Contribution
My Lords, I was considering aspects of information that would be provided. It would have been helpful to know at least the summary responses, but we will have a further opportunity at the next stage of consideration to go into this in more detail.
Building on what the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, mentioned, it is right that energy from waste should not be considered any more, partly because we have more than enough now, and planning permission does not need to be granted to any more projects. I fully respect the circular economy approach. That was started by the previous Government and has been continued, which is good news.
I go back to my concerns. Most of my focus is on EN-5, which covers transmission infrastructure on the ground, underground, overground or in the air. One thing slightly concerns me in paragraph 2.2 on
“Factors influencing site selection and design”.
In paragraph 2.2.2, regarding:
“the location of new generating stations or other infrastructure requiring connection to the network … system capacity and resilience requirements determined by the National Energy System Operator”,
two things happen. I am slightly surprised that an extra factor here is not: where is the electricity needed? Surely, the siting of all this network should be as close as possible to where it is needed. That is energy efficient.
I understand the issue about nuclear power stations. I do not accept it for SMRs, but for something like Sizewell C, I can understand why that needs to be away from places of high population. On the other elements, I think in particular of the connectors. There are two interconnectors, one from Belgium called Nautilus, which is now going into the Isle of Grain after a successful campaign to go to a brownfield site with existing substation infrastructure. The other one is LionLink, which is due to come into a place called Walberswick. Officials were quite open about this. They were not going further down the coast because they would have to crisscross 17 other cables. The seabed in that part of the country is almost like the M25 on steroids. The National Security Strategy Committee should be considering this because this also comes back to energy security and resilience.
Another interconnector that has already been granted permission is called Sea Link and is basically backup insurance. If the network goes down in the south-east of England, energy can be diverted from Sizewell C. That is costing £1.5 billion, and a lot of this energy gets lost in transmission. The majority of electricity in this country is needed in London and the south-east, so why are we not putting more into areas closer to London and other parts of the south-east where there is existing infrastructure? By that I mean Bradwell and the Isle of Grain. It would be straightforward to develop something in Tilbury. As a consequence, I am concerned about that aspect.
I am looking at paragraph 2.12.3. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich talked extensively about East Anglia, which I would expect him to do. I know it covers parts of where I live. Twice in this document, the east of England is singled out, predominantly, but not exclusively, East Anglia. It also covers significant parts of the east coast all the way from Scotland down to the Wash. That is why I hope that careful consideration will be given to the responses coming from that part of the country.
I will speak briefly regarding something that comes up in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill as well as here. The Minister has already referred to it. It is the public benefit. This goes wrong when damage to the public benefit or public area is set aside when the commercial benefit collapses. I would have more time for this thinking through the national policy statement if, in a market-led system, they sign up to it and do it and do not pull out, causing more misery for people in different parts of our country.
I could go on. When I last debated a previous national policy statement in the other place, I spent 45 minutes on it, and that was on just one statement. I will not do that today, but I just say to the Minister that I understand how much work has gone into this by officials and I understand that the overall thing is energy security and net zero. I get that, but these things impact local communities. I ask him to think about the genuine science, the evidence about the transmission of energy and about biting the bullet on getting a lot of this infrastructure a lot closer to London rather than destroying some marvellous parts of our country.