My Lords, I welcome these amendments but want to ask the Minister about a couple of matters. I had responsibility for this area for three years. Long-standing availability contracts signed many years ago constrain the flexibility of the Northern Ireland energy sector. That is one of the issues. We have set ourselves very challenging targets for renewable sources but still need, and will continue to need, large amounts of availability from more traditional generating sources. We have also been encouraging the development of interconnection with the Irish Republic. Not only will that be a positive thing from the point of view of reliability and reinforcement of supply, it will mean that the Irish Republic will have a proportionately larger renewable sector than we are likely to have in the foreseeable future.
There is one technical point on which I would like the Minister to advise the Committee, or perhaps write to us about at some stage, which has arisen in other areas where we have national issues but powers are devolved. Assuming that there will be a legislative consent Motion—which I sincerely hope there will be—there is the issue of the Sewel convention and the Government’s response to that. In recent correspondence with the NIO on other issues, there seems to be a tremendous adherence to it. That effectively means that this Parliament does not wish to overrule or supersede a devolved Administration. It would apply equally to Scotland. We need to bear in mind how that particular issue will be dealt with if we sign up to international obligations, which we may very well do, as we have provisions in the Northern Ireland Act 1988 which mean that Northern Ireland must comply with the international obligations of the United Kingdom. However, if it is not covered by an
international obligation, the Secretary of State here may set targets which he or she believes are appropriate for the UK as a whole.
Given that electricity supplies are provided through the private sector, and that there are availability contracts, I want to be assured that the Government will not allow themselves to be hampered by a very narrow implementation of the Sewel convention. We have to have flexibility. This is a hugely important area for our activities. Given that the electricity market in both Scotland and Northern Ireland is comparatively small, one can easily see why people ignore it. However, everybody has to do their bit and we all have to make a contribution. Perhaps the Minister could offer those assurances in her winding up or could write to us at a later stage. I believe that these amendments are positive and I fully support them.