King’s Speech

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be speaking in this first day of debate of this new Government. Like all noble Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. to their new jobs. We are in good hands.

There was so much to welcome in the gracious Speech, especially hearing that the Government recognise the climate crisis that we face and are taking legislation forward on improving water and our energy. This is a serious Government who will govern seriously. What a relief.

However, I have a few points. Chatham House says in a new report on the global food system that the primary driver of biodiversity is our global food system, which will continue to accelerate unless we change the way we produce food. Further destruction of our ecosystems and habitats will not just weaken out ability to grow food but increase emissions, as we continue to turn land into a carbon emitter rather than a carbon sink. We do not need to look far to see that, globally, subsidised systems support monocultures, deforestation and the use of chemicals, all of which weaken soils and destroy nature, while producing increasingly unhealthy foods that have led to diet-related illness becoming the number one cause of ill health and premature death across the world.

In the UK, we are doing better. In fact, the only benefit I can see from Brexit is that we have a new way of rewarding farmers. Instead of just a blanket payment for the amount of land that you own, that payment now goes to compensate farmers for their efforts and successes in restoring wildlife and nature. This is great stuff, and I hope that the new Government get to grips with many of the problems currently plaguing the system, as many Peers have mentioned.

However, when the Environment Act was originally debated, I argued, and I still remain of the view, that growing food sustainably is also of massive benefit to nature. I understand the arguments that growing wildflowers down a strip by a field does not make you actual money, whereas any food has a market price. Sustainable farming enhances the natural ability of soil to regenerate, to remain compact in the face of floods and to sequester carbon, as its roots systems and mycorrhizal fungi grow strongly underground. However, it can take time and money to transition, which is why too many farmers are still nervous about doing it and so continue to farm in old-fashioned ways. Can the Government help with this transition, especially if we now have a goal of 50% of our food being grown here. We want it grown properly.

Just as challenging in the years to come will be not just what we eat but where we grow it. As the world warms and places from which we now routinely import food start to get too hot or too dry, we must look at our own food security and using our own land more efficiently. So I am a little concerned about the mention of a Bill on “sustainable aviation fuel”. Although some if this might be needed, and knowing that this is in response to previous recommendations by the CCC, I hope that as part of the debates we can have a serious conversation about aviation demand, because another CCC recommendation is an end to all airport expansion.

The CCC said just today in its progress report that, while emissions fell due to the pandemic—not surprising as we could not go anywhere—

“demand continues to grow quickly, presenting a risk that it may increase beyond pre-pandemic levels in the next year”.

It is clear that it cannot be left to grow exponentially; this risks putting land in direct competition. It also raises the issue of fairness: financing ought not to come from general taxation. Those who pollute—those who choose to fly the most—should pay.

Tom Heap, the producer of “39 Ways to Save the Planet” on Radio 4, as well as being a regular “Countryfile” presenter, has been working on this. He told me the other day that, if one wanted to run the current aviation industry on biofuels, it would require the annual harvest of a forest five times the size of Egypt every year.

To illustrate quite how inefficient some of these fuels are in terms of land use, biodiesel, which comes from rapeseed oil, requires 884 square metres to produce a megawatt hour of energy, whereas concentrating solar photovoltaic panels demand only 22 square metres when installed on towers, 19 when installed on the ground and three when on roofs. Even the much-hyped miscanthus, which at least has the benefit of regrowing after we chop it down, produces only 158 megawatt hours for every 158 square metres. It is important to remember that all these crops are monocrops; they do not encourage biodiversity. The CEO of Rolls-Royce told Sky News recently that the creation of liquid hydrocarbon fuel from biofuels was impossible to scale, due to its extraordinary land-take and the huge biodiversity challenge.

By contrast, solar or wind—I strongly welcome the end of the de facto onshore wind ban—are very good users of land. New energy generators can make the land provide not one service but two or three. Animals can graze near solar panels and around wind turbines, biodiversity can flourish and horticulture can happen. It need not be one or the other; in fact, it must cease to be one or the other. I urge the Government to stop looking at this wasteful use of our money and look at using land in a much more creative way.

I happened to bump into our new Science Minister, the wonderful noble Lord, Lord Vallance, in the Lobby this morning, when he was coming in. I voiced my concerns about aviation fuel and he said, “New technologies are on the way”. I would be glad to think that but, for very long, we have thought that technology will always get us out of the mess we are in. How about also considering flying less, frequent fliers paying more and public transport stepping up several gears to get us to, say, Edinburgh?

Finally, I turn to an area that was not specifically mentioned in the Speech: community energy. This sector has been somewhat strangled by government policies lately but, last year, I tabled two amendments to the now Energy Act, which were supported across this House and in another place—in fact, we passed them here twice—which would have unlocked the barriers that the sector currently faces. They were supported by the Labour Front Bench and the now Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero went so far as to table similarly worded amendments, so I am super hopeful that progress can be made here.

In my time serving on the Environment and Climate Change Committee we looked at how well we were encouraging people to change from traditional boilers to heat pumps and ground source heating. It seemed completely ridiculous that the Government were not actively encouraging, say, a group of households living in a terrace, as lots of us do, to pool their individual grants and, between them, create a single, affordable source to which everybody was connected. It seems easy to do, so I hope the Government will.

Surplus Carbon Emissions

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am not sure that I would share the noble Baroness’s characterisation of getting rid of coal as low-hanging fruit. We have been extremely successful and will get rid of coal completely from the UK’s power system this year. We can contrast that with Germany, which is generating 27% of its power from coal this year. It is a great success, and it was very hard won. Of course, there are difficult challenges to face, one of which is steel. There are many other industrial sectors that are also difficult to decarbonise. We are working with all those industries to find appropriate solutions.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, future carbon budgets that the Government are proposing depend quite a lot on carbon capture and storage. At the moment, this is not a working technology; it is not actually running anywhere in the world, although many Governments are putting it in their future plans as something that will deliver. Can the Minister give the House an update on where the technology stands, and when he expects it to get off the ground and start reducing carbon emissions?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am afraid that the noble Baroness is incorrect; she needs to check her facts. There are a number of examples of working CCUS plants around the world. There is one in Canada, for instance; there are others as well. She is right that we are rolling it out in this country; there are two clusters we have identified, in the north-west and north-east of England—HyNet and the East Coast Cluster. We are in extensive negotiations with those clusters and want to make final investment decisions by quarter 3 this year, which will put the UK at the forefront of carbon capture in Europe.

Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, but I feel reluctant to stand up because the Bill seems to have little genuine purpose. It is distracting us from what we need to concentrate on, which is tackling the twin threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. The context of the Bill and our international reputation are really important, as several noble Lords have said. This is one of the biggest election years in history and one of the most important too, as the fight against climate change becomes so pivotal. We cannot have it both ways: wanting to be a leader in the world and then doing something that contradicts that.

People do read the headlines and they will see the one that says, “UK set to open more oil and gas fields”. What does it tell the world? That we think this is okay and in some weird way compatible with the Paris Agreement? We know that is not the case. The International Energy Agency has been clear about that and, last year, global temperatures were 1.46 degrees above their global pre-industrial average. As we all know, in Paris we agreed to try to shoot for 1.5 degrees. I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, correctly when he said that trying to have a non-carbon economy was a luxury belief, but it does not feel much like luxury—

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I was saying that stopping supply, rather than phasing out demand, is a luxury belief.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I would contradict that too, because we do not have the time to figure out the difference between them. At the end of the day, they are the same thing. Many people who live in California, which was just mentioned, have lost their homes. If you live in Bangladesh, you have lost your homes; if you are a farmer in this country, you have been unable to plant your crops this year because of the level of rain. This is not a fantasy. It is something that is with us.

Personally, if we lived in an ideal world the Bill should be scrapped, and in doing so the Government would find themselves extraordinarily popular with a lot of people. But specifically, I congratulate whoever creatively came up with two tests that are impossible to fail, while ignoring the emissions associated with the predominant commodity in the North Sea—oil. They might as well read, “If autumn has arrived, run a licensing round”. However, we are not in an ideal world so, if the Bill passes, we have to improve it. Thankfully, there are things we can do.

One, of course, is protecting the marine environments or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, just said, having no exploration in MPAs. I hope she will put in an amendment on that at the next stage. We could also look at the weak emissions reduction targets of 50% by 2030 and go instead for what the CCC recommended, which is a feasible 68%. We could do this.

The Bill could also make progress on banning venting and flaring, which has been illegal in Norway since the 1970s. Even though Norway produces a lot of oil, at least it has managed to cut down the methane which, as we know, is 80 times more potent over a 20-year period, so that is something we could do. I urge Ministers to implement the recommendation by the Commons EAC to implement that ban by the end of next year.

Jobs have been in decline, as we have heard, for many years yet there is still no skills passport available for workers who want to transition. We could try to do that.

Taking a step back, let us think about what is going on in the world. This month, the CEO of Saudi Aramco said in Houston at the annual hydrocarbon festival known as CERAWeek:

“We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas, and instead invest in them adequately, reflecting realistic demand assumptions”.


However, we can meet the demand we need with renewables if they are sufficiently scaled up. It is more about where the power, or the fuel, comes from: thousands of miles into the earth or from our own natural elements.

Recent policy changes mean that we will need more carbon fuels. For example, the analysis by New AutoMotive shows that the potential supply from future licensing would be completely offset by reduced demand if we returned to the original 2030 target for ICE—internal combustion engine—phaseout. We claim that we are helping people but, in reality, we are not. Money, it seems, always triumphs. This month, Exxon CEO Darren Woods explained it simply as an all-out fight to derail anything green because it would not return “above average profits”. This shows that we can never rely on the industry to take the lead in reducing emissions. The Government have to act.

Let us be clear: the Bill will not help the average citizen of this country or indeed any other. We are kidding ourselves if we think that the oil and gas companies, and increasingly private equity firms, really care about reducing emissions. The Government make great emphasis in their carbon budgets on our having CCS technology, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to, but despite the fine words this is unproven.

In my role as vice-chair of Peers for the Planet, I recently invited Sir Tim Smit, the founder of the Eden Project, to speak to colleagues. During his speech, he said that we should remember the person—the adult—we wanted to be at 19, stand there and make them proud. It is obviously a challenge to remember what it felt like at 19 but I can remember that I thought it was my role to try to make the world a better place. I suspect that everybody who has found their way on to these Benches had similar thoughts: make the world better and use what energy you have—what God has given you.

At that point when I was 19, fossil fuel companies were just discovering exactly the kind of damage they were doing, but now we know. We have just had the hottest year on record. I would be aghast, as a 19 year- old, that I had to sit here and fight against something that seems so palpably obvious. At 19, I was fighting for women’s rights—quite honestly, there were no women in this place then—and we proved that was right, so now we are having another extraordinary fight about scientific facts.

It is clear that the Bill is the wrong thing to legislate for. I urge noble Lords that if they cannot justify the Bill to themselves, they should at least try to justify it to their children and their grandchildren.

Biomass: Power Generation

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Boycott]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what evidence they have that power generation from biomass is (1) good value for the taxpayer, (2) not leading to forest degradation in other countries, and (3) compatible with reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, biomass plays a vital role in ensuring that the electricity system is both reliable and low-carbon by providing dispatchable power when intermittent renewables are not available. Generators receive subsidies only for electricity generated from biomass that is compliant with stringent sustainability criteria. As set out in the biomass strategy, the Government will review sustainability criteria this year. The Climate Change Committee is clear that sustainable biomass can provide a low-carbon and renewable energy source.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord very much for his Answer, but it seems incorrect that we should fund any sort of forest degradation, either in this country or in others, such as Canada or the USA. We know that some countries are cutting down old-growth forests to feed companies here in England, such as Drax. A tree planted today, even if you replace it, is not going to sequester carbon until, probably, the end of the century—certainly not within the timeframe that we need. I hope that the Minister can agree with me on that point at least. Can he also agree that, given the short timeframe we are operating in, we should question, or potentially remove, the renewable classification from biomass electricity for the very big companies in this country, such as Drax?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I can agree with much of what the noble Baroness says but, like everything else, the situation is more complicated than that. There are many forests across the world—we are talking about forests in the US and Canada here; they are not third-world countries—that are renewable, sustainable and properly managed. The vast majority of the biomass used is a by-product from existing wood cultivation. The main wood is used for forestry, boards, joinery, et cetera, and the by-product is used for biomass. Not permitting biomass would not necessarily result in those forests just carrying on as they are.

Limiting Global Temperature Increase

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am sorry, my Lords, but that really is a nonsensical question. Graham Stuart is a Member of Parliament and has duties to perform in Parliament. The negotiating team were in constant contact with him, all the time. He flew back out to COP last night. Our own Minister, my noble friend Lord Benyon, was there as well, occupying the UK chair, alongside the fantastic team of negotiators, who held the pen for many of the negotiations and secured some far-reaching commitments in line with UK’s policy objectives.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

Now that we have reached an agreement in Dubai, is the Minister sill completely confident that the UK will reach our target of a 68% reduction on NDC by the end of 2030? As has been mentioned often in this House, we have rolled back on some of our commitments, such as those on electric vehicles and various other things, and I cannot believe they will not have an impact on that target. Can I have the Minister’s reassurance that he will publish the Government’s evidence base that the things which have recently taken place, in terms of rollback, will not affect the crucial outcome?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I can happily tell the noble Baroness that we remain committed to all our targets.

Climate Change: Phasing Out Fossil Fuels

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Boycott]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the comments by the COP28 President that there is “no science” to suggest that phasing out fossil fuels will limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

In begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare my relevant interests.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which represents the best available science, is clear that minimal use of unabated fossil fuels is a critical part of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, is it still the Government’s view that we need to phase out fossil fuels? A lot of the debate is between “phase down” and “phase out”, so I would welcome the Minister’s clarity on that point. UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme, estimates that the world is planning to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with a pathway that has any hope of staying on 1.5 degrees. It also concludes that the UK is showing no evidence of actively winding down our oil and gas production. Given that it will do nothing to help consumers domestically and that we should lead by example, as we always say we are doing, will the Government reconsider their decision to continue licensing new fields, particularly the approval of Rosebank?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is our policy to phase out the unabated use of fossil fuels. On the second question, even with the granting of any new licences, UK oil and gas production will continue to decline at a faster rate than most other productive fields in the world.

Biomass Strategy 2023: Cross Sectoral Sustainability Framework

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Boycott]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when they will publish their consultation to implement a cross sectoral sustainability framework for biomass, announced in the Biomass Strategy 2023.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

In begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I draw attention to my registered interest as vice-chair of Peers for the Planet.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government will consult in 2024 on the sustainability actions set out in the Biomass Strategy, including developing and implementing a cross-sectoral sustainability framework to enable greater consistency across sectors and to further strengthen our sustainability criteria.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I thank the Minister for the Answer, but I draw the House’s attention to the fact that the UK’s single largest source of CO₂ emissions is a biomass power station. That fuel generates only 4% of our power and creates 13.1 million tonnes of CO₂, which is about 20% of the total that we emit as a country. But, as a nation, we subsidise it with our taxes. We call it renewable, so apparently it does not count. The recent task and finish report that the Government commissioned, looking at whether biomass could be called carbon-neutral, could not confirm that this was the case. Seeing that the evidence is pointing in the wrong direction, will the Government commit to moving away from this assumption that biomass is carbon-neutral, unless proven otherwise? Will they issue no new licences for generation and end their classification of this as a renewable power source?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness knows that I do not agree with her on this. The biomass that is used for generation in the two main plants is sustainable. There are very strict sustainability criteria attached to it, and the generators are measured against those criteria by Ofgem.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 274B was added to the Energy Bill during the previous consideration of Commons amendments. As the House will be aware, the amendment was debated in the other place last week and the Government Motion to disagree to the amendment was passed with a substantial majority.

I can confirm to the House that our position remains the same. The amendments would commit the Government to a consultation on the barriers preventing the development of community energy schemes. The amendment sets out with whom we would consult and commits the Government to bringing forward proposals to remove identified barriers to community energy within a brief six-month timescale.

I welcome the constructive engagement from across the House, in particular from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I welcome her continued efforts throughout the passage of the Bill to ensure that the interests of the community energy sector are heard in this Chamber, but I reassure the noble Baroness that, on this issue, the Government have already made a clear commitment to the consultation.

As part of this commitment, we have outlined that we will engage in an open and collaborative way with the community energy sector, via the community energy contact group, to design the consultation. In fact, officials are already engaging on exactly that, and earlier this month held a very constructive discussion on the consultation with the group. Given our existing commitment to consult, and our ongoing engagement with the sector, we therefore believe that it is of no additional value to put the specifics in primary legislation.

In addition, there are further issues with the previous amendments that meant that we could not support their inclusion in the Bill. We clearly cannot commit to putting forward proposals to remove barriers that are preventing the development of community energy schemes before we know what barriers are raised in the consultation, or the implications of removing them. It would be remiss of us to agree to put that into primary legislation. Placing this obligation on the Government would be putting the cart before the horse.

However, I reassure the House yet again that the Government will carry out the consultation and continue to work closely with the sector to do so. I also reiterate the Government’s support in principle for community energy; we recognise the role that community groups play in our efforts to eliminate our contribution to climate change. I participated in a great visit to North Kensington Community Energy two weeks ago where I was able to see first-hand some of the important work that the sector does and to meet the contact group.

More widely, government support for the sector is demonstrated through existing support that we have already put in place, such as the £10 million community energy fund. I am pleased to tell the House that we aim to open applications to that fund as soon as we possibly can.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I thank the Minister very much for his sort of co-operation through the passage of the Bill. It is hugely important. It was introduced about 16 months ago, and I do not wish to delay it any further. But I speak with great regret that the Government find themselves unable to agree to my simple and incredibly uncontroversial amendment, which just seeks to clarify the Government’s commitment to consult on the barriers that community energy schemes face. I am very pleased that the Minister went to visit one that was working, but I assure him that a lot are not.

While I welcome the steps the Government have taken to re-establish the community energy fund—for instance, reporting to Parliament and consulting—it is important to put a timescale on these plans; 18 months is fair and reasonable. Without a timescale there is a risk that this will not happen. It has been demonstrated that this issue has widespread support across both Houses. When we have something that we agree on, we ought to just get on with it and do it. I fear that this small but significant issue will get drowned out in next year’s general election. I would appreciate reassurance from the Minister that this is a needless worry and that the Government are committed.

I would just like to get some clarity on a couple of points. What will be the basis of this annual report to Parliament? Is it simply to report on the progress of projects, or will it address the challenges that we face and the best route to sort them out? My amendment also sought to ensure that, should any consultation find that there are barriers—new barriers, for instance—the Government will commit to taking steps to address these. Being candid, we know that there are barriers, and I appreciate the argument that you should not legislate for the unknown, but I am simply trying to get an assurance that they would plan to lift barriers that we know are there—including ones that we do not know.

To return to the issue of the consultation, we have rehearsed what issues need to be resolved; thanks to the Bill committee in the other place, there are many views on record. I do not believe that much is likely to change in the next year. While I agree that we should follow due process here, it must not be used as a reason for delay. I urge the Minister to open this consultation ASAP, so that we can get this ball rolling.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly and with great pleasure following the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who has done such an enormous amount of work on this issue—I pay tribute to that.

I was the person who started these amendments on their way back in December 2022, after we started work on this Bill last July. A consultation is something but what we really need is action, so I have a simple question for the Minister. As he said, this consultation has already started this month; if the Government see or identify through that consultation some simple, easy-to-remove barriers, will they act on them immediately rather than waiting for the end of the formal process? Surely, if action can be taken then projects, such as the one in Kensington to which the Minister referred, can go forward.

Climate Financing

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, Britain has been very proud of its leadership position on climate change—something that has taken a bit of a dent in the last few weeks due to some of the rollbacks on climate change targets. Specifically, the CCC last week published an assessment of the Government’s recent net-zero announcements, stating that they

“were not accompanied by estimates of their effect on future emissions, nor evidence to back the Government’s assurance that the UK’s targets will still be met”.

Will the Minister commit now to publish the evidence for Members to scrutinise?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I must disagree with the noble Baroness. There has not been any rollback on the Government’s targets. There is a legally binding commitment, which we will maintain, and of course we have a number of legally binding carbon budgets, which we will also maintain. We are adamant that we are on track to meet all of them.

Climate Change Policies

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate asks a very good question on electric vehicles; let me give him the facts on that. The UK had among the highest battery electric vehicle sales in 2022. We are registering a new EV every 60 seconds. Full-battery EV sales are up 88% year on year. Most of the UK’s emissions cuts have of course come under this Government; we are very proud of our record on electric vehicle sales. We are seeing record investments from BMW, Nissan, Tata and Jaguar Land Rover. Again, the UK has a record we can all be proud of.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I hate to disagree with the Minister, but just this morning on the Environment and Climate Change Committee we heard from car manufacturers that they absolutely did not want these targets delayed, because that is what they were doing and they needed that certainty. I have two questions. Does this announcement have anything to do with the ULEZ row that took place at the recent by-election? Secondly, everyone agrees on one thing about climate change: the more you delay, the harder the measures are going to have to be to get us to net zero by 2050, which I am glad the noble Lord still agrees on. Have the Government commissioned the OBR to do a thorough cost analysis of what these delays are going to mean, not for us today but for people in five, 10 and 15 years’ time?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The answer to the noble Baroness’s first question is no. With regard to the OBR, I am not quite sure why the OBR has a role in this. We obviously have our Climate Change Committee which gives the Government advice, but, to be frank, lots of other external organisations send me more advice on this subject every day, so we are not short of helpful academic advice on all the topics under consideration. As I said, we are looking towards the future. The Government are still committed to our legally binding climate change targets. That means sticking to the legally binding carbon budgets that we have overdelivered on, and we are on track to deliver on the next one.