Chamber and committees

I am grateful to all the witnesses.

I will stick with you, Tim, for my final question. Thank you for that interesting answer, in which you talked about the next five years on nuclear. You may not be able to answer the question, in which case, if any of the other panellists can do so, I would be grateful.

In January, I asked the Scottish Government what impact closing Hunterston B and Torness would have on consumer energy bills. The Scottish Government was unable to tell me, because apparently it has not modelled that. I went on to ask what the price is of electricity generated by Hunterston B and Torness, in an attempt to reverse engineer the answer. However, again, the Scottish Government does not know the answer to that, which I find rather surprising. Do you have that data, or could any of the other panel members source it? In any event, can you theorise what impact shutting those two generation stations in Scotland might have on consumer energy bills?

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I point out that I was quoting figures from the Scottish Parliament information centre blog “Energy price crisis—impacts and remedies in Scotland”.

My second question is for Tim Lord. Again according to SPICe, one of the key drivers of the recent increase in the wholesale price of gas was

“a relatively windless summer in 2021”,

which

“made it difficult to generate wind energy”.

Tim Lord said earlier that we need another reliable way to satisfy demand, and Dr Lowes referred to the National Grid’s “Future Energy Scenarios”, which specifically suggests that nuclear might be a significant part of our journey to net zero. What is your view, Tim? Is nuclear generation that reliable source? What impact could new nuclear have on the price for consumers if it can provide a reliable baseload?

I am grateful to the panel. Unless Gordon Nelson or Martyn Raine has anything particular to add, I will hand back to the convener.

I will ask part of that question again. Did you give them guarantees?

Finally, P&O accepts that UK employment law was broken such that hundreds of employees could potentially have prosecuted unfair dismissal claims. It is difficult to see how such claims could have been successfully defended. I have no doubt that in making your plans you were aware that the primary remedy for a successful unfair dismissal claim is reinstatement. What planning did you do for a situation in which a tribunal ordered the reinstatement of all those employees? Did you plan to comply with such an order or would that authority have been ignored as well? Had that situation come to pass, what loyalty would you have shown to the new agencies?

On a point of clarification, I am not suggesting that you are being very generous.

It is interesting that a two-year payback period leads to the conclusion that you cannot carry out the consultation required by statute, but I will let others pick up that point.

I will move on to an issue that is interesting from the point of view of various parties. In 2019 and 2020, P&O registered losses of around £130 million, and the suggestion is that there will be a further £131 million loss in 2021, for which DP World has offered a facility of £100 million. That begs the question, how certain are you that P&O is good for the £36 million settlement and the agency fees? Have you given the agencies guarantees? They may feel that they are taking a financial risk by doing business with a company that you described earlier as “unviable” and that chooses to ignore the law of the land if a bit of money is thrown around.

That seems to be a slightly different answer from the first one that you gave me, with respect. Will that document be published and made publicly available? I would have thought that the land-based employees would need to know the details.

I have one final thing to raise, convener, if I may. It is something that my friend Monica Lennon brought up earlier that really troubles me. Mr Hebblethwaite, you accept that you wilfully, consciously, and knowingly broke the law. You offended against UK employment law, a law that Parliament felt to be so important that it attached a protective award to it to mandate compliance. Does that not trouble you, as a company director, and make you question whether you are truly a fit and proper person and are discharging fiduciary duties to your company if you are content simply to break one of the strongest laws that Parliament has put in place?

I have no further questions, convener.