Contribution
I specifically wanted to speak to the funding of issues such as energy projects. This issue, probably more than anything else—perhaps the fact that the national grid is part-owned by American private equity owners may wind people up a little bit more—is the one that, fundamentally, makes communities around the country, and I have seen it much more locally, consider the planning system, when it comes to energy projects, a complete and utter joke.
It is already decided, regardless of what happens in the planning system, that these projects will go ahead. It does not matter if they do not quite fit the planning law, because a few tweaks could potentially be made. It does not matter what the community thinks. It does not matter what Parliament thinks, because Ofgem has already made the decisions and determinations that these projects can go ahead and money can start being spent on them before planning has even started.
I give your Lordships the example of Norwich to Tilbury. Ofgem came up with its early construction funding in April 2025. Its planning submission was submitted only on Friday. Sea Link, a project that I will continue to fight for as long as I can, had its ECF announcement made. Normally, Ofgem’s policy is that only 20% of the funding can be granted, in effect, through early construction funding. Ofgem has given 48% to the national grid—NGET—to proceed with Sea Link. Planning had to be delayed because there was an error in the planning process, so that got going only last month as well. This is what the people in communities in various parts of the country see. What is the point?
That is my huge frustration: in effect, there is a predetermination that planning applications are going to be made. I am still slightly surprised that people have not been successful in certain aspects of getting this JR-ed at some point. So here we are. We have projects going when they have barely started, or in some cases have not even started, the planning process.
I have proposed this new clause to restore some credibility to planning, to restore some credibility to the idea that it is not just a commercial deal or a done deal. Ofgem should be restrained from granting this sort of funding process until at least the planning document has been submitted and ideally been given consent. For what it is worth, a lot of this kind of scepticism would go away if there was a genuine belief that the planning system meant anything at all.
I am conscious that, to try to get to 2030 on this accelerated timetable, we need to get on with these projects. I have already referred to previous ones where planning processes are still under way when we have already reached the consented capacity for a series of energy projects, and yet they keep coming.
No wonder people are desperate and tabling JRs, or pre-action protocols and the like. They are so frustrated with a machinery that says, “Yeah, we’ll sort of do the basics, but it is done”. This is the reason that I felt particularly strongly and wanted to table Amendment 94D: just to be a voice for people who want to believe that our country respects law and respects that there is not a predetermination. God alone knows how many consultations I went through as a Secretary of State when I was told, “Be very careful, you can’t come to a predetermination in all of this”. Yet Ofgem, of course, gives the game away.
I will not say any more. To be candid, I do not expect a huge response from the Minister. I am not trying to be rude in advance; perhaps I am predetermining what I am expecting to hear. Nevertheless, I am saying this for people right across the country: let us do the right thing; let us make sure that we are not allowing money to be printed for developers who have not even started the actual planning process. I beg to move.