Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Baroness Young of Old Scone

Report stage
Wednesday 9th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Forestry Commission and my other environmental interests in the register. I have put my name to both Amendments 65 and 90, which I will speak to, and Amendment 97A tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. I also add my thanks to the Minister for the time and care he has taken to engage with noble Lords over our concerns.

All these amendments arise from the same issue: the inordinate length of time it is taking government to come forward and fulfil its commitments, which have already been agreed some time before. Others have laid out the reasons for the importance of these amendments in detail, and I will not repeat them. I want simply to say that Amendment 65 is already a manifesto commitment: that UK financial institutions should be mandated to develop and implement credible transition plans that align with the Paris Agreement. The amendment that has been laid today is very gentle. It simply asks for a road map within six months of Royal Assent of the Bill and allows the Government plenty of wiggle room to decide how, when and in what manner it would prevent the drifting along that is so at odds with the urgency of the climate change threat.

Business and investors need clarity to be able to have confidence and to deliver growth and competitiveness. As I said, it is a manifesto commitment, and this summer’s heat has underlined its importance. The public want action and it has electoral salience. This is a “just do” moment. I call on my noble friend the Minister to restate the Government’s commitment to the principle and clarify the pace by accepting the amendment or giving some assurance about the timescale to which the Government will deliver these transition plan commitments.

I had a lovely speech written about Amendment 90, to which I have added my name, and Amendment 97A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. They are about an even more delayed issue and would bring in a requirement for government to make regulations, which were already provided for in the Environment Act 2021 —and I stress 2021, five years ago—but are still not implemented, to prohibit the importation and use of illegal forestry goods.

We are now in the position where the European Union is bringing forward its deforestation regulations. They will come into effect at the end of this year for large and medium companies and in 2027 for micro and small enterprises. Northern Ireland will have to follow these EU regs. The Government say that they want to align the rules across GB. At the time of laying the amendment, I felt that it was reasonable to ask for this to be done and completed within seven months, after a five-year delay period and with some consultation already having taken place. All the while, UK financial systems, including public equity and corporate bonds, are funding and fuelling climate and biodiversity declines directly.

In Committee, I lost the will to live, because the previous Minister described all the stages that had to happen. If they did not stretch into infinity, they at least stretched, I thought, for a couple of years. It is a major international embarrassment for the new Government. We led the change internationally for the forest risk commodities action at COP, and we persuaded umpteen other countries to sign up, yet here we are, five years later, still claiming that we want to demonstrate our leading role in green finance while not delivering this legal commitment that we were a prime actor in.

However, this afternoon, I had a little ray of light. I will read to noble Lords some excerpts from a letter that I received from Defra Ministers about pressing the issue of forest risk commodities forward:

“We are progressing the policy and legal work needed at pace to deliver the approach in GB. Defra is developing the consultation material … There is a statutory duty to consult on these regulations … our plan is to consult during Autumn”—


autumn is almost here. It continues:

“We are planning to deliver the legislation required to implement this regime in Great Britain in 2027 … At the centre of my considerations is the pressing need for us to make rapid progress to address the role that deforestation plays in the climate and nature crises. This summer’s extreme heatwaves have brought home the urgency of tackling climate change, where halting and reversing forest loss is a vital part of that effort”.


I absolutely welcome this statement from Defra that it is moving forward at pace. I hope that we can hear today from the Minister that the Treasury is as one with Defra and that we can confidently expect the regulations to be implemented in 2027.

Of course, once the regulations are in place, there is a commitment in the legislation that the Treasury will review legal deforestation challenges and the extent of the deforestation issues for the UK, including the range of products included. I hope that we can get assurances from the Minister on this issue.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 97A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and Amendments 55, 65 and 91 in the group. As others have said, we are grateful for the Government’s support. What the noble Baroness, Lady Young, just said will put a spring in everybody’s step. This is very overdue; as many people have said, this has been going on for five years. Why we have not done it is a puzzle, but it sounds as if some doors are opening.

Sometimes, people get a bit confused about what forest risk commodities are: they are beef, palm oil, soy, cocoa and rubber. On the whole, they are ingredients that run right through the ultra-processed food system, which is already, I am pleased to say, on behalf of the Government, getting a lot of action in terms of trying to slow it down.

The facts are nonsensical. For instance, beef is the largest driver of tropical deforestation. Beef production is responsible for 25% of global land use emissions, but it is estimated that 60% of agricultural land is used for beef production. That includes all the food that is grown for it: soy, palm oil and so on. However, it constitutes only 2% of global calorie consumption. That is just one example of why this is not only terrible for forests, nature and the infrastructure of life, on which we depend and which at the moment is in a very fragile condition, but nonsensical on many other levels.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Baroness Young of Old Scone

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 239, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I will be brief, given the stage of the evening we are at. She gave me a good lead line there in talking about Incredible Edible. A friend of mine founded that movement, which does what this amendment would enable more widely—namely, help identify and release temporary land currently unwanted by local authorities to local community groups to grow their own food, with all the benefits that the noble Baroness pointed out.

The two elements of this are: first, that there needs to be a list of temporarily unused land; and, secondly, that community groups interested in growing food need to be prompted. The most important thing is that there is a simple, low-risk standard contract for a meanwhile use lease. In many cases, landowners and local authorities were nervous about the risks of taking on a temporary use lease and surrounded it with lots of complicated legal negotiation, which meant that community groups fell out of the loop. I very much support the noble Baroness in this.

Incredible edible is an incredible organisation, and it has grown to more than 100 groups across the country. This proposition would avoid it having to be argued every time by every single community group, and would produce a standard way forward that makes it much simpler. I support the noble Baroness in that.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I just want to intervene on what the noble Baroness was saying about the importance of councils being able to take it up, by just making a quick reference to one of our most innovative gardens, which was on the new King’s Cross site. It was in skips. Every time the development there moved around, we picked up the skips and moved the garden. It can be done that simply.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I finish by saying that I also support the amendments so ably put forward by the noble Baronesses, Lady Freeman and Lady Bennett, about bringing forward the third leg of the three-legged stool that is supposed to be sustainability. It is difficult to sit on a two-legged stool; why is the environment missing when the economic and social elements are there?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Baroness Young of Old Scone

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 88 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, and various other Peers. I also very much support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson about sports fields. I just wanted to make a few points that somehow often do not come up about green spaces.

In 2008, when I worked for the then Mayor of London, Mr Johnson, we started a project called Capital Growth. It was a simple and madly ambitious idea to create 2,012 new community vegetable gardens in London by the time of the Olympic Games. It was a steal entirely from Vancouver, which had done something similar, but we counted each garden as one garden, whereas they counted each plot as a garden, so I think we won. In four years, we created 2,500 gardens, and all of them are still there. Supporting the notion that a lot of these spaces do end up in much more wealthy areas, once communities were given the chance and a tiny bit of money, in fact, 78% of our gardens ended up in the most deprived areas of London, because that is what people wanted. Very many things happened that we did not anticipate. One was that all the local police came and said that the gardens had transformed the area.

To give an example, you would be in a place where there was a high-rise block and an area designed back in the 50s where mums could walk with their babies in the midday sun; but it would be full of needles and beer cans, and people would not go there. They would stay in their tower blocks because they were frightened to come down. However, you took over the space and created a garden, and then, people got pride and came down. It altered things dramatically, and we saw that over and over again. The police were pleased, the doctors were pleased, the community was pleased, and people started to take ownership of their public space.

We set up a system whereby we challenged every borough in London to create 60 spaces. They all rose to the challenge, but my point in supporting the noble Baroness’s amendment is that, if we do not make this happen, nobody has a chance. It is not something that should be the privilege of people with money; this should be accessible to all, not just because it is healthy and makes you eat better. We had wonderful groups selling to local restaurants; we were having barbecues; they were feeding kids. The knock-ons are amazing, so please do not think of it simply in terms of one single thing. The point about plants and gardens and gardening is that it spreads dramatically.

I have one final point before I sit down. I was reading an extraordinary book the other day about heat in urban areas. During the heat dome over the west coast of America, the researcher had measured the heat in the middle-class areas in Portland, Oregon, where there were lots of trees, and in the poorer areas, where there was just concrete. The difference was 20 degrees. So we must have these spaces as the world’s climate changes, because they really work a lot better than practically anything else.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support Amendment 88 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, to which I have put my name. This is a time of huge opportunity. We are going to be building an unprecedented number of houses and creating 10 new towns, and the value that can be added to that effort by open green spaces and blue spaces, delivering some of the benefits that have already been spoken of around the Chamber, is tremendous. It really is an opportunity we must not miss.

It is true to say that, at the moment, deprived communities do not get as good a deal on this as richer communities, and work that the Woodland Trust has done on tree equity has shown that the poorer communities have far less access to open spaces with trees. These are vital for health, mental health, well-being and air quality; we heard about heat, natural flood risk management and the huge range of things that, apart from allowing people to have room to enjoy open spaces, are also going to be delivered by these open spaces.

Great British Energy Bill

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Baroness Young of Old Scone

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

Okay.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, may I add to the outbreak of harmony by thanking the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the Minister for Amendment 8? As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said, it is great to see local community benefit coming on to the face of the Bill. Especially since all the supporting material about GB Energy is very strong on community energy schemes, it just seemed rather crazy that it was not in the Bill, so I say thank you for that.

Ideally, of course—we environmentalists are miserable people who always want more, so I am moving on to Amendment 22, to which I also have added my name—with the Government having gone as far as Amendment 8, which puts community energy schemes on the face of the Bill, it would be quite nice to get slightly more specific recognition that such schemes need to be part of the strategic priorities. Therefore, can the Minister say why he will not accept Amendment 22, which I assume he will not support?

Great British Energy Bill

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Baroness Young of Old Scone

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. It reveals the importance of having more than one debate about community energy that he has now said that twice. I beg to move.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I will speak to my Amendment 46A and to Amendment 46, to which I have added my name. I also support Amendments 50 and 51A in this group, among others. I tabled Amendment 46A because I want to ascertain from the Minister whether this was something that GB Energy would or could be doing. As drafted, this amendment, very simply, requires Great British Energy to deliver a public information and engagement campaign on the work it is doing as part of the transition to clean energy—about renewables, reducing greenhouse gas, improving energy efficiency and contributing towards energy security.

The first inquiry that I was part of in the then newly established Environment and Climate Change Committee, which was under the wonderful chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, was on public engagement —or, to be quite honest, after many months of looking at it, the lack of it. Shortly after that inquiry, the Skidmore review also identified that public engagement is the missing piece of the puzzle. I am really not sure how much the dial has moved since then in this Government and certainly in the previous one. With GBE being a government-owned company, we could decide here and now, today, that the Government are going to take an active role in this; I think, and many others agree, that this would have a very beneficial knock-on effect.

The reason it is important may not be abundantly obvious at first, so I shall just lay out why I believe it is crucial. As we found on the committee, 32% of emissions reductions up to 2035 rely on decisions by individuals and households, while 63% rely on the involvement of the public in some form or another. We need to tell the public what we are doing and why we are doing it. We know that the public support the transition to net zero. Even last week there was a new poll that found that across all the major parties there was a high amount of support for anything to do with the environment. But you cannot expect people to support something if they do not know the reasons or what it is going to mean for them. We are not shepherds herding sheep, but we need to explain why it is happening,

I have real faith that the public will largely—if not exclusively—support all the energy infrastructure that we need to decarbonise the grid, including pylons wherever they have to be put, and they will be up for getting EVs and charging them in the middle of the night at times when electricity is abundant. They will do all these things because if they can buy into the common good, then you are in a win-win situation. But we must engage them, and the continued absence of a public engagement strategy leaves lots of space for lots of very negative voices to chip away with misinformation about why we do not need to do this and how we are not really in a climate emergency. Explaining these changes and how they are going to come in is crucial to secure public consent and address all the concerns that both the public and too many sections of the media, sadly, have.

I also fully support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, who made a wonderful introduction to it. I just add that with such little accountability, as the Bill stands, and as the Minister has said, we are not going to see a draft strategic priority statement before the Bill passes. It is important that there is some constraint around what the statement includes. The contents of this amendment are fully consistent with the objects in Clause 3 but correct a wrong area where GB Energy has the ability to invest in a wide range of “things or areas” but has no long-term security of knowing roughly what its strategic priorities will be.

I do not believe that this is too prescriptive. It seems to be wholly consistent with everything I have heard the Minister say in this House—and, indeed, the Secretary of State in the other place. I challenge the Minister to come up with something that he thinks GB Energy ought to have a role in, either now or in the future, that does not feasibly come under the list in this amendment.

It has to be said that my amendment is broad, so a few points apply to both it and the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I will say a few words on emissions reductions. This has to be the overarching purpose, which, from conversations we have had with the Minister, I think is the case. But it is important that as a principle it is a publicly funded company which is not at present aligned to our emissions reduction targets. We should have no issue in including this in the Bill as its priority.

Everything to do with energy efficiency must be an area where GBE has a meaningful contribution by bringing in investment. The CCC has highlighted that we are really behind and that progress is slow. The warm homes plan—which I greatly welcome; indeed, I tabled an amendment to the last Energy Bill, now an Act, which included a warmer homes and business plan—aims to see 300,000 homes upgraded over the next year. I ask the Minister whether his department has yet produced a credible plan for the year after that. I am thinking particularly about the target to reach 600,000 heat pump installations by 2028.

These are large numbers. I remind noble Lords that we have 29 million homes in this country—more each year—which at present are likely to need retrofitting. As for security of the supply, I understand the Minister sees this as critical to what GB Energy will achieve. Indeed, his department’s 2030 clean power target, which this Bill helps to achieve, will mean more renewable energy. There should be no issue about including this as well. I also include community energy, which I can see has had a lot of airtime already. That is really important for bringing the public along on our journey, because if you can look out of your window and see a turbine and think, “That is powering and heating my home” or “The solar panels on my roof are feeding into the grid as well as cooking my dinner”, we will come up against a lot less opposition to all renewable developments.