House of Lords
New Homes
(1 year ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
To ask His Majesty’s Government in what year they expect to reach their target of building 300,000 new homes a year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)
My Lords, we are continuing to work towards our ambition of delivering 300,000 homes a year. This has always been a stretching ambition and we have made strong progress. The three highest rates of annual supply in more than 30 years have all come since 2018. We are aware that increasing supply even further will be made more difficult due to the economic challenges we face, but we are engaging with Homes England, developers and registered providers to understand their delivery challenges.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend, but has she read the leader in last Saturday’s Times? It said of the Government’s housing target:
“That goal has now been sacrificed on the altar of appeasing rural Conservative backbenchers fearful of a backlash in their green and pleasant constituencies”,
and concluded:
“The political calculations of the Tory party are in danger of strangling Britain’s housebuilding industry, retarding economic growth and depriving young people of the affordable homes they so desperately need”.
Can my noble friend confirm that this controversial policy, which was launched in a consultation document last December and has not yet been adopted, might be amended in light of the widespread criticism that it has now generated?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Yes, I have read the Times article. We are carefully analysing the many detailed responses we received to the consultation and expect to respond formally later in the autumn. It is worth making it clear to my noble friend that the proposals in the consultation are not government policy. My noble friend should also be reassured that, as I have said before, the Government remain committed to our ambition of delivering 300,000 new homes per year. The proposals in the consultation are designed to support areas to get more local plans in place. That will deliver more housing and stop communities being exposed to development by appeal.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, for some weeks we have heard scare stories that 100,000 new homes are blocked by the rules on nutrient neutrality. I am therefore glad that the Government have debunked that myth with their recent explainer, which states that only 16,500 homes are currently impacted. By comparison, Savills estimates that 150,000 homes are land-banked in 2021, and Homes England sits on 250,000 more new homes. Given those numbers, is there any real justification for the Government’s assault on the habitat regulations, the health of our rivers and their own good environmental reputation?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Yes, there is, my Lords. The 16,500 figure is annual, while the 100,000 figure is between now and 2030. The Government have put in place a package of mitigation that will allow us to deal with nutrient neutrality not as a sticking plaster, stopping housing being built, but by dealing with the issues at source. If the noble Earl reads the mitigation circumstances, he will see what we are doing and how much we are investing in that.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I found the Minister’s reply rather disappointing. I appreciate the ambition, but it is the implementation that is the major problem. Drastic cuts of funding to social housing have resulted in many households in need being trapped in the private rented sector, and the number of affordable homes is just not meeting that need. Current conditions have meant that private sector building has flatlined, but social housing builders can be countercyclical and, with the right investment, could do so much more. The Government will reach their target only by investing massively in social homes. Do the Government and the Minister agree with that? If not, can she please explain how that target will be met?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, the Government are committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing, which is why, through our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, we will deliver tens of thousands of affordable homes for sale or rent across the country. The levelling up White Paper committed to increasing the supply of social rented homes, and a large number of the new homes delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for social rent.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer about affordability, but I wonder what steps the Government are taking to ensure that the definition of affordability is a good one. Could we redefine it so that it means affordable for most local people in that community, and look at what that is doing to house prices generally in each area?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
We had a debate on this quite recently on the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill. Through the consultation on the NPPF, we are looking at affordable housing and, when we have finished that consultation and looked at the results, we will consider it further.
Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)
My Lords, the work done on the National Planning Policy Framework by my noble friend Lord Pickles, Brandon Lewis and Greg Clark was in my view one of the major achievements during the coalition, because it provided a sensible balance between a stick and a carrot, with local authorities producing a plan and a mechanism for the Government to step in if they did not. This led to a significant increase in the land supply. With the changes that have taken place in the last few months, the mood music is completely different. Local authorities know that applications to appeal are quite futile. A disastrous thing has happened. What do the Government intend to do about it? If they do nothing, the 300,000 target will be pure fantasy.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I quite agree with my noble friend about the importance of the NPPF. That is why we are consulting on it, will review it when we have the results of the consultation and will come back out to consult on our further ideas on how we can update it—we cannot leave it there in aspic for ever. By doing that and by the measures in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to modernise the planning system, we will deliver more houses through local plans and hit the 300,000 target.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I have relevant interests in this Question. Councils’ local plans incorporate their share of the national housing targets. Can the Minister explain how national housing targets can be achieved when more than 60% of local councils do not have an up-to-date local plan?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
The noble Baroness is right: we need more local plans. That is how we will deliver more houses. We know from evidence that local planning authorities that have local plans deliver more houses. That is why we have the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, are changing and simplifying making local plans and will insist that local authorities deliver local plans. If they do not, we have measures to push them to do so.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, in her response to the debate on housing targets during the Report stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, the Minister stated:
“To get enough homes built in places where people and communities need them, a crucial first step is to plan for the right number of homes”.—[Official Report, 6/9/23; col. 426.]
The National House Building Council’s statistics show a dramatic decline in registrations in quarter 2 across most regions, compared with the same quarter last year; it was down 67% in the north-west, for example. It is going in the wrong direction. What is the Government’s plan to ensure that local targets meet that 300,000 homes target?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
As I said to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, we are in an economic situation that is not as favourable for housebuilding as it was, and therefore we have to work with Homes England, developers and local planning authorities to ensure that we give all the support we can, reinvigorate the housing market and get these houses built.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, when house prices fall, as they are doing now, big building firms tend to sit on their balance sheets and play the waiting game. That is very bad news for new homes as big builders now have a 90% share of the UK market while SMEs have seen their share collapse from 40% to less than 10%. Does the Minister agree that this market domination is stifling competition and is bad news for the supply of new homes?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I absolutely do. We need to spend more time with our SME housebuilders. The levelling-up home building fund is providing £1.5 billion in development finance to SMEs and builders for exactly this reason: to support them to build more homes. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is making changes to support SMEs, making the planning process much faster and more predictable for them so that they can stay in business and build more houses.
NHS: Staff Numbers
(1 year ago)
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Lord Clark of Windermere
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the number of staff working in the NHS.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)
A record number of staff are working in the NHS, including more than 6,000 more doctors and more than 16,400 more nurses than last year. We have backed the NHS long-term workforce plan with more than £2.4 billion over five years. This will put us on course to double the number of medical school training places, almost double the number of adult nursing training places and increase the number of GP training places by 50% by 2031. It will also ensure that the NHS workforce is put on a sustainable footing for the future.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his Answer, but he knows that there is a dire shortage of staff right across the NHS, with 47,000 nursing vacancies. The recruitment of nurses to training places is down 13% this year. Some 170,000 workers in the NHS left their jobs last year, mainly under stress. Today, we have the news that a survey found that 32% of students who are currently in medical school have said that they intend to emigrate on completing their studies. I repeat what I asked in my Question: what plans do the Government have to increase the number of staff working in the NHS?
Lord Markham (Con)
The whole House will, I think, recognise that we have extensive plans that are, as I said, backed by £2.4 billion. That is what the long-term workforce plan was all about. There were many requests for us to put it in place and that is what we have delivered. All of this comes in the context of 63,000 more members of staff over the past year—actually, around 280,000 more members of staff since 2010. Those are substantial increases. Do we need to do more? Yes. Is that what the long-term workforce plan is all about? Yes.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, those within the NHS must be allowed to work safely. Has my noble friend seen the reports today? A third of female surgeons have been sexually assaulted by other doctors within their workplaces, sometimes while they are actually operating on people. It is as unbelievable as it is appalling. What plans does my noble friend have for getting to the bottom of this, finding out the truth of these allegations and holding responsible those who are responsible for the safety of working practices within the NHS? In its recent dealings with him, did the British Medical Association mention this terrible issue—or have its interests been concentrated solely on money?
Lord Markham (Con)
I thank my noble friend. Like all of us, I am sure, I was appalled to hear about that study. The most fundamental purpose of any employer is the safety and well-being of their staff, obviously, and I am afraid that the hospitals that allowed that to happen and allowed that culture to take place clearly failed. Clearly, we need to get to the bottom of that. As I often say, it starts with the leadership in each hospital and the culture that is built up within each college. Those are the people who need to be looking at themselves in the mirror and asking whether they have the right culture to make sure that everyone feels safe in the workplace.
Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, we know that the Minister is a big fan of data dashboards for tracking such things as the flow of patients through hospitals. Does he agree that such a dashboard would be an excellent way for us to track the Government’s progress against all the various targets that they have put into their workforce plan? Will he commit to producing one?
Lord Markham (Con)
I believe that the whole point of the workforce plan is that every couple of years there is a review of our progress against it and how it needs to be adapted, since it is a moving feast. So, absolutely, it is vital and something we are working on. Overall, the things that we said that we would do we are on course for. We said that we would increase the number of nurses by 50,000 over the course of this Parliament. It is currently 47,000. We said that we would increase doctors’ appointments by 50 million. That is currently on track. So a lot of good work has already happened. A lot of targets have been hit. Yes, there is more to be done and we are happy to track it.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, it is currently predicted that there will be a shortage of about 4,000 fully trained anaesthetists by 2025. The Government’s plan to expand anaesthesia associate training will also need anaesthetists to supervise the trainees in the workplace. However, currently there is a bottleneck at a certain level of the training of anaesthetists. That bottleneck can be resolved by increasing the number of training slots. Why do we not do that?
Lord Markham (Con)
In every area, anaesthetists being a very good example, we need to be looking at where the bottlenecks are and moving to free up those situations. I think we would all agree that with practitioners such as anaesthetists and in other areas, it is a very sensible approach to make sure that the most highly skilled are focused on the most highly skilled jobs and that they can have people underneath them who can be trained to work within that. So hearing that there is a certain amount of opposition from certain colleges and the BMA to those sorts of roles is quite disappointing. I hope they would accept that this is a key way of addressing the issue.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, can I take the Minister back to the original Question from my noble friend Lord Clark? He put before the House some quite startling statistics about the number of medical staff—particularly but not exclusively doctors —who are leaving following or shortly after the completion of their training, either for other countries or for private practice? What view does he take of that drain away from the National Health Service and the effective loss of the investment that the country makes in the very expensive training of clinicians?
Lord Markham (Con)
My first point on that is to ask what the real facts are. Five years on from qualification, around 95% of doctors are still registered with the General Medical Council and still practising in the UK. So the fact is that retention is very high. That notwithstanding, we want to do everything that we can to retain people, and professional development is what the long-term workforce plan is all about. Also, we all know that pensions were a big reason for a lot of the brain drain and doctors leaving the profession, and that was something we were quite radical in supporting and changing. We are going through this bit by bit, asking what key things we need to do to retain our staff and resolve this.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I have seen press reports that suggest, from future projections, that one in 11 people in the workforce will end up being employed by the NHS. Does the Minister really believe that this is sustainable? What plans does he have to avoid what would be a completely impossible situation for the economy?
Lord Markham (Con)
Yes, I am aware of this. Health spending equates to roughly 11% of the GDP of our country. Not surprisingly, the number of people in the workforce reflect that. It is absolutely mind-blowing; the amount of investment going into this space is bigger than the economy of Greece. Without a doubt, we have to make productivity improvements and look to technology, AI and all the things we can do to improve output and make sure that that total is not just ever-increasing.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, the Government’s workforce plan is silent on having enough properly maintained treatment facilities, buildings and equipment, all of which have become increasingly inadequate. Could the Minister confirm what assessment has been made of the physical capacity requirements to deliver the NHS workforce plan? How will he ensure that staff have what they need to do their job?
Lord Markham (Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely correct: a workforce plan needs to be backed up with the physical real estate to deliver it. As noble Lords are aware, I am responsible for the new hospitals programme, which is part of that. In primary care, much of the long-term workforce plan is all about getting upstream of the problem in terms of prevention, and clearly we need to make sure that the physical real estate is there to support that. So the next steps will be to make sure that the capital meets the long-term workforce plan.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, the NHS needs more recruits, but can the Minister tell the House where there are pressing shortages that adversely affect patient care and when he anticipates that the problem will be sorted?
Lord Markham (Con)
As I say, the long-term workforce plan puts this on the right footing, going forward. There are big increases in the number of staff, so it is not like we have not been working hard on this area already. By any definition, 63,000 more staff over the last year is a prime example of that. So we are addressing this, but I am not going to pretend to the House that this can be done once, lightly and quickly; it is part of a long-term programme, which the long-term workforce plan is all about.
Children’s Health: Sugar
(1 year ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of sugar on children’s health.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition undertook a comprehensive assessment of sugar intake and health in its 2015 report Carbohydrates and Health. In 2023, it looked specifically at children aged one to five. SACN concluded that reducing the intake of sugar would lower the risk of tooth decay and weight gain in children and adolescents. The Government have an ambitious programme to reduce children’s sugar intake, which includes the soft drinks industry levy.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his reply. One area where the Government have failed to take the action they should is to encourage the industry to reformulate food more than it is doing at the moment—to take out sugar and substitute the alternative, organic, healthy sweeteners that are available. Would the Government look into this and do some more work? Would they be prepared to invite companies that are willing to enter public/private partnerships to start doing that?
Lord Markham (Con)
First, I recognise all the work the noble Lord does in this space. Secondly, I completely agree that reformulation is the big prize as part of this. The House will remember me mention before that Mars, Galaxy, Bounty and Snickers have all reformulated their food, as has Mr Kipling and his “exceedingly good” cakes—they are compliant cakes as well. There is a lot being done here, but there is more to do. We meet the industry all the time and are very happy doing so.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that, in Canada, thousands of children have been fed on whole milk for many years, and their problems with obesity do not exist? The food industry has deliberately promoted a low-fat diet. It is a lousy diet that tastes horrible; that is why they have had to shovel in such vast quantities of sugar. Could the Minister ensure that the Department of Health no longer advocates a low-fat diet? Fat going into the duodenum acts on the stomach, making it empty more slowly and therefore giving the feeling that the patient has had enough.
Lord Markham (Con)
I think one of the things that, hopefully, I have learned in the almost year that I have been answering Questions is when I know the answer to a question and when I do not. I am afraid this is one of the examples of the latter. I will happily look up the Canadian example of the use of whole milk and write to the noble Lord on it.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests, as recorded in the register. I was very pleased to hear the Minister refer to the soft drinks industry levy, which has been a very successful way of reducing sugar consumption in soft drinks. Therefore, do the Government have plans to extend that levy to other products that contain a lot of sugar? That would be a very effective way of reducing sugar consumption.
Lord Markham (Con)
The noble Lord is correct; that has been a success story. Overall, we have seen a 46% reduction of sugar, while at the same time sales of drinks in that category have gone up by 21%—that is 60%-plus if you combine the two. We are now looking at other moves that can help. The movement of product positioning to remove the so-called “pester power” is a key step forward in this. Of all the modelling that has been done, that is the thing that it is thought will reduce calories by the most—by 96%. That is the current focus; it has been in place for almost a year and early evidence is that it is working, but as ever we must keep everything under review.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, for the 4 million children in food poverty, the quality of their school lunch is crucial to their health and development. But the school food standard has not been reviewed since 2014, and nobody checks whether schools are adhering to it anyway. With so many children going hungry, is it not time that the standard of school food was brought up to date with the latest research on the impact of sugar and other nutrients?
Lord Markham (Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely correct. What we give children in schools is a key thing that the Government can affect. That is why I am delighted that the level of free school meals, at 33%, is the highest on record, making sure that they have good nutritious food. But the noble Baroness is correct: there was a review taking place in 2019, which was one of the casualties of Covid. I know that it is now one of the things that we are thinking, as we recover from Covid, that we need to look at again.
Lord Tomlinson (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has spoken passionately about reducing the intake of sugar by younger people. Are His Majesty’s Government intending to admit obese children with type 2 diabetes to the two-year pilot study of the new drug Wegovy?
Lord Markham (Con)
My understanding—and I will confirm this afterwards—is that, to begin with, always with these sorts of treatments, you want to make sure that you are doing it in a safer type of environment. Generally, having adults doing it is a better place to start. Clearly, if that works the way we think, and we can trust that it will work, then you have opportunities to expand beyond that. The other thing I would like to say on this is that, actually, an active life is very important—activity and sports are a very important component of this. Interestingly, it has been shown that an active life increases life expectancy by one to two years, so that is an important feature in all this as well.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, as a design technology teacher now teaching food nutrition as well, can I ask whether, rather than sugars, of which the risks are well known, the Government will update NHS advice on ultra-processed food, particularly its website? These seem to pose a much higher risk to health, particularly as they are often marketed as the healthy option.
Lord Markham (Con)
Many noble Lords will recall the Question we had on this before. It is the actual ingredients that are the problem. Ultra-processed foods, in and of themselves, are not a good definition because bread is an example of an ultra-processed food. The problem is that many of these are high in fat, sugar and salt, and that is what we need to be tackling. That is what we are going after, not the definition of ultra-processed foods per se.
Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, the Minister has told us previously that the Government are going slow on their ban on junk food advertising because they want to give time to manufacturers to reformulate their products. For many of us, this is disappointing because, as long as the food continues to be advertised, there will be excessive consumption. Could the Minister give us a progress update, so that we can get to the point where these foods, which are bad for health, will no longer be promoted—particularly in front of children?
Lord Markham (Con)
Yes, as I mentioned previously, our modelling shows that roughly 95% of the calorific reduction that we are expecting will come from the movement of the product positioning. The evidence, almost at the end of the first year, is that this is working. Effectively, the category of non-high HFSS products has gone up by about 16% while products high in fat, sugar and salt have gone down. We know that supermarkets are taking the lead in doing this voluntarily, in terms of the so-called BOGOF, or “buy one get one free”, promotions. Tesco and Sainsbury’s have already stopped that on a voluntary basis and, as I mentioned earlier, the companies are also reformulating their foods. There is a lot of progress in a lot of areas.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, children from the most deprived areas are four times more likely to be obese and three times more likely to have dental decay than those in the least deprived, with sugar as a key contributor to poor health and future prospects. Does the Minister agree that targeting excessive sugar intake at earlier stages will have more impact on the more deprived communities and, if so, how do the Government propose to do this?
Lord Markham (Con)
Yes, the noble Baroness is absolutely correct, and that is why in the major conditions survey we have an ambition to reduce sugar intake by 20%, working right across the board and especially with baby food manufacturers. As I set out earlier, there are a range of things that we have already done: the sugar tax reduced intake by 46%, and the movement of the so-called “pester power” has made a big impact. We are seeing companies reformulate food. But it is something we will keep under review, and we will do more if we need to.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the president of the British Fluoridation Society. Coming to oral health, is he alarmed at the number of intensive dental treatments that children need because of the rise in decay? Could he update the House on any speed up in fluoridation schemes?
Lord Markham (Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely correct. As many are aware, the most common reason for six to 10 year-olds to go into an A&E visit is tooth decay. The noble Lord will recall that we passed an SI quite recently expanding opportunities for water fluoridisation. I know that is now increasing and I will happily follow up with the detail in writing.
Mr Jagtar Singh Johal
(1 year ago)
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Lord Singh of Wimbledon
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether the Prime Minister raised the case of Mr Jagtar Singh Johal, currently imprisoned in India, with the government of India during his recent visit to that country.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I can confirm that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister raised Mr Johal’s case with Prime Minister Modi on 9 September in Delhi, on the margins of the G20 summit. We will continue raising Mr Johal’s case and any related concerns directly with the Government of India, including his allegations of torture and his right to a fair trial. I regularly raise Mr Johal’s case directly, including with External Affairs Minister Jaishankar on 29 May.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)
I thank the Minister for his reply, but neither it nor the Prime Minister’s response to Questions in the Commons yesterday showed any sense of the outrage expressed by more than 100 Members of the Lords and Commons over India’s abduction and six-year arbitrary detention and torture of Jagtar Singh Johal, a British citizen. Does the Minister agree that it does nothing for Britain’s standing in the world when a British Prime Minister, looking for a favourable trade deal, expresses admiration for a man who was barred from entry into the United States and the UK for atrocities against Muslims in Gujarat, whose Home Minister refers to Muslims as “termites” and whose party is committed to turning India into a Hindu state, to the detriment of minorities?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that we raised Mr Johal’s case. We have a wide-ranging relationship with India, and in that regard we have a very constructive dialogue, including, as I have raised directly on a number of occasions, on a wide range of human rights issues. I am sorry, but I do not subscribe to the noble Lord’s description of either India or the Prime Minister of India. I declare an interest as someone who has Indian heritage and is Muslim by faith.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, did the Prime Minister, and indeed the noble Lord the Minister, ask for Mr Jagtar Singh Johal’s release? What actions did they ask the Indian Prime Minister to take?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
As I said in my Answer, we raised the specifics of the allegations that Mr Johal’s family have raised with us directly. We engage with Mr Johal directly through our consular support. We do not believe that publicly asking for his release would be productive or constructive. There is a natural process and a legal process to be followed in India. However, we are raising allegations of mistreatment when they are made. We are also working on ensuring that the family can directly access Mr Johal. Indeed, I visited Scotland only last month, where I met directly with Mr Johal’s father, his wife and his brother.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, following on from that point, we have been here before with the cases in Iran and the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Commons emphasising that the Government needed to have a zero-tolerance approach to the arbitrary detention of British citizens. Do the Government agree and acknowledge that Mr Johal is arbitrarily detained? I think that previous Prime Ministers did. Is that still the case, as not just Mr Johal’s family but the UN working group has declared him to be? How can Mr Johal expect a fair trial, as the noble Lord has sort of indicated, after a confession was extracted from him by torture?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I did not sort of indicate; I was quite specific: a fair trial is required. It is protected by the constitution of India and the independence of its judicial system. The noble Baroness is quite right that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued a specific opinion about Mr Johal. We take that very seriously and have consistently raised those direct concerns about Mr Johal’s treatment with the Indian authorities. However, as the noble Baroness will know from her own experience, it is now for India to reply formally to that particular opinion.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, after the Prime Minister raised the issue of Mr Johal with the Indian Prime Minister, have the Government given any feedback to Mr Johal’s family in Scotland? Secondly, do the Government think that Mr Johal is a political prisoner?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I am not going to speculate on or respond to the noble Lord’s second question. This is not about politicising; it is a matter for the Indian authorities. They will be following a due process. As I have said before, I have directly raised the issues and concerns raised by the Johal family. It is not just me; my right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have done so. As I said in my Answer, the important thing is to ensure that there is a fair trial. Where allegations are made of mistreatment, we will raise them directly. We have a constructive engagement with the Government of India, which allows us to raise these key points and messages directly and candidly.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the fact is that until now there has not been due process and there are clear accusations regarding the way Mr Johal has been treated. In the Minister’s letter to Mr Johal’s MP, he said there are risks and benefits to calling for his release. Can he outline what the risks are? That is critical in our relationship with India and its Prime Minister.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord is well versed in this. There are risks in any issues or challenges we face with any country. They are based on an assessment of what that balance will be and how it will impact the relationship, but equally on non-interference in its legal process. If a judicial process were under way here in the UK, we would not expect countries publicly to call for the release of an individual or to interfere in the legal process; nor do we seek to do that where a due process is being followed. If there are concerns—I fully accept that there have been delays to various hearings—I assure the noble Lord that I have raised them, because to our mind the various delays are causing further grief to the detainee as well as to the family. It is important that this process be completed as soon as possible.
Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware that it is widely believed that intelligence sharing with the Indian authorities contributed to Mr Johal’s detention and torture. Will the Government now acknowledge and apologise for any role that the UK played in his detention and take responsibility for securing his release?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Baroness, in asking the question, is aware that Mr Johal has an active civil litigation case against His Majesty’s Government on this matter and that this is an issue before the court. We must let that process take its course. I am sure the noble Baroness will appreciate that I cannot comment further on the case because of that material fact.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, my noble friend mentioned the trade deal which has been going through with India. Can he reassure the House that the human rights dialogue continues and is unaffected? Can he give other examples of cases we have taken up?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I can give that direct assurance. As well as being Minister for our relationship with India I am also, as the noble Earl knows, Minister for Human Rights. We have a very structured engagement on human rights. I am not going to go into specific cases, in order to protect some of those individuals, but we have a very productive exchange. We raise a number of cases as well as broader human rights issues, including the key aspects often raised in your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to raise again the issue of arbitrary detention. I know it is rather difficult for us because we are now facing huge delays in our own criminal justice system, but six years is a long time to wait for due process. We keep being told this by the Indian authorities—when the issue was raised by Boris Johnson some years back, he was given the same reassurance that there was going to be a trial very soon. Here we are, six years on and there has not been a trial, so not surprisingly the family have very little confidence in those kinds of reassurance. The international community has confirmed that Mr Johal has been detained in conditions which suggest that he has been seriously tortured. It really is coming to a point where one is expecting something more than polite conversations with the Indian Government. Were we having more than polite conversations?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I assure the noble Baroness that whatever the nature or substance of a conversation, I would regard any engagement we have as polite, but politeness does not mean that we cannot be straight and candid in those exchanges. The engagement we have with the Government of India is a constructive friendship; it is a partnership. As I have already said from the Dispatch Box, I fully accept that Mr Johal’s case has continued over a number of years, and I have been engaged directly on this. That is why it is important that we keep it very much on the front burner, and that is exactly why in the bilateral engagement my right honourable friend had with the Prime Minister of India, he raised this.
Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) (No. 2) Bill
Tuesday 12th September 2023
(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023 View all Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 15 March 2023 - (15 Mar 2023)
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Firearms Bill
Tuesday 12th September 2023
(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Firearms Act 2023 View all Firearms Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 15 March 2023 - (15 Mar 2023)
Lord Colgrain (Con)
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees Bill
Tuesday 12th September 2023
(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees Act 2022-23 View all Veterans Advisory and Pensions Committees Act 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 127-I Amendment for Committee - (1 Sep 2023)
Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill
Tuesday 12th September 2023
(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 View all Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 101 Marshalled list for Committee - (12 Jul 2023)
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, taking this Bill through your Lordships’ House has been somewhat of a challenge, but I am delighted to see the finishing post coming up—for this House anyway—until it wends its way back to the Commons and the final hurdle under the sure guidance of the honourable Lady, the Member for Bath. I am grateful to everyone who has worked so hard to bring the Bill to this stage, which has necessitated a great deal of pragmatism and compromise on all sides, not least by the Minister.
The Bill will not return to the Commons as it was when it first arrived in your Lordships’ House but, in essence, it will still protect workers from sexual harassment and it will impose a duty on employers to take reasonable steps to ensure that their employees are protected. Sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, particularly on women at all levels—even, we learn today, on female surgeons—are rife. The Bill will go some way towards rectifying this. We need a change of workplace culture, and this Bill will make a good start.
I thank all Members who have participated in the Bill, including the Minister, the officers of the Government Equalities Office and my legislative adviser, Mohamed-Ali Souidi. The EHRC has also given us excellent advice and will be charged with enforcing the new duty and helping and advising employers. On behalf of the EHRC, I ask the Minister to ensure that the necessary resources are made available to enable it to do this work. An Act is just a piece of paper until and unless it is properly enforced—in this case, that will be no small job. I look forward with great relief to now waving the Bill goodbye for its final stages in the other place.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I express my sincere thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for all the work she has put in, and thank the Minister for her support in the passage of this Bill through the House. The Bill represents an excellent step in the right direction. Clearly, we still have much to do. I also echo the sentiments and hope that the Government will move forward on this and will provide the necessary resources to make sure that all the provisions can be fully implemented.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)
My Lords, I sincerely thank the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, for her work in taking this important Bill through the House. The noble Baroness has been patient and has shown great pragmatism—I think we have used that word a few times—in the progression of this Bill to help tackle workplace harassment. It is an honour to be here to confirm the Government’s ongoing support. We believe it is important that everyone feels safe and able to thrive in the workplace.
The noble Baroness asked me how the EHRC will enforce the new duty—that is important. The EHRC’s regulatory approach for any new duty will include producing a statutory code of practice based on its current technical guidance in the area and a mechanism for employees and employee representatives to be able to notify the EHRC of breaches and potential breaches of the preventative duty. It will also be able to use powers under the Equality Act 2006 to undertake strategic litigation, investigation and enforcement activity to target systematic non-compliance with the preventative duty, in accordance with the litigation and enforcement policy. On how that will be funded, I will write to the noble Baroness.
The Bill will help the Government to deliver their commitment to introduce the employer duty as part of the violence against women and girls strategy. The employer duty will send a strong signal to employers that they need to take action to prioritise prevention of sexual harassment and, ultimately, to improve workplace practices and culture. I thank all noble Lords and organisations who raised important issues in the debates and discussions throughout the Bill’s progression through the House. I believe this Bill now strikes the right balance between protecting free speech and tackling harassment. While there has been much debate and amendments have been made to the Bill, I think we can all agree that workers should feel safe and be free from sexual harassment in the workplace. Therefore, I hope the Bill can progress with the full support of the House today.
Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill
Tuesday 12th September 2023
(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Act 2023 View all Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 136-R-I Marshalled list for Report - (1 Sep 2023)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, I would like to express to your Lordships how delighted I am that the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill is finalising its passage through this House. This Bill is a significant moment in transforming access to post-18 education and skills as the next step toward the introduction of the lifelong loan entitlement.
I thank noble Lords for their valuable scrutiny and input throughout the Bill’s passage in this place. I express my particular thanks to Members on the Front Benches, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Twycross, Lady Wilcox of Newport, Lady Thornton and Lady Garden of Frognal, and the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Addington, for their positive engagement and overall support for the principles behind the Bill, as well as for their thoughtful scrutiny and constructive contributions. The debates have been engaging and we have benefited significantly from the deep expertise in this House.
I pay particular thanks to those former Education Ministers and Secretaries of State who provided us with their insight. They include the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friends Lord Willetts and Lord Johnson of Marylebone.
I thank the many other noble Lords who took part in the debates and who have a wealth of knowledge across higher and further education, including honorary fellows, visiting professors and members of many of this country’s brilliant universities and colleges. I am also grateful to those leaders in universities and colleges who shared their insights with me about the potential for the Bill, the learning from the pilots and what is needed to make the Bill have a material impact once it becomes law.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her constructive engagement on this Bill and for briefing Members at an early stage, along with the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, and the right honourable Member for Harlow. I also thank the Bill team. Labour supports the Bill’s aim; we support the idea that people can access funding to undertake the learning they need throughout their career. With people undertaking portfolio careers and with continual changes in technology and society, it is no longer the case that what you learn through a traditional three-year degree course is all that you will need in your work for the next 45 years or so.
We had a number of interesting, if concise, debates as the Bill passed its various stages. The Bill is quite limited in scope and Labour still believes that there could have been scope for setting out a more formal review process on a number of its aspects. This would, not least, have helped to safeguard against unintended consequences, whether around distance and flexible learning or employers making a proper contribution to staff development.
There are a number of potential negative impacts on people who are less able to move to study or who are less able to study full-time because of caring responsibilities. From what the noble Baroness said, we hope and believe that the Government intend to monitor and review the lifelong loan entitlement as it is established and rolled out, to make sure that its promise and potential are fulfilled, and especially to ensure that every person in England can have their own promise and potential fulfilled.
I thank the team in the Labour group office, particularly Clare Scally, as well as my Front-Bench colleagues and mentors—my noble friends Lady Wilcox and Lady Thornton. Their patience and kindness in imparting their own lifelong learning and talking me, a relatively new member of the Labour Front-Bench team, through the process of the passage of the Bill has been hugely appreciated.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I apologise profusely to the House for arriving after the Minister started speaking; business moved much more quickly than I expected.
From these Benches, I thank the Minister and the Bill team very much for all their work on the Bill. We remain concerned about how many adults will wish to take on debt in order to improve their learning, and we look forward to hearing updates from the Minister about how many people have done so. From these Benches, we feel that grants would be a much more effective way of persuading adults to learn. But, of course, we are all totally in favour of lifelong learning, and we wish the Bill well.
Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)
My Lords, as many of you will know, the number 1 recommendation of the Augar review of post-18 education and funding was for this sort of reform. As someone who was a member of that review and who has spent a considerable part of the last three and a half years on secondment to government to work on the Augar review proposals, among other things, I take this opportunity to thank everyone involved.
I have been jinxed: I have not managed to contribute to any of the fine and informative debates that have taken place on this. They have highlighted some of the challenges that lie ahead. I am enormously encouraged by the cross-party support for the principle of a funding system that genuinely takes us forward into not just the 21st century but a future where post-compulsory lifelong learning is the rule, not the exception. We now have an opportunity to build on this.
I thank everyone involved in the drafting and passing of the Bill—although we have not quite passed it yet. I particularly put on record my appreciation of the work put in by a large number of officials who have worked enormously hard on this—on teasing out the policy implications and on minimising the amount that had to be put into primary legislation. I thank them and the Minister for her support. It is a little miraculous that we have moved from a major recommendation in 2019 to putting this reform on its way to implementation in 2023. So, on behalf of the Augar review team—and, I think, all the future students of this country—I thank everyone involved in this reform.
Energy Bill [HL]
Tuesday 12th September 2023
(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Energy Act 2023 View all Energy Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 168-I Marshalled list for Consideration of Commons Amendments - (11 Sep 2023)
16:55 - Division on the Amendment to the Motion. - Ayes: 191 / Noes: 216 - Amendment to the Motion disagreed.
17:12 - Division on the Amendment to the Motion. - Ayes: 186 / Noes: 214 - Amendment to Motion on Amendment 272 disagreed.
17:25 - Division on the Amendment to the Motion - Ayes: 208 / Noes: 205 - Amendment to the Motion on Amendment 274 agreed.
Lord Callanan
That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 1.
“(aa) the interim targets, as defined in section 2 of that Act;”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, as well as moving that this House do agree with the Commons in their amendment, I will also speak to the other Commons amendments. I am pleased to bring the Energy Bill back to this House, following on from the many hours of debate that we had during its parliamentary stages in this place. The Bill is essential to the transformation of our energy system and will leverage private investment in clean technologies. It will reform our energy system so that it is fit for the future, and it contains essential provisions for ensuring the safety, security and resilience of the UK’s energy system.
The Government have listened carefully to the points raised, both in this House and in the other place, and we tabled various amendments in the other place to address many of these issues. The amendments have been gathered into three groups. First, there are the amendments making changes to the Bill in response to concerns raised across the House and where we have overturned lost votes. Secondly, there are amendments where we have introduced new government policy. Thirdly, there are amendments addressing minor and technical amendments made to the Bill. I wrote to noble Lords about this in advance of the debate, and I am grateful for the positive engagement that I have received from across the House.
I will speak first to the amendments in the first group, tabled following constructive engagement with both Houses. First, on the amendment on Ofgem’s duties, no doubt the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, will be pleased about this—and I am grateful to her for her amendments on Report that sought to include the Government’s net-zero targets within Ofgem’s duties. The Government have now tabled a revised version of the noble Baroness’s amendment to ensure that it would not impact the hierarchy and intended effect of Ofgem’s duties, but very much in the spirit of the original amendment. The revised provision amends Ofgem’s existing duty to consider a reduction in greenhouse gases by making specific reference to the net-zero targets and carbon budgets in the Climate Change Act 2008. This reaffirms the Government’s commitment and mandate in achieving our net-zero targets and ensures that Ofgem’s role in net zero is clear.
I turn to the amendments to the hydrogen levy provisions. The Government have included these provisions following consideration of the concerns raised by colleagues in both Houses, particularly the Labour Front Bench. Following careful analysis of the implications, these amendments are similar in intent to an amendment made on Report in this House, but they help to ensure that the provisions work in a way that is practical. Specifically, they remove provisions that enable the levy to be imposed on energy suppliers in Great Britain, ensuring that within Great Britain the levy could be placed only on gas shippers. In the case of Northern Ireland, the amendments are intended to ensure that only gas supply licence holders who engage in gas shipping activities can be subject to the levy. This reflects the different approach to the licensing of gas shipping across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The revised legislation provides a fairer approach to funding hydrogen, placing the charge higher up the supply chain, with the potential for costs to be spread to sectors expected to benefit most from early hydrogen deployment.
Finally, I remind the House that the Bill will not impose a levy on gas shippers. Instead, it will enable government to introduce such a levy through secondary legislation. Any decision to do so would take into account all relevant considerations, including the affordability of energy bills. The Government will hold a public consultation as usual, before laying regulations introducing the levy.
I turn to amendments on renewable liquid heating fuel. As the recent biomass strategy made clear, such fuels will have a critical role to play in decarbonising our economy. We recognise that these fuels have the potential to play an important role in decarbonising heat in those off-grid properties that are not suited to electric heating. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his amendment and comments on Report on this issue. I am pleased to confirm that we will explore the potential of these fuels for heat by issuing a consultation within 12 months, and we are taking powers in the Bill to support the use of these fuels in heat in future. This amendment would provide government with the powers to introduce, again by regulation, measures that would impose obligations on heating fuel suppliers to supply specified amounts of renewable liquid heating fuel within specified periods. The Government also commit to consult specifically with the Scottish Government when consulting on the role of renewable liquid fuels in heating buildings off the gas grid and the implementation of a renewable liquid heating fuel obligation. The Government will look to legislate when parliamentary time allows to give statutory force to this consultation requirement.
Amendments 165 and 165A on sustainable aviation fuel commit the Government to publishing a consultation on the options for designing and implementing a revenue certainty scheme for sustainable aviation fuel within six months of the Bill being passed. The Government are also introducing a sustainable aviation fuel mandate from 2025 that will do the heavy lifting to close the cost gap between jet kerosene and sustainable aviation fuel by providing price support in the form of tradable certificates. These policies, along with the £165 million advanced fuels fund, will help to deliver our ambition of having at least five commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel plants under construction in the UK by 2025.
I turn to community energy. The Government recognise that such projects can have real benefits for the communities in which they are based, and we are keen to ensure that they deliver value for money for consumers. That is why earlier this summer we launched a new £10 million community energy fund, which expands on the success of the previous rural community energy fund to enable both rural and urban communities across England to access grant funding to develop local renewable energy projects for investment. Alongside the proposed fund, we are committing to publishing an annual report and to consulting on the barriers the sector faces when developing projects.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 165A in my name and briefly comment on Amendment 272A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and Amendment 274A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, both of which have the strongest possible Green support.
It is 2023 and we are in a climate emergency. We cannot consider new coal. I am afraid the Minister’s brandishing of heritage railways does not hack it; it is a tiny usage, much as I have no objection to heritage railways. For steel and cement, other nations are moving very quickly away from using coal while we are stuck in the starting gate. On the community energy amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, I had the great pleasure formally to move it on Report and we saw hugely strong support not just in your Lordships’ House but all around the country. Tomorrow we will debate the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. This is a way to allow communities to take control of their energy supplies and provide the framework to set free huge opportunities up and down the land. It is a no-brainer and I urge your Lordships’ House to vote for both amendments.
Moving chiefly to my Amendment 165A, it is worth revisiting the history of the Bill. Those with a very long memory might think back to 19 July 2022, when it had its Second Reading in your Lordships’ House. That was three Prime Ministers back and I really cannot count how many energy policies we have had from the Government since then. We might be in traditional ping-pong now, but the Government’s positions on so many of the issues in the Energy Bill have bounced back and forward so fast within the Government that it is enough to make any observer dizzy.
One of the last-minute additions was this clause on so-called sustainable aviation fuel. If noble Lords look back to the other place, they will see that the level of debate that occurred around this very significant amendment was really very scant. That is why I have tabled this amendment now, to provide a real opportunity for your Lordships’ House to at least explore the issues and bring out some of the Government’s thinking. I hope we will also hear significant explanations from the other Front Benches on what their thinking is on so-called sustainable aviation fuel. It is often linked with and spoken about as though it is in the same stable as renewable energy, but the fact is, of course, that almost no flights now are powered by sustainable fuel because of supply and cost. Sustainable fuel can be three times as expensive and even for United, the largest consumer of sustainable fuels in the US, last year it comprised less than 1% of its total fuel consumption.
The fact is that so-called sustainable aviation fuels are not a “get out of the limits of this finite planet free card” for the aviation sector. The idea that aviation can keep expanding, or that it should—I shall be coming back to this tomorrow in an amendment to the levelling-up Bill—is, I would say, for the birds: although of course the birds cannot afford the inevitable environmental damage that burning stuff, whatever the stuff is, inflicts.
I can go through some statistics on this. Bain & Company in June published a report assessing the most likely pathways to net zero by 2050 for the aviation sector. The headline was that it can eliminate 70% of emissions from aircraft operations without using electric or hydrogen at scale. Just 5% of emissions reductions come from hydrogen and electric planes in the Bain & Company scenario; the rest is engine efficiency, aircraft efficiency, optimising routes and scaling up so-called sustainable aviation fuels. A 70% reduction is significant, but the Science Based Targets initiative net-zero standard requires a 90% reduction in CO2 across all scopes by 2050 at the very latest. This report suggests that so-called sustainable aviation fuel can meet a maximum of 60% of global jet fuel demand in 2050 in the best-case scenario.
I think it is worth reflecting very briefly, looking to debates in the other place, that we saw both Labour and Tory MPs going further than this amendment does and calling for government subsidies for the sector. We have to set this in the context of the fact that tax exemptions last year saw the Treasury lose £4.7 billion from the aviation sector: that is calculated by Transport & Environment. That could pay for—gosh—more than 40 new hospitals: does that sound familiar? Or it could cover the cost 10 times over of additional medical staff. It is the equivalent of 1% of the income taxes collected by the Government last year. That is the context.
To come to the detail, my amendment simply addresses subsection (6). It seeks to bring in some systems thinking: an approach that does not look simply at the climate emergency because, as huge and pressing as that is, we are actually in a state where we have exceeded so many other planetary boundaries and we face so many other crises and threats that it is absolutely critical that the Government think in a systemic kind of way. If your Lordships want to think about where things went horribly wrong when we did not do that, Dieselgate is the obvious example. That was a case of corruption and fraud, but behind it was the problem of looking simply at the carbon emissions from diesel and not considering all the other environmental effects.
The current government amendment says that the Secretary of State should look at the contribution to the reduction in greenhouse gases. My amendment keeps that but adds the impact on the food system. Your Lordships’ House often debates the fact that food security is a huge and pressing issue of our age, and if we take land out of use for growing food and turn it to growing stock for aviation fuels, we are creating a potentially huge problem for ourselves.
Proposed new subsection (6)(c) says,
“not negatively impact human, animal or plant health”.
That perhaps comes back to the diesel reference, if we think particularly about human health. Burning stuff produces pollutants—that is just practical reality. However, we must also think about plant health. We often talk about using agricultural waste for these sustainable aviation fuels. That agricultural waste could be going back into the soil to contribute to soil and plant health, bringing us to a situation where we are not depleting our soils and then topping them up with artificial fertilisers, particularly nitrogen produced by the incredibly energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process. This is a systems-thinking, joined-up approach.
Finally, my amendment says,
“not negatively impact the availability of feedstocks for other industrial processes”.
The Minister referred to steel and cement, but all kinds of different, innovative steps are being taken to use all kinds of different materials to replace current fossil fuel production. We need to think about where what we call waste could best go.
I am aware of the desire to move this debate on, so I will not speak much longer, but I have just two final reflections. First, we hear a great deal of talk about waste cooking oil in terms of so-called sustainable fuels. Well, I am afraid that your local chippy is not going to take your private jet flight very far at all—let us be realistic about that. Secondly, my mother’s favourite movie was “The Sound of Music”, in which there is a song that goes:
“Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could”.
All energy use—all fuel—has environmental and social costs associated with its production and use. We have to think in that systemic, holistic way when we think about how we fuel our sustainable future.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 187A in my name. The purpose of moving this amendment is straightforward: we have an opportunity to put in place an enforceable plan of action that will deliver the often-mentioned aspirations to deliver energy-efficient homes and properties. I was sure that the Minister would repeat the line that this is unnecessary—and so he did. But I am afraid that the facts tell a different story. The new clause would enable a plan to be in place, working to clear targets to reduce gas supply in homes by 25% and a 10-year programme to retrofit 19 million homes, costed at £6 billion, with local authority and a community base to deliver.
The facts are these. Since 2010, progress to reduce emissions has stalled. The UK is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels for home heating and industry, and has the least energy-efficient housing stock in Europe, according to the IMF. Limited progress on energy-efficiency measures has been made worse by poor public information campaigns and the lack of a long-term plan with clear targets, clear technical explanations and little evidence of a financial and structural plan to go alongside. I do not wish to repeat all the comments that have been made throughout the debates on this Bill. However, we have to acknowledge a lack of grip, of urgency, and of serious explanation of the benefits of determined action.
In terms of tackling emissions and meeting legally binding decarbonisation targets, reducing the need for heat must be a top priority. Benefits include: a reduction in the cost of heating homes—therefore, a very positive help to those suffering from the cost of living crisis; a huge benefit to the health of the population by achieving affordable warmth, potentially saving the NHS £500 million a year; and a major contribution to energy security by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.
These come on top of the potential of delivering economic benefits, providing skilled jobs and high-wage opportunities. Retrofitting poorly performing homes alone could support 190,000 jobs across all regions. Given the strength of opinion on energy efficiency in so many analyses of progress, I am minded to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, first, I congratulate the Minister—he knows that I like to praise his work—particularly on the change in the Ofgem amendment, in that our major regulator will now have a net-zero objective. To me, that is absolutely stark staringly obvious, and the fact that there has been government resistance to it while the Bill has been in this House I find strange, so that is a real move forward. The other thing that is to me stark staringly stupid is that we are talking about opening a coal mine in 2023. That makes no sense at all, and I will go through the reasons why.
It is not just we on these Benches or the Opposition who have that view. Let me quote from the Commons at Report. The then Energy Minister, Chris Skidmore—highly respected in this area and highly respected by the Government, in that he wrote their independent net zero review—said:
“Legislating to prevent the opening of new coal mines simply maintains the commitment that the UK sought to make to the rest of the world at COP26”—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/23; col. 303.]
That was Chris Skidmore, former Energy Minister, valued by the Government for his net zero review, and by all of us for that great piece of work.
At COP 26 in Glasgow a couple of years ago, which we chaired very successfully under Sir Alok Sharma, we nailed our colours to the mast and led a coalition of countries—I think the government press release says 190—and celebrated the fact that we would phase out coal. What motivates me most to put Amendment 272A forward again is that our international reputation is being shredded by the fact that we are moving ahead on this basis. Let us not pretend that it is not noticed internationally, because it is. Even the White House, under John Kerry, the climate envoy, has remarked on this piece of government policy planning and Michael Gove’s proposal to open the coal mine. So, our international reputation for climate leadership, which all of us on all sides of this House have been particularly proud of over the years, is being literally trashed by this decision.
That has other effects as well. During a Private Notice Question yesterday, we debated the fact that we had no investor take for offshore wind on the CfD pitch when it concluded last week. That shows that we need rock-solid commitment to net zero in order to attract investment into this country. To me, our saying internationally that we are starting to open coal mines absolutely goes against what we are saying to bring in investment. It questions UK government policy, which is competing with the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States and a green deal industrial plan in the EU. We are trying to get a slice of that global investment, yet our environmental and climate focus is wobbling. That is absolutely wrong.
This amendment would apply to any sort of coal mine, but the Minister mentioned the Cumbrian coal mine, which is what that decision is all about. Let us be clear about that proposition and the company West Cumbria Mining. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has said already, that industry is moving—indeed, must move—competitively towards a much greener stance; for the UK steel industry to remain competitive, it must do so as well. As I understand it, scientists have questions about West Cumbrian coal, including whether its sulphur content is even sufficient for the steel industry. However, the main facts are these: first, the steel industry generally is not that interested in that coal; and, secondly, the company itself says that some four-fifths of the coal will not be used by the UK steel industry, which means that it needs to be exported. Once coal is exported, we have no control over how that substance is used.
That brings me to transport. The argument is that it is better to provide our own coking coal than to import it. However, if we export 80% of this coal, that will put transport costs up because we will have the cost of transporting it to other, international markets.
The one argument that I do have sympathy with concerns jobs. We all know that the region of Cumbria is hugely challenged in terms of levelling up, jobs and income. However, it is completely obvious to me that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, just talked about with regard to Labour’s amendment, we have the ability to provide green jobs and proper energy efficiency. It is clear to me that this coal mine will not be there for a particularly long time, so those jobs will be transient.
I will leave it at that but let me come back to the United Kingdom’s international reputation and our important share in global investment in the green sector. I quote the Government’s own website, which said this after COP 26:
“The end of coal—the single biggest contributor to climate change—is in sight thanks to the UK securing a 190-strong coalition of countries and organisations at COP26”.
That was a proud moment for not just Alok Sharma but the Government. It is being trashed.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 274B in my name. I draw attention to my interests in the register.
I will speak briefly about community energy but let me just say that I absolutely support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I also very much support the noble Lord’s words, especially about what this measure is going to do to Britain’s reputation, and his reminding us of where this country was just a couple of short years ago as the leaders of COP, playing a proud role on the world stage; that seems to be in tatters right now.
Community energy is wildly popular in the country—it is extremely popular with all sorts of people. I find it puzzling why the Government are not bending over backwards to make this easier and simpler for people. I do not want to get into the arguments about onshore wind, but surely one way to mitigate communities’ concerns about renewable energy is to give people a stake in it so that it is about not just a bit of money but owning something. My sister has lived on a small island in Denmark for 60 years. The people there are completely energy independent. It was the first place I knew of that had wind farms everywhere. Everyone knows how much electricity is coming in and what it is doing. They have ownership and share prices—that is just the way it has been done, and it is kind of brilliant. Why can we not say, “The local energy we produce off that hill heats my towel rail all year round”? They can report, “I co-own it”, “It has paid to put solar panels on the roof of the community hall”, or “It has paid for energy efficiency advice and deals for the other homes in our village”.
In fairness to the Government, they have acknowledged this, but we seem to have spent an incredible amount of time hand-wringing about the difficulties rather than finding the easy, appropriate ways of supporting it. All that the sector wants is a deal comparable with all the other renewable energy that we have in this country, via a guaranteed minimum price. This gives communities the certainty that they need to raise the funds to go ahead. This is true across so much of the alternative energy sector.
I supported the establishment of the £10 million community energy fund but, quite honestly, that is not very much. If you look in the Evening Standard, you find that you can buy a flat for £10 million within about 100 yards of here. It is not going to go far enough. We need real reform, so the commitment made by Andrew Bowie in the other place
“to consulting on the barriers the sector faces when developing projects”—[Official Report, Commons, 5/9/23; col. 281.]
was particularly welcome.
That is why I have come up with this compromise amendment, which I hope that the Minister feels able to accept. It would give the industry a boost to know that there was something coming down the tracks on an agreed timeframe. A problem that we have seen before is consultations which do not receive a response—or do but with serious delays. That is all that I am trying to avoid with this amendment in lieu, which sets a generous timescale of 18 months for a consultation and a further six months for bringing forward proposals to remove the barriers to community energy schemes. This times nicely with the end of the two-year community energy fund and would avoid a potential cliff edge.
I believe that the Minister will appreciate the need for clarity for the sector and the need to reassure over 300 MPs, including 147 Conservative MPs, who backed the original Local Electricity Bill, which recognised the barriers to community energy and proposed remedies. I therefore ask him to give this house more clarity on timescales, or I may be required to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I rise extremely briefly to support very strongly the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lady Boycott. Regarding the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Boycott, it is crazy that we have barriers inhibiting the development of renewable energy by community energy schemes. This amendment is a very modest proposal to ensure that those barriers are removed within a reasonable timeframe. I hope that all sides of the House can support these three amendments, but I have particularly spoken to that tabled by the noble friend Lady Boycott.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register and record my gratitude to the Minister for the Ofgem amendment. In much more elegant language, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said that it was a no-brainer. It absolutely is, and Amendment 187A is equally a no-brainer. However, before I say why, I add my support to those amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. Particularly in the latter we have a compromise which would really boost a sector of the energy industry that is of great benefit.
In terms of benefits, no one—including the Government —fundamentally challenges the benefits of improving the energy efficiency of Britain’s old, cold, leaky housing stock. They recognise the benefits for individuals and families in terms of health and reduced bills, but it goes beyond that. There are benefits for the UK because improving energy efficiency reduces demand, helps towards our net-zero target and improves our energy security. It is also potentially of benefit to the taxpayer in reducing the huge expense that the Government take on board when energy prices spike. We have seen how much the Government have spent on heating homes and that money going out of the window because of the state of the housing stock. There are also benefits in stimulating the retrofitting industry, which is a national industry. It goes across all parts of the country and helps with the training and then the providing of secure and sustainable jobs.
We have debated this—I will not say ad nauseam, but certainly at length—not only on this Bill but on the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, because of the issues that I was talking about, such as employment and the fact that the poorest people suffer most from the worst homes, in terms of energy efficiency and their health.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I very much support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, as I did in Committee. The reduction that she has achieved in her ambitions sits very well with what the Government have said are their ambitions. I would like to see my noble friend supporting this and saying that it is an opportunity. Giving us a tight, but not too tight, timescale to make this happen is a good way to demonstrate that.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
My Lords, I will make a few comments. First, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lady Blake for their amendments and will make our position on them clear. Secondly, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, for the welcome changes that he made to the Bill in the other place on the housing levy and on renewable liquid fuels.
We generally welcome the passage of the Bill. It has been a long time in gestation—15 months or more—with hundreds of changes and more today. We welcome all those too, although they probably could have been made earlier.
I turn to the three amendments. First, on coal, the new new Labour Party is no longer in favour of coal. We absolutely support what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said about the coal industry, and it is time to put this in legislation. It is not enough to say that we are no longer committed to coal; we need to legislate for it and so we will be supporting this amendment.
On my noble friend Lady Blake’s amendment on energy efficiency, I will restate the facts. First, the UK has the least energy-efficient homes in Europe. Domestic energy-efficiency measures have fallen 95% since 2012 and are 20 times lower than they were when Labour was last in power. The Resolution Foundation estimates that 9 million households are paying an extra £170 a year as a result of these failings.
The Minister said that the amendment is unnecessary, because it is partly in the net zero strategy and the Powering Up Britain publication, but this is legislation, and it should state what the Government propose to achieve and by what timescale. Therefore, we support the amendment.
On community energy, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, set out very clearly her proposal to commit the Government to finding out what the barriers inhibiting the development of community energy are, and to bring forward a plan to overcome them. That is a very modest amendment from where we were the last time around, and I can see no reason whatever for the Government not to support it. We will support those three amendments should the Members wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I will start on the last issue raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Meacher, and others: that of community energy.
The Government launched the £10 million fund this summer, and it is larger than its predecessors. From what I have seen so far, it has been welcomed across the community energy sector. It will fund projects such as Congleton Hydro, which received £73,500 in funding from the former rural community energy fund—this fund will do a similar job. Thanks to that funding, it is producing affordable, clean and secure electricity from a local weir, enough to power the equivalent of 60 homes. Not only is the project reducing emissions in the area but its success has led to the creation of an annual £5,000 fund for local community projects.
Amendments 274A and 274B aim to commit us to a consultation on the barriers preventing the development of community energy schemes. The amendments set out with whom we should consult, and commit government to bringing forward proposals to remove identified barriers to community energy. But as I referred to earlier, the Government have already committed to consult on the barriers that the sector faces when developing projects. As part of this process, we will of course involve the community energy sector in designing the consultation, through the Community Energy Contact Group. We continue to believe that it is more appropriate to allow the small-scale export market to develop with minimum intervention than to introduce a support scheme that specifies minimum prices or contract lengths for generators.
I know that the House is keen on supporting community energy, and we are the same, but it has to be done in a cost-effective manner, because the cost is borne by every other bill payer. It might be advantageous to certain islands or rural community villages, but if there is a cost in excess of the system, it is borne by every other bill payer in the country. The amendments would place an additional obligation on government to bring forward proposals to remove these barriers within a specified timeframe.
In Committee in the other place, Energy UK submitted evidence recognising the role of community energy but cautioning:
“The additional context of developing roles for future energy system operation, reform of competition in delivery of network infrastructure, and wider reforms of electricity markets including energy retail”
mean that the consideration of community energy needs to take into account this much wider context, rather than considering community energy “in isolation”, and that we need
“to give the Government, the regulator, and the industry time to fully consider”
all those issues. We must be careful not to disadvantage the majority of the population to benefit a very small minority.
We obviously cannot be sure what the consultation will conclude until we have carried it out, so in our view it is not appropriate to make a commitment to do something the outcome of which, and what barriers or proposals will come forward, we do not know at this stage. But I reassure the House that the Government will continue to work closely with the sector and the wider industry on the best way forward.
I now move on to the somewhat contentious issue of coal. Amendment 272A, on prohibiting coal extraction, was raised by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Lennie, and of course the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I was particularly interested to hear the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, because of course we both come from the north-east of England, and there are still sitting Labour MPs in the north-east, whom the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, knows well, campaigning in favour of opening new coal mines. It is interesting that the Labour position seems to be developing from that.
A full prohibition on coal extraction is likely to prevent extensions in existing operational mining—even where that extension could enable site restoration or deliver public safety benefits. It would cut across heritage mining rights in, for instance, the Forest of Dean, which is important to its tourism offer, and perhaps also in Beamish, another area that we know well. Importantly, it would prevent domestic coal extraction projects from progressing that seek to supply industries that are still reliant on coal, such as steel manufacturing. Again, the Labour Party loses no opportunity to lecture us on the importance of the steel industry. That industry is going through a transformation, but many parts of it still require access to coal, so I hope the Labour Party has cleared its position with the steel unions, which I suspect would not support an amendment such as this—I will leave that little domestic argument to different Labour members.
The phasing out of future coal-powered generation, which we do agree with, is a more proportionate response to moving away from coal use than a complete prohibition on coal extraction. Such a ban would deny the prospect of access to domestic coal reserves for future generations, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the use it could be put to and regardless of the fact that it could perhaps play a role with CCUS in the future.
The Secretary of State for DLUHC’s decision on the mine followed a comprehensive planning inquiry that heard from over 40 different witnesses and considered matters including the demand for coking coal and its suitability. It went into all the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, recommended, the climate change impact and, crucially, the impact on that particular local economy. While the full reasons for the Secretary of State’s decision are set out in his published letter—which should perhaps be read in its entirety—he concluded that
“there is currently a UK and European market for the coal … it is highly likely that a global demand would remain”.
While coking coal may be required for steel production for quite some time—I assume the Labour Party is not proposing that we should close the steel industry down overnight; if so, that would be a fairly radical policy change from all that it has said before—to support the decarbonisation of that industry through its transition period, as well as other industries that still rely on coking coal, we have already put in place the £315 million industrial energy transformation fund. We think that is a better way to help industry move away from coal in the future, rather than just banning their fuel source, because you would be banning British coal—you would not be banning coal; you would just import those same supplies produced by miners in other parts of the world. This helps business, in our view, with their high energy use, to cut their energy bills and reduce their carbon emissions through investing in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies—that is a more constructive way to proceed.
On sustainable aviation fuel, again the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, got excited and condemned us for something that we are not doing. Sustainable aviation fuel is the most developed technology pathway for aviation decarbonisation and will play a key role along with the other technologies as outlined in the jet zero strategy. Many experts view sustainable aviation fuel as the only alternative to kerosene for long-haul flights up until 2050. If the noble Baroness does not want that, she should have the courage of her convictions and say to people that what the Greens really want to do is to ban flying completely, to prevent people going on business or on their holidays. If that is her agenda, she should say so, rather than try to put amendments forward to prevent us developing those sustainable fuels that we could use in the future to decarbonise the sector.
We recognise that there is uncertainty around feedstock availability and we will continue to work closely with colleagues across government to ensure that the most up-to-date evidence and modelling are reflected throughout the policy design of the SAF mandate and the revenue certainty mechanism. We have already confirmed that the sustainable aviation fuel mandate will not support crop-based biofuels and that SAF must meet strict sustainability criteria. These measures will prevent negative environmental consequences, such as the loss of biodiversity, deforestation and the clearance of land with high-carbon stock that could be associated with the cultivation of raw materials that may be used in certain SAF production.
On energy efficiency and energy statements, of course I understand noble Lords’ desire to go further. I am passionately committed to the cause of energy efficiency, but I do not recognise some of the characterisation put forward in this House. We are making good progress in this country. In 2010, some 14% of UK homes were at EPC band C or above. Now it almost 50%. We have a particularly difficult problem because we have the oldest housing stock in Europe, but we are making progress on this matter. We could go further and faster, and we are endeavouring to do so, but we do have a good record in this country. I want to put that on the record before I talk about the specific issues.
Lord Callanan
That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 2.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will speak also to the other amendments in this group. The Government introduced amendments on Report in the Commons to commence further provisions of the Bill on Royal Assent. These amendments will ensure that key secondary legislation can progress at the pace required for the department’s policy objectives to be met.
The remaining government amendments are technical and minor in nature. They relate to existing policies already in the Bill. I wrote to noble Lords about these amendments, setting out what they do and our intentions behind them. Therefore, the House will forgive me if I do not speak to every amendment in detail; I will instead recap the key amendments we sought to make in the other place.
In general, the amendments have been made to improve the clarity, precision and consistency of the Bill. In Part 1, we have amended the definition of a carbon capture entity to include direct air capture projects, with the intention of supporting such projects that bolster our greenhouse gas removals efforts, as set out in the net zero strategy.
In Part 2, we have tabled amendments to the definitions of hydrogen production revenue support contract and carbon capture revenue support contract so that, while contracts can be offered only to eligible low-carbon hydrogen producers and eligible carbon capture entities, after the point of contract signature it is for the contracts to set the parameters of the ongoing support that they provide. This will help ensure that projects and their investors are clear on the terms of their support. That should inspire confidence in this new regime.
We have amended Part 5, on the independent system operator and planner, to limit the breadth of its efficiency and economy objective and clarify the definitions of ISOP functions in the Bill. These changes leave the ISOP with a mission that is more clearly defined but also flexible enough to accommodate wider developments in energy regulation. They should also help to reduce the risk of the ISOP being distracted from its core purposes and potentially incurring unnecessary costs to customers.
Part 12 on the offshore wind environmental improvement package has been amended to make clear that the clauses apply to all infrastructure in the UK marine area used or intended for use in connection with an offshore wind farm and in connection with the conveyance of electricity generated by such wind farms. Further amendments have been made on the energy performance of premises, petroleum production licensing, the disposal of radioactive waste and compensation for nuclear damage, as well as other minor drafting and clarificatory amendments. I hope noble Lords will agree that they are necessary amendments that improve the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Callanan
Moved by
That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 3 to 16.
“(7A) But regulations made by virtue of subsection (7)(a) may not make provision amending (or repealing or revoking) any provision of—
(a) an Act of the Scottish Parliament, or an instrument made under such an Act, unless the Scottish Ministers have consented to the making of that provision;
(b) a Measure or Act of Senedd Cymru, or an instrument made under such a Measure or Act, unless the Welsh Ministers have consented to the making of that provision;
(c) Northern Ireland legislation, or an instrument made under Northern Ireland legislation, unless the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland has consented to the making of that provision.”
(b) consider any representations which are duly made and not withdrawn.”
“(2A) Before making regulations under this section containing provision within devolved competence, the Secretary of State must give notice to each relevant devolved authority—
(a) stating that the Secretary of State proposes to make regulations under this section, and
(b) specifying the period (of not less than 28 days from the date on which the notice is given) within which representations may be made with respect to the provision within the relevant devolved competence, and must consider any representations duly made and not withdrawn.
(2B) For the purposes of this section “relevant devolved authority” means—
(a) the Scottish Ministers, if the regulations contain provision within Scottish devolved competence;
(b) the Welsh Ministers, if the regulations contain provision within Welsh devolved competence;
(c) the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, if the regulations contain provision within Northern Ireland devolved competence;
and “the relevant devolved competence”, in relation to a relevant devolved authority, is to be construed accordingly.
(2C) For the purposes of this section, provision—
(a) is within Scottish devolved competence if it would be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament if it were contained in an Act of that Parliament;
(b) is within Welsh devolved competence if it would be within the legislative competence of Senedd Cymru if it were contained in an Act of the Senedd (ignoring any requirement for the consent of a Minister of the Crown imposed under Schedule 7B to the Government of Wales Act 2006);
(c) is within Northern Ireland devolved competence if it—
(i) would be within the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly if it were contained in an Act of that Assembly, and
(ii) would not, if it were contained in a Bill in the Northern Ireland Assembly, result in the Bill requiring the consent of the Secretary of State under section 8 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998;
and references to provision being within devolved competence are to provision that is within Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland devolved competence.”
(b) specify a period of not less than 28 days within which representations or objections with respect to the proposed regulations may be made,
and the Secretary of State must consider any representations or objections which are duly made and not withdrawn.”
(b) sending a copy of the notice to—
(i) the Scottish Ministers, if an activity that would be authorised by the proposed licence is within Scottish devolved competence;
(ii) the Welsh Ministers, if an activity that would be authorised by the licence is within Welsh devolved competence;
(iii) the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, if an activity that would be authorised by the licence is within Northern Ireland devolved competence.
(5A) Section 17(4) (activities authorised by a licence: devolved competence) applies for the purposes of subsection (5)(b) of this section as it applies for the purposes of section 17.”
“(10) For the purposes of this section “appropriate devolved authority”, in relation to regulations, means—
(a) the Scottish Ministers, if the regulations contain provision within Scottish devolved competence;
(b) the Welsh Ministers, if the regulations contain provision within Welsh devolved competence;
(c) the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, if the regulations contain provision within Northern Ireland devolved competence.
(10A) For the purposes of this section, provision—
(a) is within Scottish devolved competence if it would be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament if it were contained in an Act of that Parliament;
(b) is within Welsh devolved competence if it would be within the legislative competence of Senedd Cymru if it were contained in an Act of the Senedd (ignoring any requirement for the consent of a Minister of the Crown imposed under Schedule 7B to the Government of Wales Act 2006);
(c) is within Northern Ireland devolved competence if it—
(i) would be within the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly if it were contained in an Act of that Assembly, and
(ii) would not, if it were contained in a Bill in the Northern Ireland Assembly, result in the Bill requiring the consent of the Secretary of State under section 8 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.”
“(a) stating that the Secretary of State proposes to make regulations under this section, and
(b) specifying the period (of not less than 28 days from the date on which the notice is given) within which representations must be made with respect to the proposed provisions,
and must consider any representations duly made and not withdrawn.”
(iii) the appropriate devolved authorities (if any).”
“(12) For the purposes of this section the “appropriate devolved authorities” are—
(a) the Welsh Ministers, if provision making the modifications proposed in the notice under subsection (2) would be within the legislative competence of Senedd Cymru if it were contained in an Act of the Senedd (ignoring any requirement for the consent of a Minister of the Crown imposed under Schedule 7B to the Government of Wales Act 2006);
(b) the Scottish Ministers, if provision making the modifications proposed in that notice would be within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament if it were contained in an Act of that Parliament;
(c) the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, if provision making the modifications proposed in that notice—
(i) would be within the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly if it were contained in an Act of that Assembly, and
(ii) would not, if it were contained in a Bill in the Northern Ireland Assembly, result in the Bill requiring the consent of the Secretary of State under section 8 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.”
the Scottish Ministers, if an activity authorised by the licence is within Scottish devolved competence,
the Welsh Ministers, if an activity authorised by the licence is within Welsh devolved competence,
the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, if an activity authorised by the licence is within Northern Ireland devolved competence,
(iv) the Oil and Gas Authority, and
(v) such other persons as the economic regulator considers are likely to be affected by the decision, and”
“(1A) Section 17(4) (activities authorised by a licence: devolved competence) applies for the purposes of subsection (1)(b) of this section as it applies for the purposes of section 17.”
“(5A) The economic regulator must send a copy of any notice given by it under subsection (4) to—
(a) the Welsh Ministers,
(b) the Scottish Ministers, and
(c) the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland.”
Lord Callanan
That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 17.
“carbon dioxide transport and storage revenue support contract” has the meaning given by section 59(2);”
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I will speak also to the other amendments in this group, which concern new policy that was introduced in the other place. I turn first to the amendments on hydrogen transport and storage infrastructure. These amendments will enable business models to be brought forward to provide investors with the long-term revenue certainty that they will need to establish and scale up the deployment of hydrogen transport and storage infrastructure. I am sure this will be of interest to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who spoke about this earlier in the Bill’s passage.
The development of this infrastructure represents the critical next step in the growth of the hydrogen economy to support the Government’s ambition to have up to 10 gigawatts of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030. The business models are intended to help overcome the key barriers to investment in this infrastructure, such as high capital costs, lengthy development lead times and uncertain financial investment returns in what is a very nascent market.
Next, on carbon capture storage information and samples, the amendments support the role of the North Sea Transition Authority—NSTA—as the regulator of carbon dioxide storage in the UK continental shelf. They achieve this by ensuring that it has the relevant powers to access and share information and samples collected through relevant carbon-storage activities. This reflects similar powers already held by the NSTA for the petroleum industry and will enhance knowledge sharing across the carbon capture, usage and storage industry. It will support innovation for the effective utilisation of the UK’s geological storage potential and help encourage private investment in the UK’s growing green economy.
The Government have also tabled amendments relating to Great British Nuclear. These amendments will enable GBN to support government in rebuilding our civil nuclear industry and facilitating the delivery of nuclear projects to achieve our net-zero ambitions. GBN will play a critical role in strengthening the UK’s energy security. By legislating for GBN, we are working to undo decades of underinvestment and inspire trust in the UK civil nuclear industry, restoring the global leadership that the UK used to have in civil nuclear power.
I move on to discuss the amendments to provide relief on network charging for energy-intensive industries. High industrial electricity prices are one of the key barriers that inhibit the most carbon-intensive sectors from adopting greener technology. The measures deliver on a fundamental element of the British industry supercharger set out in February. These amendments will give the Government the powers to deliver a scheme that will provide relief on electricity network charges for Britain’s strategic energy-intensive industries. It will bring electricity prices for these UK businesses in line with some of their global competitors, thereby helping to preserve thousands of jobs and investment and enabling greater electrification of industrial processes, removing one of the major barriers to decarbonisation. I beg to move.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 259A to 271A inclusive; your Lordships will be pleased to know that I do not intend to speak to each one individually. For technical reasons these had to be split up but, essentially, this is a chance for your Lordships’ House to reconsider again the whole Great British Nuclear introduction that the Minister just outlined.
This debate follows on in many ways from that secured for last Thursday by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, about nuclear power. I will not revisit all the many issues raised there, although I note that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, expressed rightful and strong scepticism about the progress of both Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, on cost and other factors. There is also the continuing cost of the clean-up of dinosaur technology from the last century of £260 billion, and issues of waste that we have still not tackled.
I said that I will not go through these amendments one by one, but I do want to speak to Amendment 262A, which disagrees with the financial assistance. In our discussion yesterday on the failure of the offshore wind contract for difference bidding process, the Minister said my suggestion that we should look at a higher strike price for offshore wind was not thinking about the bill payer. I do not know how many Members of your Lordships’ House have looked closely at the detail of government Amendment 262, but it is utterly an open slather:
“The Secretary of State may provide financial assistance … to facilitate the design, construction, commissioning and operation of nuclear energy generation”.
Proposed new subsection (2) says that this assistance
“may be provided … by way of grant, loan, guarantee or indemnity … the acquisition of shares … the acquisition of … assets … a contract, or … by incurring expenditure for the benefit of the person assisted”.
Proposed new subsection (3) says that the assistance may be considered “without interest”—it goes on and on. I will not go through the whole lot, but basically this allows the Secretary of State the open slather to do whatever they like to fund nuclear—and one thing we know about nuclear energy generation is that it costs, and the cost just keeps going up.
I am afraid there is currently a great deal of speculation. Many people accept that, essentially, Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C are ongoing disasters. We have this wonderful new idea of small-scale nuclear plants scattered all over the countryside, as a noble Lord suggested in last Thursday’s debate. Really, my Lords, how realistic is this? We are talking about something that simply does not scale down.
I am aware of the desire of your Lordships’ House to move on to votes, but I want to quote one person who perhaps has a different perspective from mine. Markus Krebber, the chief executive of RWE, suggests that investors should not and will not back nuclear plants. This comes back to the issue of finance. If there will not be private money coming in, we are talking about massive sums of government money. He told the Australian Financial Review:
“I would have a big question mark whether building new ones is really a good strategy, because if you look at the cost overruns and the delays, I think purely a renewables-based energy system including the necessary storage is probably in most of the regions already today cheaper than new nuclear”.
I think that is unarguable.
I will briefly address the issue of Sizewell C. We are talking as Japanese fishermen around the Fukushima nuclear plant suffer massive economic loss as a result of the dumping of wastewater into the sea there. In Suffolk we will see the local economy facing massive loss if Sizewell C goes ahead. Studies by the Suffolk Coast destination management organisation show that visitors would stay away, losing the tourism industry up to £40 million a year and an estimated 400 jobs.
If we look at the environmental impacts of the proposed Sizewell C, we can see that it is opposed by both the RSPB and the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. The site is surrounded by protected wildlife habitats. When it comes to water, the Planning Inspectorate was unable to recommend that Sizewell C be granted planning consent due to the lack of an identified long-term supply of potable water. There is a huge problem with access to the site. It will require a 60-metre cut-off wall so that it can be dewatered and existing soil can be swapped out for more suitable material and huge, as yet undesigned, sea defences. Looking at the state of our climate now, we are seeing significant runaway with very serious potential risks in the impact on our sea levels. I note that Cefas said that
“it is generally only possible to predict detailed changes to the coastline over the next 10 years”.
I have focused a little on Sizewell C and the deep uncertainties and concern because of the point about money. Under the government amendment, we are letting a Government go ahead and do whatever they like and spend whatever they like on a project that is so deeply problematic.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
The Minister waxed lyrical about the scheme to provide subsidies for energy-intensive industries. We were deeply moved by his enthusiasm. He was silent on the clause that follows. He was talking about Clause 177, but Clause 178 sets out how the subsidies are to be paid for—by levies on all electricity users. I do not want this moment to pass without making the old-fashioned comment that I think it is best that subsidies are paid for out of taxation, rather than by levies.
Subsidies are a political decision by the Government; they are absolutely entitled to make those political decisions. But all electricity users are, at the moment, suffering from the political decision to instruct Ofgem to prioritise competition, which has led to the collapse of more than 30 supply companies. The costs of these collapses are being borne by us all in the levies on our electricity bills. You can debate whether it is honest or dishonest for political decisions to be paid for in a concealed fashion of this kind, but what is certain is that it is regressive. I am therefore slightly less enthusiastic about the combination of Amendments 177 and 178 than the Minister was about Amendment 177.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
All I would like to say is that, in response to the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, we are interested in keeping the lights on and we are interested in nuclear being part of the mix of fuels that will keep the electricity going, particularly now that coal will no longer be part of the electricity production in this country.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I will first deal directly with the points by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. What should I say about this? He is, of course, prescient in his observations, but this has been a long-standing policy—effectively of the Treasury, which is unwilling to fund many of these policies from general taxation. Therefore, a lot of previous subsidies, such as the warm home discount, are levied on energy bills. That has been a long-standing policy through a number of Governments and different Treasuries. I wish the noble Lord luck in his campaign to change the mind of His Majesty’s Treasury on these matters.
Moving on to the other issues, let me deal first with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. The problem for the Greens on this is that any sensible energy system in the UK—this is recognised also by the Opposition and we are grateful for their support—needs nuclear power, because it is a source of carbon-free electricity. Of course, many Greens, the more progressive Greens who have looked at our energy system properly, also support the use of nuclear power. I would point the noble Baroness to a very interesting website that I was looking at, called Greens for Nuclear Energy. This is a statement from a series of members of the Green Party who take a sensible and progressive view about this. Looking at the needs of the energy supply system and the need for decarbonisation, they have come to the same conclusion as many other sensible experts: that there is a need for nuclear power in this country.
The website says:
“Greens For Nuclear Energy seek to influence the Green movement’s key organisations and institutions”
in favour of nuclear energy because
“We need every available low carbon power source to combat catastrophic climate change”.
They therefore believe that
“the increasingly urgent need to deal decisively with our emerging climate crisis makes continued opposition to nuclear energy irrational for environmentalists and reduces our chances of averting a climate catastrophe.”
Perhaps the noble Baroness would want to go away and look at some of the more sensible members of her own party.
The invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent rise in global energy prices have demonstrated the paramount importance of accelerating our homegrown power and strengthening our national energy security. This is in addition to the significant contribution, as I have just said, that nuclear would make to achieving our net-zero objectives because it is very low carbon. Nuclear technology generates zero direct carbon or other greenhouse gas emissions and has one of the lowest life cycle emission rates among generating technologies. The Committee on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency and the UN Economic Commission for Europe—alongside some sensible Green members—have all highlighted the role that new nuclear electricity generating capacity, in partnership with renewables, can play as part of our diverse energy mix while helping us to achieve net zero.
Great British Nuclear will de-risk new nuclear developments by, among other things, co-funding selected technologies through their development. This will provide greater certainty for investors to develop projects over the long term required to deliver new nuclear generation capacity on to the electricity grid. We intend to fund Great British Nuclear’s initial operating costs via grant in aid. It will be subject to standard NDPB reporting and accountability requirements, which will be set out in Great British Nuclear’s framework document.
The terms of investment in development projects will be bespoke and negotiated on an individual basis. The key goal will be to deliver on the Government’s commitment to increase nuclear energy capacity in Britain, while of course ensuring, as always, value for money for the taxpayer and the bill payer. We are legislating to ensure that Great British Nuclear has the long-term operational mandate needed to carry out the role that government intend for it. The amendments set out the framework within which Great British Nuclear shall operate in facilitating the deployment of nuclear reactors in Britain.
I spoke earlier about the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. The EII support levy, like the other measures in the British Industry Supercharger, would simply constitute a rebalancing of existing electricity costs away from EIIs and on to other energy users, who have traditionally received more protection from higher energy prices than some in industry.
At the end of these debates, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed. In particular, I thank my colleague in the other place, Andrew Bowie, for guiding the Bill through the House of Commons. I also thank the department’s Bill team and all the other policy and legal officials across various government departments who have been involved in this huge and landmark piece of legislation. They who have worked tirelessly to deliver it. I particularly thank the House authorities, parliamentary staff, clerks and doorkeepers, and all noble Lords who have contributed to the evolution of this landmark Bill.