Carbon Budgets

Debate between Lord Henley and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Monday 8th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to adjust carbon budgets in the light of past performance and the Paris Agreement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)]

My Lords, our existing carbon budgets are already among the most ambitious in the world. They continue to set the right level of challenge for the years ahead. Our priority is to deliver against these stretching targets through our clean growth strategy.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

One of the ways that we as a nation are cheating on our carbon budget at the moment is by importing some of the most polluting goods from abroad, which means that the countries producing them carry the carbon emission burden. Will the Government now commit to capturing those offshore emissions so that we can understand fully how polluting we are as a nation?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not accept the noble Baroness’s premise that we are cheating; we are following international rules on this matter. If we wanted to change in the manner that she suggests, which might be a way ahead, it would be worth doing only if we had international agreement from all sides.

Environment and Climate Emergency

Debate between Lord Henley and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Monday 1st July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, in the time I have available to respond to a Question of this sort, I cannot go into detail on every single bit of research that we are doing into energy storage, carbon capture, use and storage, and a whole range of other things. I am more than happy to write to the noble Lord with greater detail on this—he seems to be signalling to me to do that—but I can say that we are committed to doing all we can to meet the targets. We believe that with existing technology we can meet them, and with advances in technology we can do even better.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am absolutely delighted that the Government think they can meet that target but so far, I have not seen the sort of action that is needed. We need a massively rethought-out new green deal so that that we can discuss it in this Chamber and suggest ways forward for government.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we passed the legislation last week. We have announced an environment Bill, the Agriculture Bill is coming along, we have announced an energy White Paper and there is the industrial strategy, which has energy-specific parts. A whole range of government action is going on and there will be more to come.

Climate Emergency

Debate between Lord Henley and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, as to where the Agriculture Bill is, I fear that I cannot help the noble Baroness, but no doubt my noble friend sitting beside me will be able to offer advice in due course. All I can say is that we will do all we can in all fields—there are a great many fields in which work needs to be done—to reduce our carbon footprint. As I have said before, we have done a great deal, but there is a great deal more to do.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the Government met the Extinction Rebellion campaign recently. What did they learn from that and what policies are going to change as a result of the meeting?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the most important thing is that we had the report a few months ago from the IPCC, which we put to our own climate change committee. Last week we received a report from the climate change committee and we will respond to it in due course.

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord makes a good point. The first thing to say is that we should all eat up our greens.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Please, no!

[Lord Henley]

I will restrain my carnivorous habits in the future. However, the noble Lord makes a good point, and everyone should get that message—there is a great deal of waste in the food chain, just as there is throughout the world. We have possibly a lot less waste than in the third world as a result of the efficient means we have of moving food around and processing it, but as the noble Lord said, there is still a great deal of further waste, and more must be done.

Buildings: Energy Performance

Debate between Lord Henley and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my understanding is that we have met our first carbon budget. We are on track to meet our second and third. I will take advice on where we are on the fourth, and write to the noble Lord.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, obviously I care about all the environmental aspects of these issues, but measures such as home insulation also create huge amounts of business for small and medium businesses, and thousands of skilled jobs. Why are they not at the heart of the Government’s industrial strategy?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we are all fully aware that the noble Baroness cares very strongly about the environmental aspects and I assure her that they are at the heart of our industrial strategy. We want to see people take the business opportunities of selling insulation and individuals then taking the opportunity to insulate their home.

Oil and Gas: UK Continental Shelf

Debate between Lord Henley and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is correct: we should do that. As his noble friend said, we should also continue with explorations. There is much that we can do, that the Government are doing and that the industry is doing.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the carbon bubble—the possibility that the bottom could fall out of the market in oil and gas and general fossil fuel investment? Will the Government therefore give some advice on these risks to anyone who would like to look further at oil and gas? I raised this with the Bank of England a few years ago and it has since said some quite enlightened things.

[Lord Henley]

The noble Baroness makes a point but it is important that we continue to look at all available resources. The noble Baroness knows we are moving towards a low-carbon economy but we also want a balanced energy mix. It is important that we make use in the medium—and possibly long—term of the fossil fuels that we have.

Ffos-y-Fran Opencast Coal Mine

Debate between Lord Henley and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend is absolutely correct.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, up to 60,000 people die in this country every year from air pollution. I fail to see how the British Government do not have a responsibility for lowering air pollution in every part of the union.

Energy: Home Battery Storage

Debate between Lord Henley and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential for home battery storage to change the dynamics of energy supply and demand.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government and Ofgem published a smart systems and flexibility plan in July 2017, which outlines a series of actions to support the transition to a smart energy system. They include an assessment of changes in our energy system and measures to address the barriers to storage, whether in the form of home batteries or the range of grid storage technologies.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am sure that the Government have thought this through—or not—but as nuclear subsidies increase and the cost of national grid electricity rises, more people will move to solar and domestic storage of energy. That means that people still using the national grid will be the poorest in society because they cannot afford all these extra measures. Have the Government thought through how the poor will be relieved of paying for very expensive electricity?

[Lord Henley]

Obviously there will be changes as more people make use of storage. That will have an effect on the grid because if some people increase their use of storage, they may even be able to go off-grid in future. The noble Baroness is right to draw the House’s attention to that issue. That is a matter for Ofgem; it can certainly look at that to make sure that it can create a level playing field for all consumers.