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Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 13 January 2025

Debate

Great British Energy Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I support the last speaker on Amendment 65. When I saw Amendment 65 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Offord, on the readiness of the National Grid for this brave new world, I realised that this is probably the key amendment to the Bill in terms of the success of Great British Energy. I am not sure that putting it into the Bill will actually make a ha’porth of difference, but there is no doubt that the issue is going to decide whether GBE is a success or not. We need to quadruple, if not more, the size of the National Grid network, both to get power to all those new electric cars and heat pumps, et cetera, and to take power from all those new wind farms, solar roofs, et cetera, but with all the objections to the wires and pylons, I cannot see the National Grid delivering the necessary increase in this network any time soon. So, as the amendment states, GBE can really invest only in projects that have a guaranteed connection, however worthy they may be in other aspects. If no connection is likely to be in place by the time of the completion of the project, then GBE should probably save its money.

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