Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Kerry McCarthy

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. Following the assurances he has given on that basis, among others, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clauses 260 to 263 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 264

Civil nuclear industry: amendment of relevant nuclear pension schemes

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 103, in clause 264, page 234, line 31, at end insert

“, or on benefits in deferment or pensions in payment;”

This amendment means that the Secretary of State may not put a cap on revaluation of benefits in deferment or pensions in payment.

Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Kerry McCarthy

Committee stage
Thursday 15th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

Okay. What I was trying to convey—perhaps I did not do so in quite the pellucid way I might have—was what we want to achieve with offshore wind development. As I have said, the Opposition are committed, along with the Government, to a huge increase in offshore wind, which we think can be achieved, most importantly, while taking proper note of the environmental considerations that surround those sites. As the hon. Member for South Ribble says, in the right places and under the right circumstances offshore wind can be, in the end, a substantial enhancement of the underwater habitat and environment.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I think my hon. Friend made it perfectly clear that some places are appropriate for offshore wind and some are not because of the nature of the marine environment. Does he share my concerns about existing protections? A lot of marine protected areas are described as little more than “paper parks” because they are not achieving what they are meant to. We need to enhance the protections for those designated areas. Just as in some places it is appropriate to fish and in others not, we ought to respect the fact that in some areas, marine protection has to be the No. 1 priority.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is quite right. She will no doubt be thinking back to the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, which started to develop exactly the concept that she sets out—that there are right and wrong places for development. There are places that we should seriously ensure are protected as much as possible—marine conservation zones—and it would be really quite a sin to put development on those. There are also places where there are known marine traffic routes, and siting an offshore wind farm right in the middle of a major offshore traffic route would not be a good idea either. There are other areas where the communications required for offshore wind farms could themselves be subject to environmental considerations, and those need to be taken into account too.

After the 2009 Act was passed, a number of marine conservation areas were supposed to be set up. Many of them have not been, and those that were have not had the level of policing and enforcement that they should have had.

[Kerry McCarthy]

As Labour left government, we had plans for an ecologically coherent network of, I think, 113 marine conservation zones. Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that we are now 13 years on and still far from achieving that? It is important that we do not go backwards on the issues that we are discussing today. Obviously, we need to go forwards, but going backwards would be even worse than remaining in the same place.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is right again, and she recalls the exact number of conservation zones, which had escaped my memory. We might say that if we had those marine conservation zones in place now, we would be much clearer today about exactly what we will be doing as far as planning in the North sea and Celtic sea is concerned.

Lyme Bay fairly near me, which should be a marine conservation zone—I am not sure that it is—has cold-water coral features, and it would be quite lethal to those formations were we to develop offshore activities there. That is why that zone should be protected. Other areas further down—

Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Kerry McCarthy

Committee stage
Thursday 15th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

Oh, all right. We can have a debate about whether Tom Cruise makes good films or not, but I think the general consensus would be no. The point about that film is that he was, as I recall, a detective who had to go round anticipating crimes before they were committed. Indeed, he did not just anticipate crimes—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East is looking this up on her iPad—

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I have no idea what you are talking about. I am not sure I have ever seen it.

[Dr Whitehead]

In that film, people were profiled in case they might commit crimes in later life, and they were arrested well before they could commit a crime, or because their profile suggested that they might do so in the future. That is the problem that we may come across with these clauses.

As we will unpack when we come to later clauses, the way the Bill is drafted puts the onus on suppliers and the owners of undertakings that relate to possible disruptions to do “anything”—that is the word in the Bill —to secure core sector resilience. As we will see, if the people in those sectors fail or fall short of doing “anything”, there are penalties: they can be imprisoned, and they can be fined at the discretion of the Secretary of State.

I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that, but it seems to me that that gets rather close to the “Minority Report” line about anticipating offences and, as it were, taking people out before they have committed an offence. Furthermore, it puts an enormous onus on the people carrying out those activities to do things that perhaps ought to be for the Government to undertake and enforce, as the Minister said earlier, at the time that a disruption takes place. It could be said that these clauses are about anticipatory activity. The Government quite properly have powers under previous environmental legislation to deal with disruption.

Clause 222 sets out the general objective for core fuel sector resilience and states that the Secretary of State’s functions must be exercised with a view to

“ensuring that economic activity in the United Kingdom is not adversely affected by disruptions to core fuel sector activities, and…reducing the risk of emergencies affecting fuel supplies.”

That is a very wide brief.

Energy Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Kerry McCarthy

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I know that this is a lengthy Bill, and there is a lot to get through, but I slightly had trouble keeping up with the breakneck speed at which the Minister introduced the clauses, so I am glad to have an opportunity to question him. He said that although there will be instances where licences are not needed, the situation might change and a licence may be needed. It would be helpful to have some examples of those scenarios to illustrate when the Secretary of State might invoke these powers. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend has read my mind, as she often does.

This clause is procedural, as I have illustrated, and essentially says: “There may be exemptions. We don’t know what they are or what they might consist of, but don’t worry about it. The Secretary of State will think about that in due course and produce regulation that we hope—but we don’t know—might set that out in greater detail.” It is important that the Minister sets out today what might be in his mind when he makes those regulations, as far as exemptions are concerned. Is he a wide exemption Minister or a narrow exemption Minister? If he is a wide exemption Minister, what is the scope of the exemptions that he will be thinking about? If he is a narrow scope Minister, how does he interpret subsection (7), which states that an exemption may be granted indefinitely, given what he just said about how things may change in the future?

I know that there are things that we thought were indefinite in legislation that have turned out not to be—most importantly because Parliament cannot decide what the previous Parliament thought. However, it seems to be a hostage to fortune to put the word “indefinitely” in this legislation in the way that we see in clause 5(7).

I would be grateful if the Minister could provide us with some thoughts on what exemptions might look like and what his intentions are as far as regulation is concerned. I have not looked yet at the end of the Bill to see how any regulations might be considered by Parliament, but when the Secretary of State makes regulations on exemptions, I would expect those to be put forward under the affirmative rather than the negative procedure so that we have an opportunity to examine what they consist of.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Clause 5(6) refers to “Notice of an exemption” being given. It would be helpful to have clarity on the reference to

“Other persons who may be affected by it.”

I am not sure how that would be decided. It is really important that we have transparency and accountability in these processes. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes, I do agree. Again, I appreciate that the wording of this Bill might be regarded as necessarily fairly vague, because of the fact that—in the words of Donald Rumsfeld—there are known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns about the future. However, it is important at least to have on the record something that guides us in a more positive way on who might be the “other” people affected and on indefinite exemptions and so on. It would be a good idea if that could at least be included in the discussion of the Bill.

By the way, our proceedings in Committee are of course recorded, and they are used on occasion in law to determine what the purpose of particular clauses was and what was thought to be in the mind of legislators when they introduced them. So it would be helpful, not just for our discussions today but perhaps for the future record, if the Minister was able to clarify these matters in a suitable way.

Environment Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Kerry McCarthy

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

I beg to move amendment 82, in clause 4, page 3, line 24, at end insert

“and,

(c) interim targets are met.”

This amendment places a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the interim targets they set.

For the Committee’s further enlightenment, I can say that amendment 24 was in a different place in the provisional grouping. I landed my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West in it slightly by assuming that it would be debated under clause 2; it is actually a separate discussion. I am sorry to my hon. Friend for that, but he did a brilliant job under the circumstances.

Amendment 82 is deceptively small but makes an important point about interim targets in this piece of legislation. The Bill requires interim targets to be set on a five-yearly basis. In the environmental improvement plans, the Government are required to set out the steps they will take over a 15-year period to improve the natural environment. However, environmental improvement plans are not legally binding; they are simply policy documents.

Although the plans need to be reviewed, potentially updated every five years and reported on every year, that is not the same as legal accountability. Indeed, voluntary environmental targets have been badly missed on a number of occasions. The target set in 2010 to end the inclusion of peat in amateur gardening products by 2020 will be badly missed. The target set in 2011 for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to conserve 50%—by area—of England’s sites of special scientific interest by 2020 has been abandoned and replaced with a new target to ensure that 38.7% of SSSIs are in favourable condition, which is only just higher than the current level. A number of voluntary, interim and other targets have clearly been missed because they are just reporting objects; they do not have legal accountability.

Interim targets should be legally binding to guarantee that they will be delivered, and it is vital to have a robust legal framework in place to hold the Government and public authorities to account—not just in the long term, but in the short term. As things stand, the Government could in theory set a long-term, legally binding target for 2037, as suggested in the legislation, but then avoid having to do anything whatever about meeting it until 2036.

Amendment 82 would insert the phrase, “interim targets are met.” That would effectively place a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the interim targets that they set. In that context, it is no different from the provisions of the Climate Change Act, which I keep repeating as an example for us all to follow. Indeed, how the five-year carbon budgets work is an example for all of us to follow. They were set up by the Climate Change Act effectively as interim targets before the overall target set for 2050, which is now a 100% reduction; it was an 80% reduction in the original Act.

Those five-year targets are set by the independent body—the Committee on Climate Change—and the Government are required to meet them. If the Government cannot meet them, they are required to take measures to rectify the situation shortly afterwards. Therefore, there are far better mechanisms than those in the Bill to give interim targets real life and ensure they are not just exercises on a piece of paper.

It is important that the Secretary of State is given a duty to meet the targets, because that means that they will have to introduce mechanisms to ensure that they meet those targets. That is what we anticipate would happen as a subset of these measures.

We need to take interim targets seriously, as I am sure the Minister would agree. Indeed, it is not a question of whether we take them seriously; it is a question of how we take them seriously, in a way that ensures that they are credible, achievable, workable and play a full part in the process of getting to the eventual targets that we set at the start of the Bill.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I will be very brief. I entirely support what my hon. Friend says about the need for interim targets. We have seen how the carbon budgets work under the Climate Change Act. There is real concern that the timetable might be slipping and that we might not manage to meet the commitments in the next couple of carbon budgets, but at least there is a mechanism.

I know that we have the environmental improvement plans, and that there is a requirement to review them and potentially update them every five years. However, there are so many strategy documents and plans. If we look at peat, for example, my hon. Friend mentioned the fact that the target set in 2010 for ending the inclusion of peat in amateur garden products by the end of this year will be missed. I know that the Government have a peat strategy, and there are various other things kicking around that are mentioned every time we talk about peat. But there is a lack of focus, a lack of drive and a lack of certainty as to where the Government are heading on that issue. I feel that if we had legally binding interim targets in the Bill, that would give a sense of direction and it would be something against which we could hold the Government to account—more so than with what is currently proposed.

Regarding my last intervention on the Minister, I was trying to be helpful. I was just asking her to give a reassurance that all the efforts to clear up our air and to tackle air pollution are going on regardless; it is not just about setting this target and whether we set it for 2022 or 2020. That is one particular measure. All I am trying to say is that I am looking for reassurances that the Government will still be focused on cleaning up our air. All she has to do is say yes.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling this amendment. Very quickly, I can give assurances that of course work is ongoing to clean up our air, because we have our clean air strategy. A great many processes are being put in place through that strategy to tackle all the key pollutants that affect air quality. The measures in the Bill come on top of that. I hope that gives the reassurance that was sought.

It is of course critical that we achieve our long-term targets to deliver significant environmental improvement, and this framework provides strong assurances that we will do so. The Bill has this whole framework of robust statutory requirements for monitoring, reporting and reviewing, combined with the Office for Environmental Protection and parliamentary scrutiny, to ensure that meeting the interim targets is taken seriously, without the need for them to be legally binding.

Interim targets are there to help the trajectory towards meeting the long-term targets, to ensure that the Government are staying on track. We cannot simply set a long-term target for 2037 and forget about it. Through this cycle—the reporting requirement and the requirement to set out the interim target of up to five years—the Bill will ensure that the Government take early, regular steps to achieve the long-term targets and can be held to account. The OEP and Parliament will, of course, play their role too.

To be clear, we have a little mechanism called the triple lock, which is the key to driving short-term progress. The Government must have an environmental improvement plan, which sets out the steps they intend to take to improve the environment, and review it at least every five years. In step 2, the Government must report on progress towards achieving the targets every year. In step 3, the OEP will hold us to account on progress towards achieving the targets, and every year it can recommend how we could make better progress, if it thinks better progress needs to be made. The Government then have to respond.

If progress seems too slow, or is deemed to be too slow, the Government may need to develop new policies to make up for that when reviewing their EIPs. They will not wait until 2037 to do that; these things can be done as a continuous process, and that is important.

The shadow Minister rightly referred back to the Climate Change Act and the five-yearly carbon budgets, as did the hon. Member for Bristol East. He asked why, if the carbon budgets were legally binding, the interim targets are not. That is a good question, but of course the targets in the Environment Bill are quite different from carbon budgets. Carbon budgets relate to a single metric: the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions. These targets will be set on several different aspects of the natural environment.

As I am sure hon. Members will understand, that is very complicated; it is an interconnected system that is subject to natural factors as well as to human activity. Additionally, aspects of the natural environment such as water quality or soil health might respond more quickly to some things and more slowly to others, even with ambitious interventions. It is possible that the Government could adopt extremely ambitious measures and still miss their interim targets due to external factors.

What is important, in this case, is that a missed interim target is recognised and that the Government consider what is needed to get back on track. I am convinced that the system that is there to recognising that—the reporting, analysis and so on—will highlight it. There will be reporting through the EIPs, the targets and the OEP scrutiny, and the incorporation of any new interim targets or measures; it can all be looked at in the five-yearly review of the EIP. I believe there is a strong framework there already.

Finally, of course, the OEP will have the power to bring legal proceedings if the Government breach their environmental law duties, including their duty to achieve long-term targets. Of course, we cannot reach the long-term targets unless we have achieved the interim targets first. I hope I have been clear on that; I feel strongly that we have the right process here, and I hope the shadow Minister will kindly withdraw his amendment.

Environment Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Kerry McCarthy

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Kerry McCarthy]

As I said, I want to revisit that, because I thought the Minister was making an argument against being able to pursue targets. She did not adequately make the case for not having the specific priority of a global footprint target, but we will return to that when we discuss new clause 5, which is a comprehensive clause about due diligence in the supply chain and how we enforce all this. We shall return to the debate then, rather than my pressing these issues to a vote now. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Dr Whitehead]

I beg to move amendment 178, in clause 1, page 1, line 17, at end insert—

“(3A) Targets set within the priority area of air quality must include targets for—

(a) the ambient 24 hour mean concentration of PM2.5 and PM10;

(b) average human exposure to PM2.5 and PM10; and

(c) annual emissions of NOx, ammonia, PM2.5, PM10, SO2 and non-methane volatile organic compounds.

(3B) Targets set within the priority area of water must include, but are not limited to, matters relating to—

(a) abstraction rates; and

(b) the chemical and biological status and monitoring of inland freshwater and the marine environment.

(3C) Targets set within the priority area of biodiversity must include, but are not limited to, matters relating to—

(a) the abundance, diversity and extinction risk of species; and

(b) the quality, extent and connectivity of habitats.

(3D) Targets set within the priority area of waste and resources must include, but are not limited to, matters relating to the reduction of overall material use and waste generation and pollution, including but not limited to plastics.”

We are now moving on to a debate on one of the most important elements of the Bill. I suspect it will take us beyond the break for lunch, but I will start my remarks. The amendment is designed to address the priority areas for environmental targets, which are set out in clause 1(3). Hon. Members can see that the stated policy areas are air quality, water, biodiversity, and resource efficiency and waste reduction. Other targets, particularly on PM_2.5 air quality, are mentioned later in the Bill, but those are the priority areas for the purpose of the Bill.

Environment Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Kerry McCarthy

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

Q On a slightly different topic, the question of building waste wood in the waste stream has been a live issue for quite a while, and the extent to which legislation should be introduced to ban waste wood from the waste stream—that is, other things need to be done to it higher up the waste hierarchy. That issue particularly involves wood that has been used in building. Very often builders just put their wood in waste streams when they have finished building the property or properties. Do you have a view on that? Do you think legislation is required, possibly in this Bill, to ensure that that wood does not go into the waste stream and is used higher up the hierarchy or are there things the building industry could do to make sure it does not happen?

Rico Wojtulewicz: It is definitely not my expertise, but if it is a real concern, the industry would support measures to ensure that that does not occur.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q To go back to the 10% target, I thought you were being quite enthusiastic about quite a lot that could be done from the house builders’ side of things. As parliamentary species champion for the swift, I was glad that you mentioned swift boxes, which are great, but there has been a 57% decline in swift breeding pairs since 1995, according to the RSPB. That is just one example, but if you look at biodiversity loss across the board, some people would argue that 10% is only really keeping things at a standstill. Do you feel that if you were pushed to do more, you would be able to respond and try to meet a higher target? If a 20% target was in the Bill, what would be needed from your point of view to enable you to help with that?

Rico Wojtulewicz: Guidance on what we could do to increase the swift population, such as on what trees and food they might like and what lights do and don’t attract the food that they enjoy eating. All these little things actually make a big difference. If that knowledge is there, it feels quite isolated. I think we are very enthusiastic about the things we can do, which will effectively make our sites better at delivering what people want.

The difficulty is that sometimes politicians perhaps do not understand the development process and what occurs. We in the development industry need to ensure that we have a greater understanding of what we can do on site. Perhaps you would have a particular target in an area that you know would encourage more swifts. Perhaps you could issue specific guidance for that local authority, as part of the network.