| Fossil Fuel Levy Bill [Lords]
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Mr. John M. Taylor: (Solihull): I had not intended to intervene in this debate, certainly not at this stage, but my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) referred to the noble Lord Ezra and his legislative initiative in another place. Does my hon. Friend know whether there has been any correspondence between the noble Lord Ezra and the Minister or any member of the Government about the prospect of the noble Lord's Bill? Have we been taken into confidence about that, and do we know about those matters? Mr. Hammond: I am happy to enlighten my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) referred to a letter written by the noble Lord Ezra to the Minister. I had a meeting with the noble Lord yesterday in which he expressed his disappointment at not having received a response from the Minister, despite the hon. Gentleman's apparent clear indication in evidence to the Select Committee that he would support such a measure. The noble Lord has sought an assurance from the Minister that the Government will support the Bill when it comes before the House of Commons. It would greatly inform the debate of this Committee if the Minister could tell us whether that will be the case. Mrs. Gillan: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is disappointing that someone of Lord Ezra's stature, who appears to have made all the right moves--who has been polite in informing the Minister of his intentions and who has requested help and support from the Minister or an indication as to whether his Bill will be received favourably--has apparently not received a response? Perhaps the weight of duties on the Minister has prevented him from turning his mind to this matter. However, it is pertinent to the measure before us, and it is disappointing that we are restricted to considering section 33 of the Electricity Act 1989 without having the opportunity to explore section 32, the other side of the equation. Mr. Hammond: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The noble Lord Ezra is far too polite to suggest that he has been snubbed in any way, but I gained the distinct impression from my discussion with him yesterday that he was disappointed not to have had a response from the Minister by now. In view of the importance of the matters relating to section 32 of the Electricity Act and the way in which they relate to our deliberations, there is a case for considering whether the Committee should be adjourned until such time as the noble Lord's Bill comes before the House of Commons and whether it has the Government's support, given the arithmetic in the House of Commons. Mr. John M. Taylor: On that very important point concerning the conduct and sitting of the Committee, would my hon. Friend care to say that he would give way to the Minister if the hon. Gentleman would deal with the question of correspondence with the noble Lord Ezra? Mr. Hammond: My hon. Friend, as the Opposition Whip, makes his suggestion gently, and of course I readily agree. I should be willing to give the Minister the floor if he will deal with this point. Mr. Battle: I am more than happy to give the hon. Gentleman a full answer about another Bill when he has finished his speech. We can go through it in great detail then. Mr. Hammond: I am afraid that that will not deal with all the points that I wish to raise. Mr. Battle: How does the hon. Gentleman know? Mr. Hammond: The response that the Minister has given me so far does not deal with all the points that I wish to raise. This is not merely a question of what is happening in the upper House. The debate on Second Reading showed that the Minister's hon. Friends were also concerned about and interested in the spending side of the equation, and how section 32 of the Electricity Act 1989 might be amended in future to broaden the scope of NFFO spending to include, for example, combined heat and power schemes or a subsidy for developing clean-burn coal technology, which may be necessary. The relevance of that to our debate is that, if I understand the matter correctly, the size of the levy to be raised under section 33 will be entirely dependent on the scope and scale of spending under section 32. Hon. Members are being asked effectively to sign a blank cheque. That is why the debate may be lengthier than a cursory glance at the Bill might suggest. The Department of Trade and Industry seems determined, through the Bill and other measures such as the National Minimum Wage Bill, to take sweeping powers for the Secretary of State to make regulations that would greatly broaden--in fact, change the character of--primary legislation. There seems to be an unwritten principle that we should give such powers to the Secretary of State on the basis of the Minister's assurance. He is saying, ``Trust me, guv; I promise I won't use them, but give them to me anyway.'' We must properly scrutinise the Bill by examining the powers that it will give to the Secretary of State and exploring their possible uses and the consequences of such uses. That is particularly important in view of the current great political sensitivity of energy policy in this country. We are all aware of the coal industry's delicate position. Opposition Members--and, I assume, the Minister--are also aware of the delicate balance within the Government on the issue of coal and the difficult decisions that they will have to make to formulate a coal policy that is consistent with their commitments on greenhouse gas emissions while satisfying those Labour Members such as the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford--sadly, she is not with us today--who have vital coal interests in their constituencies. Mrs. Gillan: Does my hon. Friend hope, like me, that the hon. Members for Selby (Mr. Grogan) and for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), both of whom have mines in their constituencies, will also make speeches in Committee? I will give them the opportunity to air the views of their constituents, particularly with regard to Rossington colliery or the six pits that are still operating in Selby. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is also a great shame that the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) is not with us, although he made a valuable contribution on Second Reading? We are thus robbed of the views of both the hon. Members for Pontefract and Castleford and for Barnsley, West and Penistone. Mr. Hammond: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): On a point of information, Mrs. Winterton. This is an interesting diversion. I want to point out that scores of Labour Members represent miners who work outside their constituencies because their own deep mines have closed. Are Opposition Members suggesting that the Standing Committee be made up of those hon. Members? The size of such a committee would require the Grand Committee Room. If they are suggesting that, let us see what we can do. Mr. Hammond: I thank the hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) says from a sedentary position that he does not recall there being any pits in Runnymede and Weybridge, which is correct, but I assure him that there is a great interest in the future of the coal industry--[Interruption.] The Minister makes light by referring to opencast coal mining. He may know that my constituency contains a considerable number of gravel pits, which have some of the same environmental consequences as opencast coal mining, so I assure him that my constituents will be familiar with and sympathetic to the Minister's concerns about the impact of opencast mining. To answer the intervention, the hon. Members to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham referred spoke on Second Reading; it is in that context that she sought my comments on their non-selection to serve on the Committee. I am not sure to what extent the debate on the sittings motion is the appropriate place to talk about the Committee's composition, so I will move on swiftly to ensure that the matter does not take up too much time.
11 amI was referring to the political pressure under which the Government have clearly been placed on the issue of coal. The levy, which section 33 of the Electricity Act 1989 empowers the Government to raise, has fallen from 11 per cent. to less than 2 per cent. One of the issues that greatly exercises the Opposition is that we should not write a blank cheque that allows the levy, in the environment in which we shall find ourselves after 1 April, to go back up to the levels that we saw in the past, when it was required to support the nuclear industry. We shall, therefore, press the Government in our amendments to restrict themselves. I have suggested several factors that we should consider. Those include the Bill that the noble Lord Ezra introduced in another place; the on-going review of the long-term future of the non-fossil fuel obligation that the Minister told us on Second Reading that he had instituted; the currency of the fifth round of the non-fossil fuel obligation; and the review that the Government are conducting into the future of the coal industry. In view of all those factors, it is extraordinary that we are now being asked to consider this narrowly focused Bill, which deals only with section 33 of the Electricity Act 1989. Our consideration will clearly give rise to more questions than it answers. There is a good case for arguing for the Committee to adjourn at least until the noble Lord Ezra's Bill has completed its passage. The Minister told us on Second Reading what he needed to achieve by 31 March. He would be better able to do that by introducing another Bill or by tabling a Government amendment to this Bill to remove clause 1(3). That would leave us with a Bill that did what the Minister told us he was setting out to do. Such a Bill would deal with a technical situation and with the inequitable outcome that we would face after 31 March if the nuclear industry was allowed to escape the levy. The Minister has created a rod for his own back by tacking subsection (3) on to clause 1 because it is permissive. It causes Opposition Members considerable concern and will require us to probe the Minister in much more depth than would have been necessary had clause 1 contained only subsections (1) and (2). There has been a long delay and the Government are seeking to hold a piecemeal debate on limited issues even though Ministers in another place identified that as a weakness on Second Reading. The only conclusion to which we can come is that the Government are running scared of a wide-ranging and broadly based debate on the future of United Kingdom energy policy and on the way in which it interfaces with their professed environmental credentials. Before the general election, the Labour party curried favour with the environmental lobby and sought its support. It suggested that in government it would deal in a timely and effective way with some of the considerable environmental issues that we know we face and which are, to a considerable extent, related to the power-generation industry. However, it also sought to imply to the coal-mining communities on which it depended for a substantial proportion of its electoral support that it would protect the UK deep-mined coal industry. The Government now find themselves in a deep dilemma over the future of the coal industry if they are to be seen as environmentally friendly. A possible solution for the Government, which is extremely pertinent to our discussion, would be to divert part of the non-fossil fuel levy to try to support the development of clean-coal technologies. Conservative Members would not necessarily oppose that. [Interruption.] I had hoped that the Minister's reaction would be positive. It would be helpful if there were a consensus that was in accord with the thinking that is evolving in his Department. Our concerns about the Bill should not be interpreted as meaning that we oppose the broadening of the use of the non-fossil fuel levy and the consequent increases in levy that that might imply. We oppose the fact that the measure is being dealt with by the back door, as a small subsection in a Bill that purports to be about something else. If there are to be such changes, they must be subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny by means of primary legislation. The extent of the use of the levy is inextricably linked to the raising of the levy, and it is not realistic for us to talk about the tax-raising side of the equation without having any clue as to the Government's thinking on its spending side. It may, therefore, take rather longer for the Committee to complete its deliverations than the Minster suggested. Other members of the Committee may wish to comment on the way in which our proceedings will interact with the various reviews and the other legislation currently passing through Parliament and on the consequences of that for the Committee's timetable.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 1998 | Prepared 24 February 1998 |
