Official Development Assistance

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Sheehan

Thursday 15th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger. I agree wholeheartedly with every word she said. I thank my noble friend Lady Northover for initiating this debate and regret the circumstances which prevented her moving the Motion herself. I commend my noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie for the way in which he introduced the debate, and for giving us the benefit of his breadth and depth of knowledge in this area.

Let me start by taking, like so many others have in this House, a moment of pride in the country in which we live. I refer of course to the moment in 2015 when the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act put into law the long-standing call by the UN for donor countries to spend 0.7 % of their GNI on official development assistance. However, in November 2020, despite a commitment in the Conservative Party manifesto—at this point, I just say that I welcome the contribution to the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan. He talked about the democratic process being undermined. A manifesto commitment being cast aside helps make my point that the democratic process is certainly not undermined and that Governments giving commitments should stick very much within them.

The commitment to 0.7% in the manifesto was cast aside and reduced to 0.5%. This happened at a time when the Covid crisis had increased the need for our support for and commitment to the world’s poorest. It has been compounded by the hardship caused by the war in Ukraine in the immediate impact of the food shortages, not least in east Africa, and in other ways that I will come on to later.

While this cut was agreed by the Commons in July 2021, it had in fact started with immediate effect the previous November, in a chaotic and one might say callous manner, which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, referred to and which the then FCDO Secretary of State did so little to mitigate. With very little warning, aid programmes including study grants were terminated midstream. This, at least, with some foresight, thought and compassion, could have been done differently. So much for Conservative compassion.

At this point I will give a little example from my own experience. I am a trustee of the Malaria Consortium and very much agree with all the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg. The Malaria Consortium had a programme in Nigeria, SuNMaP 2, which was terminated immediately on the announcement. This completely undermined about a decade’s work that had put in place, together with the local, regional and central Governments in Nigeria, systems that were really beginning to bear fruit and embed processes in that country. This was all lost at a stroke. It is such a tragedy.

It is welcome that we now have a Minister in charge of development who is respected by the development community. However, unless the fundamentals of aid delivery are recognised and until such a time as openness, transparency and accountability again become core elements of the aid budget, he will be in place but not in control.

This Government’s record of letting down the poorest in the world remains deplorable. Just last month the FCDO announced that the ODA budget had been reduced to £7.6 billion for 2022-23, a £1.7 billion cut compared with the budget the Government started the financial year with. This depletion of the already-reduced aid budget is a direct result of the UK Government increasingly seeking to meet the cost of hosting refugees domestically from the ODA budget. Here, I register my involvement in the Homes for Ukraine scheme, under which I am sponsoring a family. While earmarking ODA to meet the costs of hosting refugees domestically is permitted under the OECD DAC rules, the UK is the only G7 country to fund all the costs of hosting Ukrainian refugees from the aid budget.

To put this in context, in 2021 more than £1 billion, which represents the largest proportion of the bilateral aid budget at 14%, was diverted to the Home Office to meet UK refugee costs. Over the same period, £743 million was lost on humanitarian aid, which dropped by a whopping 51% compared with 2020. While the Government recently committed an additional £2.5 billion over two years to cover the costs of hosting refugees, taking the UK’s ODA budget up to 0.55% of GNI, this will not be enough to cover the shortfall.

Diverting money from the aid budget to in-country refugee spending is morally wrong. The Government are effectively providing a blank cheque to the Home Office in the form of the ODA budget, asking the world’s most vulnerable communities to foot the bill for the UK’s international legal obligation to refugees.

I am going to finish on loss and damage. The UK provides climate financing in the form of grants, which are crucial to ensure that countries such as those in east Africa do not go into debt in putting in place adaptation measures to prevent climate devastation. It is important that this future-proofing continues, not least because it will help to stem refugee flows from those regions.

I welcome the major achievement of COP 27 in establishing for the first time a fund for loss and damage. That is an historic achievement, and it is crucial that it is urgently operationalised so that countries on the front line of the climate crisis can quickly access fair and automatic financial assistance and support in the wake of both immediate climate impacts and slow-onset impacts such as sea-level rise.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, what work have the Government done on how a loss and damage finance facility should function and how contributions should be calculated? Secondly, will the Government consider a debt-swap arrangement such as the one advocated by the Maldives, where the debt of vulnerable countries is cancelled in exchange for commitments to invest in high-quality decarbonisation projects? They would dearly like to do both but cannot afford to. Loss and damage is really important. After all—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the noble Baroness of the time limit.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I am just about to finish. The polluter pays principle is well established. Why should it not apply equally to the developing world, which after all did nothing to cause the climate devastation that we see with increasing frequency?

Retrofitting Buildings: National Strategy

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Sheehan

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am afraid I do not have in my brief the exact timing for when we will publish the results of that, but I will perhaps write to the noble Baroness with a response and put a copy in the Library for everyone else.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, in the interests of future-proofing against the need for retrofitting, does the Minister agree that, as well as a long-term retrofit strategy for existing buildings, we also need to introduce building regulations on targets and reporting for embodied carbon to ensure that developers consider this in all construction projects, as recommended by the Part Z campaign, which enjoys considerable industry support?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point that I shall definitely take back to my other department, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—building regulations are really a matter for it.

Subsidy Control Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Sheehan

Committee stage
Wednesday 9th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I hope that that addresses the noble Lord’s concerns.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

Can I ask the Minister about her remarks about the OEP’s remit? I think that she said that it would cover whether the Government are meeting their climate change requirements. However, the OEP’s remit does not cover whether the subsidy control regime is working towards our net-zero targets. What the amendments are trying to say—as we tried to include in the Financial Services Act and the pensions Act, successfully—is that a more granular approach will be needed, which has to be provided by the regulatory authorities within the sectors concerned because, otherwise, we really will not know whether each sector is working towards the net-zero targets that we are all trying to achieve in the timespan that we have.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

One of the noble Baroness’s concerns was that there was no overarching principle for the Government’s drive towards net zero. I think that the Environment Act provides the overarching context for whatever we are doing. As I say, the Office for Environmental Protection will also scrutinise the Government’s progress towards targets annually. I do not know what further level of granularity the noble Baroness wishes to apply.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

There is also the Climate Change Act, as my noble friend has just reminded me.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I shall not repeat what I have said, but I do not think that the OEP will be able to tell us whether the subsidy control regime is working in the way that subsidies are being allocated in terms of meeting our climate change requirements. There is precedent in this, as I keep saying, with the Financial Services Act and pensions Act, and the actions that the Pensions Regulator took on the back of that Act. They all speak volumes as to how important it is to have each sector being held to account. Those are the points that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made. Every single sector within the country needs to be shown to be pulling its weight and we need to know where we have to put in greater effort, if it is not working towards the net-zero targets.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I understand the noble Baroness’s concerns, but I am not able to go further than I have done at the Dispatch Box. On the point that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, made about the steel industry, followed up by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, we are directing subsidies towards greening industries like that, so we can invest in electric arc technology, and hydrogen as well. It is part of an overall drive by this Government to be consistent with the environment principles that we have laid out.

Subsidy Control Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Sheehan

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

On Amendment 21 to Clause 12, if that amendment was agreed to and the line

“In subsection (1) ‘subsidy’ does not include a subsidy given under a subsidy scheme”


was taken out, it would have no impact on a public authority’s ability to continue to allow subsidies under the subsidy scheme. It would not slow the process up.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I take the noble Baroness’s point on that. I would like to discuss it with the team when I have had a chance to look into it more thoroughly.

As I have just set out, under the terms of Clause 70, an interested party may not submit an application for the Competition Appeal Tribunal to review a decision to give an individual subsidy under a scheme. This is to ensure that scrutiny and challenge occur at the scheme level. The noble Lord’s amendment would enable applications for review to be made to the Competition Appeal Tribunal for individual subsidies granted under a subsidy scheme without the requirement for the broader subsidy scheme also to be reviewed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

On that point, how would another business or organisation know the subsidy existed if it was part of the scheme?

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

May I intervene too, on the same point? If a business does know about a subsidy and thinks it is unfair, it cannot go to the public authority and ask for a review. The bar is so high that the review can only be at the level of the scheme—which the business had nothing to do with designing. The public authority would have to do it. The business has no comeback.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Every grant made over £500,000 will be visible. Noble Lords may be arguing that that bar is too high, but maybe we will come to that at a later stage.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Sheehan

Report stage
Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I begin by thanking noble Lords for the quality of their contributions on the important issue of air quality throughout these proceedings, including in Committee. I agree that ambitious action is needed, which is why the Bill requires the Government to set two targets on air quality, including for fine particulate matter, the particulate most harmful to human health. These will be supported by a robust set of measures in the Bill which enable the action required to meet those targets. I can confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, that the department will organise a meeting for her and the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, with the Minister, if this has not been organised already. In light of her point about the impact on electricity demand from the speeds of electric vehicles, we will write to the Department for Transport for clarification on that issue.

Turning to Amendment 51 in the name of the noble Baroness, the Government support the use of 20 miles per hour speed limits or zones in the right places, depending on local circumstances. Local authorities have the power to set these limits, and I am confident that it is better for these decisions to be taken locally, taking a balanced account of the full range of impacts of changing speed limits, including economic and environmental effects. The Air Quality Expert Group report into non-exhaust emissions from road traffic concluded that the most effective traffic pollution mitigation strategies reduce the overall volume of traffic, lower the speed where traffic is free flowing—for example, on motorways—and promote driving behaviour that reduces braking and higher-speed cornering. We agree that we need to reduce PM2.5 emissions from tyre and brake wear. In towns and cities where traffic is not free flowing, the best way to do this is by encouraging fewer vehicle journeys rather than slower journeys. We do not want our recovery from this pandemic to be car-led. That is why the Government are continuing with our ambitious plans to increase active travel, with a long-term vision for half of all journeys in towns and cities to be walked or cycled by 2030, backed by £2 billion of investment over five years.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked a number of questions. I believe she is mistaken about what I said in Committee. We have now checked Hansard, but I would like more time to go through it in detail. If what she said about casualty rates is relevant to that we will, in any event, write to clarify the point I made. She also asked some other questions, which I will come to later. We want to encourage more people to make sustainable, healthier travel choices that help improve air quality for local communities.

I turn to Amendments 55 and 57. Through the Bill, we are strengthening the local air quality management framework to bring in a broader range of partners to work with local authorities to improve air quality, and to make it easier for them to use their powers to tackle, for example, domestic solid fuel burning, a key source of PM2.5. I take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about the cumbersome processes that local authorities have to go through and we are aware of the issues with procedures for making these orders. In 2020, we published a report, Traffic Regulation Orders, identifying improvements to the legislative process in England, and we plan to consult later this year on potential legislative reforms to make it easier and quicker to make orders. There are already controls in place for many of the sources of pollution of concern that noble Lords have cited, for example through environmental permitting.

I set out in detail in Committee the many levers that local authorities already have to improve air quality in their areas, so I do not propose to repeat them here, but for tackling non-road emissions, specifically non-road mobile machinery, there are already emissions standards that non-road mobile machinery must comply with before it is sold, and the Government recently agreed to increase the stringency of these standards. Our existing regulatory regime also already sets emissions controls targeting medium combustion plants. This regime requires all plants in scope, such as the plants referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, to be registered or permitted, and sets limits on the levels of pollutants that these plants can emit. Going forward, our clean air strategy committed to consider the case for tighter emissions standards for medium combustion plants to those already introduced and to consider how to tackle emissions from smaller plants which do not fall within the scope of these regulations or eco-design regulations. I believe it is better to continue to strengthen the existing approaches than to create a new framework which would add to an already complex regulatory picture. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, is aware that Defra officials recently met representatives of the City of London, and other local authorities, to understand how to tackle the specific issues that this amendment intends to address, using our existing powers.

On the noble Baroness’s Amendment 57, which would introduce a ban on wood-burning appliances, we recognise that many people rely on wood-burning stoves and open fires, which use natural fuel. Because of this, our recent domestic fuels legislation does not introduce an outright and indiscriminate ban. Instead, we have taken action through the Air Quality (Domestic Solid Fuels Standards) (England) Regulations 2020, which came into force in May, to encourage people to move away from using more polluting fuels, such as wet wood, to less polluting fuels, such as dry wood. The proposals are therefore aimed at protecting health by phasing out the most polluting fuels used for domestic combustion in England and encouraging people to burn less. This work is supported by an information campaign to encourage people to burn better and to reduce harmful emissions.

The regulations require that wood sold in smaller units must have a moisture content of 20% or less, phase out the supply of traditional house coal for domestic burning, and require that all manufactured solid fuels meet sulphur and smoke emissions limits, to tackle the most harmful emissions from domestic burning. However, we need to be mindful of the contribution that wood burning makes in areas where particulate levels are already high, such as in city and town centres. That is why local authorities already have the power to declare smoke control areas. We continue to undertake regular monitoring of emission sources to inform our work to tackle human health risks robustly, and in setting and working towards the new air quality targets we will consider whether stricter measures are needed.

Turning to Amendment 56 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, while this amendment would increase penalties for drivers idling unnecessarily, the priority must be to change motorists’ behaviour. With or without the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, we must encourage them not to idle—which is, after all, wasting expensive fuel—and instead push motorists towards using the technological solutions now available, rather than penalise them. Vehicle technology has moved on significantly and can play a part in addressing idling, including stop-start technology and low or zero-emission vehicles. If needed, however, powers are already available to local authorities to tackle unnecessary idling. Local authorities, as the existing guidance makes clear, should utilise a range of methods to encourage motorists to change their behaviour, including public information campaigns.

Although it seems a very simple idea to increase fines, the Department for Transport undertook a study on fines and concluded that increasing the level was not the best way of addressing the issue. Higher fines of up to £1,000 on conviction may also be issued if the police carry out enforcement against idling where a driver refuses to stop running their engine. This, of course, is rather more than the noble Lord’s suggested penalty, although I acknowledge that this is on conviction, rather than an on-the-spot fine. So, although I agree with the intended outcome of the noble Lord’s amendment, the Government’s position is that higher penalties are not the best approach to address this issue, so I beg noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I thank the Minister. I have one quick question for her. She said that the Government do not want slower traffic, they just want fewer cars on the road, but that flies in the face of what public opinion says on slower traffic. Wherever 20 miles per hour limits have been introduced, they have been very popular. Will she quickly address that? Is it in order for me to ask her to elucidate?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am happy to elucidate. I do not believe I said I want just to reduce traffic; I said that both solutions will produce the desired outcome—both fewer vehicles and slower traffic.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I thank the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Sheehan

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Ken Livingstone may well have had the original idea, but it was certainly Boris who breathed life into the whole project. I think the new buses were much better than the old Routemaster, and I do not think one can blame him for trying to reduce emissions in London.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking all noble Lords who have spoken in support of 20’s Plenty. It has been much appreciated. I know it has not been discussed in this House much before, if at all; it is a new concept but I think it is a really worthy one. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, did not feel able to express his support, but I hope in time to convert him to the cause.

I found the Minister’s response disappointing and complacent. Air pollution is such a devastating killer, and it is not a pleasant way to pass away—particularly in light of the compelling and chilling evidence from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, who speaks with huge knowledge in these matters. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, had already asked about the Minister’s assertion about 30 mph limits being in place and the opportunity for local authorities to change that to 20 mph. That is exactly the situation we are trying to reverse; it is complicated and costly, et cetera, and it would be far better to have a default limit of 20 mph and for local authorities to have the power to change it to 30 mph or whatever speed limit they think appropriate.

The Minister also asserted that we are looking for less traffic, not slower traffic. The point is that all the evidence shows there is less traffic in areas with 20 mph speed limits, because people are more willing to switch to walking and cycling when traffic around them is calmer. These 20 mph limits are really popular. The national attitude survey on transport shows that substantially more than two thirds of the public are in favour of this. The Atkins report also showed the public were in favour.

I think the Minister was referring to the Atkins report when she said there was evidence that, in some areas, 20 mph limits can lead to higher casualty rates. That report has been challenged extensively, and I believe the 20’s Plenty campaign group wrote to the Government to say it was concerned about some of the report’s findings and to ask what evidence the Government could provide on the use they made of the various comparators in particular. The group has yet to have a reply from the Government; maybe this is an opportunity for it to receive that reply, which would be much appreciated.

The 20 mph limit is popular, practical, cheap and affordable, and there are numerous bodies of evidence to support the social and environmental benefits it would bring. It would be a bold step; it would help tackle climate change and public health issues at a single stroke. I hope the Government will take the amendment seriously, but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw it.

Clean Energy Transition Guidance

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Sheehan

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I can confirm to my noble friend that there is already a moratorium on fracking in the UK. I have been told that the UK also does not support international fracking. The moratorium came in following events during fracking operations at the end of 2019, and the Government confirm that we will take a presumption against issuing any further hydraulic fracking consents. This sends a clear message to the sector and to local communities that, on current evidence, fracking will not be taken forward in England. I am not sure of the exact details of the solar project in Spain, but I can confirm that export finance is given to projects where there is a significant benefit to the UK supply chain. If I have got that wrong, I will write and correct.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, in announcing the ending of support for fossil fuel projects abroad, there was mention of exceptions for some projects. I wonder whether the Minister could give a list of these or, if more appropriate, just mention a few now and write to me with a complete list.