Tidal Energy Generation: Ringfenced Funding

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Andrea Jenkyns.)

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to bring this critical issue before the House this evening. I have been passionate about the tidal marine industry’s potential for some time. I am glad that now, only a few weeks after the conference of the parties in Glasgow, it is finally getting the focus and attention that it deserves.

Ahead of this debate, as we all know, the Prime Minister announced at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday that there will finally be some ringfenced funding for tidal energy: £20 million in the forthcoming contracts for difference auction. I wish I had known that securing a debate in this House is all it takes to get some movement out of the Government and the Cabinet. I must really start securing Adjournment debates much more often.

It was my PMQ.

Of course—I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Prime Minister’s question yesterday.

While my party colleagues and I were glad to see some movement yesterday, we have also been very clear that it amounts to only a partial U-turn. The Government have a way to go yet. Every little may help, but if we are serious about the scale of the opportunity, we need to go further.

In securing this debate, our ask was for a £71 million ringfenced fund. The ask remains for £71 million, which we genuinely believe is the level of investment that will allow the industry to fulfil its potential to provide green baseload energy that is so critical to our situation, and will support a sector that has massive potential not just at home but as an export industry. The level of investment that we put in now will ultimately determine whether the industry will reach its potential on these shores or we miss the chance and let it slip through our grasp.

Let me put the issue in context. The Royal Society report published this month refers to tidal marine contributing 11.5 GW of electricity. That is 15% of UK generation capacity.

May I go back to the pots of money? As my right hon. Friend says, £20 million is clearly welcome compared with where we were, but would a bigger pot of money not unlock greater investment and create a better jobs return? A £70 million pot could unlock £140 million of private investment and create 400 jobs, whereas £20 million would unlock only £20 million and create 100 jobs. A bigger pot would get a better return for consumers.

My hon. Friend is right. We are, essentially, at ground zero today. This is about how we kick-start the industry. The modest Government support for which we are asking would unlock that private investment, and when we think about the 11.5 GW that I talked about—that 15% of UK electricity—

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Andrea Jenkyns.)

That 15% is equivalent to the contribution that nuclear makes. When we put into context the relative level of funding we are asking for, the scale of the opportunity is huge. We are talking about an industry in which Scotland and the UK lead the world in terms of technology. The ability to create green baseload electricity is there 24/7, 365 days a year, along with the capacity to use that technology and that ingenuity to export to Canada, Thailand, France, Japan and so on. There is a massive opportunity for us to benefit from that first-mover advantage, to get behind an industry where we can make sure that we control the entire supply chain and have the potential to navigate away from fossil fuels and create the jobs referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown).

My right hon. Friend has talked of an opportunity. We have known about tidal energy for a long time. We should have invested in it 20, 30 or 40 years ago; if we had done so, we would have a much more mature industry today. If this Government do not invest now, we will look to the future and see nothing more than negligence.

We are where we are at the moment. My point to the Government is this. We know that the technology is there. We know that relative costs are already coming down dramatically; we can see that from the MeyGen project in the Pentland Firth, for example. Here is the opportunity to get behind something that could be revolutionary, in terms of providing clean energy—baseload energy, as I mentioned—but also the ability to create a manufacturing industry. We can perhaps learn from the mistakes that were made with wind turbines, and ensure that we are not relying on other countries to provide the infrastructure that we need, because we can do this ourselves. There is a responsibility that we have here, now, today, to get behind this industry.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way one more time.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I much appreciate his relatively new-found enthusiasm for the marine energy sector. I pay tribute to his colleagues, the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), for the help that they have given the all-party parliamentary group on marine energy, which I founded in July 2016. The group has 25 members, two of whom are from the Scottish National party, and their support is greatly valued. However, this is a great British success story, which has an impact on opportunities from the Isle of Wight, along the coast of Cornwall, up through Wales and into Northern Ireland.

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, this wonderful decision by the Government has been greeted by the chair of RenewableUK as a

“major step forward for the…tidal energy industry.”

The chair of the Marine Energy Council has said:

“The impact of this support cannot be overstated.”

Furthermore, Nova Innovation has said that this will be

“turbocharging the delivery of tidal energy”.

This is a pivotal moment, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is a huge leap forward for marine energy.

Order. It is not customary to read out very long interventions.

I must say to the hon. Gentleman that my support for this is not just for the short term; I was at the port of Nigg when the MeyGen project was launched many years ago, so the subject has been dear to my heart for a long time. I do, however, agree with him about the scale of the opportunity. Of course the £20 million of investment that was announced yesterday is important, because it will allow us to develop the industry, but the question at the heart of today’s debate is about the scale of our ambition.

I respectfully ask the Minister, as I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for a recognition of the scale of this opportunity. Phase 2 of the MeyGen project has already been permitted to go up to 80 MW, and in the Pentland Firth it could ultimately reach as much as 400 MW, but the ability to expand from the current 6 MW installed in MeyGen phase 1 is restrained by the investment that has been put in place in this round. We would certainly not be looking at deploying the 80 MW; it would be a much reduced figure. I would simply say to the Minister and to all Members: let us have that ambition. Let us have that desire to see this green energy source get to 15% of UK electricity production. To do that, however, we have to show more ambition than is being shown today. I do not wish to be seen as ungrateful for what has happened; all I am asking the Government to do is to recognise the scale—

Will my right hon. Friend give way one more time?