Power Station (Fawley) (Hansard, 25 January 1988)

§ 9. Mr. Colvin
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects to receive an application from the Central Electricity Generating Board to construct a coal-fired power station at Fawley.

§ Mr. Parkinson
The CEGB informs me that it expects to be in a position to submit an application for consent to construct Fawley B shortly.

§ Mr. Colvin
I am pleased to hear that comment. The sooner this happens, the better. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the mounting opposition to the Fawley B proposal as we manage to squeeze additional information out of the CEGB and learn a bit more about what it proposes, especially its plans for a coal-importing facility for the redistribution of coal inland over a totally inadequate infrastructure? Should there not be two applications—one submitted by the CEGB to my right hon. Friend for the power station, and a separate application to local planning authorities for the proposed coal importing facility?

§ Mr. Parkinson
When the CEGB decides to apply, it has to advertise its proposal to give objectors the right to register their objections. I suspect that that will lead 10 eventually to a public inquiry. If the CEGB wishes to build a jetty into the Solent as part of its plans to import coal, it has to apply under the Harbours Act 1964 to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport for further permission.

§ Mr. Speaker
Mr. Barron — but, this question is about Fawley.

§ Mr. Barron
Since there has not yet been an application for consent to construct this second power station, and since it will be several years before most of the building starts, why has the Minister forced up the cost of electricity to consumers and industry from April this year, when the CEGB cannot even spend that money on the proposed power station?

§ Mr. Parkinson
There will be a substantial investment programme on generation and transmission in the next financial year. Nearly £1.5 billion will be invested. In the following year an increasing amount of money will be spent on Sizewell B. Some of that additional expenditure will involve Fawley. There is a big investment programme, which will grow every year from now on.

§ Sir Trevor Skeet
Would it not be much more economic to put a further cable across from France to import nuclear electricity at a very much cheaper price than we could produce it? Is this not a unique and odd place to put a coal-fired power station?

§ Mr. Parkinson
As my hon. Friend knows, we need more generating capacity in the south of England to maintain the stability of the system, for purely technical reasons. The possibility of a further link with France has not been ruled out. We may well need both.

§ Mr. Prescott
The Secretary of State is closing down generating capacity and mines in the northern part of the United Kingdom, and opening new generating capacity in the south. Does he accept that it would make much more sense, and be a cheaper option, to keep the jobs in the northern area and increase investment in transmission, and not go ahead with the investment in the south? Export power, not jobs, from the north to the south.

§ Mr. Parkinson
Most of the proposals for building power stations centre on the north. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman consult his advisers. There is a need to maintain the stability of the system by increasing the supply of power, which is inadequate, from stations in the south. It is a matter, not of transferring jobs from the north to the south, but of improving the system's stability.