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Mr. Stunell: I said at the previous sitting that I expected the Minister to administer ointment and balm during our discussions, and he has done his best to do so. He presented new clause 7 in the best possible light, but it still deletes the targets and limits the Government's obligation to report on matters that the Secretary of State wants to report on rather than matters that should be reported on.
I was particularly interested in the Minister's reinterpretation of 5 million tonnes as something less than 6 million tonnes but more than 4 million tonnes. I do not know whether he has ever tried that approach in a magistrates court, but I suspect that it would not get very far. I am not sure whether a group of school governors could get away with such an approach to targets with Ofsted. The reason why one could not get away with it in a magistrates court or with Ofsted is that we would be talking not simply about an aspiration, but about a legal requirement. Every member of the Committee who has spoken except the Minister wants a proper, official statutory requirement. He has disappointed us tremendously by failing to go for that.
I have said before that the difficulty is that the regulator, who has one of the principal duties to ensure that things happen, takes a narrow view of the tasks. There is no doubt that if the measure does not contain a figure, Ofgem will take the view that it can allow the market to dictate progress, and if we include a figure that is well below 5 million tonnes, Ofgem will set that as the maximum to which it is prepared to go in, as it would see it, distorting the market.
The Minister boldly said that he wanted to be aspirational, but the energy efficiency plan for action refers to the announcement of a new aim of delivering savings of 4.2 million tonnes. The figure is already aspirational and is about as woolly and floppy as it gets. He is not setting an aim, but following a trend.
The Minister made several useful points about the contribution that the commercial and industrial sectors make to energy efficiency savings. I would like to debate that in more depth on another occasion, because it raises very important issues. However, the essence of the debate on clauses 2 and 3 is whether the domestic sector, which is responsible for 30 per cent. of carbon emissions, should have more rigorous carbon reduction targets. The Minister has decided that it
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should not, and that it should simply follow what current trends predict. That is bitterly disappointing to those of us who believe that a much more vigorous assault on the problem is needed. Whether there are any levers in the legislation will determine whether the regulator takes the problem seriously. The question does not solely, or mainly, concern the sources of energy that we use, but what demand we apply to the system. That is particularly true of the domestic sector, where efficiency of use is at least as important as the nature of the supplies that are delivered to it.
We seek to retain clause 3 as well as clause 2, and if the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East is inclined to press new clause 9, we shall support that too. I recognise that the Minister has done his best and has made moves in the right direction, but it is difficult to see any progress. We think that coal mine methane is a sensible addition to the list, and we hope to proceed on that basis with either an amendment to clause 2 or with an amended new clause 7.
This has been a disappointing debate; I do not believe that the Minister has substantially answered my earlier charge that he misled the Committee by saying that new clause 7 is a proper substitute for clauses 2 and 3. The opportunity has been missed.
The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot say that the Minister has misled the Committee. Does he wish to withdraw that statement?
Mr. Stunell: I allowed my enthusiasm to run ahead of my propriety. I apologise to the Committee and the Minister.
The Chairman: Is the statement withdrawn?
Mr. Stunell: Unreservedly. It is particularly unfortunate that I said that, because I have a high regard for the Minister, whom I know tries his best to give the Committee the information that he feels that we should have and to ensure that it is accurate. I therefore apologise. None the less, perhaps the remark was a measure of how disappointed and concerned my colleagues and I are that an important opportunity for what is supposed to be a Bill that will set policy for the next decade, and possibly after, has been missed. We shall seek to divide on clauses 2 and 3.
Mr. Robertson: On a point of order. Mr. Sayeed. I said earlier that the amount of electricity derived from nuclear sources would be down to 2 per cent. in 10 years. I apologise, but I should have said 20 years.
Mr. Timms: Further to that point of order, Mr. Sayeed. The proportion of electricity derived from nuclear sources by 2020 will be about 7 per cent.
Mr. Robertson: In 20 years—by 2024—it will be 2 per cent.
Dr. Desmond Turner (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for accepting the principle that there is a huge, clear distinction between the development of a machine or technology and its deployment. For instance, the
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Army could have the most magnificently developed tank in the world but if it is sitting in a garage in Aldershot, it will not fight any wars until it is deployed.
I am happy with the Minister's assurance that he is prepared either to table or to accept an amendment on Report. I hope that he will resist any blandishments from his departmental lawyers trying to tell him that there is no difference between development and deployment. Lawyers are always wrong, and it is nice to serve on a Committee that is not dominated by lawyers. If there are any here, I shall say it again: lawyers are usually wrong. Given the Minister's helpful response, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 10.
Division No. 2]
AYES
Baker, Norman
Key, Mr. Robert
McIntosh, Miss Anne
Page, Mr. Richard
Robertson, Mr. Laurence
Ruffley, Mr. David
Stunell, Mr. Andrew
Weir, Mr. Michael
NOES
Atkins, Charlotte
Challen, Mr. Colin
MacDonald, Mr. Calum
Murphy, Mr. Denis
Stewart, Ian
Timms, Mr. Stephen
Tipping, Paddy
Turner, Dr. Desmond
Walley, Joan
Whitehead, Dr. Alan
Question accordingly negatived.
Clause 3
Annual report on energy efficiency
Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 10.
Division No. 3]
AYES
Baker, Norman
Key, Mr. Robert
McIntosh, Miss Anne
Page, Mr. Richard
Robertson, Mr. Laurence
Ruffley, Mr. David
Stunell, Mr. Andrew
Weir, Mr. Michael
NOES
Atkins, Charlotte
Challen, Mr. Colin
MacDonald, Mr. Calum
Murphy, Mr. Denis
Stewart, Ian
Timms, Mr. Stephen
Tipping, Paddy
Turner, Dr. Desmond
Walley, Joan
Whitehead, Dr. Alan
Question accordingly negatived.
<<96>>Clause 4
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Norman Baker (Lewes) (LD): I hope that it is appropriate to make general comments about the proposal to establish the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority as that will enable me to curtail future comments on later amendments. The good news is that the Liberal Democrats believe it right—indeed, long overdue—to establish such a body. There is a need to assess the amount of time, effort and money to be devoted to the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and the onward transmission to waste disposal. I also welcome the Government's statement, in their document, ''Developing a Framework For Stakeholder Engagement and Transparency for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)'', that it is important to establish
''the credibility of the NDA as a body which can deliver and will make a difference.''
The establishment of such a body throws into sharp relief the costs of decommissioning, which at £48 billion will be £8,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. Although this debate is not about new nuclear build, those who advocate it may wish to consider the cost to date of the nuclear industry for every person in the country.
Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that the past record of the nuclear industry has left a cost legacy. However, does he accept that, with changed technology, those costs would not necessarily be repeated?
Norman Baker: That is an interesting hypothesis, which we have heard over several decades from the nuclear industry, but it has invariably proved to be wrong. Perhaps one day it will be right, but I have seen no evidence for that and would not take the chance. I want to stress that in making these comments, I am not making the argument for or against new nuclear build. I want to address my remarks to the decommissioning challenge.
9.45 am
The first thing to do is establish exactly how independent the nuclear decommissioning authority would be. The Government's framework document refers to the need for transparency, but there are several important relationships with the NDA that are not entirely clear. Before we go into the detailed clauses in chapter 1 of part 2, it would be helpful if the Minister commented on that.
For example, it is not entirely clear what the relationship will be between the NDA and the parts of the nuclear industry that continue to be actively involved in generation, such as BNFL and, to take a private sector example, British Energy. We know that the NDA will be situated in Cumbria, which is a welcome development as it will protect jobs up there. That was discussed on Second Reading by the local Member of Parliament, the right hon. Member for
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Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), and we all agree that there is a need to ensure that the skills and knowledge base in Cumbria are not lost and that we have an opportunity to protect jobs in a positive way.
That is not in dispute, but the NDA will be literally across the road from people from whom it is receiving material and locations to be decommissioned. In those circumstances, it is important that the NDA is not only independent, but seen to be independent. The authority is a good concept. I hope that it succeeds and attracts cross-party support—not just in principle, but in practice throughout its lifetime—but if it is to do that it needs to be independent. Any suggestion that it could be used to bolster the nuclear industry would be unhelpful. It has a function entirely separate from nuclear generation, and irrespective of one's views on nuclear generation, the NDA should have that separate role and not be used either to attack or to support nuclear generation. It should have a discrete role, and it is important that it is constructed so that it is seen to have that.
There are real issues as to the independence of the NDA. Will the Minister tell us who will give it direction? The Bill, unless I have misread it, is rather vague on that. Will direction be the sole responsibility of the Secretary of State, or will the industry have a hand in determining how it is governed? That is an important point of principle. My hon. Friends and I believe that there should be an arm's-length relationship between the NDA and the industry. I do not want to speak for the Conservatives, but I imagine that their amendments will propose a different view, so this is an important principle to establish.
The relationship between the NDA and Nirex, which is the great unspoken body in the Bill, is also unclear. Nirex has a responsibility for long-term waste disposal—I do not like the word ''disposal'', because this material remains active for a huge number of years—but clause 6 gives the NDA some responsibility for disposal. Will the Minister clarify what the relationship will be between the NDA and Nirex? Will the NDA's disposal responsibilities be limited to low-level waste, as I believe they should be, or will it have a function on intermediate and high-level waste?
I hope that you agree that this is the best time to raise these questions, Mr. Sayeed. It is important that when we agree to the establishment of the NDA, we understand what we are agreeing to. The issues are fundamental and they will determine whether the NDA will work.
It is important also that the NDA has an overriding principle, so that people are clear about its primary function. I believe that it should be to protect human health and the environment, but that is not stated in the Bill. Will the Minister clarify what he believes to be the primary duty of the NDA? The lists of responsibilities in clause 6 and general duties in clause 12 do not meet that challenge.
I do not want to take too much time at this point, but there are a number of questions about the NDA. There is also the question whether it will be a nuclear
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generator or simply a decommissioner. Cross-reading clauses 6 and 12 seems to imply that the NDA can be empowered to continue to generate nuclear waste and nuclear electricity, and even—possibly—to build new nuclear generation stations if that is deemed necessary to carry out its ''functions''. It could continue to generate plutonium and, in other words, it could become the opposite—
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