COP28
Debate between Graham Stuart and Matthew Pennycook(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Graham Stuart
Interestingly, my right hon. Friend takes us back to the days before the Climate Change Act 2008 when, if I remember correctly, Friends of the Earth was arguing for annual targets, and that was the Conservative party position. Once the Labour Government agreed to take the legislation forward, they realised, as did the civil servants involved, that there needs to be a period over which these things can be balanced out. I think their thinking was right and that the five-year carbon budgets were right. We do provide an annual report on our performance to date, but overall we have to allow for things such as the pandemic and all sorts of crises that come along. I think the architecture was right—I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Doncaster North and his Government at the time—and it has withstood the test of time.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
As we have heard, the global stocktake decision text that was agreed in Dubai commits the parties to transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems. Can I press the Minister to clarify what the Government believe the implications of that aspect of the agreement are for the UK? Will it mean that the UK Government now have to accelerate action to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in what remains of this decade? If so, what new measures will be needed? If not, are the Government really saying that the COP28 agreement changes nothing for the UK when it comes to fossil fuel usage?
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, which is a good one. Our nationally determined contribution and emissions promise for 2030 is for a 68% cut from the 1990 basis—far more than any of our peers. We can be proud of that. It was set precisely because it was, on the advice of the Climate Change Committee, aligned with a pathway to net zero 2050. None the less, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we keep our policies under review, and as that committee pointed out this year, there are still gaps that need to be made up to ensure we deliver on that. We have always managed to do so before, and I am confident we will do so again. He is right to say that we should continually look at our policies to ensure that they keep us there, whether or not that deals specifically with fossil fuels. We are trying to move to zero-emission vehicles. Today we have made an announcement on hydrogen, with 11 projects being funded to produce green hydrogen around the country. We are, step by step, across the piece, putting in place the required policies. That means doing everything within the window to keep ourselves in our world-leading position, which is cutting emissions more than any other major economy.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Graham Stuart and Matthew Pennycook(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Graham Stuart
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Government of which he was part had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the Conservative party to pass the Climate Change Act 2008 in the first place. Since he left office, this country has moved from renewables accounting for less than 7% of electricity to more than 40%, and seen the transformation of the energy efficiency of our housing stock. This Prime Minister will not only lead us at COP, but take us forward. We are on track to meet our net zero targets, and we will meet our carbon budgets. The Conservative party, and this Government, have a track record of action rather than rhetoric—although I have to admit the right hon. Gentleman is increasingly good at that.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Energy Bill [Lords]
Debate between Graham Stuart and Matthew Pennycook
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to follow some very thoughtful contributions. I would like to single out those of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). As Members might expect, I did not agree with everything they said, but they were none the less serious and thoughtful contributions.
When this Bill first came before peers in the other place, it was a rather meagre piece of proposed legislation that focused almost entirely on fossil fuel extraction. It was amended considerably in Committee and, although it is still pretty thin gruel in many respects, at least it now has some regard to the ways in which current industrial activities and investment might be made compatible with a low-carbon energy future.
As has been said, the Bill is mostly concerned with the establishment of the Oil and Gas Authority. How that arrangement adapts to a world of plunging revenues from offshore oil and gas remains to be seen, but there is broad consensus in the House, with notable exceptions, on the need to implement the findings of the Wood review. There is also a robust case, in terms of economics and energy security, for using the resources of the North sea continental shelf to reduce our dependence on foreign imports during the transition to a decarbonised energy system.
It was disappointing that the Secretary of State dug in her heels with regard to carbon capture and storage, because I welcome the amendments that would expand the principal objective of the UK’s maximising economic recovery strategy to incorporate a regard for CCS development. The precise wording of the relevant clauses will need to be revisited in Committee to ensure that the industry has the necessary flexibility and that jobs and investment are protected, but CCS presents a real opportunity for the North sea oil and gas industry to utilise its technical expertise and skills in a way that will give it a sustainable future for decades to come. That opportunity will not be realised, however, unless we get clarity about the Government’s ambitions for CCS and a strategy to achieve those ambitions. At the moment, all we have is muddle.
In 2007, the Prime Minister said in a speech at Chongqing University that a Conservative Government would
“strain every sinew to create viable and affordable”
CCS technology, yet eight years on we have a Conservative Chancellor recklessly cutting the funding allocated to help bring forward commercial-scale CCS just weeks before many companies were expected to submit their bids. The abrupt end to funding support for CCS is not an aberration, but is indicative of this Government’s cavalier approach to the energy sector as a whole. That approach was evident in the most controversial aspect of the Bill that originally came before noble Lords in the other place, namely the decision to close the renewables obligation a year earlier than had originally been legislated for in the Energy Act 2013.
I agree with the point, which many hon. Members have made, about the need for local consent when it comes to onshore wind, but noble Lords removed clause 66 on Report, through an Opposition amendment, and they were right to do so, because the early closure of the RO was yet another example of policy making on the hoof from the Government. The measure’s stated objective was to save customers money, but, as we have heard, in the Government’s own central scenario, in many cases that will mean as little as 30p, and we know that the cost savings are unlikely to materialise, because we are not on course to meet our EU renewables target.
Given the notable lack of progress in decarbonising heat and transport, and of meaningful cross-departmental working to make up lost ground, we will be forced to go further, under the current targets, on renewable electricity. In those circumstances, it is entirely counterproductive to make life more difficult for the cheapest form of renewable energy available. It strikes me that the decision has much more to do with the politics of appeasing Conservative Back Benchers and with the Government’s interpretation of the levy control framework as a fixed-budget envelope—it was never intended to operate in that way. The decision clearly signals that the Government have abandoned their previous commitment to a technology-neutral approach to energy policy at a time when the overriding priority, as hon. Members have said, must be decarbonising at the lowest possible cost.
Despite the nebulous wording of the Government’s manifesto commitment, they clearly feel they have a mandate to reinsert clause 66, or a version of it, in Committee. If they do, as the Minister said they would, I would urge them to reconsider the impact of the RO’s closure on projects that have local consent and in which people have invested in good faith and on smaller generators, and to work to incorporate truly equitable grace periods into the Bill.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman said that the saving would be very small, but the number of turbines affected would also be extraordinarily small, would it not? Should we not keep this in perspective?
Matthew Pennycook
It might be small, but I hope the hon. Gentleman would agree that projects in which people have invested in good faith and which have local consent should be allowed to proceed, instead of being penalised by the early closure of a scheme that had a fixed end point—2017—in legislation anyway.
The way the Government have handled the matter of the RO has been hugely damaging and undermined the industry’s trust in the Government’s word. Last January, the industry was told that its investments were safe and that no changes to the rules were proposed, but six months later, despite there being no clear signal in the Conservative manifesto, the Government attempted to do just that.