Energy Commission (Hansard, 9 January 1978)

§ 6. Mr. Macfarlane
asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he next intends to call a meeting of the Energy Commission.

§ 11. Mr. Forman
asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a further statement on the progress made by the Energy Commission; and if he will detail its future programme.

§ Mr. Benn
The Energy Commission had its first meeting on 28th November and discussed the Department of Energy's working document on energy policy. Its next meeting is to be held on 13th February at Lancaster House, and it is intended that further meetings will be held at intervals of about three months. The agenda for the next meeting is not finally settled.

§ Mr. Macfarlane
Before the meeting on 13th February, will the Secretary of State urgently review the composition of the Energy Commission, because there is a certain absence of representatives from a number of energy arenas? For example, does he recognise that there is no representative from the energy research or conservation arena? Is he also aware that there is no representative from the engineering profession's Watt Committee?

§ Mr. Benn
I am afraid that I cannot review the membership of the Commission before the next meeting. We had great difficulty in settling on the membership that we have, because, frankly, everybody wanted to be on the Commission. In fact, Sir William Hawthorne is a member of the Commission. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's comment about conservation representation is not entirely correct. Sir Brian Flowers and others with great experience on the research side are also represented.
What I have done—I think that this is appreciated—is to ensure that the documents are made public. It is my intention, so long as I can carry the Commission with me, to publish the transcript of the last Energy Commission meeting. Therefore, everybody will have an opportunity of seeing how the discussion developed. Unless we were to have 1245 national energy conferences at quarterly intervals with everybody present, it would not be possible to operate on that scale. I think that it is fair to give the Commission a chance to show what it can do.

§ Mr. Forman
Is it not fair to say that the advice that the Commission gives to the Secretary of State reflects closely the participation of its members? Would it not be more correct to say that if, for example, the Chairman of the Electricity Council was on the Commission we should get one set of advice on nuclear reactors, whereas if the Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board was on the Commission we should have different advice? Does not that underline one of the weaknesses of the way that matters are conducted?

§ Mr. Benn
I hope that the House will not be too ungenerous. Hitherto, Ministers have received advice secretly from their officials with advice from individual nationalised industry chairmen both directly and through the Department. I have substantially broadened the publication of documents and the range of advice available to me. I have not limited it by making the documents private. I think that the House would do less than justice to this experiment, which I hope will succeed, if it suggested that it is still no different from what it has been before.
In the end, I must be responsible to the House of Commons for energy policy decisions, including the choice of reactor. I could not, and would not, wish to shield behind advice that might be given to me by those who are present. I must accept my responsibility, but at the same time I must be able to get a wide range of advice. That is what I have sought to secure.

§ Mr. Biffen
At the next meeting of the Energy Commission, will the Secretary of State consider nuclear reactor policy and use that occasion to rehearse his well-known ambivalence towards pressure water reactor design?

§ Mr. Benn
I do not think that either part of that question is correct. At the last meeting, the point about reactor choice was raised. A number of people gave their views on the matter, as will be evident when the transcript is pub- 1246 lished. As I think is known, there was a strong view in favour of the adoption of the advanced gas-cooled reactor. However, it does not fall to the Energy Commission to express a decision on that matter. I hope that the Government's decision on this matter will be a great deal closer, if not already made, by 13th February. That decision will be made on the basis of a wide range of factors which have to be taken into account, including the advice of those who are represented on the Commission.

§ Mr. Tom King
Is not a major weakness in the composition of the Energy Commission the fact that, in its initial findings on the advanced gas-cooled reactor, the largest producer of energy in this country was not represented and the largest user of nuclear reactors—the CEGB—had no representative on that body?

§ Mr. Benn
I think the hon. Gentleman knows that the CEGB has made its own recommendations to me. I have met the board of the CEGB and the Electricity Council on a number of occasions. It is also known, because, fortunately, all these matters have become public, that the CEGB and the South of Scotland Electricity Board wish to order advanced gas-cooled reactors. The discussion is about what will follow at a later stage. I think that all this is clearly understood. Nothing that has followed from the establishment of the Energy Commission has in any way limited the range of discussions, which, as the House also knows, will be renewed.
The Energy Commission was set up to look at the wide range of energy policy, not to be the sole channel through which advice was offered to Ministers. The views of the Energy Commission, as expressed by those who spoke, were clearly explained by me when I met the Press after the meeting and will emerge from the transcript when it is published.

§ Mr. Speaker
Answers are becoming very long again.