Standing Committee D
Tuesday 24 February 1998
[Mrs. Ann Winterton in the Chair]
10.30 am
The Minister for Science, Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): I beg to move,
"That during the proceedings on the Fossil Fuel Levy Bill [Lords] the Committee do meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at half-past Ten o`clock and half-past Four o`clock."
I welcome you to the Committee on behalf of all hon. Members, Mrs. Winterton. The Bill contains only two clauses and is concerned entirely with the fossil fuel levy. Clause 1 deals with the substance of the Bill and the kinds of electricity to which the fossil fuel levy will apply. This is an important and highly technical little Bill, but I hope that it will not consume too much parliamentary time. We must give it our best attention given its technical nature. In that spirit, I hope that we can examine the details and make sure that it is a decent Bill. I am sure that we will have a genial atmosphere under your guidance, but, at the same time, that we will get down to the detail. I hope that we will not detain Parliament too long, but that we will take sufficiently long to get through the work that we need to do.
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham): First, I extend a warm welcome to you on behalf of Conservative Members, Mrs. Winterton. We hope that you will pass on our welcome to Mr. Andrew Welsh, who shares the arduous responsibility of guiding us through what the Minister rightly said is a small, but important Bill.
I also welcome the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), who is the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary. She and I have served for three years on the Select Committee on Science and Technology and I am pleased to see her in place. I hope that her knowledge will add to our scrutiny of the Bill.
I also welcome the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts)--the long-suffering Government Whip. He is a veteran of Standing Committees, as many hon. Members will know. He has just done sterling service on the Committee that considered the National Minimum Wage Bill. I have a small message for him. He commenced work on that Bill on his birthday and I can assure him that Conservative Members will not keep him engaged on this Bill until his next birthday.
I have not served under your chairmanship before, Mrs. Winterton, but I am sure that, given your great experience, we will be able to look to you to keep order and to ensure that our proceedings are swift.
Conservative Members look forward to a constructive debate. We want to engage with the Government to give the Bill the appropriate scrutiny. Although it contains only two clauses, it is, as I have said before and as the Minister has agreed, significant.
Despite the Minister's convoluted explanation on Second Reading, the Bill is a tax-raising measure. The level of the tax will depend on how the money that is raised by the levy will be spent. Conservative Members therefore want to subject the Bill to close scrutiny.
I should raise a couple of concerns about the Bill's passage. The outstanding point is the length of time that has elapsed since the Bill was first introduced. The Bill's First Reading in another place took place as long ago as 26 June 1997; Second Reading took place on 18 July; and the Committee stage and Third Reading took place on 16 and 23 October respectively. The Bill was introduced into this House on 27 October. Second Reading took place on 5 November, when the Bill was assigned to Standing Committee A.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) described the Bill on Second Reading as an orphan of a Bill, and I agree with him. This poor orphan Bill languished for more than three months until this morning . The Public Bill Office told me that it is almost unprecented for there to be such an interval between Second Reading and Committee stage.
I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us the reason for that lengthy delay and assure us that it has not been caused by technical problems that would lead him to seek to amend the Bill at a later stage. I could venture an explanation for the length of time that has elapsed--I could suggest that energy policy is in a state of crisis and the Government have therefore been anxious to delay the Committee stage and avoid discussion of energy policy--but that would be churlish. No doubt the Minister will clarify the matter.
Several reviews are taking place at the moment, and later in the Committee proceedings my hon. Friends and I intend to probe those matters.
I want also to raise the matter of the Electricity Generation Bill, which has commenced its passage in the other place. I hope the Minister will tell us how he views that Bill, which was introduced by the noble Lord Ezra. There has been an exchange of correspondence between the noble Lord and the Minister, in which the noble Lord says that he has been in touch with the Minister about the possible widening of the non-fossil fuel obligation. On 12th November, the Minister had suggested in a letter to the noble Lord Ezra that he should wait until certain on-going inquiries were completed and return to the issue in a month or two. More than two months had elapsed when the noble Lord wrote to the Minister, and he felt that he ought to make a move. Indeed, he says in his letter that the Minister is reported to have responded positively to that suggestion.
As I understand it--the Minister may put me right--the noble Lord Ezra has still received no communication from the Minister. I hope that during the Committee's consideration of the Bill, if not in another contribution on the sittings motion, the Minister will enlighten the Committee as to his views on the Electricity Generation Bill, proposed by the noble Lord Ezra, and tell us how it affects the Bill before us.
I have no intention of opposing the sittings motion. I know that all members of the Committee, who I hope will be making valuable contributions, are giving up the opportunity to attend the launch by the Prime Minister of the millennium dome. That will cause great grief to many hon. Members, particularly those on the Government Benches. I am less concerned with the millennium dome than with dealing with millennium doom and the 2000 computer compliance problems. We all hope that the electricity suppliers who will be affected by the Bill will also pay more attention to the millennium bug, as the Government have called it, and less to the millennium dome. I hope that this morning's proceedings will be swift, so that at least Government Members can rush out and find whatever extravaganzas and experiences await them in the millennium dome.
Mr. Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge): I, too, am delighted to be back in Committee Room 11, which I have come to regard as a home away from home, as have the Government Whip and other hon. Members who had the great pleasure and privilege of serving on the National Minimum Wage Bill Committee.
The Minister noted that the Bill has only two clauses. He expressed the hope that that will mean that its passage will be swift and without difficulty. I do not wish to disillusion the Minister, but I remind him that two weeks after its first sitting, the National Minimum Wage Bill Committee was still deeply embroiled in the detail of clause 2. The passage of the Wild Mammals (Hunting with Dogs) Bill is an even less auspicious precedent for moving through clauses rapidly.
I am delighted to see that Labour Members whom I have encountered in other Committees also have the privilege of serving on this one. Opposition Members are a little disappointed, if not surprised, to find that the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who helpfully intervened on the Minister on Second Reading to test his views on coal policy, is not a member of the Committee. The Opposition would have enjoyed hearing her views on the matter at greater length, and likewise those of the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien). None the less, we welcome the composition of the Committee and the decision made by the Selection Committee.
Hon. Members who had the privilege of serving on the National Minimum Wage Bill Committee, in view of our experience of that marathon consideration, will perhaps feel more interested in the Minister's thoughts about when the Committee might adjourn rather than when it will meet. The Minister may be slightly optimistic in believing that the Bill will be regarded purely as a technical measure. Opposition Members accept the need to introduce provisions to deal with the changes that will occur in relation to nuclear generation on 31 March 1998. On Second Reading, the Minister gave the timetable necessary to deal with the problem and the impending changes. It was therefore with some surprise, which my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) said that she shares, that I observed the long delay between Second Reading and the Bill's consideration in Committee.
I respectfully suggest to the Minister that, if he wishes the measure to be in place by 31 March, as he said on Second Reading, he has presumed that the Committee will deal with matters speedily. I draw his attention to amendments tabled by the Opposition which would mean that it would be impossible to introduce the required changes before 31 March, if the Government were enlightened enough to accept them.
Hon. Members should ask themselves why the Committee has been put in that position. Why has there been such a long delay after Second Reading, and why is the Committee forced to deal quickly with the Bill? It not only deals with the important and technical issue of a levy on the nuclear industry; it also gives the Government much wider powers to broaden the base of the levy in undefined and perhaps indefinable ways.
As the National Minimum Wage Bill Committee has been referred to, I shall draw another comparison. That Committee was treated to extensive and extremely helpful notes on clauses. The Minister introducing that Bill suggested that the notes were part of a genuine attempt by the Department of Trade and Industry to inform Standing Committee and European Standing Committee proceedings. I was therefore a little disappointed to see that the notes on clauses provided today are less substantial and extensive, and explore some of the issues related to the Bill in less detail than did the notes that informed debate on the National Minimum Wage Bill.
Hon. Members are aware of the successful history of the non-fossil fuel obligation in the United Kingdom. The Minister and other hon. Members spoke about the matter on Second Reading. The Bill deals with the issue of the levy, which supports the NFFO, as it is affectionately known. On Second Reading, the Minister said that the measure must be on the statute book before 31 March, otherwise English-generated nuclear power would not be subject to levy. He also explicitly stated that French-generated nuclear power imported by the interconnector would be freed of levy on 31 March. I am not clear whether that is an accurate statement of the situation. My understanding is that imported French nuclear power has not previously been subject to the levy and therefore the levy would not fall off it on 31 March, but perhaps the Minister can clarify that.
10.45 am
My concern about the timetable relates to the way in which the Bill interacts with other current matters. The Government have instituted a review of the long-term future of the non-fossil fuel obligation and, by implication, of their intentions with regard to section 33 of the Electricity Act 1989. The provisions that we are considering today deal with amendments to section 32 of the Act. I suspect that the debate will be more extended than the Minister believes because we shall seek to raise many points aimed at establishing the Government's intentions with regard to section 32--the extent of the non-fossil fuel obligation system, which will ultimately determine the amount of levy to be raised under section 33, which the Bill seeks to amend.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham has already mentioned the measure introduced in another place by the noble Lord Ezra. Members of the Committee will be well aware of the history of the Bill. When it was introduced in another place, the noble Lord sought to amend it to broaden its scope to include section 32 of the 1989 Act and was ruled out of order. On Second Reading the Minister showed some sympathy with the noble Lord's intentions and, rather unusually, the Government spokesman in the Upper House expressed his sympathy with the noble Lord and his own concern about the limiting scope of the Bill's long title. In view of the long delay in bringing the Bill back to Standing Committee, some of us are disappointed that the Government have not used the intervening period to talk to the noble Lord, his friends and others who are concerned about section 32--the spending side of the equation--and perhaps to propose amendments to the long title, to enable the matters falling under section 32 to be considered so that we can take a holistic view of both the spending side of the equation and the levy-raising side, which is before us today. In the absence of any such change, we shall feel obliged to raise those issues.
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