Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Whitehead on joining this House. He and I worked together in the 1997 Labour Government, when he was an enormous support to me. I know he will make a huge contribution to the House.

I was a member of the International Relations and Defence Committee when it wrote a report in 2022 called UNCLOS: The Law of the Sea in the 21st Century. Underlying its recommendations was the committee’s view that:

“As a major maritime power, the UK has a strong role to play in the development and maintenance of the law of the sea”.


As such, the UK must meet 21st century challenges to ensure the usefulness and relevance of UNCLOS. Many of the report’s recommendations related to issues that are not the direct subject of the Bill, but will the Government make a progress report on their more recent work covering these matters, including human rights and labour protections at sea? There are shocking examples of human rights law being broken, with forced labour and appalling working conditions. These include breaches of maritime security, including piracy and armed robbery at sea. Many such crimes take place partly because of the failure of regulation resulting from the system of flags of convenience, which cries out for reform. There is a need for an oceans strategy, as requested by Sarah Champion MP in another place. Can the Minister respond on that?

I turn to the central purpose of the Bill. The Select Committee also identified the importance of protecting biodiversity in the context of climate change and dangerous increases in the temperature of the ocean. In doing so, it pointed out the huge role the oceans play in absorbing carbon dioxide released since industrialisation. It also took evidence on the damage that land-based pollution causes to the marine environment, such as ocean acidification and changes to ocean circulations, which in turn can destroy marine species and the vital environments, such as coral reefs and mangrove forests, that support them.

I therefore welcome this Bill and congratulate the Government on introducing it. I ask that it completes its enactment in time for the ratification of the treaty. The Minister has explained the urgent need to put into domestic law protections that apply to international rather than domestic waters.

The Bill is largely technical, but the section on marine genetic resources strikes me as particularly important. Valuable scientific projects on the high seas are being carried out by British teams, often in international collaborations. I support new regulatory requirements extending reporting to the Secretary of State and do not believe that responsible scientists should see this as overly intensive regulation. I also support the area-based management tools set out in Part 3.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, with their new powers to act in international waters, will UK regulatory bodies such as the Marine Management Organisation need to abide by principles set out in the Environment Act 2021, such as the “polluter pays” and precautionary principles? Secondly, how do the Government intend to work with non-signatories, in particular—following up on what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said—with the US, which signed up originally but will not ratify the treaty? It is surely vital that we try to persuade it to take into account the issues that the treaty raises.

I end by welcoming what the Minister in another place said about UK support for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. I also welcome her statement that the UK will lead the world in the vital protection of our shared oceans, which was endorsed by my noble friend the new Minister in opening this debate. I am sure the Minister who winds up will want to say the same.

Climate Change: Phasing Out Fossil Fuels

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his good wishes, but I am very happy to be in the House answering noble Lords’ questions rather than being in Dubai. Two members of my department have been there. I do not recognise the picture the noble Lord presents. I regularly meet international investors; we have one of the largest investment flows of green finance into the UK of any industrialised country and one of the largest in Europe. Our sectors—solar, offshore wind, hydrogen and CCUS—are all benefiting from enormous flows of inward investment, which we welcome. The Global Investment Summit a couple of weeks ago saw a further £30 billion of commitments, so I am afraid the noble Lord is just wrong.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, last week at COP the Prime Minister said the UK is

“delivering on the historic Glasgow deal to end deforestation”.

When will the relevant regulations under the Environment Act be laid? It is now two years since it received Royal Assent, since when the EU has agreed more ambitious rules on deforestation. I hope the Minister will say that the regulations are imminent.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The responsibility belongs in a different department so I am not sure of the exact date of the regulations the noble Baroness refers to, but I will certainly write to her on that.

Decarbonisation

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Blackstone]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to their consultation on ‘Addressing carbon leakage risk to support decarbonisation’ published on 30 March, what assessment they have made of the case for extending green procurement targets beyond steel and cement to include other carbon-intensive sectors covered by the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, such as paper and power, and products made from materials covered by the UK ETS, such as vehicles.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are currently exploring options for utilising public procurement to create demand for green industrial products. We have sought views via consultation to help develop proposals for policy measures that support the growth of low-carbon industries. The Government’s Construction Playbook advises that projects should be accompanied by a whole-life carbon assessment and PPN 06/21 requires suppliers bidding for major government contracts to commit to net zero by 2050 and to publish a carbon reduction plan.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response, but I wonder whether I can press him a little further. In the Government’s consultation, they propose to use minimum product standards to protect just two or three sectors from unfair competition from overseas and not to bring in these measures until late in the 2020s. Should not the Government be setting minimum product standards across a wider range of sectors, and sooner, to protect domestic manufacturing from unfair competition, especially from China, where grid electricity has twice the carbon intensity and is half the price compared with the UK?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The consultation only closed at the end of last month, so the noble Baroness will need to give us a bit of time to analyse the hundreds of responses that we received. It is a complicated issue, and we of course understand the desire for quicker action, but there is a whole range of factors to be taken into account. We have to be very careful not to indulge in some form of green protectionism, where we incentivise lower-standard products against others that are better performing. Across a whole range of sectors and procurement areas, it is a complicated issue that deserves to be studied properly.

SMEs: Net-zero Targets

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I normally agree with my noble friend, but I do not on this solitary occasion: I think he is wrong. Other major economies, including the EU, are essentially doing a similar job—they have made a couple of small exceptions to the ban with things such as novel fuels. Providing certainty for industry and business is the direction they need to go in. Supporting them in the appropriate areas, ensuring that the right gigafactories are completed in the UK, is the way to go, in my view.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, one way to help small and medium-sized businesses is to remove barriers to trade. Given that the UK and the EU both have carbon pricing, would it be possible for the UK and the EU to agree to waive the requirements for exporters and importers to calculate and report on carbon emissions from products traded between the EU and the UK?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. We want to make trade as simple and easy as possible. I will certainly take the point back to the trade department.

Climate Change Committee: Discussions

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Let me give my noble friend some other quotes from the letter from the Climate Change Committee, with which he is of course closely associated:

“UK extraction has a relatively low carbon footprint (more clearly for gas than for oil) and the UK will continue to be a net importer of fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, implying there may be emissions advantages to UK production replacing imports”.


I think he should read the letter that he sent.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, what steps are the Government taking to reduce the impact of flaring? I am sure the Minister is aware that routine flaring, which incidentally has been banned in Norway since 1970, has a very bad effect on the environment, as it releases methane 80 times more potent than CO₂ over a 20-year period. As a result, if Rosebank goes ahead, we will exceed our carbon budget.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As the noble Baroness is aware, we have a plan to reduce our flaring. We had a Question on that a few weeks ago. We have committed, along with many other countries, to eliminate flaring by 2030. The amount of flaring is declining rapidly across the North Sea and action is being taken.

Methane Emissions

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Blackstone]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to their commitment to the Global Methane Pledge launched at COP26, what plans they have to set a target for reducing methane emissions by 30 per cent on 2020 levels by 2030.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK has adopted early and ambitious measures to tackle methane emissions. Between 1990 and 2020, UK methane emissions dropped by 62%, more than any other OECD country. The Government recognise the urgency to do more and are pursuing efforts to secure further emissions reductions in line with the net-zero strategy and our carbon budgets. The Government’s approach is consistent with the global methane pledge as a global reduction target.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his Answer, but I am not absolutely sure whether he is saying that the UK itself is committed to a 30% reduction, or whether it is just taking part in a collective reduction. Can he clarify that? I also want to ask him about the vexed problem of landfill sites, where we are still capturing only 70% of the biogas coming from them—and the proportion has declined since 2016. How will the Government increase methane capture rates to nearer 90%, as happens in some sites, by both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and harvesting more useable gas for the economy? If he does not know the answer to these questions, can he write to me?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I do know the answers to the noble Baroness’s questions, she will be shocked to know. In answer to her first question, I say that the UK is signed up to, and helping to implement, a global target. On the waste sector, she is absolutely right that we need to do more. Landfill emissions over the last 25 years have been tackled in two ways: by reducing the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill, with the landfill tax being a key driver, and by increasing the efficiency of methane collection from existing landfills. The other thing we need to do more is to increase waste food collections, so that we can generate more clean gas through anaerobic digesters, which is part of my department’s policies.