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Written Question
Climate Change: Investment
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of (a) the economy-wide investment needs for adapting the UK to climate change and (b) the current funding gap.

Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government is taking action to respond to climate risks and their impacts on our economy and way of life. The Third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) was published in July 2023. It set out policies and actions to respond to the 61 climate risks and opportunities identified in the Third Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3).

There is significant public investment underpinning the policies and actions in NAP3, with the Government having committed a record-breaking £5.2 billion investment in flood and coastal schemes in England between 2021 and 2027, helping to better protect hundreds of thousands of properties and avoid £32 billion of wider economic damages. However, adaptation actions cannot be funded through public spending alone, and additional investment from the private sector will therefore be required to support adaptation action over the coming decades. The Government has committed to support the flow of this private finance into adaptation through the 2023 Green Finance Strategy.


Written Question
Beer and Cider: Excise Duties
Tuesday 27th February 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make it his policy to reduce duty charged on draught beer and cider served in pubs and taprooms by 20%.

Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

Draught Relief, introduced under this Government’s new alcohol duty system, provides a reduction in the duty on draught beer and cider by 9.2% and helps to level the playing field between pubs and supermarkets, allowing pubs and brewers to price their on-trade products more competitively. The Brexit Pubs Guarantee ensures that draught products will always be subject to lower duty than their supermarket equivalent.

The Government is unable to speculate on tax matters outside of fiscal events.   As with all taxes, the Government keeps the alcohol duty system under review during its yearly Budget process.


Written Question
Carbon Capture and Storage: Finance
Monday 12th February 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make a comparative estimate of the funding the Government has committed to spend with the amount spent on (a) Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS), (b) hydrogen production and (c) Direct air capture (DAC) since January 2020.

Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

In the 2023 Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced up to £20bn for the deployment of CCUS in the UK. Commercial negotiations are ongoing. Up to £40m of the CCUS Infrastructure Fund is being spent under the UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge Fund. Under the Net Innovation Zero Portfolio (NZIP) the UK government has committed £25m to CCUS innovations.

From the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP), £60m has been committed to the Direct Air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removal Innovation Programme. Of this around £23 million is funding for the Direct Air Capture technology demonstration projects.

Over £127 million has been allocated to hydrogen production projects from the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund. The first hydrogen allocation round (HAR1) will provide over £2 billion of revenue support from the Hydrogen Production Business Model, which will start to be paid once projects become operational from 2025. Hydrogen innovation projects have been allocated over £170m from the NZIP.


Written Question
Fossil Fuels: Taxation
Monday 12th February 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Answer of 24 October 2023 to Question 202953 on North Sea Oil and to the policy paper entitled Energy Taxes Factsheet, published on 17 November 2022, whether he plans to define taxpayers as investors in new fossil fuel developments.

Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

Taxpayers are not considered investors in oil and gas. Oil and gas extraction in the UK and on the UK Continental Shelf is a market orientated activity undertaken by commercial organisations. Those organisations and their investors, who choose to invest in this activity, do so to generate a commercial return and bear the associated risks, including the risks referred to in Question 202953.

The role of government is to regulate the activity. As oil and gas is a national resource, the government also seeks to take a fair share of profits from exploration and production activities through the oil and gas tax regime.


Written Question
Carbon Capture and Storage: Finance
Tuesday 6th February 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the £20 billion of funding announced in the Spring Budget 2023 for early deployment of carbon capture, usage and storage was in addition to previous announcements of funding for (a) carbon capture, usage and storage, (b) hydrogen power and (c) direct air capture made since January 2020.

Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

In March 2023 Government announced up to £20 billion funding for early deployment of CCUS across all sectors. This includes the £1 billion Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) Infrastructure Fund (CIF), supporting the ambition for CCUS in four industrial clusters by 2030 at the latest.

The Government has also made wider announcements on funding for green technologies since 2020. For example, in May 2021, the Government announced £166m cash injection for green technology, this included £6m for the Direct Air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removals Innovation Programme, Phase 1. In July 2022, the Government announced that carbon removal technology would benefit from over £54m of Government Funding. This was for the Direct air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removals Programme Phase 2.


Written Question
Treasury: Environment Protection
Monday 5th February 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which policies under each arms length body reporting to their Department fall within the scope of the Environmental principles policy statement, published on 31 January 2023.

Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Environment Act 2021 places a legal duty on Ministers of the Crown to have ‘due regard’ to the environmental principles policy statement (EPPS) when making policy. The duty does not require us to maintain a comprehensive list of policies within its scope.

The duty applies to all policies made from 1 November 2023, whether developed by a central department or an arm’s length body, which are:

  • made by Ministers of the Crown; and
  • not covered by the exemptions for the armed forces, defence or national security, taxation, spending or the allocation of resources within government.

The environmental principles policy statement provides further information on what is considered policy in scope of the duty. Examples include strategies and frameworks.


Written Question
Financial Services: Climate Change
Wednesday 31st January 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has had discussions with the Financial Conduct Authority on the adequacy of climate risk advice provided by investment consultants to (a) local authorities and (b) other third parties.

Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

Investment consultants play an important role in advising local authorities and other third parties on a range of areas such as investment strategy, strategic asset allocation and climate risk.

Specific conversations have not taken place between the Chancellor and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on the provision of this advice. In general, the advice that investment consultants provide does not constitute a regulated activity and is therefore not within the remit of the FCA.

The Government is fully committed to tackling climate change and delivering on our legal obligations to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050, our interim targets and our international commitments. We recognise the significant role that Local Authorities will play in the delivery of our net zero ambitions. Local Authorities have deep understanding of the local area and decide how best to serve their communities. They have flexibility in how they take action to address Net Zero, and can seek and assess their own guidance to determine what works best for them depending on their varied opportunities, needs and circumstances in their area.


Written Question
North Sea Oil: Tax Allowances
Thursday 11th January 2024

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Answer of 25 October 2023 to Question 202954 on North Sea Oil: Tax Allowances, what assessment he has made of the economic impact of the development of the Rosebank oil field on the Exchequer; and whether he has made an estimate of its financial impact on public purse.

Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) most recent forecast of tax revenues from the oil and gas sector was published at Autumn Statement 2023 in the Economic and Fiscal Outlook November 2023. The forecast does not give a breakdown by field or company to protect taxpayer confidentiality.


Written Question
Monetary Policy
Wednesday 13th December 2023

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to his (a) letter to the Governor of the Bank of England on the remit and responsibilities of the Financial Policy Committee, dated 22 November 2023 and (b) correspondence entitled Financial Policy Committee Remit and Recommendations: Autumn Statement 2022, published on 17 November 2022, for what reason his letter dated 22 November 2023 did not include climate change and energy security in his four priorities for the Committee.

Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is responsible for setting the Remit for the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) once per year, and may also make recommendations regarding matters the FPC should consider as relevant to its primary financial stability objective and its secondary objective to support the Government’s economic policy.

The FPC's remit is an important accountability mechanism to ensure the Committee has a clear framework through which it can make policy decisions and consider any trade-offs. This is important given the complexity of the FPC’s work.

Yearly updates to the Remit ensure that it reflects the current economic context, the Government’s policy, as well as the FPC’s responsibilities and powers. Climate change is stated clearly as an important part of the FPC's remit: both due to the relevance of climate related risks to the Committee’s primary financial stability objective, and because increasing long-term energy security and delivering Net Zero is set out as a key component of the government's economic policy. The Committee has a secondary objective to support the Government's economic policy.


Written Question
Taxation: International Cooperation
Tuesday 5th December 2023

Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the publication entitled OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS: Progress Report September 2022-September 2023, published on 11 October 2023; and if he will make it his policy to (i) support the UN Africa Group’s draft resolution on the Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation and (ii) make representations at the UN on ratification of that proposed convention by June 2025.

Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The UK strongly supports developing countries’ efforts to scale-up domestic resource mobilisation to finance sustainable development.

The International Development White Paper published on Monday 20th November commits to building a stronger and fairer international tax system for all.

In line with this, the UK supports the work of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, which allows closer international tax co-operation among more than 140 countries and jurisdictions; and the OECD/G20 Global Forum on Tax Transparency and Exchange of Information, which has 169 members and whose work has identified over EUR 41 billion of additional revenues by developing countries to date.

However, the UK, alongside many other countries, is concerned that proceeding with a UN convention on international tax at this time would not be the most effective way to achieve these goals. An explanation of Vote was published on GOV.UK on 22nd November. [link]