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Turkey Imports

11.29 am

The Countess of Mar asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether any live turkey chicks have been imported from outside the United Kingdom since October 2006; and what are the controls on such imports.

The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): My Lords, current records show that 354,745 live turkeys have been imported to the United Kingdom since last October. These included 141,046 day-old chicks from within the EU. Figures for imports into the United Kingdom of live day-old turkey chicks from outside the EU are not currently available. All consignments of live birds are liable to documentary and identity checks. These must come with an official health certificate guaranteeing compliance with European Union rules and freedom from disease.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Would he kindly convey to all the officials at Defra and to the local authorities concerned in the Norfolk outbreak my congratulations on the very efficient and effective way in which they dealt with that outbreak?

Noble Lords: Hear, hear!

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, they had clearly done their homework beforehand and got it right, unlike with the foot and mouth disease outbreak.

In addition to the checks made on these chicks, what checks have been made on the movements of animals, people and vehicles that have travelled between the Bernard Matthews premises in Suffolk and the partnership premises and the infected area in Hungary?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, first, I thank the noble Countess for her appreciation of the work of Defra, which I think was supported by the whole House. A lot of planning has gone into this in terms of exercises over a long period, and the department put into place exactly what was planned.

An enormous amount of work is going on in the laboratories checking the movements of people, animals, birds and lorry movements between various plants. Indeed, the laboratory still does not know—and will not know until later today—the precise DNA structure of the H5N1 virus in Suffolk and what was discovered in the outbreak in Hungary. Even if they are found out to be the same, there is no proof of transmission. By the way, although I said that about 141,000 day-old chicks had been imported, none of those chicks came from Hungary.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister and the Government for the expedition and effectiveness of the work that they undertook from the time when they were called to this outbreak.

I have two supplementary questions. First, are the Government satisfied that they were called in soon enough to this outbreak, or would it have been better if they could have been called in earlier? Secondly, this outbreak gives the appearance of being totally under control, for which we should all be extremely thankful. It would be reassuring to know that the State Veterinary Service was testing the other sheds on that particular turkey farm to see whether antibodies are appearing in any of those other buildings. Although we think that the biosecurity is good, these viruses have rather sneaky habits.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, active work is going on in patrols not only on the other sheds in the farm but in the controlled area—the protection zone of three kilometres—and the 10-kilometre surveillance zone. That is the whole purpose of those zones being put in place. Then there are the other issues relating to the ban of bird shows and pigeon racing and—I think from today—on shooting game birds in that zone, because shooting disturbs wild birds. So there is effective work going on and a constant surveillance programme. These controls will remain for some time, notwithstanding that the sheds have been disinfected; I do not know whether they have all been done. It is a large enterprise because it is a large factory and checks are being made, not only in that factory but in other factories in that three-kilometre zone.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, from these Benches we add the view that Defra contained the outbreak very well this time.

Are the checks on the day-old chicks done visually? If not, are some kept back as samples—because a day-old chick might well be carrying the virus and it might not be apparent? Clearly, the chicks are imported and taken directly to the place where they will grow into adults. Exactly at what stage does it become apparent that a batch is free from disease?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I understand that there are three types of check: a documentary check of the certificate accompanying the consignment; an identity check to ensure that the consignment matches the information on the document; and physical checks on the consignment, including on the temperature and conditions and checks for microbiological and chemical containment. The chick stays day-old only for a day.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Rooker: My Lords, it is more complicated than that. I understand that most of the chicks we import come from France, the Netherlands and Spain. When I said to officials, “They’re born one day and they’re here the next”, the reply was, “It is not quite as simple as that, Minister, because some of them may be born on the way”. The chicks go into the system but that does not mean that they are not checked by workers in the factories. I am not saying that they are checked in the same way as they are on the lorries, but there is constant surveillance on large poultry farms. I have seen for myself, not at a turkey farm but at a large broiler farm, that constant checks are made on the birds’ health.

Local Authorities (Contracting Out of Anti-social Behaviour Order Functions) (England) Order 2007

Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2007

Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2007

Mental Capacity Act 2005 (Loss of Capacity during Research Project) (England) Regulations 2007

Road Traffic (Northern Ireland) Order 2007

Policing (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2007

Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2007

Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2007

Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2007

Smoke-free (Penalties and Discounted Amounts) Regulations 2007

Smoke-free (Exemptions and Vehicles) Regulations 2007

Children and Young Persons (Sale of Tobacco etc.) Order 2007

11.35 am

The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): My Lords, I beg to move the Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Moved, That the orders and regulations be referred to a Grand Committee.—(Baroness Amos.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of my noble friend Lady Scotland of Asthal.

Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Serious Crime Bill [HL] has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 4,

Schedule 1,Clauses 5 to 35,Schedule 2,Clauses 36 to 44,Schedule 3,Clauses 45 to 48,Schedule 4,Clauses 49 to 56,Schedule 5,Clauses 57 to 65,Schedule 6,Clause 66,Schedules 7 and 8,Clauses 67 to 69,Schedule 9,Clauses 70 and 71,Schedule 10,Clauses 72 to 75,Schedule 11,Clauses 76 to 78,Schedule 12,Clause 79,Schedule 13,Clauses 80 to 82.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Energy: Electricity Supply

11.36 am

Lord Tombs rose to call attention to issues facing the electricity supply industry and to the case for a strategic decision mechanism; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the fifth annual debate on the subject, and the problems which initiated the series remain unaddressed and are of growing seriousness. Regular attendees will know that the privatisation of the industry effectively removed its capacity for strategic planning as a result of the fragmentation of the industry. For some years, Governments—I emphasise “Governments”—held to the view that strategic planning would be provided by the open market competition resulting from privatisation. That has proved to be a delusion. Instead, strategy has emerged, faute de mieux, from the Government’s manipulation of the electricity market—not always successfully.

Some may question why we are concerned today only with the electricity supply industry and not directly with other energy industries. There are four reasons for that. First, electricity is derived mainly from the primary fuels—coal, oil, gas, nuclear power and hydro. Secondly, electricity cannot be stored so the industry operates by responding, almost instantaneously, to demand. Thirdly, electricity is relied on nationally to an extent unmatched by any other energy industry. Fourthly, electricity is the only practical large-scale outlet for the products of renewable energy and is likely to contribute to reducing the CO2 emissions of our largest polluting sector—ground transport. All those issues enter our deliberations and underlie the needs and shortcomings of the present electricity industry.

Let there be no mistake: the absence of any clear strategy for the industry has resulted in a serious situation today, for we will be increasingly reliant on gas supplies for some decades to come, many of them from unstable areas of the world and at increasing cost. That will inevitably bring the probability of interruptions of considerable duration in electricity supplies. It is now simply too late to take effective remedial action; even if positive decisions are taken now, planning and construction times are too great. There is virtually nothing that we can do to offset that risk. That is the price of relying on national and international energy markets to provide a strategy which has traditionally been the responsibility of the industry. Laissez-faire on the part of successive Governments has exacted a grievous and lasting price.

Prior to privatisation of the industry, security of supply was ensured by diversity of primary fuel supplies: coal, nuclear, oil, gas and hydro. That diversity was sacrificed by the dash for gas at the time of privatisation. Virtually all power stations built in the past 20 years have been gas-fired. The independent generators followed market forces and invested in gas, with its advantages of cheap fuel, low capital cost and short construction times. It was an eminently reasonably course within market considerations at the time, but relied heavily on the reliability of overseas gas supplies. During our debate, successive Ministers have reaffirmed their confidence in that approach. However, recent history has shown how misguided that was, locking us into increasing future dependence on imported gas.

During the past 20 years, a period we might fairly describe as the locust years, our coal, oil and nuclear power stations have grown older and are today well past their designed lives. They will progressively fall out of service. To replace them will prove a time-consuming process. Their short-term replacement must be more gas stations, exacerbating the problem of gas dependency. Measures are in hand, it is true, to increase our gas stocks, but we are talking in terms of days, not weeks or months. Some reliance is being placed on liquefied natural gas, but that will also come from politically sensitive areas.

What of the billions of pounds spent on subsidising wind farms? Wind is certainly the most proven of the renewable resources we so often discuss, but is of practical value only when it blows at a sufficient, but not too great, speed. Wind generation is consequently available for only about a third of its nominal capacity—and that at times which seldom coincide with peak demand. There is no doubt that it has saved a considerable amount of CO2, but at a great cost which is likely to sharply increase when the offshore wind programme gets under way.

It might be useful to digress here to ask why we embarked on such an ambitious programme of wind power. First, it was undoubtedly the only renewable source capable of making a significant contribution to CO2 savings today. Secondly, it appeared to some to be an alternative to nuclear power, an error for which there can be no excuse given its intermittent output; I fear that crude prejudice was also a strong factor. Additionally, the enthusiasm of wind power supporters led them to assume load factors which have not been achievable in practice, so that the CO2 savings have been less than expected and the subsidy for operation will be substantially higher than the government figure of £30 billion for the period to 2020—but continuing, of course, beyond that date. We must hope that a similar fate does not await offshore wind, though I fear that it probably does.

I have said that wind power is the only renewable source presently capable of a substantial contribution to CO2 reduction, and we have seen how expensive and disappointing that has been. I am afraid that the same handicaps of cost and effectiveness are shared by the other renewable energy developments now in the experimental or pilot stages. There is no shortage of renewable energy, but its diffuseness and intermittency make it an expensive and fitful contributor to our problems.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of proponents of various renewable sources. Their ability to deliver reliably and at reasonable cost is unfortunately unlikely, despite the credulity of politicians seeking green credentials. Novel solutions abound, but hard facts do not match them. There is a real need, as I said during last year’s debate, to subject visions to the test of reality. The current fad for distributed generation, where individual homes are powered by solar power or gas-fired combined heat and power—CHP—is the latest example of a worrying lack of common sense, to say nothing of the technical problems involved. Some supporters of this particular nostrum see its adoption as rendering the electricity grid obsolete. However, they seem to be able to simultaneously support large onshore and offshore wind farms which will require the grid to transport their output, wherever it may be available, to distant urban areas. This incoherence does not appear to worry them.

The everyday practicalities of the notion of distributed generation, however, are quite clear. Demand varies between summer and winter, so that generators are unlikely to run throughout the year and consumers will require a standby mains supply of electricity for that reason, as well as to cover the inevitable breakdown of the individual units—enter the grid, again. How it will be possible to estimate the amount of standby supply required and recover the costs of standby is another and more complicated matter, but not one which interests those environmentalists who seem to enjoy the ear of politicians of all parties. It needs to be kept in mind when considering the romantic notion of exporting to the grid from myriad homes.

I hope that the threat to the security of our electricity supplies is now clear and that our inability to influence it in the short term is recognised. Therefore, let us turn to the other pressing energy problem facing us and the rest of the world, which is climate change. It is now accepted that CO2 emissions must be reduced by all nations, and it is surely evident that the industrialised and industrialising nations have most scope to influence future emissions. International agreements have a crucial part to play, but I want to dwell for a few minutes on the UK situation.

Our efforts over the past few years have been strong on rhetoric but ineffective in practice. Our CO2 emissions, having fallen for a brief period, are now rising and will continue to rise as our ageing nuclear power stations have to be taken out of service. They, and the ageing coal and oil stations, will be replaced in the short and medium term by gas. A growing contribution from wind will help, as will energy savings. However, we need to move as quickly as possible to other energy sources capable of high load factors and reliable production, which means coal and nuclear power. Coal can be regarded only as a medium-term contributor, because it depends on carbon sequestration and storage on a scale not yet achieved. To rely upon an early and affordable solution would be to take unreasonable additional risks.

It follows that we need to pursue the introduction of new nuclear power on an urgent basis. In doing so, we shall have to compete with a world that is rapidly reaching the same conclusion, and we shall find that the manufacturing and construction skills have suffered worldwide from a period of neglect and so will come under pressure. We should note that the British manufacturing industry relevant to our problems has largely closed down during the past 30 years and that the failings of the electricity supply industry have contributed strongly to its demise. However, that is another story which must not divert us from today’s pressing problems.

I believe that the best that we could hope for, given a real sense of urgency, would be for the first station to come on line 10 years from now, followed by one station annually for perhaps five years and then two stations annually. Even for such a programme to be feasible, we have to start now by identifying the design we want to use, clearing the safety case and identifying sites which would, of course, be subject to planning consent. At present, there are a number of serious obstacles to any such programme. The first problem is the effective location of the industry strategy in the DTI. To make Ministers and civil servants responsible for such decisions is plainly absurd, given their lack of any business or technical experience and their constant job changes. There seems to be no way of making the industry itself the centre for strategic decisions, given its fragmented nature. The second problem is that the choice of reactor has to be made and the safety case satisfied. Those activities, in the interests of speed and economy of scarce resources, have to be concentrated in one decision-making centre. Three of our largest power companies—one French-owned, one German-owned and the third Spanish-owned—would not readily agree to one of them filling this role, and the urgency of the matter does not permit the idea of a consortium. The third problem is that some way has to be found to finance the construction. As in all industries, that role eventually falls to the consumer, and the tariff structure has to provide the cash flow needed for the programme, which will be cash-negative for around 15 years, a concept that is not unfamiliar to technologically based industries with long lead times.

My experience in the electricity and other long-term industries leads me to believe that these difficult problems are not soluble by a Government finding themselves in the driving seat—and largely responsible for the problems that present themselves. It is true that the Secretary of State for Industry is statutorily responsible for security of electricity supply, but that requirement does not readily translate into meaningful strategy, much less action. I believe that the problems can be addressed by a clear strategy, and I would like to suggest solutions to tackle them in the order I raised them.

First, the strategy of the industry must be placed in the hands of a statutory body to avoid the discontinuities of government. In our first debate in 2002 I commended the example of the Electricity Commission, which served the country well from the mid-1920s until 1947. It too had to deal with a fragmented industry in a competitive environment. The parallel is not a close one, but I believe that it offers an acceptable structure. I should say here that in 2002, when I first raised this, the Minister replying to the debate dismissed the idea on the grounds that such a body was unnecessary, and gratuitously suggested that I might be looking for a job. The first of these objections is surely no longer to be taken seriously, and the second was wrong then and remains so today. I am sure that such a commission could readily be formed by able, experienced and much younger people than me who would be able to construct a strategy and see it implemented.

Secondly, one company needs to champion and deliver the programme. In British Energy we are fortunate to have a pool of talented and experienced people who could undertake the necessary steps to launch and carry out such a programme. They are responsible for the safe operation of our nuclear power stations, apart from the Magnox ones, and have performed well under a variety of difficult challenges.

The third problem, that of financing the programme, requires the use of cash-flow incentives similar to the renewable obligation certificates—the famous ROCs—which have been successful in developing highly subsidised wind power. That success has been due to the fact that investors are not required to take significant risks over which they have no control, and, in the case of wind, the need for a subsidy. In the nuclear case, when the Government cease to cream off most of the cash reserves of British Energy, it will be possible for substantial internal financing too.

All this seems obvious and sensible. Without some such solution we will not be able to tackle either the security or the climate change problems which I have described today. But the matter will require strength and vision by the Government. One difficulty is that the DTI has been able effectively to commit more than £30 billion to the wind programme without reference to the Treasury, Parliament or the Public Accounts Committee. To the best of my knowledge that is unprecedented, and it is surely undesirable. The present situation allows the DTI and Defra to share that power base, and it would be surprising if they willingly surrendered such a unique position. However, without a solution on the lines I have outlined, I do not believe that our problems of security of electricity supply and CO2 reduction can be tackled.

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