Whitehall grip on net zero is ‘irresponsible’

Leaving delivery of net zero to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), will put meeting the 2050 target at risk, the director of a northern development thinktank has warned.

Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, told an online event this week that the leaders of city/regional authorities such as Greater Manchester and Tees Valley should be given more powers over energy when they negotiate the next set of “devolution deals” with central government.

“In the next phase of devolution deals, we need to see lot more about energy.

“If there isn’t, I will question whether the government is even going to get to net zero because leaving it to BEIS is the most irresponsible thing we could do and I don’t think the Treasury would disagree with that.”

As an example of how Whitehall’s grip on policy is holding back local efforts to decarbonise, he pointed to the BEIS competition to establish the sites of carbon capture and storage (CCS) development clusters.

Murison said: “We are waiting for the government to come to a view on where CCS clusters should be. The reality is that on the North Sea coast, the Teesside and Humber economies are absolutely dependent on the future success of CCS clusters.

“It seems that central Whitehall departments think of it as a game.

“There is almost no certainty from government about the long-term direction of energy policy and no willingness to allow local places to have energy policy that fits their needs. It needs local political leaders to be empowered to take responsibility.”

He also accused the National Infrastructure Commission of undermining efforts to develop the nuclear sector. The statutory advisory body recommended in its National Infrastructure Assessment that the UK only needs one more major nuclear power station.

“Their lack of commitment to understand the role nuclear could play in the future of the energy mix had a direct impact on the trajectory of the development of that industry. We need to align those things so we are working in the same direction.

Earlier at the event on the north and net zero , which was organised by the construction consultancy Atkins, the Committee on Climate Change’s chair Lord Deben called for new nuclear plants to be located in parts of the country crying out for employment.

In his comments, which preceded the announcement by Hitachi that it has abandoned work on its project for a new nuclear plant at Wylfa in north Wales, the peer said that nuclear must be a “component” of the UK’s low carbon energy mix.

“In my view it is a transitional mechanism but if we are going to build nuclear power stations, it would be a good idea to build them where the jobs are necessary.”

“We ought to be looking at all our investment to see if it is sensible to put it in the south or the east, or somewhere where jobs really matter and people really want them.”