My Lords, Amendment 55ALB is largely an attempt to get greater clarity than we got on, I think, the second day in Committee about the way in which the Bill as a whole applies to Northern Ireland. There is also the particular question of why Northern Ireland is referred to here in relation to investment contracts with the Northern Ireland generator, and whether that actually means generation in Northern Ireland into Great Britain. At the moment, the whole balance of interconnection is into Northern Ireland, with both the gas pipeline and the electricity line, and there is a separate issue between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
As I have said before, Northern Ireland has a very different energy market structure. It has a dominant supplier and a different systems operator, which is in part owned by interests in the Irish Republic. There is a wholesale electricity market that is jointly operated with the Irish Republic. The consumer regulator works on very different precepts than Ofgem, in that it is still, essentially, a price-regulation process. Finally, of course, consumers there face different problems and higher prices. I suppose I should declare a slight interest and an affinity in that I have done some work for the Consumer Council in Northern Ireland.
I have never quite understood how contracts for difference apply in Northern Ireland within that structure. I can see that capacity payments might apply, because the history relates to what they used to call availability contracts in Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland as a whole, which were quite expensive to consumers and business in Northern Ireland. However, I do not really see how investment contracts apply in Northern Ireland, particularly if they are ongoing—in reply to my noble friend just now, we are not in favour of putting an end date on the period in which investment contracts are issued. Rather than go into vast detail on this last day in Committee, I simply ask whether the Minister could contrive with her department, possibly in conjunction with DETI in Northern Ireland, to produce a paper that would indicate to us, before we reach Report, just how this operates in Northern Ireland. I am still bemused and suspect that those who have even less familiarity with the situation in Northern Ireland are even more bemused. There are references to Northern Ireland all the way through the Bill.
There is one other particular point in this amendment, which was raised, if I remember rightly, by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, in an earlier debate. There are references to the department rather than to the Minister, whereas for the other devolved Administrations, there are references to the Minister. That sounded on the face of it to be a bit of a hangover from direct rule,
and an explanation would be helpful on that front. Northern Ireland is distinct from Scotland and Wales in this regard because energy is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland. However, this provision appears, in one sense, to provide for the possibility—not necessarily the absolute certainty—of the schemes that we are devolving in vast detail for Great Britain being applied in Northern Ireland. If it only relates to the possibility of Northern Ireland supplying some electricity into the GB grid, that is a slightly different and probably unlikely matter. The Minister can probably answer this point fairly succinctly. If she is prepared to let me have a note over the summer that could be circulated to the other Members of the Committee, explaining how this applies to Northern Ireland—one which she has agreed with her Northern Ireland counterpart—I will say no more about it. I beg to move.