Energy Bill

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consolidate and reorganise the energy network in Great Britain, to establish Great British Energy as a state-owned energy company, to provide for the governance of Great British Energy, to repeal the National Energy Strategy Act 2017, to establish a Green British Generation subdivision, to provide for targets of reduction in fossil fuel usage; and for connected purposes.

Due to its length, this bill can be found here

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This Bill was written by the Rt. Hon. Sir /u/Frost_Walker2017/">/u/Frost_Walker2017, Duke of the Suffolk Coasts, and the Rt. Hon. Sir /u/LightningMinion/">/u/LightningMinion MP MSP MLA KT CBE OM PC, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, of the Labour Party on behalf of His Majesty’s 33rd Government.

Opening Speech:

Deputy Speaker,

I’m proud to present to the House of Commons the first piece of legislation I have written for Westminster, with this bill implementing the government’s promise to create a new publicly-owned operator of the energy industry named Great British Energy, or GB Energy for short. I shall now briefly give a summary of the provisions of this bill and explain why the establishment of GB Energy is important.

Currently, as per the National Energy Strategy Act 2017, the energy industry is run by publicly-owned regional energy bodies. GB Energy is going to acquire these bodies to become a national operator of the energy industry (ie the generation and supply of electricity, and the supply of natural gas or alternative heating fuels) owned and funded by His Majesty’s Government. GB Energy will be split into 3 divisions: Great British Energy Generation (which shall be concerned with generating electricity and with producing heating fuels), Great British Energy Transmission (which shall be concerned with the transmission of electricity and heating fuels across the country, as well as their storage, their import, and their export), and Great British Energy Distribution (which shall be concerned with the distribution of electricity and heating fuels to houses and businesses). To clarify, transmission deals with transporting the energy across the country but not to buildings: the transport of it into buildings is the distribution.

Great British Energy Generation shall have 2 subdivisions: Green British Energy (which shall deal with the generation of electricity from renewables and the production of renewable heating fuels), and Great British Nuclear (which shall deal with the generation of electricity from nuclear). The generation of electricity from fossil fuels and the production of natural gas will be a responsibility for Great British Energy Generation rather than its 2 subdivisions.

The divisions and subdivisions of GB Energy will be led by a director appointed by the Energy Secretary. The board of GB Energy will be formed of these directors, a chair appointed by the Energy Secretary, 2 other members appointed by the Energy Secretary, and 3 members elected by the staff of the corporation via the Single Transferable Vote system.

GB Energy will be required to draft an Energy Decarbonisation Plan setting out how it plans to end the use of fossil fuels for the generation of electricity by 2035, and the supply of natural gas by a target the Energy Secretary can determine.

Over the past year, households across the UK have been threatened by rising energy bills. I think it’s important that bills are kept affordable, which is why this bill contains provisions regulating the maximum price GB Energy can charge for energy. Specifically, GB Energy will have a statutory duty to consider the desirability of keeping its customers out of fuel poverty as well as the impact of the price of energy on low-income customers, and the rate of inflation. GB Energy also has no profit incentive due to being a government-owned corporation and having no shareholders to satisfy, and in fact this bill bans GB Energy from turning a profit, ensuring any profit the corporation makes is reinvested into lower bills or into the activities of the corporation. These provisions will all help ensure that GB Energy keeps bills low.

Last winter there were predictions that there may have to be blackouts due to the cold weather. While this government’s planned investments in green energy will hopefully avoid blackouts having to be held, this bill includes provisions for the emergency case where GB Energy may not be able to meet demand for energy. In such a case, it may enable or construct new fossil fuel generators, or it may petition the government to order a blackout for no longer than 2 weeks, with the Commons being able to resolve against such an order. The blackout order can be renewed for further periods with the consent of the Commons if needed.

During the debate on the Energy Sustainability Office Bill, the government said that bill would be redundant due to the provisions of this bill. I can now elaborate that the provisions on the Energy Decarbonisation Plan in Part 2 Chapter 2 and the reporting requirements in section 11 make it redundant. Section 11, in particular, requires GB Energy to make a report on its progress to decarbonising its activities and to promoting sustainability and to meeting climate goals at least once each year. Section 11 also requires GB Energy to publish an assessment each year of whether it received sufficient funding from the government that year, with section 9 explicitly requiring the government to fund the corporation properly. This will ensure that GB Energy receives sufficient funding.

Deputy Speaker, the establishment of GB Energy will serve 2 main purposes: by consolidating energy generation into one corporation with a legal mandate to decarbonise, this government will ensure that the energy industry is decarbonised in line with the UK’s climate targets. By having the energy industry in public rather than private hands, we ensure that GB Energy doesn’t need to turn obscene profits or reward shareholders, ensuring that bills can be kept low at affordable levels to prevent fuel poverty.

I commend this bill to the House.

This reading will end at 10pm on the 22nd November.