Fossil Fuels: Business

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As the noble Lord referenced in his question, we are mandating climate information in financial disclosures. We welcome other commitments from the many banks and financial institutions that are already joining us on the path to net zero.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, as the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords have pointed out, this report shows that most energy companies are not on track. This means that, to an extent, we will be dependent on fossil fuels for energy beyond 2050. Robust plans for that are essential. What is the Government’s best estimate of the scale of the emissions challenge that this continuing dependency will create? As we heard, yesterday the Prime Minister unveiled a strategy to establish four carbon capture and storage clusters. If they operate at maximum capacity, will they meet a significant proportion of that challenge?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

They will contribute to that challenge, but we need a number of different technologies and methods to meet our legally binding commitment to net zero. The noble Lord is right in that respect, and the 10-point plan is a useful contribution towards that objective.

Covid-19: Small Businesses

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness is a powerful advocate for the life sciences sector, so of course we will look at many of the suggestions that she has put forward.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, since lockdown I have raised with Ministers the issue of the market failure of pandemic risk insurance five times. Each time I have been told that in due course the Government strategy on it will be revealed. For many businesses, the unavailability of business interruption insurance for pandemic risk is an issue for now, and it soon could be decisive in whether a large number of businesses will be able to trade. This is an issue of transparency and accountability. What, precisely, is the Government’s plan for this market failure?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord highlights an important problem. This is a difficult issue, but insurance contracts are a matter of commercial negotiations in the market, and it is hard for the Government to interfere in what is, essentially, a commercial decision between the person issuing the insurance and the person taking it out. But we are certainly aware of the problem, and we are looking to see whether there is anything we can do in this field.

Maritime Industry

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a valid point about the difficulties of decarbonising the maritime sector, and this is one reason why we are looking at alternative methods of propulsion. However, he is right to highlight the challenges.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister will be familiar with the Accelerating the Low Carbon Transition report, published by Brookings in conjunction with the Energy Transitions Commission. It is a mine of useful information and includes this fact:

“The top 20 ports, located in just 12 countries and jurisdictions, control 45% of global container freight.”


In preparation for COP 26, what steps are the Government taking to bring these countries and jurisdictions together to discuss a common regulatory approach to shipping emissions?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. We are working with a number of other countries through the International Maritime Organization, and we accept that the maritime sector has an R&D gap, with little investment in alternative fuels to date, which is holding back decarbonisation. Therefore, there is no question that the sector presents a great challenge for the net-zero efforts.

Saudi Arabia: Arms Sales

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Friday 10th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel]

First of all, I utterly condemn the reprehensible killing of Mr Khashoggi. The UK and Saudi Arabia have a long-standing bilateral relationship based on a number of pillars, including trade, defence, security, energy and shared concern about regional issues. Saudi Arabia is a major political and economic power in the Middle East, and its position as home to the cities of Makkah and Medina give it unmatched convening power in the Arab world. We regularly raise our human rights concerns with the Saudi authorities, using a range of ministerial and other diplomatic channels.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with Save the Children that this decision is indefensible. The Government say that they want to be a global force for good but, the very next day, decide that killing and injuring thousands of children does not constitute “a pattern of harm”. Proper scrutiny of this decision requires access to the unique methodology and data that the Secretary of State referred to in her statement. Can the Minister explain the methodology? Will Parliament be given access to it, or will Parliament and the defenceless children of Yemen have to wait until our courts compel its production—as they will?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel]

The assessment of whether an incident created a possible breach or serious violation of international humanitarian law is a complex matter. In order to review that, we were required to draw on all available sources of information, including some that were—I am sure noble Lords will understand this—necessarily confidential and sensitive. We are therefore not able to go into the details of individual assessments.

Post Office: Horizon Accounting System

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Of course, the Horizon court case occupied a lot of time and effort in both government and the Post Office, and it provided an extensive and, indeed, damning indictment of what went on at the time. However, we think that there is more to be done and that an independent review is the best way of proceeding with that.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, will this review be able to be held up pending the determination of the criminal investigations that are ongoing, as well as perhaps criminal appeals? The priority should be that those damaged by the scandal are exonerated and compensated. The Government are the owner of the Post Office. Will they exercise their muscle to ensure full compensation? Indeed, Parliament, in a two-clause Bill, could legislate for exoneration of all those convicted. Surely the Government do not want to prolong the agony. What more evidence is needed before these steps can be taken to achieve the inevitable?

[Lord Callanan]

It is extremely important that we do not interfere with the proper consideration of these cases through the Criminal Cases Review Commission. I obviously cannot pre-empt what might happen, but I think that noble Lords will realise what I hope will happen as a result of this process. It is also important to get on with the review and to make sure that we learn the lessons from what went wrong. We also need to make sure that these things never ever happen again, because this is a terrible, terrible scandal.

Horizon: Sub-postmaster Convictions

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

First, I pay tribute to the work my noble friend has done, both in the other place and in this House, to draw attention to this unfolding scandal. The issue of privileged access was discussed throughout the Horizon case and highlighted in the Horizon issues judgment. The Ernst & Young management letter he refers to was issued before Post Office Ltd was separated from Royal Mail Group. At the time, there was no government representative on the board. The first government representative was appointed to the board of the Post Office in 2012. The Government were aware from the information they received, such as that by the forensic accountants, Second Sight, in 2013, that branch records could be accessed remotely; however, we were then advised that any transactions entered remotely would be visible to sub-postmasters in branch. As far as I am aware, the Government were only made aware that this was incorrect early in 2019, via witness statements that were used by Fujitsu in the court case.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, on this issue, for all the reasons that have been mentioned. He deserves significant recognition for his effective leadership on this issue. While I support the call for an inquiry, already every parliamentarian, including every Minister, believes that those damaged by this scandal deserve to be exonerated and properly compensated, so how much additional evidence do the Government need before that can be achieved? For more than a decade, while covering up the truth, the Post Office spent in excess of £100 million maintaining the convictions and the impoverishment of hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters. Not one director or senior executive has been held to account. What do the Government, who own the Post Office, plan to do about this shocking failure of corporate governance?

[Lord Callanan]

The Horizon IT system was put in place in 1999, with the first issues being raised by sub-postmasters in the early 2000s. Mr Justice Fraser has considered what happened over this period and has set out his findings in considerable detail in the court case. Of course, the senior directors responsible at the time of the prosecutions against sub-postmasters are no longer at the Post Office. Any further proceedings against such individuals is a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service, and the courts and the justice system.

Green Economy

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on securing this debate and commend her on her comprehensive opening speech. Opening a debate of this nature is a significant challenge; I have discovered that even speaking in one is. I congratulate her on managing to cover a significant part of the waterfront of it in an expert way. The noble Baroness also deserves thanks for convening a very successful meeting about plastic waste last Thursday. I apologise that I was unable to attend, but today I received a post-meeting briefing, which I commend to noble Lords, about how the Environment Bill could be amended to deal with it.

In many ways we have never had it so good, but equally we have never faced such world-changing challenges. Our way of life has generated unprecedented wealth and well-being, but at an unsustainable cost to the planet. As the noble Baroness said, the ecology that supports our very existence by absorbing the carbon and other emissions that we generate is under great stress, so much so that half the species alive today are threatened. Unless stopped, global warming will make large parts of the world uninhabitable and certainly unable to produce the food to sustain their present inhabitants—and they will move. We are on the brink of disaster. We must cut our greenhouse gas emissions to zero, or to net zero, as the Government prefer, by 2050. That is what the science tells us, it is what an increasing number of our citizens demand and, thanks to our own decisions, it is the law that we passed.

For the second time in a month we are debating issues relevant to this challenge in opposition time. When will the Government make time for us to debate this, the greatest of the world-changing challenges? On 6 February we debated a Motion designed to draw attention to the UK FIRES Absolute Zero report and its recommendations. This debate takes place two days after Energy Systems Catapult published a report entitled Innovating to Net Zero, which sets out what needs to happen in the development of products and services, and

“what needs to happen during this Parliament”

to deliver the appropriate levels of investment for innovation in a green economy. These two reports come from distinctly different perspectives. Their recommendations are in many senses complementary but have different emphases. Both make clear what we already know: we are not on track to achieve the target that is the law.

As I made clear on 6 February, I have a bone to pick with the Government about whether it is unhelpfully misleading to describe our achievement of cutting emissions by 42% without going on, every time, to explain that they omit from the equation a substantial amount of carbon emissions that are clearly our responsibility. That aside, it is clear that the great majority of what we have achieved on any measure has been achieved by us stopping doing things. The major contributor to the percentage cut—whether 42% or, more truly, only 17%—is that we stopped doing things. Mainly we stopped generating electricity from coal and, almost as importantly, we stopped manufacturing and exported the responsibility for our growing consumption to the sovereign territory of others, which, of course, allows us not to count it and to celebrate our own success while criticising them.

For about 20 years we have tried to solve the remainder with new or breakthrough technologies that will both supply energy and allow industry to keep growing—that is the fundamental challenge—so that we do not have to change our lifestyles, apparently. The climate change committee’s assessment makes it clear just how essential the rapid expansion of carbon capture and storage is to the success of that approach. In almost every line it has to count in carbon capture and storage rapidly contributing, but the time has come to be honest about this technology and whether it is rational to expect it to make a significant contribution before the legal target date of 2050.

For more than two decades, CCS has been put forward as the technology both to allow continued generation of electricity from hydrocarbons and to provide the negative emissions element of the net-zero target. In about 2007, as Secretary of State for Scotland, I visited the decommissioned plant at Longannet, a coal-fired power station in Fife, in support of a project that was then bidding for the £l billion CCS cluster challenge. Longannet won, but the Government cancelled the project in 2011 and the challenge in 2016. I believe that this happened because the private sector could not price the risk and the Government were not prepared to underwrite it.

Until that problem is solved, and despite a well-funded lobby for this technology, it is, in my view, in the outer reaches of optimism to include it in any meaningful mitigation plan. The Government still think that CCS can make a meaningful contribution to the green economy. Yesterday, in the Budget, the Chancellor announced £8 million for two CCS clusters. Frankly, it is difficult to see how that helps when £1 billion for one project failed, but I am sure the Minister can explain. How will the Government overcome the obstacle of pricing the risk of CCS, which caused the failure of the £1 billion challenge? If there is no answer, we must conclude that we have come well and truly to the end of the argument that we can meet the zero-carbon target with just technology and not changing lifestyles. Even the techno-optimist report from Energy Systems Catapult makes it clear that “serious societal engagement is” essential to our ability to meet the target

“given the nature and pace of the changes required.”

Societal engagement means more than just talking about how difficult it is. It is a derogation of responsibility for us parliamentarians not to engage with what this really means. It means changing the way we live.

We are debating this at a time when we are experiencing the manifestation of a pandemic threat. If anything, this experience proves that we can make significant changes to the way we live when we need to. Without wishing to trivialise coronavirus, recently my attention was drawn to a tweet:

“Climate change needs to hire coronavirus’s publicist.”


That accurately describes the nature of the challenge we face.

On any view, a green economy that promotes resource efficiency and zero-carbon usage requires solutions to many challenges. For example, in the energy sector we need to expand non-emitting energy generation by a factor of three. In the construction sector, all newbuilds need to be to zero-energy standards. All existing forms of blast furnace steel production and of cement production are incompatible with zero emissions. The transition to electric cars is under way. At least in that regard we have a road map, but we need a similar road map for targets on a whole number of things, such as flying, cement and blast furnace steel. If the Government lead and network all other stakeholders in a process designed to find a common way forward in the development of a credible road map to the 2050 target, then the public will be with us as they will be with coronavirus. That is what political sensitivity is. I welcome the Government’s commitment, but perhaps it would have been better to have provided a road map before announcing it, rather than just identifying the destination.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

It is fine: it is my fault for raising it. I should not have got involved in the debate, but I am happy to talk to the noble Baroness, for whom I have the greatest admiration, as she knows. I am sure that we will discuss it on plenty of other occasions.

The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, talked about the 2050 target and asked why Finland has a net-zero target of 2035 when ours is 2050. Our independent advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, made it clear in its report that it does not currently consider that it is credible for the UK to reach net-zero emissions earlier than 2050, and we have legislated in line with that advice.

The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, asked about plastic waste exports. We are committed to banning plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries and the Environment Bill includes a power to enable us to deliver this commitment. We will consult this year on the date by which this will achieved.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raised the energy company obligation—we have discussed this subject with her before. I know that we have a different opinion on it, but we believe that energy efficiency will be key to reach net zero and we agree that the transition has to be fair. The energy company obligation is a key policy that, since 2013, has delivered more than 2.5 million measures in more than 2 million homes. This scheme is now entirely focused on low-income, vulnerable and fuel-poor households and funded to the tune of something like £640 million a year until 2022. I know that we have a different view about how it should be funded, but it is, in my view, a successful scheme.

The noble Lord, Lord Marland, talked about international climate finance. Since 2011, our international climate finance has helped 57 million people to cope with the effects of climate change, while reducing or avoiding 16 million tonnes of emissions.

I am sorry that I am out of time; I had a number of other points to refer to. If noble Lords will permit me, I will respond to them in writing—apart from an intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Browne.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Before he sits down, will he either address the question of pricing the risk of carbon capture and storage or agree to write to me about it?

[Lord Callanan]

It is an important subject, as I have said, and there is a lot of development in this area. I will write to the noble Lord with the details of pricing the risk, because it is a complicated subject.

It just remains for me to say that tackling climate change continues to be one of the Government’s highest priorities. We will continue to work with others, both domestically and internationally, to build on the excellent progress that we have already made to reach net zero. I thank noble Lords once again for some excellent contributions to this debate.

Artificial Intelligence (Select Committee Report)

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, as I intend to restrict my remarks to the part of the report that deals with autonomous weapons, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests, particularly my consultancy with the Nuclear Threat Initiative and its nascent collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University, which of course is the brainchild of the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, whom I see in his place. I look forward to his contribution.

I add my congratulations and appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and his committee on this wide-ranging report into the use and development of artificial intelligence. I agreed with many of its recommendations—at least those that I fully understood—particularly for the Government to get a grip on algorithmic bias. The committee’s identification of the probable dangers of a small number of companies owning the lion’s share of the world’s data more than supports its recommendation that the Government stop these companies monopolising control of our data which is in their possession.

I agree also with the report placing a strong emphasis on the UK’s role as an ethical leader in the AI world. This is especially important in the military use of AI. Paragraphs 334 to 346 of the report deal with autonomous weapons, and open with the following sentence:

“Perhaps the most emotive and high-stakes area of AI development today is its use for military purposes”.


I wholeheartedly agree. The report concedes, unfortunately, that the committee had insufficient time or capacity to deal with this, and goes on to record the view that this area merits a “full inquiry” on its own. I fully agree and argue that the sooner your Lordships’ House has this inquiry, the better. We should move directly from this debate to the instruction of that important inquiry.

I strongly agree with the report’s recommendation that,

“the UK’s definition of autonomous weapons should be realigned to be the same, or similar, as that used by the rest of the world”.

In particular, I agree that the present UK definition, which was explained so simply by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is problematic. It depends on there being no difference between “automatic” and “autonomous”; it limits the UK’s participation in the international debate, because it speaks a different language; it restricts our ability to show moral and ethical leadership; and it blocks the possibility that the current international process that is considering how to control these weapons systems will reach an agreed definition, which is after all its primary purpose.

Since 2016, in an attempt to find a suitable multilateral vehicle to regulate lethal autonomous weapons, the signatory states to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons—a treaty signed in 1980 with the purpose of eliminating weapons deemed excessively cruel or injurious—sought to assess the potential dangers posed and consider whether new measures were needed to control LAWs, as they are often referred to. Early in their deliberations, the high-contracting parties subcontracted this task to a group of governmental experts, who have become known as GGE. The group most recently met in Geneva in August and the draft report from its 2018 deliberations reveals that it was defeated by the challenge of finding an agreed definition of autonomous weapons, meaning that its concluding recommendations are—as they were the year before, and the year before that—that it should meet again next year. This, despite the fact that most experts believe that the unregulated deployment of LAWs could lead to violations of the law of war and international humanitarian law, while increasing the risk of uncontrolled escalation should there be a major-power crisis.

Almost every delegate to the GGE meetings argued that humans should always retain ultimate control over weapons systems but the group still failed to agree anything other than that it should continue further expert-level discussion next year, which will be the fourth year of discussion. In my view it has had ample time to investigate the dangers posed by autonomous weapons and, although important technical issues about definition remain, the time for discussion is over. It is beyond disappointment that, in response to the Select Committee’s recommendation, the Government yet again explained that their policy is to await the outcome of this expert discussion, in the meantime sticking with their “problematic” definition. I suggest to the Government that this expert discussion will never end. There is no sign of it ending at the moment.

We have in this debate an opportunity to ask the Government to think again. It is timeous, because the high-contracting parties to the CCW are themselves meeting later this week in Geneva to discuss the recommendations of the GGE. It is now clear that the only way this process will progress is if the high-contracting parties take back control and initiate proper negotiations on autonomous weapons, with the aim of crafting an outcome ensuring continued human control over weapons of war and the decision to employ lethal force.

Last week at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, I met experts who are working together on this challenge. They agree that the development of LAWs poses serious risk to international security and could spark arms races or lower the threshold for the use of force. They are concerned about how to prevent their deployment, once developed, in urban or other settings where mistakes and their consequences are likely to be very costly. In particular, I am impressed by the views of Dr Shahar Avin, one of the three researchers from CSER who will attend the meeting in Geneva this week. He agrees with the growing consensus that the UN’s negotiations have made little progress, that the discussions are slowed by disagreements about definitions and that there has been little constructive engagement, let alone vision and leadership, from major military powers. For a variety of reasons the United States—and consequently Russia and China—is unlikely to provide that leadership. As Dr Avin says:

“In January, the Prime Minster said she wanted the UK to lead the world in the ‘safe, ethical and innovative deployment of artificial intelligence’. Some of the world's leading Al researchers and organisations, who are based in the UK, have joined international calls to prevent the development of LAWs.


This makes the United Kingdom the leading candidate to provide leadership in the LAWs negotiations, as part of a wider vision for a responsible, safe and ethical future for artificial intelligence. Instead of taking a backseat while holding on to a problematic definition, the UK could furnish its CCW delegates with a national vision generated through a multi-stakeholder conversation, and be seen globally as a leader”—


or in partnership with France and Germany, which are already taking the lead—

“in how to respond to emerging technologies”.

I am conscious that this approach, although similar, is different from the second recommendation of the Select Committee—the formation of a panel of military and AI experts, if I remember correctly, to meet within eight months to agree a revised definition. I strongly believe that these matters should not be restricted to the military and the experts. The whole of society has a stake in this, and there should be a broad and ongoing UK conversation. In particular, legislators—Members of both Houses of Parliament, who have been largely silent on these issues—should be involved in this conversation. I thank the Select Committee for creating an opening for the beginning of just such a multi-stakeholder conversation, and I challenge the Minister to go back to his colleagues and ask them to begin it soon.

GKN/Melrose Takeover: Update

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

Again, I am not sure that I can take my noble friend much further than I did earlier when I talked about the advice that my right honourable friend needs to receive from the Ministry of Defence. Under the 2002 Act, there are limited grounds on which the Secretary of State can intervene in matters of this sort, one of which is on grounds of national security. He needs to take advice on that and, if appropriate, he can then act; but as I said earlier, he needs to act in a quasi-judicial manner. If the other two reasons for intervening do not come into play, my right honourable friend would not have the ability to intervene because national security would not be affected. It would be for my right honourable friend to take that advice and come to a decision, but these matters have to be decided in a quasi-judicial manner and I therefore do not want to say anything that might damage his ability to do that in any way.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister in advance if I should know the answer to this question. Can he tell your Lordships’ House if any such legally enforceable undertakings have, in the past, ever been enforced by the Takeover Panel? What have been the consequences of such enforcement action? That seems to be at the heart of the concern of your Lordships’ House. In what sense are these undertakings enforceable?

[Lord Henley]

I am always filled with dread when experienced colleagues such as the noble Lord get to their feet and say that they should know the answer to a question. I do not know the answer to that question, but I will commit to write to him about occasions when, and if, such legally enforceable commitments have been enforced, and I will make sure that it is copied to other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate.