Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Earl Russell and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 484 on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bakewell, who is unable to be here, I shall also speak to Amendment 485 in this group on pollution. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her support for both. The amendments address the critical, environmental and public trust issue of the persistent and systematic failure of water companies to stem the flow of pollution into our rivers, lakes and coastal waters. The amendments are designed to work in tandem as a linked pair of provisions specifically targeting persistent and sustained underperformance. They are not designed to punish one-off incidents. They are a measured response to prolonged and sustained regulatory failures that, in the public’s eye, have become a matter of criminal neglect.

Amendment 484 would insert a new clause into the regulatory framework, creating a clear corporate criminal offence for a water or sewage company. That offence would be triggered when a company already regulated by Ofwat or the Environment Agency either fails to meet its pollution performance commitment level for three consecutive years or experiences an increase in serious pollution levels for three consecutive years. The pollution performance commitment level used is the exact target that companies commit to under the existing regulatory framework, which Ofwat reports on annually. The data regarding serious pollution incidents is similarly drawn directly from the Environment Agency’s annual environmental performance data.

A three-year threshold is a deliberate and calibrated response. We recognise that water companies can face individual problems from climate change, weather events, rapid population growth and other unforeseen circumstances. However, when failures persist year after year, are reported in black and white in regulatory reports but nothing is done, that is a different matter. By setting this three-year window, we would offer companies ample opportunity to correct their course. If they failed to do so, as a result of this amendment it could result in the matters being criminal.

Amendment 485 would build directly upon this foundation by creating personal criminal liability for senior managers. Liability would arise where a corporate offence under Amendment 484 was committed and the individual had failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. We have adopted a functional or a robust definition of senior manager, mirroring successful legal models in health and safety and economic crime already in legislation. It would apply to anyone who plays a significant role in making decisions about how the company’s relevant activities are managed or organised. This ensures that no one could evade their responsibility through misleading job titles or a corporate web of complex structures.

Critically, this amendment includes built-in protections to ensure fairness. The core requirement is to “take all reasonable steps”. A manager who could demonstrate that they have done this would have a clear path to acquittal. This structure would pierce the corporate veil without being reckless. Decisions regarding budgets and infrastructure carry personal weight for those who operate at the top.

Although there has been change, there is a lot that still needs to be done. Bill payers are facing a 26% increase in their bills and, in 2025 alone, supply interruptions across England and Wales rose by 8%. Even more concerning is the 60% increase in serious category 1 and category 2 incidents, which climbed to 75 in 2024. I recognise that we have had the Water (Special Measures) Act, the Cunliffe review and the recent White Paper and that there is more legislation to come. We welcome a lot of the measures, particularly those in the White Paper. Regulators have also imposed record fines, some as high as £90 million, but we must confront the reality that we may have reached the limits of a solely fines-based model.

When penalties are too modest, they just become the cost of doing business; when they are too punitive, they risk bringing down the very water companies that we are trying to sanction. Despite these fines, executives continue to draw substantial bonuses. Shareholders continue to receive massive dividends, while the environment bears the scars. The public is being asked to fund a staggering £104 billion in the promised AMP8 investment, and much of it is publicly underwritten through government schemes. We must have a statutory mechanism that ensures that this money delivers verifiable environmental gains rather than just being siphoned into higher gearing and profits.

Some critics may argue that these amendments will deter talent and overburden regulators. I disagree. These provisions are carefully calibrated to protect those who work in this industry, and they could do exactly the opposite. They could attract into the industry those people we need who are motivated to make change. Having that protection of the “reasonable steps” defence could help to attract the very talent we need. These measures are in line with requirements of the Environment Act that the polluter must pay. For too long this has not happened, and individual poor performance has been allowed to pass unchallenged.

These amendments provide the precise tools needed to bridge the gap between reporting failure and enforced change. Persistent pollution is not a technical glitch or an oversight; it is a substantial betrayal of public trust and an environmental duty. These issues need more thought than I have seen to date from the Government, despite the legislation coming forward.

The new water regulator, when established, must have the necessary tools to hold individual companies and individual corporate members within them to account personally for any serious and persistent failings; otherwise, it will not succeed, just as other regulators have not. I hope that the Government will view these amendments as a timely enhancement to their own thinking and plans for further reform. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I love these amendments and wish I had tabled them myself. They are excellent. Water companies dumping sewage into rivers has been illegal for years: it is just this and the previous Government’s refusal to act that has let it continue without serious consequences.

The legislation allows Ministers to set a bar of what is acceptable behaviour and, so far, every politician in charge has refused to say what is and is not a major failure. The result of this political cowardice is that water companies continue to make a profit out of polluting our waterways and beaches, and the people in charge continue to collect their big pay cheques and bonuses.

Regulators such as Ofwat have been in bed with the water industry bosses, and the Environment Agency has lost staff and legitimacy. Labour are wedded to private ownership of water and refuse to consider public ownership, even though it would be the most popular legislation they could enact this Parliament. I keep making suggestions about how Labour can get some voters back, but it is not listening.

These companies are fleecing bill payers with the excuse that they need to carry out the investment they have failed to do for decades. They have taken the public’s money and given it directly to shareholders. They have run up debts to pay even higher dividends and the bill payers are now paying for those debts. What is going to stop them doing this all again?

These amendments take a direct route to stopping pollution by making this personal to the people at the top. If they do not spend the money to invest and reduce pollution, then that is a crime. They are taking the public’s money and failing to improve. My own preference would be to put them on long-term community service cleaning up the sewage from our beaches, waterways and riverbanks. I would probably put them in special uniforms so that everybody passing by would know exactly who they are. I would also put a complete ban on dividend and bonus payments.

I am happy—she says, through gritted teeth—to support this more moderate suggestion, as being something the Minister might accept. I would not give them three years to turn it around either, but setting some sort of firm deadline would be preferable to the inaction of this, and the last, Government.

Finally, the best way of stopping the crime of water companies dumping sewage in our rivers is to take them into public ownership. Reduce bills by reducing the money wasted on debt repayments and replace the current set of overpaid bosses with people who can do the job and care about our environment.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Debate between Earl Russell and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, my name is attached in support of Amendment 18, but I did not ask for it to be. I asked for it to be attached to a different amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, but I think this is a great amendment anyway and I am fully in support.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness’s support. I am sorry to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, cannot be here, and I wish him and his family well. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for speaking to his amendment.

My Amendment 18 in this group is on UK SAF production. I thank my noble friend Lady Pidgeon, the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, even if it was the wrong amendment, for adding their support to it. This amendment seeks to ensure that the Government’s support for sustainable aviation fuel translates into genuine homegrown industrial capacity, as we have heard. We support the Bill and its aims, and we want to see it move forward. Other countries are moving forward, such as the United States through its Inflation Reduction Act, and across Europe progress is being made. We need to act decisively to make sure that we do not become a passive importer, and we welcome that the Bill seeks to prevent that.

We believe that this reporting mechanism would help to strengthen the Bill to make sure that these issues are defined and reported on. There is an important distinction between manufacturing and simple operations such as blending, trading or storage. Too often, limited progress is repackaged as domestic production when it is not, so in this amendment we have sought to define what UK production means: that the main chemical or biological conversion processes take place here. We believe that clarity is essential, and having it is in the Government’s interests as well as ours. The amendment does not seek to tie the Secretary of State’s hands. It provides a clear framework for defining what counts as UK production. It also allows flexibility to set out more detailed rules by regulation on the extent of processing ownership and the evidence required for compliance, while maintaining robust accountability.

Water (Special Measures) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Russell and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Monday 4th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments is on water company ownership. In preparing for this Bill, my Whips’ Office briefing note said that, in some circumstances, Ofwat could take no fewer than 25 years to revoke a water licence. When I read this, I found it hard to believe that this was the case, so I had to go away and have a look at it myself.

I note that different conditions apply to household water companies and retail or business suppliers, as retail suppliers operate within a different market, and that this is an extremely complex area of legislation. I understand that Ofwat can take up to 25 years to revoke the licence of a water company in some cases where it is in breach of its licence conditions. My amendment is a probing one. I want to be certain that it is possible for licences to be revoked much earlier than 25 years for matters such as sewage spills and failures to invest in infrastructure. I am also interested in looking at whether six months is a feasible timeframe for revoking licences in the cases of the worst sewage spill offenders.

It is unacceptable that, in 2023, for example, water companies dumped 54% more sewage in our lakes, rivers and coastal areas than they did in the previous year. This amounted to some 464,000 incidents and some 3.6 million hours of untreated sewage discharges in England alone, yet few water and sewage discharge licences have been revoked as a direct result of sewage spills.

The Government have given a clear commitment to make improvements, and this Bill contains many measures that we welcome. The framework for these proposed improvements is one where the Government are passing this Bill to bring in more immediate measures in order to hold the water companies to account and to strengthen the powers of the regulators. This is being done now while the water commission undertakes deeper, more fundamental thinking to make further recommendations in due course.

The Government’s argument is based on the belief that Ofwat can be supported, strengthened and remade to be an effective regulator. The arguments I want to discuss relate to the ultimate sanction of revoking water and sewage discharge licences. If Ofwat is to be effective, the ultimate sanction must act as a real deterrent against illegal and improper behaviour. I fully recognise that my suggestion of changing this to six months may not work and may need a rethink; I would be more than happy to discuss this with the Minister if it is of interest. I recognise that there is a need to balance the needs of water companies, their investors and customers, as well as to ensure continuity of supply.

I will be honest: I know that there are many different licences and conditions for revoking them, and that this is a complex area. The conditions for a quick termination, applying to the issues of a special administrator and bankruptcy, are welcome. My concerns relate more to the broader, far from general, form of deterrence for water companies doing what they have been doing up to now with no real comeback, such as siphoning funds off to shareholders while failing to meet the required levels of investments, falsifying self-reporting of sewage discharges and failing to prevent sewage spills.

I want this amendment to lead to a brief discussion on the licence conditions in place now. I seek reassurance from the Government that they will have a look at these powers, look at how they are used in practice and consider whether any changes are required as part of this Bill. I do this as there are no real changes to any of the licence termination conditions; I wondered whether this was a mistake or oversight. The imposition of tougher prison sentences and higher fines are welcome measures, but what happens if these measures alone failed to regulate companies’ behaviour?

For comparison, the revocation of licences in other regulated sectors appears generally to happen on a much quicker timescale. Can the Minister give the rationale behind leaving the 25 years in statute, and can she give examples of Ofwat acting much earlier in relation to lack of investment or pollution incidents? What is the average time for revoking a water and sewage licence?

I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to three amendments in this group: Amendments 97, 98 and 99. This weekend saw tens of thousands of people marching for clean water in London. It was the most amazing event. It was a chance for me to speak to people who agree with me—as opposed to being here in your Lordships’ House, where not many people agree with me.

Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Debate between Earl Russell and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the two amendments in my name, Amendments 4 and 19, but I also want to say that I very much enjoyed the introduction to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Lennie. He said that this is a very damaging Bill, and that is absolutely true—but what offends me so deeply is that it is so old fashioned and out of date. It does not take into account any of the science that has happened over the past 10 years. But luckily, these amendments expose the falsehoods that have been told by the Government in attempting to justify new fossil fuel extraction in the midst of a climate crisis.

First, the Government are deluded in saying that new oil and gas licences can in any way be compatible with delivering our climate targets. That is impossible. Secondly, they are deluded in thinking that propping up the oil and gas industry can possibly be in the interests of workers—and doing that rather than genuinely engaging with the need for a just transition and the practicalities of how that can be delivered. Thirdly, they are deluded in thinking that new oil and gas extraction will do anything to reduce domestic energy costs rather than be exported on the world market to the highest bidder.

Amendments 3 and 8 would establish a climate test, which is very necessary. The UN Production Gap Report has warned that the worlds’ Governments already plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting heating to 1.5 degrees centigrade. The IPC’s sixth assessment report was clear that

“projected CO₂ emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement would exceed the remaining carbon budget for 1.5 degrees centigrade”.

Closer to home, the Climate Change Committee observed in its latest progress report that

“expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with net zero”.

Regardless of the claims from some people, possibly on the opposite Benches, that the UK will continue to need some oil and gas up to 2050, again to use the words of the Climate Change Committee,

“this does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields”.

The issuance of new fossil fuel extraction licences will directly contribute towards global heating. The Government will not accept a climate test in this Bill, because they know that new oil and gas is incompatible with a safe climate. If the Minister would like to hear more about this, I would be very happy to meet him and explain it as simply as I possibly can.

My Amendments 4 and 19 set out the just transition test. It is ironic that this Government try so hard to invoke the destruction of working-class communities by the Thatcher Government when they attempt to use oil and gas workers as an excuse to continue pumping new oil and gas, which will further inflame the climate emergency and actually make life harder and harder for people. The choice that we are facing is between a managed and fair worker-led transition now, or chaos later, when the reality of the planet crisis bites even more fiercely. Without serious plans for a just transition, communities will once again be left behind and hollowed out as a result of Conservative policy.

This proposal would require just transition plans for the North Sea workforce that are compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees centigrade. It specifies that these plans must be agreed through formalised collective agreements with unions and that they apply to all workers, whether they are directly or indirectly employed, or even self-employed—which is vital, given the heavy casualisation in the oil and gas workforce. This amendment will be a step towards delivering a just transition that would see workers at the centre of transition planning, with a clear and accessible pathway out of high-carbon jobs. We have to do this—we absolutely must, if we care about people and their work.

So, rather than propping up jobs that we know will not exist in the future, the Government should be actively supporting workers to transition out of the oil and gas sectors while also addressing their very real concerns—such as around the cost of retraining, which is often borne by workers themselves. The failure to deliver a just transition is not inevitable; it is a political choice. If the Government were serious about listening to workers and protecting jobs, they should have no problem supporting this amendment, which puts job security at the heart of the transition to a green future.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 5 and 17, which would introduce a cost of living and consumer energy price test that the OGA must conduct before inviting applications for seaward area production licences. The cost of living and consumer energy price test is met in relation to a relevant year if the production of domestic natural gas will clearly, first, lower energy prices and, secondly, reduce the cost of living.

Originally, as was alluded to, the Minister in the other place claimed that this Bill would reduce energy prices but very quickly had to retract that statement from the public domain. My question is: why are we passing this Bill if it will not have any impact at all on reducing the cost of energy bills for consumers? Some 80% of all the natural oil and gas here will be exported. As we have heard, the Bill will do little, if anything, to help our energy security, protect jobs, transition and help the green economy, which is the energy of the future. Instead, we are investing in the energies of the past, and that investment seems to bear few benefits for people or the planet.

We are already seeing individuals with record debt for their energy prices. We have seen the war in Ukraine and the spike in energy prices. As long as we as a country continue not to invest in energy efficiency or renewables and continue to be dependent on the international energy markets, we will continue to suffer as those markets fluctuate. The Government themselves have had to invest £7 billion in subsidising energy bills—in effect, a continued and added subsidy to the oil and gas companies on top of the tax breaks that they already have. We have the most expensive energy prices in Europe so this amendment simply seeks to put in a test where the cost of energy to consumers should be considered.

On the other amendments in this group, Amendments 3 and 18 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, would apply a climate change test. I fully support applying a climate change test. The question I would put to the noble Lord, in relation to these specific amendments, concerns asking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whether it is set up and in the best position to conduct that particular test for us as an individual country. I suggest that, if we want a climate change test, it might be better for the UK’s own Climate Change Committee to pass a judgment on whether that test could be met.

Finally, on to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, of course, although we on this side recognise that we will continue to have some oil and gas as part of our energy mix—even under net zero—we want to see a move to a just transition. I welcome this amendment as an attempt to do that.

However, the amendment is slightly ill defined. I would rather see that transition come about through the profits from the extraction of this energy being directly allocated to the green economy. So, while I welcome the amendment and we do not oppose it, my personal view is that that is a more efficient way of doing it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

All the amendments I have tabled here reveal the scam that is absolutely built into this Bill—it is really offensive to the general public—because this carbon intensity test has been deliberately drafted so that UK oil and gas are always deemed to be low carbon, as compared to international comparisons. So there will never be any limit to the number of oil and gas licences issued. My Amendment 11 probes why the Government have chosen to apply the carbon intensity test only to natural gas. It is our first example of how the Government are fudging the numbers with egregious greenwashing.

Why is the carbon intensity of crude oil being ignored in the Government’s test? The answer is obvious: oil is more carbon intensive than gas and the North Sea produces far more oil than gas, making North Sea production more carbon intensive than most of the countries we import oil and gas from. So the Government fiddle the numbers by ignoring oil altogether, thereby making North Sea extraction look like it is somehow tackling climate change rather than pumping even more carbon into the atmosphere and making it ever harder to reach net zero.

The second part of the scam is that the Government do not compare like with like. Despite the fact that most of our imported gas comes via pipeline from Norway, which has less than half the carbon intensity of UK oil and gas, the Bill compares the UK’s gas with liquefied natural gas. LNG is almost four times as carbon intensive as a UK gas and almost 10 times as carbon intensive as gas from Norway because of the processing necessary to liquify, import and regasify the LNG. By comparing UK production with imported LNG instead of all natural gas imports, the Government have added another layer to this dubious test that will green-light new oil and gas licences for decades to come.

The Government have drafted this Bill at an extremely well liquified dinner—if my guess is right—to exclude the bulk of UK oil from the equation, despite oil being the most carbon-intensive component of North Sea production. It is an absolutely outrageous piece of draftsmanship, and yet another example of this Government legislating against reality to create whatever legal conditions are required to force through government policy.

Taken together, my amendments will ensure that the carbon intensity test compares like for like. The amended carbon intensity test will compare all UK oil and gas production with their equivalent imports and include all relevant processes for the extraction, transportation and delivery of oil and gas in usable form to its final customer. I hope that all noble Lords will agree that, if a carbon intensity test is to be used, it must properly assess the carbon intensity of North Sea oil and gas relative to their imported equivalents. It is essential to amend with the Bill along the lines that I propose. I beg to move.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I speak in favour of the amendments in this group. They all relate to the two tests in the Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has said. The LPG and the UK net importer test are both one-way gates, where the answer is always yes. That is not good enough. There needs to be a proper test that counts the carbon cost of doing these things.

My slight issue with this is that a lot of the amendments in this group are not in scope in this very short, almost Private Member’s Bill-type of legislation. Inevitably, the amendments were gathered around the little bits that are in scope in the Bill to be amended. From our side’s point of view, there are lots of amendments seeking to change these tests. I am not minded to say which is the best amendment to take forward. From our side of the Room, some thought should be given to coalescing around one of those tests. I am happy to support that, but we need to go away and do some thinking to get a unified position.

On the proposal of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, to remove Clause 1, if that were to be pushed to a vote, I would be prepared to support it. The Minister makes a lot of grand claims for this Bill. In his summing up, he keeps saying that the granting of licences do X, Y and Z. That may well be true, but nothing in the Bill commits to anyone granting any licences. The only thing that the legislation does is to say that there should be tenders. The joined-up logic that the Minister is giving us for the Bill does not, in point of fact, bear relevance, because it could be passed but no licences ever granted again. Equally, we could continue to have licences every year without this Bill.

The Bill does little other than to drive a wedge between us and our commitments to protect the environment, and serves as a way in which to politicise this issue in the run-up to the election. That is all I have to say.