, and equipped to take on the challenges it will undoubtedly face.”

Baroness Beckett

Former career politician, with many roles high in the Labour Party when an MP, raised to the Lords earlier this year. This is her maiden speech in the Lords, and the opening paragraphs dealt with that and the usual obligatory courtesies.

Once they were out of the way she said she remembered the Prime Minister asking rhetorically why shouldn’t Britain lead the world in key policy areas including climate change? We need to facilitate the spread of “clean” energy. Climate change has formed the background to much of her work, including as Environment Secretary, so she welcomes this debate. Climate change and nuclear weapons are the two great threats facing us – us, not the planet; the planet will be fine. She wishes she could be sure and confident that that degree of concern about the risk to humanity is universally shared, especially at the most senior levels of power and responsibility across the world.

The speech ended with the usual maiden speech niceties.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton

A barrister, raised to the peerage by Tony Blair in order to serve in his government as Lord Chancellor. A Labour party politician, his son Hamish has just been elected as a Labour Party MP. Following on from Baroness Beckett’s speech, he paid her a lengthy tribute, before turning to the subject of the bill.

The merit of the bill is in bringing public ownership back into the UK energy system. The required “clean” energy revolution will come about by the efforts of both the private and public sectors. Its creation so early in the life of the government and the commitment to it of £8.3 billion demonstrate the urgency with which the government is treating the issue. He welcomes the partnership with the Crown Estate in offshore wind power and he welcomes the appointment of GBE’s chairman.

It is wise to set GBE as a private company owned by the state, as this imposes private sector disciplines, such as the need to make a return on investment, whilst allowing it to pursue government objectives. It will help to create a whole new infrastructure on which our future economy depends.

He welcomes the bill, and what it demonstrates about the government’s commitment to addressing the climate emergency [sic]. He has two questions: first, how does the bill fit in with state subsidy and competition law? Secondly, would it not be better to incorporate the strategic aims of GBE in the Bill, to avoid them being subverted subsequently without Parliamentary approval? The House of Lords has always been keen to repel skeleton bills.

Lord Howell of Guildford

He declared his interests and paid tribute to Baroness Beckett, than turned his attention to the Bill. He said an entirely new era of energy politics is taking shape, from the election of President Trump to an approaching era of oil and gas surplus. The Secretary of State has said that he has three priorities: to save the planet (from climate change); to create jobs; and lower energy prices. He is very glad to learn that the latter is a priority, because millions of citizens wake up every morning worried about the coming winter and how they are going to pay for energy. The sums don’t add up. Energy cap or no energy cap, prices are too high.

How will GBE help to tackle all this? We must be clear – the government’s objectives require us to generate five times as much electricity as we do now. The economy as a whole is currently powered vastly more by fossil fuels than by renewables. Renewable energy provides just under 10% of the UK’s current energy usage. The other 90% has to be decarbonised to reach net zero.

27 million households use 6Kw of electricity a day. But by 2030, if they are not allowed to use oil and gas, they will need to use an average of 29Kw. This is 4.5 to 5 times more than now. Even sober estimates show us needing much more clean green energy than now, and this requires backup because of the problems of intermittency. We have all the problems of hydrogen and storage as yet unsolved. These are big problems. Who will pay?

The government accepts a shortage of funds and reliance on the private sector. I would like to hear more about that. Are we talking sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, or other international sources of investment?

As for saving the world, we currently produce about 1% of emissions. Carbon and methane emissions are still rising globally. CCUS will be necessary, but we haven’t heard much about it. The wider world is still heavily dedicated to coal. The Secretary of States wants more jobs. There will be green jobs, but many jobs will be lost in the energy transmission, and high energy costs will undermine our competitiveness, so that we will lose exports.

He can’t see lower bills. The size of the task is too great, and the consumer will end up paying for it. Far from being a world leader, we are falling dangerously behind, for a number of reasons. First, the nuclear sector is a mess – Hinkley is expensive, late and over budget. No private investor will touch Sizewell C with a bargepole. It will cost £20 billion, take ten years, and not help with the switch to net zero. Secondly, the entire grid needs a makeover to accommodate the electricity being brought from the North Sea. Switching stations, pylons, it will take years. Thirdly, there will be 1,000 to 1,500 pylons. Apparently the cables can’t go underground. What will GBE do about this? Fourth, the interconnector system, including the proposed interconnector with Morocco, is falling behind. Fifth, we are going to try to go at breakneck speed. We all know that the result will be slower. Sixth, heat pumps aren’t yet fully efficient, especially below 40F, and won’t solve the problem of heating domestic homes. Seventh, the plethora of new organisations – GBE, Great British Nuclear, NESO, Ofgem, National Wealth Fund, UK Infrastructure Bank – all have fingers in the energy pie. How they are related is unclear. It’s a sort of political or institutional indigestion. The need for co-ordination will be colossal.

Lord Cormack [who died earlier this year] would always ask of any new policy “Is it a plan or is it a story?”. Even after listening to Lord Hunt I’m not sure which this is.

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

A former Labour MP (Rosie Winterton), elevated to the Lords earlier this year.

Following another tribute to Baroness Beckett, she said she welcomed the Bill. It will establish the first new, national, publicly owned energy company in the UK for 75 years, and it’s a key plank in the plan to achieve net zero. “The company, as legislated for in the Bill, has the potential to contribute to the UK’s energy independence and climate goals, create good jobs directly and through its supply chains, support pathways for the oil and gas workforce, and deliver long-term revenue streams for the public.”

Many European state-owned governments own UK renewable assets. The city of Munich owns more offshore wind than do the UK public. The British public deserve a stake in it. GBE will make us stronger in an insecure world and provide us with a national energy champion. But it must have a sharp focus on creating quality jobs, both directly and through the supply chain. While we’ve installed more offshore wind than any country other than China, we lag far behind other European countries in terms of supply chain and job creation. That has to change. We mustn’t be as dependent on China for offshore wind turbines as we are for solar panels.

If GBE doesn’t play a key role in industrial strategy, we risk a backlash to the clean energy transition. It must use its powers to build up a strong supply chain and ensure a just transition for North Sea oil and gas workers. An example might be developing SMRs. She suggests amending the bill, perhaps by amending its objectives in clause 3, to cover these areas (supply chain and just transition).

The bill defines clean energy as being from sources that are primarily fossil-free. This mustn’t be allowed to restrict investments in technologies such as CCUS.

Lord Ravensdale

A cross-bench peer, one of the remaining hereditaries. He is an engineer, currently working as a project director for AtkinsRéalis and a director of Peers for the Planet, which interests he duly disclosed.

He supports the bill, as a means of supporting much-needed investment in energy. However, he agrees with Baroness Hayman that the strategic plans and priorities should be made available as the bill journeys through the house. He makes three high-level points:

First, the issue of costs. Over the past five years industrial energy costs have increased in Italy and Germany by 50%, in France by 93%, but in the UK by 124%. In the US they increased over that period by 21% and are a quarter of the price in the UK. This has an obvious impact on the government’s priority mission of getting economic growth going. Investment in the UK isn’t viable for energy-intensive businesses because of high electricity prices. Looking at the objects of GBE, we see decarbonisation, sustainability, and security of supply. Cost, however, is conspicuous by its absence. The government should consider adding this.

Second, systems governance. Local energy plans are patchwork in nature. “But they are essential in delivering the scale of investment we need for net zero. So I urge the Government to use the Bill as an opportunity to more clearly set out how that local governance structure is going to work, particularly in the context of NESO, which is responsible for the regional energy strategic planner role. If Great British Energy has a separate role within the energy system, that energy governance needs to be set out more clearly in the Bill.”

Third, nuclear. Great British Nuclear and GBE must be separate, but we need more clarity in that regard.

In conclusion, he seeks clarification of the role of GBE in relation to NESO with regard to the distribution of clean energy. Also, security of supply can embrace many things – from reliability to fuel security to physical security to cybersecurity. How would the government define security of supply within the bill?

Viscount Hanworth

Another hereditary peer, supporting Labour.

GBE is like Great British Nuclear and Great British Railways – boastful and grandiloquent titles tending to conceal a lack of substance. It’s too early to pass judgement, but to date we have scant information. There was a policy paper published in July which offered some pointers, that it seeks to “clear a path for those emerging technologies which could revolutionise the entire sector” such as “floating offshore wind, tidal, hydrogen generation and storage, and carbon capture”. Nuclear power is also mentioned, but it seems to have a secondary role, and its not clear how GBE and Great British Nuclear will be aligned in this regard.

The GBE projects seeks to redress the failures of the privatised energy industry. The government currently has little leverage over private energy companies, and it’s unrealistic to think this can be redressed by nationalising them – they are owned by foreign energy conglomerates and international financial consortia, and it would cost far too much to buy them out. When the energy sector was publicly owned, its profits could be devoted to maintaining the generating capacity of the grid and to aid research and development, e.g. with regard to nuclear power. Now this can only be done by imposing a levy on private company profits. The last government did it hesitantly and the current one seems to share the inhibitions, but the monies will be used to support the transition to clean energy.

Perhaps it is hoped that GBE will eventually become a major energy player, capable of deriving large profits. For the lifetime of this Parliament it will be sustained with £8.3 billion. It will be encouraged to enter into ventures with private enterprise. The Secretary of State will be the sole shareholder, and this would seem to inhibit its ability to raise finance. Its inability to issue shares means private investors can’t invest in it, but also it will avoid it falling into the hands of institutional investors intent on reaping excessive returns.

Regarding the transition to a carbon-free economy, I question some of the government’s assumptions. I am perplexed by the lack of attention being paid to the intermittency of renewable energy. We deal with this by having gas-fired power stations on stand-by, but to achieve the decarbonisation targets, these must be eliminated or CCUS must be the answer. But the technology for large-scale CCUS is not available, and I am sceptical about its prospects. And given the insecurity of its supply and the volatility of its price, we shouldn’t be relying on natural gas as a major source of energy. Interconnectors offer a solution, but they imply an undesirable dependence of supplies that are largely beyond our control. During temporary supply shortages, demand could be controlled by raising prices, but this will have damaging consequences. Heavy dependence on renewables implies the need for storage. The only viable means of doing this is by generating hydrogen, but this requires a vast and expensive infrastructure, rendering the cost of renewable energy on a large scale excessive. In any event, both CCUS and hydrogen require storage facilities, which are in short supply.

Inevitably, then, we need to look to nuclear energy to supply our electricity. It would be cheaper than renewables, and it is a tried and tested technology that can be implemented rapidly. We seem intent on using foreign suppliers, we should support native suppliers to create a fleet of SMRs.

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough

He needs no introduction to Cliscep readers, being the former Conservative MP and climate/energy sceptic, Craig Mackinlay. As many will be aware, he suffered life-threatening sepsis, which caused him to undergo a quadruple amputation. He was elevated to the House of Lords earlier this year by Rishi Sunak. Given his experience, and the fact that this was his maiden speech in the House of Lords, it is perhaps not surprising that he devoted much of it to his experience of sepsis.

He then explained his choice of title, adopting “of Richborough”. It is an historic place (where the Romans first landed) and was in his former constituency. There used to be a major coal-fired power station there, using Kent coal, but that was blown up in 2013. Now it is the site where interconnectors from Germany, France and Belgioum make landfall to make up the difference when renewables fail us. The electricity they deliver will probably be made using German coal. There is a massive solar farm nearby, with another one proposed, and there is a biogas facility. Richborough is inextricably linked with energy supply, past, present and future, and that is why he adopted it in his title. Energy will be the discussion point for the next 10, 15 or 20 years.

Because it’s his maiden speech, he is avoiding controversy, but says that if everybody is thinking the same, nobody is thinking. “This is too expensive, complex and important, and it will change our lives too much—when, frankly, most of the rest of the world is giving up—for us just to let this go through on the nod. That is why I thought today’s debate on GB Energy was a good one to be making my maiden speech in—not least because I can have 15 minutes rather than about five. But this topic will run, and I will take a full part in it.

[I am sure he will have lots to say when the Bill reaches committee stage].

Lord Lilley

After a fulsome tribute to Lord Mackinlay and a shorter one to Baroness Beckett, he launched into a marvellously sarcastic speech.

He says the bill essentially represents an incredible investment prospectus, and he used the word “incredible” advisedly. It is backed by 22 very prominent people – the Cabinet. None of them has ever launched a company before, or even worked in the private sector, which gives them a clarity of view that has escaped the attention of commercial businesses. The principle promoter of the bill is the Secretary of State, Ed Miliband. No company he has worked with has ever failed – because he has never been involved with any company before. He can issue instructions to the company’s board about anything, there is no limitation on his powers. He has said he will use those powers sparingly, which will be a disappointment to the board, as only rarely will it have his superior wisdom to guide it on the right path.

We are asked to endorse the prospectus before the company’s priorities and strategy have been revealed. Investors might be concerned that the government is pushing up costs while saying prices will come down. How will investors make a profit with rising costs and falling prices? Don’t worry – the government has abandoned its promise to cut bills by £300 per family, and has rejected all amendments to make that part of the duties of the company, as promised by the Labour Party at the last election. “Anyway, as a nationalised company, it will clearly bring the cost control of HS2 and the profit-making capacity of the Post Office to the businesses in which it invests. That must give us all great confidence for the future.”

Lady Winterton, Lady Hayman and Lord Falconer would all be investing if they could, as they have all welcomed it. Sadly, however, the government has concluded it can’t attract investment into this strange company that won’t tell us what its strategies and priorities are going to be. There is historic precedent, though – the South Sea Company said in its prospectus that its purposes would be revealed “at a later date”. And it went on to have initial great success—before the bubble burst.

The government says it will invest £8.3 billion, and this will crowd in much more private investment. Will it? Yes, it will, and I am not being ironic here. They will invest because they will know that politicians won’t let these projects fail. The government will always bail them out, because of the embarrassment of failure.

The Minister spoke with great clarity and little conviction. He gave no examples of any similar nationalised concern that has met expectations as expectations have been raised for GBE. We are being asked to vote for Einstein’s definition of madness – doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome.

Lord Grantchester

A Labour politician, though not a former MP. He is an hereditary peer, elected as one of the 92 hereditary peers in a by-election in 2003.

As an admirer of sovereign wealth funds, he welcomes the bill wholeheartedly. There can be no more important task than transforming the national economy towards a more sustainable future and stabilising the threat of ever more damaging climate change. He referenced “the science” but didn’t say how the UK would achieve this more or less on our own.

It is strange that the UK lacks public ownership. Allowing – welcoming – foreign ownership of large parts of the economy has been damaging [I certainly agree with him there]. Other countries have public ownership – France with nuclear and Denmark with wind power, including here in the UK.

It is right to focus on renewable energy in pursuit of net zero and more competitive sources in the long term. It must start at soon as possible and he congratulates the government for doing this so early in its term of office.

But he worries about a future rogue Conservative government, which might indulge in asset-stripping or privatisation. Clause 1(4) give the Secretary of State the power to revoke the designation of GBE by notice. Is this not an open goal for the Conservatives? It must be shielded from short-term political interference and be appropriately financed. Previous assessments have suggested infrastructure requirements for net zero would cost £28 billion per annum. Will £8.3 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament be sufficient? Will it provide value for money? Will CCUS be properly provided for?

He made a plea for demand-side reform as well as supply-side. [He referred to it euphemistically as demand flexibility service facilitated by the smart metering network, all year round, “as this can help manage energy demand and can be harnessed to unlock wider benefits, such as identifying and targeting support to retrofit energy-inefficient housing].

He stressed the role of smart meters, too, in maintaining grid stability and reducing balancing costs, as well as reducing bills by providing “more accurate information about energy usage, leading to lower consumption”. That might also provide anonymised information to help target benefits to those living in fuel poverty. Encouragement and examination of smart meters must be part of the government’s agenda.

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

A former leader of the Welsh Conservative Party, he was created a life peer in 2013.

He hopes that in criticising the legislation, we don’t lose sight of the “undoubted challenge of the age, climate change” and he calls for a bipartisan approach to it (“it is a question not of ideology but of survival”). He signed the Paris climate change treaty on behalf of the UK. So the issues he raises are because the government doesn’t have a plan with regard to GBE, only an aspiration, and one that puts too many powers in the hands of the Secretary of State. £8.3 billion isn’t a lot compared to the challenge, but it is a lot domestically, and we haven’t heard enough about the need for it to represent value for money. We need to pin down the suggested £300 reduction in energy bills. The competing – or apparently competing – bodies (Climate Change Committee, British Nuclear and the UK Infrastructure Bank) are not dealt with in sufficient detail. How will they work together? How is the bank’s performance to be reviewed? How is the Secretary of State’s powers to be reviewed? GBE is to be based in Scotland. He hopes Wales isn’t going to be short-changed.

Lord Alton of Liverpool

He is a former Liberal MP, who has sat as a crossbencher since being made a life peer in 1997.

He supports a mixed economy with partnerships between the public and private sectors; he supports diversity of energy supply [but not, apparently, fossil fuels – his list comprising nuclear and renewables, with a special mention for tidal barrages]. He draws attention, not to the elephant, but to the dragon in the room – the Chinese Communist Party. China is responsible for around 1/3 of global CO2 emissions; it has pumped out more “pollution” [ I assume he means greenhouse gas emissions] in eight years than the UK has done in 220; it is building the equivalent of two new coal-burning power stations every week; it is doing this, not to tackle climate change, but to build its industrial and military might. China’s largest wind turbine firm is involved in several North Sea projects. What aere we thinking of, handing over such an important capability to an authoritarian and hostile state?

We don’t have resilience; we have dependency. We have a trade deficit in goods [with China, seems to be implicit] of £32.3 billion, and we seem to be intent on adding to it. Over £140 million is paid to UK universities by Chinese companies, some of which are involved in military projects and some are linked to many bad things – Uighur genocide, nuclear development, military research, espionage and hacking. This is an existential threat. Cheap Chinese EV cars and long-haul lorries are aimed at destroying our automotive industry, and to enhance its ability to withstand a blockade if it invades Taiwan. Around 100,000 European car workers will lose their jobs by the end of the decade, because we can’t compete with Uighur slave labour.

In addition,, there are the supply chain problems. China is dominating critical minerals supply, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is appalling use of child labour.

Why has the British army invested £200 million in solar panels made by companies believed to have high exposure to forced labour in China? China also has global market domination across the solar photovoltaic supply chain. Why are we buying in possible breach of the Forced Prison-Made Goods Act 1897? It has been stated that human rights are not a reason to refuse a planning application. Why not? He and Lady Kennedy of the Shaws “will work together at later stages in moving all-party amendments to create a human rights-centric approach to greener energy supply chains. Let us put that insistence in the Bill and amend it accordingly.”

Lord Duncan of Springbank

A Conservative politician, a former MEP and a former Minister for Climate Change, a life peer since 2017. He declared hi interest in decentralised and nuclear energy.

He says the bill as it stands is largely a blank sheet of paper, and the challenge will be to fill in the details.

We have to be honest with the people – many of them think we are close to achieving our decarbonisation goals, and if so, they are wrong. Today at 5pm, half of the UK’s electricity was being supplied by gas, and renewables accounted for less than 10%, an extraordinary gulf that will have to be bridged very quickly. Much of our resilience isn’t domestic, but from the continent (interconnectors). But great calms don’t just affect us, they can affect western Europe at the same time, so we can’t rely on the interconnectors to supply renewable energy.

He has great hopes for GBE, but he’s disappointed that nuclear doesn’t seem to be playing a greater role, especially SMRs, given that baseload will become critical as we increase the proportion of renewables in the system. We also need more storage – just 3.2% of our electricity needs earlier today came form storage. Storage must have a much bigger role, because renewables are by their nature intermittent.

He hopes that we can sort out the promised £300 reduction in bills. People need to know they can stay warm in winter. This is important, because we need to lead the way and to demonstrate that decarbonisation works. But it won’t be easy, and nobody is going to be better off because of this [!]. It will cost a lot of money. But if we get it right, GBE has the potential to deliver.

Viscount Stansgate

Son of Tony Benn, younger brother of Hilary Benn, he is an hereditary peer, elected to be one of the select hereditaries entitled to sit in the house, in 2021, having succeeded to his title on his father’s death in 2014 (Tony, of course, famously renounced his peerage in order to be able to become an MP). He sits as a Labour MP.

He supports the bill and its objectives, as the centrepiece of the government’s strategy to achieve net zero. He addresses his remarks to clause 5(1), and the importance of long-duration energy storage (LDES). Medium-duration storage refers to technologies (such as batteries) for storage for 4 -24 hours, or a few days at most. LDES applies to technologies that store energy across multiple days, weeks, months or even years. In the UK we are going to need both. This is because our energy system will be transformed by decarbonisation, relying on renewables, which are weather-dependent and will produce a variable supply. The recent dunkelflaute [though he didn’t use the word] saw renewables producing very little, whereas about a month earlier they were producing over half of our electricity, peaking briefly at 83%. And so LDES is vital – it could ultimately be required to supply 1/3 of our electricity needs. He talks about the prospects for hydrogen.

Transforming the national grid is going to be controversial, not least because of all the pylons that are going to be required. But his key message is the need for LDES.

Baroness Noakes

A Conservative politician (though not, so far as I am aware, ever an MP), she was created a life peer in 2000.

She described the bill as seriously flawed. It looks a bit like the UK Infrastructure Bank Act (which she didn’t support), but at least that Act made provision for governance requirements and for periodic reviews of its effectiveness and impact, provisions which are mysteriously missing from the GBE Bill. It also had an early draft framework document, detailing how it would appropriate – also missing from this Bill. We need to know how GBE’s financial regime will work and what its financial remit will be, so as to ensure the bill contains appropriate guardrails and accountability measures. The proposed £8.3 billion receives little mention in reality in government publications. The Red Book refers to a total of £125 million for GBE, and that’s it, though intriguingly it also says GBE’s “investment activity will be undertaken by the National Wealth Fund” [which is what the government has taken to calling the National Infrastructure Bank]. It’s difficult to understand, given the existence of the Bank/Fund, why GBE is needed, and we should be told how they are to work together. The Bank is supposed to make a return on its investments and not to crowd out private investments. Will these principles apply to GBE? The minister must confirm that the Subsidy Control Act 2022 applies to GBE. To sum up:

I am not a fan of the big state, or of state involvement in commercial activities. Nor do I worship at the altar of net zero. I do not like this Bill at all, but I accept that, as a manifesto Bill, it will become law. It is, however, the duty of your Lordships’ House to work during the passage of the Bill to achieve clarity, accountability and transparency about Great British Energy, all of which are currently missing from the Bill.

Lord Cameron of Dillington

He is a cross-bencher, granted a life peerage in 2004. NB This is not David Cameron!

He says he’s a great supporter of GBE, its purpose, and the flexible approach taken in the bill. We need to adopt the new technologies quickly, both for net zero reasons and for energy security. If we invest wisely, we can harness renewable sources to enhance our security. It’s good that it can invest equity in businesses, so that if they succeed, the taxpayer can benefit too. He is told the energy transformation needs to attract £400 billion over the next ten years, and hopefully this can achieve that. We need to speed the process up – planning needs to be reformed. Maybe we can learn from France, which pays over the odds for land for infrastructure projects, and there they avoid objections at planning applications and judicial reviews [would I be too cynical to observe that he is a large landowner?].

GBE must also ensure generous community involvement in renewable projects (in Denmark, he says, the local community receives 20% of wind farm profits). Speed is of the essence, and there are too many blockages in the “plumbing”. So National Grid must work with generators to minimise the number of power lines needed. It and GBE must also work together to look at the costs of undergrounding cables – it might be cheaper in the long run than dealing with objections and judicial reviews.

As for the bill’s details:

Clause 1(4)’s drafting is a mistake. It shouldn’t be wholly owned by the Crown: 80% Crown ownership should suffice.

Too much power is to be given to the current and future Secretaries of State, very few of whom will have the necessary business and entrepreneurial experience and skills to enable them to make the right decisions. Amending clause 6(3)(b) might provide the answer, by providing a detailed list of people/bodies with whom he must consult.

The minimal reporting requirements to Parliament provided for by clause 7 are totally inadequate. An independent review every few years might also be a good idea, as is the case with the Infrastructure Bank.

SMRs are vital, and their role, and how they link with GBE, need to be clarified quickly.

He has great faith in hydrogen, especially for the decarbonisation of our roads. He thinks hydrogen vehicles will replace EVs. It’s also vital for long-term storage.

Lord Naseby

A former Conservative MP, he was appointed a life peer in 1997.

He feels GBE can offer the vehicle to achieve the challenge we face with regard to energy. He agrees with concerns about how it meshes with other energy corporations and agencies, but for now raises four points:

First, heat pumps can’t solve the need for housing decarbonisation, but he thinks hydrogen might, and that it can be cost-effective.

Second, he stresses the importance of SMRs.

Third, he has had talks with the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association and hopes the Minister has had, too. If not, he will be happy to hand over his notes.

Fourth, we must help small countries deal with their problems, especially in the Commonwealth.

But the bill is a good one, and he wishes it well. He will do what he can to help it on its way.

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

A Conservative, she spoke in the Lords Debate on Net Zero (Part One in this mini-series). She declared her interests, especially as honorary president of National Energy Action.

She says the country faces twin challenges of energy and food security, and they should be challenged together. The remit of the bill is too broad, and she worries that it represents a massive land grab.

We need to know better what form consultation will take – engagement with those affected by renewables developments. Farmers, fishermen, residents, consumers and industry are all affected by, for example, offshore wind developments, which affect the sea and require onshore substations and pylons, with transmission lines which can lose up to 10% of the energy passing through them. What about consultation with intensive energy users, such as brickmakers?

Clause 5 grants sweeping powers to the Secretary of State, which are far too broad. There must be effective Parliamentary oversight.

Will the Minister explain how GBE will remove the barriers to investment identified by the Association of British Investors?

We need sources of power generation closer to the point of demand/use. Why is Drax bringing wood chip from abroad? If windfarms weren’t in such remote locations, there would be less need for pylons and cables – they are very unpopular with local residents who receive no benefit from them.

What is the government’s position on energy from waste? It is very effective in many European countries.

She complains about environmental levies of £2 billion p.a., largely paid for by consumers in the standing charge.

Real environmental problems are caused by offshore windfarms – a problem to fishing and a danger to marine life. Also what happens to the blades at the end of their life?

Why are we signing up to large reductions in emissions while countries like US, China, India and Brazil carry on regardless?

In conclusion, I simply ask how this Bill to create Great British Energy will benefit Great Britain, given the massive impact the work of the company will have on the countryside, local communities, industry and consumers.

Lord Vaux of Harrowden

He is a crossbench peer, an hereditary one, elected to the group of hereditaries sitting in the Lords, in 2017. He declared his interest as a small-scale generator of hydroelectricity.

He welcomes the intention behind the bill:an affordable, secure and decarbonised power system must be a good thing. He suspects the five year timeframe is too optimistic, and he cautions against rushing. Although the intention is good, rushing it could undermine energy stability and render it more expensive.

He makes the same criticisms as others regarding the vague nature of the Bill, and the lack of detailed important safeguarding provisions such as those contained in the UK Infrastructure Bank Act, which in some other ways it mirrors. The statement of strategic priorities should be produce sooner, not later. He turned to the bill’s impact assessment [and this bit makes this debate so much more interesting than the other two, and is worth quoting in full:

…Let me give your Lordships some highlights from that. The total net present social value from GBE is given as not applicable; the business net present value is not applicable; the net cost to business per year is not applicable; the CO2 equivalent change in greenhouse gases, which is its core purpose is—guess what?—not applicable. In fact, in every single section of the impact assessment, it says not applicable. But I read on, and it goes on to say that:

“This legislation is not expected to have any direct benefits associated with it”.

Which is, I suppose, straightforward. We are being asked to scrutinise a Bill where we are not going to be allowed to see the statement of strategic priorities and for which there is no meaningful impact assessment for what the Government are planning to do.

The reporting and accountability provisions are inadequate. Perhaps there should be independent reviews. The contrast with the Infrastructure Bank legislation are stark and unfavourable. Similarly, it must not be the case that GBE is allowed to crowd out private finance. If it does, we will have failed. The Infrastructure Bank’s remit seems to overlap with GBE. How does this work? Its Act also provides details regarding the constitution of its board – this bill does not. We need to know.

The bill provides very broad financial assistance provisions. We need much more detail, and we need to know how any borrowing by it will be treated in UK debt figures. Perhaps there might be beneficial flexibility of some private equity capital could be introduced, rather than insisting on GBE being wholly owned by the Crown.

Since the end of Feed-in-Tariffs, there is little incentive for domestic generators to generate excess electricity to be sold to others. A trading company could stand in the middle and facilitate this. He will propose an amendment to clause 3(2)(a) to add “trading” to GBE’s objects.

He supports what the government is trying to do, but the bill is woefully lacking, especially around the areas of accountability.

Lord Ashcombe

He is an hereditary peer and Conservative politician, elected to the hereditaries sitting in Parliament, in 2022. He declared his interests as an insurance broker for the energy industry.

The bill’s aim of decarbonising the power sector by 2030 is laudable, but ambitious. It requires careful handling, especially if it is to receive popular support and understanding.

GBE’s founding statement says its mission is to “drive clean energy deployment, boost energy independence, create jobs and ensure UK taxpayers, billpayers, and communities reap the benefits of clean, secure, home-grown energy” yet none of that appears in the bill, nor are their clear metrics by which Parliament can measure its success. He agrees with others that this isn’t good enough.

He turns to clause 3 and GBE’s stated objectives. 80% of UK energy is hydrocarbons based; of the other 20% (electricity) we get 31% from wind; 28% from gas; 15% from nuclear as a constant baseload; 8% from biomass, largely from Drax, whose environmental credentials merit scrutiny; and 5% from solar, with the balance met by interconnectors with Europe. To convert that 20% to wind and solar is extremely challenging, and then there is the intermittency issue. GBE is unlikely to deploy its resources in conventional wind and solar developments, which are well-understood, but will have to get involved in floating offshore, which is in its infancy. It might also contribute to solving the associated planning, environmental and conservation challenges by encouraging the integration of clean energy production in all new infrastructure.

Grid infrastructure upgrades are daunting and dwarf the £8 billion earmarked for GBE. He is all for ambition, but he questions whether the goals are realistic and achievable. The £300 saving widely touted before the election seems increasingly elusive.

Gas will remain a key component of our energy mix for years to come. We have significant oil and gas reserves in the North Sea, with potential resources yet to be discovered. This could meet over half of the UK’s projected energy requirements over the next two to three decades. But production is falling, and this exposes us to increased reliance on imports. 200,000 jobs may be lost in this sector. Some will transfer to the renewables sector, but will they all?

Oil and gas make an important financial contribution to the economy (£27.6 billion in 2023), 1.2% of total economic output. Its decline must be managed carefully, yet it is being closed down. It is wrong to import LNG when we have reserves at home. LNG often comes from countries with less stringent environmental standards than we do, and has to be transported round the planet, thus increasing its carbon footprint. It doesn’t reduce emissions, which is the ultimate goal. He urges the government to reconsider.

Nuclear generation must also be an important part of the energy mix.

GBE may be useful in two other areas. First, dealing with the need for storage due to the intermittency of renewables. Battery storage is of too short duration, so green hydrogen should be a priority. Second, CCUS will be crucial to decarbonisation. He concludes by basically agreeing with the direction of travel to net zero by 2050, but he worries that the government is going too fast and that it has underestimated our ongoing reliance on hydrocarbons.

Baroness Young of Old Scone

She is a Scottish Labour member, created a life peer in 1997. She declared her interest as chair of the Labour Climate and Environment Forum.

She welcomes the bill, and the opportunity it presents to leverage private finance to tackle climate change [sic] and to meet our net zero objectives. She raises five points, all about GBE and the detail of the bill.

First, community energy is very important. It was mentioned in GBE’s founding statement, so why not include it in the bill as one of its objectives? She worries that GBE’s new Chairman is on record as not believing that it has much of a role to play.

Second, it is important that we see the statement of strategic priorities as soon as possible.

Third, GBE needs to be given an objective on biodiversity recovery. It and net zero need to complement each other.

Fourth, although she wants to see GBE having flexibility, it also needs to be more accountable regarding its reporting to Parliament.

Fifth, she looks forward to consultation of the draft land use framework, since joined-up government involves linking that in with GBE’s objectives: spacial energy issues need to be resolved in the context of all the pressures on land—for example, other infrastructure types, housing, flood risk management, food production, biodiversity, forestry and carbon sequestration, to name but a few.

Viscount Trenchard

He is an hereditary peer, and sits as a Conservative. He declared his interests as a member of the advisory board of Penultimate Power UK Ltd and as a consultant to Japan Bank for International Co-operation.

There is much talk of the UK becoming a clean energy superpower by decarbonising the grid by 2030, but it isn’t widely understood that the electricity grid provides only around 20% of our energy needs. Nuclear doesn’t seem to be as high in the government’s priorities as renewables, but it is essential in view of the need for baseload, and as large-scale affordable energy storage is still decades away. It is surprising that there is no explanation as to how GBE is to relate to Great British Nuclear. The situation is further confused by the National Infrastructure Bank’s presence in the same area. The next paragraph is, perhaps, worth quoting in full:

Clause 3 of the Bill before us today states the objects of GBE, of which the first is the provision of clean energy. Another object is improving energy efficiency. But pursuing a dual system of renewables and gas which you only use when there is not enough wind is inherently inefficient and leads to excessively volatile and unnecessarily high prices. These objects are substantially the same as several of the objectives of the national wealth fund, contained in Clause 2 of the UKIB Act. The NWF is set to be capitalised with £27.8 billion, compared with £8.2 billion for GBE, and that only within the course of this Parliament. GBN is clearly the poor cousin as it does not have any money to make investments. It has only the £342 million of net assets showing on its balance sheet on 31 March 2023. This again shows the low priority that the Government give to nuclear power. How is GBN going to make a contribution to funding the procurement of at least two SMRs, as declared?

He refers to recent poor generating performances by wind and solar, with heavy reliance on gas (and nuclear) and imports. This demonstrates that we can’t rely on renewables, and they do nothing for energy security. Larger industrial energy consumption is still heavily dependent on oil and gas. Even though he isn’t a climate alarmist, he supports the development of clean energy, but stresses that baseload is vital. The government’s plans, though, are prohibitively expensive and are damaging our remaining manufacturing competitiveness due to the high price of electricity in the UK.

Subsidies for renewables continue to distort the market, and we will need large fleets of gas-powered generators for essential back-up. The government can’t push its 2030 agenda without a proper cost-benefit analysis. Transferring renewables subsidies from electric to gas bills doesn’t solve the problem. And if subsidies are justifiable, then we should be subsidising nuclear. The government is not pursuing a proper nuclear energy strategy.

We may or may not be close to a climate emergency or crisis, but we face an energy apocalypse. Finally, the bill gives the Secretary of State great powers. Parliamentary oversight needs to be strengthened.

Earl Russell

He is a Liberal Democrat politician, and an hereditary peer who entered the house last year.

He welcomes and important and timely bill, but he has concerns with it and how it is set out. These relate to the clarity of the strategic objectives, the purpose, the definition and the scope, as well as the lack of reporting, accountability and oversight within the Bill. It is important for our energy security, but it is too short and it requires clarification.

We have great wind resources, but they are under-developed [sic]. We have some of the highest energy bills, and our reliance on imported gas must end. We must have energy independence to avoid being vulnerable to fluctuations in international energy markets. The energy transition will bring short-term costs but long-term benefits and security. Consumers must be supported during the transition and he hopes the promised £300 saving comes to pass.

Turning to areas of concern with the bill, the first is lack of funding. Second is the lack of any written strategic priorities for GBE. There is a lack of overall reporting or accountability. Its areas of interest aren’t adequately defined – it could spend 98% of its resources on nuclear energy or on CCUS. He understand that the government doesn’t want to be restricted, but that has to be balanced against clarity and an understanding of what Parliament is signing up to. There should also be a general environmental duty [if there is, surely that would scupper renewables?]. The powers granted to the Secretary of State in clause 6 are too large and vague. Other things are missing altogether, such as community energy. Grid capacity, grid connections, heat pumps are all important, and none are mentioned. Jobs and skills need to be funded. How will the various organisations in this energy field work together? GBE also needs to be future-proofed to make sure it outlasts this government and the next [in my opinion a profoundly undemocratic suggestion – future governments should always be free to undo the work of their predecessors if that is what the electorate has voted for].

Lord Offord of Garvel

The Bill gives the Secretary of State sweeping powers, it and its 2030 goals are ideologically fuelled, and there is no chance of the 2030 goal being met. The contents of the bill are equally concerning – lacking in detail, no clear business plan, no accountability framework, no plan. It seems to be more about grandstanding at COP29 than about practical solutions.

Why aren’t the government’s pre-election promises included in the bill? The £300 reduction in consumers’ bills; the claims of green jobs (when the reality is that jobs are being lost in the oil and gas sector). The 2030 plan is extremely bold, as NESO acknowledges, and involves the complete overhaul of the grid. Why, then, is the gris not even mentioned in the bill? We can’t even handle today’s demand, so how can the grid achieve the 2030 targets?

The bill compares unfavourably with that setting up the National Infrastructure Bank. There is a lack of proper accountability and reporting and too great powers granted to the Secretary of State.

We need more nuclear power.

There is no shortage of investment in renewables. The £8 billion should be spent in fixing the grid. There are dangers from closing North Sea oil and gas down too quickly.

So I ask, in conclusion, how can we trust the Government’s ambitions when the foundations for success are not set out more clearly in the Bill? Where is the plan for infrastructure? Where is the commitment to accountability? Where are the protections for the British taxpayer? And, most important of all, how will Great British Energy result in cheaper energy for UK consumers?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

He summed up on behalf of the government and endeavoured to respond to the various points raised during the debate. To report on that would be repetitive, so I won’t summarise his closing speech here.

Conclusions

As someone with a quaintly old-fashioned belief in democracy, I have long been of the view that the unelected House of Lords is an affront to democracy, and that it should be substantially reformed (in order to democratise it) or abolished. This debate hasn’t changed my mind, but it has been refreshing to see a much higher quality debate than in the last two House of Lords debates I have reported on and also, I venture to suggest, a higher quality of debate than in the House of Commons. I agreed with much that was said, disagreed with much, and found a small part of the debate to be suggestive of limited thought and ability. However, there was also much food for thought, and the shortcomings of the bill were laid bare for all to see. Some of the speeches were excellent. The bill now moves to committee stage, where detailed work should be carried out. It will be interesting to see what emerges.