Climate Change

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is entirely right. Low-carbon heat is an area that we urgently need to address. We are looking in the Department at different ways of doing that. We are looking around the rest of the world, trying to establish what works, and we are taking a hard look at how to achieve what my hon. Friend rightly said is such an important way of addressing both fuel poverty and our carbon targets.

There are, of course, many Opposition Members who have an equally admirable track record in raising climate change up the agenda and in helping to put in place the practical policies that mean we are living up to our commitments. Overall, I believe that the United Kingdom can be proud of the progress made in meeting the climate change obligations that we have collectively put in place.

The carbon budget system ensures that each successive Government undertake the long-term planning necessary to meet long-term targets, rather than defaulting to short-term thinking. I pay tribute to the work of the Committee on Climate Change in providing independent advice to the Government and the devolved Administrations and in monitoring our progress. It was confirmed in September 2014 that the UK met its first carbon budget and that we were on course to meet the second and third budgets through to 2022. In the last Parliament, the Government also maintained the ambition of the fourth carbon budget. Thanks to the actions of successive Governments and the structures we have put in place, UK greenhouse gas emissions are 30% lower than the baseline set in 1990.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

If we look at the detail of the fourth carbon budget and the assumptions it makes about residential building insulation and wind insulation necessary to get even to the beginning of this fourth budget, does the Secretary of State agree that we are nowhere near being able to meet those terms at the moment, and that on the basis of present policies we shall not remotely be able to do so?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman is well known for working in this field. I respect him, and have debated with him on other occasions. He has made a good point: there is definitely an issue with the fourth carbon budget. However, it is too early to give up on it yet. We will be looking at policies, and it is my firm hope that we will be able to come back and reassure the hon. Gentleman in due course.

Provisional figures show that under the last Parliament greenhouse gas emissions fell by a mammoth 15%, and that, even as the economy grew, they continued to fall. The carbon intensity of the economy as a whole fell by 6% between 2013 and 2014. Britain is demonstrating that economic growth and emissions reduction can go hand in hand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Callum McCaig]

The figures I have seen are £82.50 as opposed to £92.50, but if I am wrong about that—I will check it—I will be more than happy to withdraw that statement. I do not believe that nuclear is safe or that it is an appropriate part of the energy mix.

[Dr Whitehead]

If the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) looked closely at the difference in the strike prices for Hinkley nuclear and for onshore wind, he would see that the years over which the price is given are quite different—it is twice as long for Hinkley as for onshore wind. The hon. Member for Warrington South, rather than the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig), is misleading the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) would not be misleading the House—otherwise, he would not be an honourable Gentleman. If he is inadvertently misleading the House, I am sure he will correct his point. Usually, it is a matter of how one interprets statistics, and the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) must not accuse another hon. Gentleman of misleading.

[Dr Whitehead]

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I apologise for the inadvertent omission of the word “inadvertent”?

[Callum McCaig]

I am not entirely sure where to go with that, Madam Deputy Speaker, in case I get into trouble. I do not know whether to say that the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) is correct, but I agree with him on this: my understanding is that the deal for the new nuclear power station is over twice as long a period as that on offer to anything in the renewables sector. I do not believe that nuclear is safe, and I believe that there are other ways. On providing that base-load, I would rather see thermal generation, but with carbon capture and storage built in as standard.

As I was saying, we have a short window of time and we require action. This is a welcome debate, I look forward to hearing more about this issue and I hope that in future we will recognise the contributions of Scotland and the other devolved Administrations, and the part they play in the UK’s achieving what is required.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

We are discussing what I hope will be a global agreement. I hope it will be sorted out in Paris this December, that it will be sustainable and that everybody will play their part in making sure that global warming is curtailed and that the global temperature rise stays below 2 °C by 2050. It is extremely important that the UK takes a robust approach to the conference and that it bases its approach on our own climate change architecture, including the Climate Change Act 2008 and our carbon budgets, in order to make sure that the EU’s offer to the conference is also as robust as possible.

The EU has collectively offered an intended nationally determined contribution of a 40% cut of 1990 levels by 2030. At the moment the UK is going along with that, but the problem is that if we look at the 38 INDCs that have so far been placed on the conference table, including the EU’s collective commitment, we will see that they will not get us below 2 °C. Indeed, we are looking at a prospective global temperature increase of between 2.9 °C and 3.1 °C, so it really is in the interests of a proper agreement, and of the UK’s existing commitments on climate change, that we produce a robust alternative and suggest that the EU increases its contribution, if possible, to 50%, because that is what the UK has committed to in our own carbon budget. In the little time available between now and the December conference, I urge the Secretary of State to push for that increase to the EU’s INDC, in order to emphasise just what we can do to secure a global agreement. Of course, that depends not only retrospectively on what the UK has achieved through its carbon budgets and related architecture to date but on what extent the UK can prospectively ensure that it can meet those commitments in the future. That is where we run into some trouble with the future commitments.

I mentioned the fourth carbon budget in an intervention, and it was, I recall, accepted by the previous Government after some hiccuping. Among other things, according to the Committee on Climate Change, that carbon budget not only produces a gateway of reducing emissions by 50% by 2025 but makes assumptions such as that 23 GW of wind power will have been installed by 2020, that 2 million solid-wall homes will have been insulated for energy efficiency purposes by the early 2020s, and that 90% of homes will have had their lofts and cavity walls insulated by that period. The UK is failing hopelessly in reaching all those measures. That difficulty will be compounded by the policies being proposed, which means that our commitments are facing in precisely the opposite direction over the next few years.

Earlier today I asked the Prime Minister for his commitment that the budgets for home energy efficiency would be maintained. He gave no answer on that, but unless they are maintained and substantially increased we will fail miserably to get anywhere near the fourth carbon budget targets. Similarly, if we do not rapidly unravel the question of what is happening with wind power, we will fall miserably short of the targets. If onshore wind developers cannot get their renewable obligations stamped, they will go into the levy control framework to try to get their schemes sorted out. We know that the levy control framework is already bust as far as offshore wind is concerned, and it will become more crowded. The much-vaunted Swansea Bay development might come on stream if someone does a levy control framework-based contract for difference arrangement for it, but that someone will have to be the Secretary of State. Unless the levy control framework works in such a way that that can happen, that will fail too.

We must remind ourselves that carbon budgets are not just for Christmas. They need to be worked out properly, and if we are to ensure that our commitments in Paris can be maintained we need urgently to get to work on the carbon budgets and to make them work. That means that we in this country must stay by our commitments on climate change in the future.