Carbon Budget 6

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

It is certainly not true that the pursuit of a low-carbon economy has led to deindustrialisation. The noble Lord need only look at the £60 billion of investment that is coming into the green economy and all that goes with it. Indeed, the low-carbon economy is growing three times as fast as the general economy. Many of the things that are coming in concerning low-carbon energy are very much concerned with industrial plants, grids, new forms of electricity generation and so on, which will not only produce large numbers of jobs but a very sound industrial base for the country.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, to return to the Minister’s original Answer in relation to legal challenges, what assessment has been made of the electric vehicle rollout and boiler replacement mandates and their timeframes, and the Government’s ability to meet the building and transport emission cuts and the sixth carbon budget in good time?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

On EV rollout, the noble Earl will be aware of what has been put in place for ending internal combustion engine use in vehicles and the phase-out of hybrid by 2035. The rollout of electric vehicles continues unabated, and the number of electric vehicle charging points in this country, currently at more than 80,000, is well on target for what we think necessary over the next period to ensure that the fleet works as well as it should.

Fire and Rescue Services: Clean Energy Projects

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

My noble friend, to whom I pay tribute for his enormous service in the fire service over a number of years, really ought to be the person who knows what he is talking about on this subject. He refers to the fire in North Hyde a little while ago, which, as noble Lords will know, caused considerable problems at Heathrow Airport in 2025. That was subject to a NESO investigation into the circumstances around that particular fire, which related to faulty maintenance in a substation. As a result of that investigation by NESO, the Government have accepted all the recommendations that were put forward in the report and are working closely with other government departments and the energy industry in implementing the 12 recommendations and 20 related actions, detailed in the Government’s response to that investigation. Among other things, that ensures a joined-up approach across organisations to improve energy resilience, emergency response and recovery. The majority of actions are forecast to be delivered by the end of 2026.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, long-duration energy storage is an extremely important part of our energy transition, providing much-needed stability to our future energy systems. Falling prices and evolving technology are also helping. I welcome the Minister’s response, and we recognise that robust safety systems are in place. However, Ministers have previously spoken of considering additional measures to enhance the regulation of the environmental and safety risks of BESS. Does the Minister feel that more work is needed to reassure the public on public safety concerns?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The Government are actively exploring additional measures to manage safety risks on the grid-scale battery energy storage sites. That is important in the context, as the noble Earl mentions, of the substantial expansion that there will be in batteries as an essential part of the UK’s balancing energy system for the future. In August, Defra published a consultation on modernising the environmental permitting regime for industry, which included proposals to include BESS within scope of environmental permitting regulations. The Government are currently reviewing industry feedback and will publish a response in due course. That would require battery developers to demonstrate to the Environment Agency how specific risks were being managed while also providing for ongoing regulatory inspections of battery sites.

Local Power Plan

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches we very much welcome the publication of the local power plan. This is a landmark moment: up to £1 billion of funding from Great British Energy for local community energy. This is the largest public investment to date. Our communities stand ready to generate their own power, cut bills and keep wealth circulating locally. They have been waiting for the Government to back them with serious funding and a level playing field.

We, and many others across the House, campaigned to secure community energy on the face of the Great British Energy Act 2025. We are pleased to see that commitment transformed into this concrete plan. Our communities should rightly be able to partner in, and directly benefit from, the renewable revolution. The vision is one we support.

Great British Energy aims to support an initial 1,000 local and community projects by 2030. However, I would like to see these plans going beyond programmes that the private sector can deliver itself; for example, a programme of community wind energy for our coastal communities. I would also like to see a broader range of technologies used, and greater integration with the warm homes plan. The four pillars—direct funding, expert advice, market innovation, and regulatory reform—are what community groups have asked for.

Delivery is where this plan will stand or fall. Although the plan is launched this month, the first grant schemes will not open until the spring and the new Great British Energy local products will not be piloted until the summer. There are hundreds of shovel-ready projects just waiting for capital finance. Will the Minister commit to an early fast track for schemes that can demonstrate that they are ready to build this year?

We welcome the commitment of up to £1 billion, but there is a clear gap between this figure and the £3.3 billion previously promised for community energy. Has this ambition been scaled back? How much of this fund is expected to go to actual deployment and how much on facilitation, advice and central programme costs? We recognise the importance of help with these processes but want reassurance that this will not become a scheme where too much is swallowed by planning and too little reaches the projects themselves.

The Government acknowledge that a lack of fair routes to market has held back community energy for too long. Without a genuine right to local supply, underpinned by statute, community groups will remain disadvantaged. The local power plan refers to developing new local energy supply models and a local energy platform, including smart community energy and virtual PPAs. When will the Government bring forward the regulatory changes needed to make them a reality? Can the Minister also confirm that legislation to create a clear right to local supply remains part of the Government’s programme?

The Government are right to recognise that delays and the cost of connections to the grid are among the principal reasons why community schemes have failed. The plan speaks of obligatory response times from DNOs, and of working groups with network companies, but what concrete powers will Ministers use to ensure that these things happen in practice? This matters especially when the technical and regulatory thresholds are already stacked against smaller schemes.

We strongly welcome the intention to introduce a mandatory shared ownership offer for larger renewable developments, and the indication that shared ownership templates and guidance with be published this spring. This could enable fairness into the next generation of large-scale infrastructure. What minimum stake will communities be guaranteed? How will the Government ensure that the offer is genuinely attractive rather than nominal? When will the Government publish the full community benefits framework, so that communities are not left at the mercy of voluntary schemes and of whatever crumbs are left over from the big companies? Will the framework include clear criteria on what counts as meaningful benefit, and will it be underpinned by statutory guidance?

One of the most promising elements of the plan is the commitment to build up local community capacity through expert teams and a “community energy in a box” toolkit, providing standardised documents and advice. Our most underserved areas have previously had the least spare capacity. Communities facing high deprivation, or with small and overstretched councils, lack the volunteers and technical skills needed even to begin. What criteria will Great British Energy use to define these underserved areas? Will they benefit from higher grant-to-loan ratios and more proactive outreach so that they do not miss out?

In the June 2025 spending review, £2.5 billion was allocated for small modular reactors—almost a third of Great British Energy’s existing budget of £8.3 billion. That decision pre-dated the finalisation of the local power plan and of GB Energy’s strategic plan for local energy. Does the Minister accept that the Treasury’s raiding of the Great British Energy budget has constrained what could otherwise have been a more ambitious and better-resourced programme for local power? It may have delayed the scaling up of exactly the projects the Minister is now bringing forward.

The local power plan has the potential to be transformative. Local, community-owned energy is one of the most powerful ways to cut bills, rebuild trust and take people with us on the journey to net zero. To realise this promise, we must move swiftly from plan to practice, getting money out of the door quickly, cutting through grid and regulatory barriers, and ensuring that every community has a fair chance to generate, own and—crucially—sell its own energy locally.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords for their thorough and constructive response to this Statement on the local energy plan, and for their general support, particularly for the local power plan itself. I particularly thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his forensic analysis of the detail of the report and for the various questions he asked, over and above what I took to be his very strong support for what the local power plan is trying to do: substantially to enhance the ability of communities to own and run their own energy arrangements and to distribute the benefit of those arrangements back to the local communities themselves. I know the noble Earl has been looking into and opining on this issue for a very long time, and I too have something of a track record in it.

I understand, therefore, why it is necessary to get the detail of this right. I hope that this evening I will be able to say one or two things about how that detail is going to be got right, but if there are things that I have missed, I will certainly be happy to write to the noble Earl, putting some of those things exactly into the place they should be. But I think I can give him an assurance that we have thought about most of the things that he has raised this evening.

Indeed, we see those things as an essential part of the move forward with the local power plan, so that communities can, for example, start to trade in local energy, have security and resilience in their local plans and benefit from a substantial hand-holding operation that is designed into Great British Energy’s approach to the 1,000 projects that it is hoped we will be able to get under way in this Parliament. We hope that those will be as robust as they can be with the sort of support that Great British Energy will give them—not just by throwing a little bit of money for a local community project and hoping it works, but actually being with those local communities right down the line, from development and first thought to the “valley of death”, where it gets to operation. I hope that the noble Earl can take some assurance from the fact that we have thought out the whole process, not just the first part of it.

As far as the ambition of the local power plan is concerned, the £1 billion is based on what we think can be reasonably accommodated, invested in and sorted out, and that is the 1,000 projects in this Parliament. That is not the end of the matter; there is potentially a lot more to come. Even within that £1 billion, there are other sources, from the National Wealth Fund and various other things, that can come into play to add resource to the investment. So the idea that a large part of what was supposed to be the original investment has been lost, I am afraid, is not correct; it is more about how we get through the process of this over the period of time, making it work constructively as we go forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for the Opposition, concentrated much more on the other part of the Statement, which concerned the results of the second part of AR7, which was the solar, tidal and onshore wind pots that came within AR7. He was, I think, generally supportive of the results of AR7. In AR7, we have secured a fantastic step forward in terms of the deployment of solar, a very substantial and encouraging initial deployment of tidal stream and the beginnings of the establishment, or re-establishment, of onshore wind, which, as the noble Lord will recall, was banned, in effect, by the previous Administration. So it is perhaps not surprising that we are building onshore wind back up again in this round, when it had been dormant for a long time previously. Overall, these are really good results, which, by the way, will in their own right lead to the development of a very large number of additional jobs in this sector. Indeed, overall, it is thought that the programmes that are under way will lead to perhaps 10,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next period.

In addition to that, the Government are quite earnestly engaged in what we might call a just transition process, which the noble Lord will know is under way, of making sure that those people who are working in the high-carbon industries, which will largely be replaced by these low-carbon industries, are able to transfer their skills and their contribution to the development of the low-carbon industry. Indeed, there are active retraining and reskilling programs under way. Examination of the skills in the high-carbon and low-carbon sectors show that something like 70% to 80% of jobs in the high-carbon sector are certainly transferable to the low-carbon sector, provided the skills are in the right place. It is not just a question of creating lots of new jobs. It is a question of making sure that as many of the jobs in the high-carbon sector—which, yes, will go as gas, for example, retreats in front of the new low-carbon regime—that can be translated to the low-carbon sector are indeed supported to do so over the period.

The noble Lord was also at pains to talk about how supply chains can avoid becoming involved in slave labour and abuses of human rights in the production of those supply chains. He was quite right to mention that, and it is something that we are obviously very concerned about on this side, as the supply chains for low-carbon power establish themselves. Certainly at the moment, the world supply of solar panels rests substantially with China. Of course, there are a large number of initiatives around the world to diversify that supply chain from China to other solar panel manufacturers, such as solar panel developments within the UK. That is the first point.

The second point is that GB Energy has established an ethical supply chain unit to support robust human rights due diligence and transparency in line with the UK’s legislation on modern slavery and the international human rights framework, including the UN guiding principles on human rights. GB Energy will be exploring alternatives to diversify high-risk supply chains and collaborate with partners to improve renewable supply chain transparency and accountability in the UK. Work is at hand to make sure that we are as robust as we can be in terms of those concerns about modern slavery and exploitation of human labour. The noble Lord will be aware that it is often very difficult to trace supply chains accurately as to exactly where they are coming from and going through, but I hope he will agree that we are doing and will do as much as we can to ensure, within that difficulty, that there is proof against those concerns about modern slavery and other practices.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2026

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The Government recently introduced an average reduction of £150 off electricity bills, through placing legacy bills into Exchequer arrangements rather than putting them back to households through obligations. We will continue to look at that on a wider basis. That is a good start for reducing energy bills, as it changes the nature of how the low- carbon economy works.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, asked why we are changing these arrangements in a fairly rushed way. Part of the answer is that, if we are to have a good CBAM in place—after all, it is coming in a year after the EU CBAM—we have to get our skates on. We also have to get our skates on in linking the UK ETS with the EU ETS. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, is aware that, just six months after the linkage arrangements were agreed in principle at the EU-UK summit last April, the November negotiations and discussions started, and they are still under way at the moment. There are a number of answers on timescale and so on that I cannot give right now, but I assure the noble Earl that these are clearly under way and that there is a clear out from those negotiations.

I am conscious that we have spent a long time on this. I will write to the noble Earl and the noble Baroness on the remaining outstanding issues. I hope that I have been able to give a reasonably reassuring position on the need for this SI and the wider context of the underlying direction of all this policy and why this SI leads to a much better and more stable series of arrangements for both the UK ETS and CBAM, as it comes forward.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

We have had a good debate on this. We may have strayed slightly off the topic into some broader areas, but it is important that these issues are discussed and that, when we disagree, we disagree well. I thank everybody and the Minister for their responses.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I commend this instrument to the Committee.

Warm Homes Plan

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this Statement. Promised nearly two years ago as a “flagship response” to soaring energy bills and poor home efficiency, it has taken some time. Delays have consequences, particularly for the millions of families living in homes that are cold. They are paying the price.

That said, this plan brings forward welcome innovation and greater policy coherence, particularly through its focus on climate adaption and mitigation. It marks a significant milestone amid a national affordability crisis and an accelerating climate emergency. But if warm homes are one side of the equation, cheap, clean energy and market reforms are, indeed, the other. We need both to succeed.

The commitment to £15 billion of public investment is ambitious and right. Ministers forecast upgrades for 5 million homes and relief from fuel poverty for 1 million families by 2030. These are the benchmarks by which this plan will be judged. Too many families still live in cold and damp homes, causing ill health and rising health costs. Labour is right to call out the “lost decade” under the Conservatives, when investment collapsed and home upgrades fell by 90%. Greater vulnerability followed Russia’s invasion: 85% of our homes were still dependent on fossil fuels, and £40 billion in emergency support was required. This was the cost of the Conservatives’ delay.

Against this backdrop, the plan’s innovative pathway is welcome. Partnerships with British climate tech firms could, if implemented well, build a world-class retrofit industry, but SMEs need support, predictable regulation and open markets to bring products from design to real homes quickly. The proposed retrofit innovation panel and sherpa approval models are positive, if they deliver.

I am concerned about the six-month cliff edge gap between previous schemes winding down and new schemes starting. I ask the Minister for greater clarity, particularly on the use of the £1.5 billion reserve to help fill this gap.

I welcome the focus on climate adaption. Increasing heat will be a slow-motion killer, so homes must be built for cooling as well as warmth. Including air-to-air heat pumps and supporting communal ground source systems is vital. Passive measures are also needed. The plan’s emphasis on consumer-led energy flexibility is encouraging, with an ambition to triple solar by 2030. Integrating solar batteries, EVs and smart meters can turn homes into virtual power grid participants, cutting bills and easing pressures on the grid. However, this “rooftop revolution” will falter without faster grid connections, planning reform and more resources for local authorities.

The transition must create good jobs and uphold ethical standards. I supported the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to the Great British Energy Bill on forced labour. Our clean energy revolution must not rest on exploitation. What measures are we undertaking with our EU partners and others to build our solar manufacturing capacity?

Despite the promising direction and other areas of overlap, this plan stands in isolation from Great British Energy and our community energy plans. This is a missed opportunity. We welcome the support for the UK heat pump industry but question whether £19 million will be enough. The dilution of deployment ambition is troubling—well below the 600,000 a year target by 2028. Even with a £7,500 grant, typical households still face a £5,000 shortfall, which will be too costly for many.

I reiterate the Liberal Democrats’ call for free heat pumps and insulation for low-income families. We welcome the innovation financing models but ask for greater details. Can the Minister assure the House that these will be properly regulated and transparent, and will not put people’s homes at risk?

The new rented sector standards, benefiting some 3 million over the next four years, are also welcome, but how will their effectiveness be measured? We welcome the warm homes agency as a single point of leadership. What more can be done to make sure that people are not the victims of energy scams? Can the Minister explain how the plan will be monitored and reviewed, and confirm some level of flexibility?

Too often in the past, insulation was missing or simply done badly. Government must work to restore confidence. It is essential that we do insulation and we do it well. Without insulation, the best technology cannot prevent heat loss.

Finally, I agree with the Opposition: we need energy market reform, and clean energy needs to be affordable. Electricity costs are too high; while they are that high, households will not change from fossil fuels, so we must balance levies and take them off bills.

To conclude, we welcome the ambition and the funding, but ambition must now be met with urgency, coherence and fairness. Ministers must close the funding gap, put insulation back at the heart, reform markets to make clean energy affordable, and back British workers and innovators. If Ministers rise to that challenge, this plan can deliver not just warmer homes but a fairer, cleaner and more secure future for Britain.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Earl for their contributions on this Statement. I think I can say that both of them were pretty supportive, which is nice for something as large as this. I therefore bank that support, as it were, and will address myself to the very pertinent questions that the noble Lords put forward.

In banking the support, it is worth reflecting on the real scale and the extent to which there are winners all round in the proposal before the House. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, it is £15 billion altogether. I might add that in respect of the total commitment by this Government, this is, all things considered, about two and a half times the total commitment of the previous Administration regarding overall energy-efficient measures. The noble Earl is also right to point out the collapse in measures that took place under the previous Government. Overall, this scheme is determined to get it right not only this time but for all sections of society.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, pointed out what will happen to the 80% who he thought would not be particularly affected by this. When you look at the breadth of the proposals in the warm homes plan, there is indeed something for everybody in it. There are low-cost and interest-free loans for the private sector. For the private rented sector, there is the quite dramatic commitment to make sure that landlords spend £10,000 uprating their properties to what will provisionally be band C EPCs by 2030. By the way, there is no real evidence that landlords have put rents up in relation to their commitments to the previous level of spending £3,500 to increase to band E.

For the social housing sector, there will be grants and particular investments in that form, and, of course, substantial investment in seeking out those in fuel poverty and bringing treatments forward for their homes that will substantially uprate their warmth and decrease their bills. We really will decrease their bills, sometimes quite dramatically, and make sure that those are permanent changes, not just ones that go with the volatility of the energy market.

The noble Earl asked about the whole question of forced labour and solar panels. I appreciate his point. We live in a world in which it is difficult to assess accurately who is doing what as far as forced labour is concerned. In the Modern Slavery Act we already have the wherewithal to take action, if we can identify those circumstances. Certainly, this Government would want to do that. We are collaborating with the Solar Stewardship Initiative, which seeks to have a more accurate spotlight on the issue of forced labour. It is something we are very well aware of. The noble Earl will understand that this is a difficult area to get absolutely right straightaway, but it is work that is ongoing.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned the ambition for heat pumps. I have a memory, from another time in the other place, about what happened with that ambition. The previous Administration declared a three-year programme for a total of 90,000 heat pumps, underwriting 30,000 per year for three years, up to 2025. Then there was a gap of three years, when nothing would have happened. Suddenly, in 2028 or 2029, there would then be 600,000 heat pumps installed per year—a piece of Guillermo del Toro magical realism, if ever there was one. That is what we are seeking to avoid on this occasion.

We want to have real targets, which we can actually meet. That is also important in terms of investment in UK heat pump manufacture, for example. We need to know that there is a steady market for those heat pumps, where they are increasingly manufactured in Britain—boiler manufacturers turning to heat pump manufacture—and that we have that target in place and we can reach it. With the measures in the warm homes plan—the £7,500 underwriting for heat pumps currently; the new underwriting for air-to-air heat pumps; the ability of heat pumps to be put into area schemes; and low-carbon loans and grants—there is every prospect that we can get to the target of 450,000 in an organised and effective way.

I am conscious that I have not been able to reply to every point that noble Lords made in response to the Statement. If I have missed anything, I will be happy to write to both noble Lords, so that we can have a full set of answers to their questions today.

Offshore Wind

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, to his position, and I look forward to working with him.

On these Benches, we welcome the results of allocation round 7, which has secured a record 8.4 gigawatts of future offshore wind capacity, including 192.5 megawatts of innovative, floating offshore wind, and seen £22 billion in private investment. This marks an important step forward on our clean power journey and towards our future energy independence—enough clean energy to power the equivalent of some 12 million homes or roughly equivalent to 12% of national energy demand.

This shows that, when properly managed, Britain can lead the world in clean, secure and affordable energy. After the chaos of the previous Government’s failed allocation round 5, which delivered no offshore energy contracts at all, this progress is indeed an enormous relief. This auction confirms what my party has long argued—that offshore wind is the future backbone of our energy electricity system.

Projects such as Berwick Bank in Scotland—set to become the largest offshore wind farm in the world—and the one in Wales, the name of which literally means “sea breeze” and is the first major Welsh project in over a decade, show that progress is being made.

But this is not only about climate targets; it is about our future national energy security. In an increasingly unstable world, every turbine we build reduces our reliance on volatile fossil fuel markets. Securing Britain’s wind power means freeing ourselves from the price shocks of the global gas markets. We should recall that the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that the UK’s energy support response for the war in Ukraine, driven by fossil fuel prices, cost us £78.2 billion over 2022-23 and 2023-24. In contrast, CBI figures show that the green economy grew by 10% in 2024, and AR7 secures an important future pipeline of continued and sustained green jobs and green British jobs.

The UK has some of the best wind resources in the world and, when we harness our renewables—wind, solar and tidal—we strengthen our energy independence. Despite what some may claim, wind power remains the most effective long-term way to bring down energy bills. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit reports that, in 2025 alone, wind generation reduced wholesale electricity prices by around one-third. The average strike price in this round, around £91 per megawatt hour, remains extremely competitive. By comparison, building and running a new gas power plant today would cost around £147 per megawatt hour, making wind power roughly 40% cheaper.

However, we must be candid about the challenges that the sector faces: rising bid prices, driven by global supply chain pressures; high interest rates; and soaring material costs, particularly for copper and steel. I therefore ask the Minister what steps the Government are taking to address these issues so that our 2030 onshore wind targets remain achievable.

The contracts for difference mechanism protects consumers and secures inward investment. It is a policy that has stood the test of time, but it can still be improved. Is the Minister considering extending CfD contract lengths from 20 to 25 years? This could provide greater certainty, lower financial costs and ultimately deliver cheaper electricity. Similarly, we think that moving older renewable projects from more expensive renewable obligation certificates to new CfD contracts could save typical households up to £200 a year.

More broadly, urgent action is needed to reduce energy costs by other means. Now that the Government have ruled out zonal pricing, I ask the Minister what alternative market reforms are being pursued to drive down energy bills. Despite rising renewable generation, gas still sets the market price around 97% of the time. Are proposals being assessed to move gas plants into a regulated asset base? As has been suggested, this could save some £5.1 billion a year by 2028, according to calculations done by Greenpeace. If we do not urgently upgrade and streamline our transmission systems, this record capacity will remain stuck in connection queues instead of reaching our homes and businesses. Does the Minister agree that a long-term, properly resourced spatial energy plan is now urgent and essential to ensure that these connections happen at speed?

The Liberal Democrats have a clear vision for 90% of the UK’s electricity to be generated from renewables by 2030. AR7 is indeed a welcome step on the road, but more must be done to ensure that we reach our targets, reduce the cost of energy bills and update our transmission systems.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords for their contributions this evening. They were deeply contrasting in both tone and content: one I substantially agree with; the other I do not at all. We need no guesses as to which is which. I am particularly disappointed by the contribution from the Opposition Benches and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I think I have already welcomed him to his place in Questions, but this may be the first time we have sat across the Benches for a Statement or other debate, so a further welcome would not go amiss. I hope this, as it is shaping up to be, will be the beginning of a good debate between us in the House.

It is worth just reiterating what actually happened in AR7 for the House to judge whether this was the miserable failure that the Opposition Benches appear to suggest it was or the great success that I and, I think, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, think it was.

In AR7, we procured 8.4 gigawatts of new, clean, low-carbon power for this country. That is new capacity over and above what we have at the moment and, indeed, represents no less than 40% of the installed capacity of offshore wind so far. In one round, the amount of wind capacity we have has leapt. That is at a clearing price 20% below the administrative ceiling price—a very competitive auction was undertaken—and that is within the bounds of present energy market prices. In the likely future that we see, it is not only below or around market prices; it is also a stable cost. Whereas, of course, we do not know where gas and other energy prices are going because of the extreme volatility in the world, and of gas prices over the last five years.

Interestingly, between this Statement being read in another place and repeated now, gas prices have leapt by nearly 40%. We are in a volatile gas market. Do not forget, prices went up as high as 600p per therm in the period just after the invasion of Ukraine. Compare the volatile price of gas fuels if we go down the energy route suggested by the Opposition—more purchases of unabated gas-fired power stations. Do not forget that this is not only an auction about energy prices and capacity; it is an auction about low-carbon energy prices and capacity. Among other things, if the Opposition had their way, we would apparently invest in a huge number of unabated natural gas power stations. That means we would be locked into that high-carbon system of generating power for perhaps another 30 to 40 years, which would be completely insupportable in terms of anybody’s energy ambitions.

The noble Lord says that he wants our energy policy to be characterised by security, affordability and clean energy. In this round, we achieved a great step forward for our energy security: this is all homegrown energy, not energy coming in on ships from elsewhere, or that is the responsibility of a dictator or a cabal of overseas energy organisations. This is British home-grown local energy that we have procured, and with it a bright future.

On affordability, the noble Lord referred to the levelised cost of energy, which he said was no longer the way to compare prices. That is a little bit surprising, because that is exactly what the last Government did in previous rounds. In the previous round—AR5—they secured precisely zero low-carbon energy, so compare and contrast, if you will, with what we are talking about today.

It is true, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, says, that the clearing price of this auction ought to be put in the context of what you can do to try to get new capacity on board as far as this country is concerned. You can either buy a series of gas-fired power stations at a cost of £134 per megawatt hour—the levelised cost of energy—or you can procure low-carbon capacity which both meets your climate targets and keeps the prices down on a constant basis of affordability for the future.

The result of the auction is actually good for affordability and for the stability of prices in the future. If we are thinking of building new capacity at £134 per megawatt hour levelised cost of energy as against £91, and we have procured something like five gas-fired power stations-worth of energy output with this auction, as far as we are concerned, there is really no contest.

Finally, as I have said, it is clean energy. This is what I thought we were all committed to for a period in the past. It is extremely disappointing that the Benches opposite appear to have decided to move away from clean energy and go back to gas and dirty energy, which we really cannot sustain as far as our future is concerned.

COP Climate Negotiations: Cities

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I do not think the UK can really be determined as failing in its targets at the moment. We will shortly see this Government’s response to legal challenges about the soundness of plans that the Government had put forward recently. We have published a new version of those plans and we are confident that it is robust and will get us to the targets that we need to get to.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, by 2050 we will see both 2 degrees of warming and two-thirds of global populations based in cities. How we adapt our cities to extreme heat and extreme weather events will be at the very centre of humanity’s survival. The Minister has previously talked about encouraging UK cities to become partners in these global processes. Is not the noble Lord’s Question absolutely fundamental and right, and is it not time that the Government took a stronger stand on these matters?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The question of the role of cities in climate change generally is fundamental; by 2050, 80% of people in the world will live in cities. The cities in the C40 group are largely ahead of their respective sovereign Governments on emission reductions. Cities can and should play a central role in that march towards net zero. Certainly, the UK Government, among other things, are helping to fund the C40 cities organisation and are completely committed to making sure that cities play the leading role in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Net Zero: Civil Society and Faith-based Organisations

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, three in four of our young people are moderately or extremely concerned about the impact of climate change. What action are the Government taking to include young people much more in decision-making processes to make sure that their voices are heard? Specifically, I ask the Minister: what intention do the Government have to have citizens’ assemblies so that young people’s voices are included in policy-making?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Earl will be aware of the many actions that the Government are undertaking to ensure that young people are committed, involved and energised as far as climate change and net zero are concerned. That is among the reasons why we have developed the Youth for Climate and Nature panel, which is part of our Energising Britain plan. It is also the case that some of the highest commitment to the green transition to low-carbon energy is to be found among young people, and they therefore need to be fundamentally included at both the community and faith level in the work that we are doing.

Drax

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

If Drax is non-compliant, the subsidy goes. There is no subsidy in the case of a non-compliant organisation of any kind. If that happens, it will be the end of Drax.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, Drax is under investigation by the FCA regarding its past sustainability claims, which is no small matter. Despite that, the Government decided to put pen to paper to extend Drax’s contract. Why did the Government not choose to wait until the FCA investigation had concluded? What legal advice was taken and what risk assessment was made before the Government chose to extend that contract?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

We did that because the conclusion of a contract for 2027-31 ensures that Drax continues to produce a very large amount of energy, which is very important for the country; that it does so under enhanced sustainability requirements; and that it moves from being a baseline producer to a dispatchable producer, with a top level of 27% of output within that contract. There is also the implied understanding that the contract will pave the way towards moving to CCS on the back of the contract, making Drax a net-negative producer in the long term.

COP 30

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Earl Russell

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Whitehead. I pay tribute to his experience and look forward to working opposite him going forward.

COP is 30 years old and multilateralism, as frustrating as it can be, remains the only practical means of protecting our shared home, planet Earth, and progressing our joint efforts to ensure the survival of future human generations. Here in the UK, the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate in 2024 report confirmed that the UK is warming at approximately 0.25 degrees per decade, with the past three years ranking among the five warmest since records began in 1884. While some continue to deny the existence of climate change, last year in the UK we had the worst-ever wildfire season and the second-worst harvest on record.

Our world is warming faster than we can change our carbon-based ways, and even more extreme weather is inevitable. I thank Brazil, the Secretary of State, the UK negotiating team and all those who worked tirelessly to keep the COP process alive. It is testimony to global co-operation that, despite the challenges, 194 parties united to adopt the text, confirming that the global transition towards low emissions and climate-resilient development is irreversible.

It is important to acknowledge that collective progress since the Paris Agreement has bent the emissions curve, moving projected warming from over 4 degrees Celsius to the 2.3 to 2.5 degrees Celsius range. However, we cannot celebrate incremental progress when the future of our planet remains in jeopardy.

The final text acknowledged that the collective progress is

“not sufficient to achieve the temperature goal”

and that the carbon budget consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is now small and being rapidly depleted. The COP text acknowledges that there is likely to be an “overshoot” of the 1.5 degrees Celsius, the extent and duration of which we must work collectively to limit. This is a stark warning and my concern is that Governments have failed to grasp the urgency of the climate emergency.

Any delay in action will push millions of vulnerable people further into poverty and lead to climate breakdown. Urgency must be met with decisive global leadership, yet the UK Government’s commitment to this leadership has been undermined by a lack of financial support. While the negotiations resulted in ambitious financial targets, such as the call to scale up financing to at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2025 and the reward target to scale up and at least triple adaptation finance by 2035, the UK’s financial contributions failed to materialise.

The UK was acknowledged for working with Brazil to help it develop the pioneering Tropical Forest Forever Facility. This vital fund aims to prevent deforestation, yet while that fund secured $9.5 billion in commitments and was endorsed by 53 countries, the UK Government did not contribute. I note that the Secretary of State said in the other place:

“We have not ruled out contributing to investing in the TFFF in future”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/25; col. 247.]


We hope this is the case. Will the Minister say what non-financial contributions the Government are able to make?

We remain concerned about the UK’s official development assistance and the cuts to those programmes. They are vital programmes helping those on the front line of climate change to adapt. Global leadership could see the UK as part of the chair of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, working alongside Brazil, and using remote monitoring to help detect methane leaks and using our world-leading oil and gas expertise to help fix them.

The Government rightly acknowledge that the transition away from fossil fuels is critical, and that it was

“the hardest sticking point in the talks”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/25; col. 241.]

Despite a broad coalition of 83 countries backing a road map away from fossil fuels, the final text tragically contained no explicit reference to the phase-out. At home, we welcome the commitment to no new oil exploration in the North Sea. More must be done to bring about energy market reforms, reduce energy bills and insulate our homes urgently. Many parliamentarians, including me, attended the National Emergency Briefing on the climate and nature crisis last week, which called for an emergency-style Marshall plan. I call on the Government to engage with and take heed of these calls for urgent, sustained action.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

My Lords, the climate crisis is the greatest long-term challenge we face, but, equally, the transition to clean energy is the greatest economic opportunity of our time. Emissions from energy being some 70% of emissions overall means that the path to clean energy is an essential part of tackling the climate crisis, not just in the UK but across the world. At home, our commitment to clean energy is about energy security, lower bills and good jobs. Globally, with the UK responsible for just 1% of emissions, working with other nations is the only way to protect our way of life and seize the opportunities of a green economy.

We are reflecting today on the outcomes of the COP 30 conference in Belém. More than 190 countries met in Belém, where the Brazilian-framed COP 30 focused on implementation. The UK worked with Brazil and partners to put forests at the heart of the agenda and supported global coalitions to cut methane, phase out coal and accelerate clean energy investment. The negotiations were tough, but progress was made on three critical fronts, and they will be reflected in some of the further questions that I think will follow from the Statement this evening.

The first goal is keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach. Countries reaffirmed their commitment to 1.5 degrees Celsius global net zero by mid-century and encouraged countries to raise their targets where needed to support this. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, underlined, we are quite a way from that, and some of the more faint-hearted among us may think that it is a target we cannot reach now. I accept that it is very difficult, but the signs are good that there are some possibilities to moving further towards making that target achievable, such as new commitments from China, for example, in its NDC coming into the COP at this stage. China has pledged to cut its emissions significantly for the first time. Indeed, 120 countries so far have come forward with 2035 NDC, with large numbers coming up in the next year, including India, which is an important actor in this realm.

Secondly, there is finance for developing nations, building on the COP 29 pledge to mobilise $300 billion annually and scale towards $1.3 trillion from all sources. COP 30 agreed to pursue efforts to treble adaptation finance by 2035 within the climate finance goal agreed last year, ensuring that vulnerable nations have the resilience they need. The UK was active in that area.

Thirdly, and I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Offord, is going to like this very much, there is the transition away from fossil fuels. While a universal road map could not be agreed, 83 countries and 140 organisations endorsed the concept that Brazil will launch road maps on fossil fuels and deforestation, showing that coalitions of the willing can drive progress even where unanimity is elusive. The UK very much welcomed that coalition of the willing and will work closely with the Brazilians to move that commitment forward, even though it was not the final communiqué as far as the COP itself was concerned.

The mutirão agreement advanced carbon markets, gender, technology, technology transfer and transparency. Importantly, more than 190 countries reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement and multilateral action. That is essential right now as far as the crisis we are in is concerned.

I shall now briefly answer some of the points raised by noble Lords this evening. Perhaps before I do that, I could just express, as a newcomer to this place, my extreme disappointment—almost distress—about the abrupt turn that the party opposite has taken on its commitments on climate change and all that is associated with it. I certainly recollect in my time in the other place working closely with many thoroughly dedicated Members on the Conservative side in bringing forward what Britain was going to do about climate change and how we would go forward together to achieve those goals. Indeed, I was a member of the committee that brought in the net-zero target as far as UK emissions are concerned. Noble Lords will recall that that was when the noble Baroness, Lady May, was Prime Minister. Indeed, she is one of the noble Lords who have, in effect, denounced this pivot away from action and support for net zero as a target for the UK and serious action on climate change. I am afraid that the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Offord, thoroughly reflected that pivot and simply did not address the issues at COP and what we need to do together as far as those issues are concerned.

The Government’s commitment on North Sea gas and net zero is clear. Our commitment to clean energy is about delivering energy security, lower bills and good jobs—400,000 new clean energy jobs by 2030. So this is not a threat but an opportunity as far as a low-carbon future is concerned. Indeed, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine illustrates the cost of relying on fossil fuels. Globally, twice as much is now invested in clean energy as in fossil fuels. Globally, renewables have this year overtaken coal as the largest source of electricity. The economics have shifted and the direction of travel is clear, and it is distressing to hear the party opposite going in precisely the opposite direction. I hope that wisdom will prevail in the longer term and that we will be back together with a consensus on where we go on climate change in the future.

I also remind the noble Lord, Lord Offord, that on nuclear the Government have committed £63 billion in capital funding for clean energy, climate and nature, including nuclear, putting the UK on a path to clean power by 2030, bringing bills down in the long term, creating thousands of good jobs for our country and tackling the climate change crisis.

In relation to the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on 1.5 degrees, as I have mentioned, we need great ambition—of course we do—but we should also recognise the progress that has been made since the Paris Agreement. The final text agreed on action to take in the form of the Belém Mission to 1.5 and the Global Implementation Accelerator, as well as countries’ commitments to net zero that can be built on. In respect of Brazil’s new fund for forests, the UK has played a big role in helping to support Brazil to design the TFFF. We have a difficult fiscal situation in this country. We have absolutely not ruled out—I stress that—contributing to it in the future. We are determined that the fund succeeds and will continue to work with Brazil to help ensure that it does.

The message from Belém is clear: clean energy and climate action are the foundations on which the global economy is being rebuilt. They are good for Britain because they deliver jobs, investment and energy security. They lower bills for families and businesses, and they are the only way to protect future generations from the threat of climate breakdown.