| Sustainable Energy (CHP Provisions) Order 2003
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The Chairman: Order. The hon. Lady will be careful not to offend the rule against the reading of speeches. Column Number: 12 Miss McIntosh: Indeed. I shall end my speech by posing a number of questions to the Minister. How far do the Government believe that they are on course to achieve their 15 per cent. target of CHP generation across the Government estate? Indeed, how close is the Department to reaching that 15 per cent. target? How realistic does the Minister think the target is, and how might it have to be revised orally by 2005? If it were revised, would there be a further period of consultation? What was the basis for excluding the eight major Departments from the definition of the Government estate? What more does he think his Department can do to promote combined heat and power to try to get a realistic coalition of prices between gas and electricity and perhaps more support for fuel cells? What does he believe are the stumbling blocks in the path of building new CHP plants, particularly when his Government seem so obsessed with building so many new houses? Would it not be a good opportunity to link that housebuilding to the construction of CHP units with the promise of more affordable long-distance heating? I welcome this opportunity for a wide-ranging debate. I await with great interest the Minister's responses and also to hear what relationship the Government's 2002 consultation has had with the drafting of this statutory instrument.
10.33 amMr. Morley: I, too, am pleased to see you in the Chair this morning, presiding over this debate, Mr. Hurst. The issue is important, although in all fairness Opposition Members have been rather nit-picking about the significant CHP targets that have been set for the Government estate. They should not think that our commitment to CHP or renewables is at an end. It is part of an ongoing process. The order lays out the Government's firm commitment to sourcing CHP for the Government estate. The reason why there are some exclusions is that there has to be a definition of that estate, and the definition being applied relates to the energy targets that have been set for the Government's framework for sustainable development on the estate. Those Departments that report within the framework are included in the order. There are ways of encouraging other Departments not yet within the framework, local government and the NHS to participate. The framework can also be revised or reviewed by the Secretary of State in due course to ensure that we encourage the maximum uptake of CHP. I can give the Committee that commitment. Norman Baker: Will the Minister answer a couple of simple questions? First, was the proposal discussed by the Green Ministers' team across Government? Secondly, I presume that his Department wanted the NHS estates included, but did the Health Secretary ask for them to be excluded? Mr. Morley: I can confirm that that has been discussed by the departmental Green Ministers Sub-Committee, because there are commitments from Column Number: 13 individual Departments, which I will touch on. I cannot recall whether there was any intervention by the Department of Health to exclude or include the NHS estate. We need to explore those issues. I do not disagree that NHS estates lend themselves very well to combined heat and power systems. They generally run on combined heat systems. That option can be examined when the inevitable upgrades take place.Norman Baker: I am sorry to come back to the Minister again. If the Health Secretary did not object and the Minister believes the NHS estates are well suited to CHP, why are they not covered by the order? Mr. Morley: As I understand it, the order is based on the framework for sustainable development on the Government estate. The NHS is not currently included in that definition. We are working on a definition for the control, reporting and monitoring of the development of the commitment. The 15 per cent. target for the Government estate to source CHP is a major commitment. Opposition Members quibbled about what was in the order and what was not. There is a very long list of the various Government Departments and Executive agencies, and all Executive agencies are included within the Government estate. That is why I can confirm one or two things that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove raised. It might be useful if the complete list were made available and I will ensure that that is done. Miss McIntosh: On a point of order, Mr. Hurst. Is it not extraordinary that we have to get to the Committee stage before the Minister offers to provide documentation that is directly relevant to our debate? You are aware that the order barely amounts to two pages. Although the Minister tries to be as helpful as possible, every time we have discuss an order in Committee we find that we do not have the full documentation, which makes it difficult to prepare and to take advice. The Chairman: The hon. Lady knows that that is not a point of order, but a debating point that the Minister has heard. Mr. Morley: I certainly did hear it, Mr. Hurst. I am simply offering to provide a list, which is freely available, of the various agencies and Government Departments. It is easy for the hon. Lady to table a parliamentary question to obtain it or to go to the Library, where it would be given to her. In terms of Government documentation, if every definition were made available there would be a bundle of papers the size of an attache case. There has to be some common sense. Just to make it clear, I repeat that I am happy to make the list available. That goes above and beyond what is normally done, but I am happy to do that for the benefit of the Committee. Mr. Stunell: A few minutes ago, the Minister said that the order was not necessarily the final step and that ''in due course'' extra things could be added—by implication, the national health service. He has a Column Number: 14 target he is struggling to meet within five and a half years. When does ''in due course'' kick in, if that target is going to be assisted by any of this documentation?Mr. Morley: CHP is being reviewed. My colleague, Lord Whitty, who has responsibility for the matter, made it clear in that we would look closely at the renewable CHP issue in the context of the 2005-06 review of the renewables obligation. The strategy will be published after the Easter recess, to coincide with the first-year review of the energy White Paper. The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that it is not far away. Opposition Members should not consider the order to be the final word; it is the start of a process. The target of 15 per cent. is ambitious in relation to the time scale of 2010, but we believe that we are on target. We do not dispute the latest reports and their assessment of our capacity, but they take no account of major drivers, not least the European emission trading scheme. Our calculation is that that scheme alone will add about 0.4 GW to capacity, which will act as an encouragement. The hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) was right to say that CHP development has been held back, not because of the Government's lack of commitment, but because of market conditions for all forms of energy generation. As she said, many combined gas plants have recently been mothballed because of the high price of gas and the low price of wholesale electricity. However, economic factors are constantly changing. The emission trading scheme will certainly be a substantial boost to combined heat and power. I do not doubt that we will see that developing in due course. We will review progress on combined heat and power. We will obviously talk regularly to groups such as the Energy Saving Trust and they will be included in the review. A range of other measures will encourage the use of CHP. For example, it is excluded from the climate change levy. The ring-fenced provisions of the emissions trading scheme that are beneficial for CHP are another inducement. We have also made enhanced capital allowances available for the installation of CHP. Those allowances will also apply to industry installations, which is another important inducement. We are considering such things as sustainability and district CHP, and major housing developments such as the Thames gateway could provide a good example of its use. I recently visited the Beddington zero energy development project—the BedZED project. It has a CHP system for the whole estate which runs on biomass, something that interests the hon. Lady. Tentative proposals have been made for a development of 2,000 housing units of that kind in the Thames gateway. I strongly support such moves. I shall be having talks with Sir John Egan in the near future about the steps that can be taken take to promote sustainability in new developments. It is fair to say that retrofitting CHP is difficult. The reason that countries such as Denmark have such a high proportion of CHP is that it has a longer tradition there. Not only do we have combined heat and power systems, but we have a choice between installing CHP or buying good quality CHP from the grid. I see Column Number: 15 nothing wrong with that. Buying it from the grid will support the development of larger CHP facilities in this country as well as abroad. Wherever we buy it, we will still meet our carbon targets.Miss McIntosh: Can the Minister help the Committee to understand why Denmark is so against incineration? Why is CHP not perceived to be incineration? Is it because of the low cost? After all, there are many Greens and Liberals in Denmark—I speak with some authority on the matter. Has there been more Government support to encourage the start-up of such plants there? Mr. Morley: I am not aware of there being more Government support in Denmark than there is here. The Government have pledged £50 million to support district CHP programmes. The hon. Lady should direct her questions about the lack of development of CHP from waste to her hon. Friends and the Liberal Democrats, because they have vociferously opposed incineration. We support it in relation to our waste hierarchy, for which waste minimisation is sensibly the No. 1 priority. The recovery of energy from waste is rightly above landfill.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 2004 | Prepared 24 February 2004 |
