Environment: 25-year Plan

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, “thank you, but” is an excellent description of this debate.

Some in your Lordships’ House may remember a very old radio programme called “Beyond Our Ken”, which went on to become “Round the Horne”. One of the characters was named Fallowfield and his response to any question was, “Well, I think the answer lies in the soil”. He was right—who knew? The bulk of my speech today addresses that issue.

Last year, my team and I did a lot of work on agriculture and land use change and it is all published in a report we commissioned entitled A Vision for Britain: Clean, Green and Carbon Free. It is well documented that the Government will miss their carbon reduction targets for the 4th and 5th carbon budgets. The UK will need to find significant reductions in a range of different and complex sources of greenhouse gases arising from our land use and our agriculture, because agriculture accounts for around 10% of UK greenhouse gas emissions. We will have to take drastic action to ensure that negative emissions from the United Kingdom’s land use, land use change and forestry includes addressing our degrading peatlands and supporting the use of sustainably sourced timber in construction, together with additional carbon removal through soil management, afforestation or alternatives.

First, on peatlands, as far as I am aware, the Government have never counted the emissions from our degrading peatlands as part of our emissions totals. That underestimates our carbon emissions, so the actual situation is worse than it seems. It is clear that we need not only to preserve our existing carbon sinks but to significantly increase them. I am pleased that the Government clearly recognise in the plan the need to address the peatland issue. The report includes this example:

“Over the last 200 years, we have lost 84% of our fertile peat topsoil in East Anglia. The fens there could lose the remainder in just 30-60 years”.


That is shocking. We will therefore have to cut emissions from peatland by 16 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by restoring that peatland, especially in upland areas. Can the Minister say whether the actions proposed in the report will deliver the 14% reduction in emissions that the climate change committee says is necessary? I do not think they will. Of course, attention to restoring our peatlands holds huge potential not only for reducing emissions but for reducing flood risk and supporting biodiversity.

In terms of improving our approach to soil management, the Government state that,

“by 2030 we want all of England’s soils to be managed sustainably”.

If we read the highlighted actions in the plan, we find that:

“Defra will invest at least £200,000 to help develop soil health metrics and test them on farms across the country”,


and,

“investigate the potential for research and monitoring to give us a clearer picture of how soil health supports our wider environment”.

That is obviously to be welcomed but I suggest that it is small stuff and should be going hand in hand with action. We know enough already to take action. Why can we not follow France’s lead in promoting the “4 per 1,000” soil initiative to increase the amount of CO₂ captured by four grams per kilo? Of course, we also need to manage the reduction of fossil fuel use in the sector and improve land management practices for natural carbon sequestration with a better application of manure and fertiliser. I suggest that addressing soil compaction should be a priority for the Government.

As was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, we need an even more ambitious programme of afforestation in order to meet carbon removal associated with the Committee on Climate Change max scenario, which it estimates will require 30,000 hectares of additional woodland coverage in the UK each year by 2050. I go for the max scenario because we are not reducing our emissions adequately to get anywhere near the 1.5 degree limit that we have signed up for in the Paris Agreement. To put it in context, that commitment to 30,000 hectares a year is around half a New Forest. The government plan is to plant 180,000 hectares by the end of 2042, which is simply nowhere near enough.

We also need to work with industry and forestry sectors to support the increased use of sustainably sourced wood in construction, which delivers negative emissions, rather than the use of carbon-intensive materials such as concrete. The ability of wood used in buildings to capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it for long periods is a huge opportunity that we should not ignore. We also need a recognition that alternatives to woody biomass, such as organic waste, agricultural residues, algae and domestic energy crops, could play an important role and contribute to landfill reduction strategies.

In the given time, I have been able to address only one section of this very large plan but I was hoping for a really bold, radical plan that defined new commitments, enhanced old commitments and laid down clear objectives and metrics that would effect measurable and reportable results. We need new environmental legislation and the plan should be placed on a statutory footing. ClientEarth has said that the plan is “full of empty promises”, and Wildlife and Countryside Link says that words must be backed up with action. I do not want to be unkind to the Government—I think that they are trying—but I hope that they understand the message that warm words will not be enough. In responding to the debate, perhaps the Minister will lay out a clear road map for how this plan will be delivered and the measurables for the journey, and say what reporting will be made to Parliament. If we are to have confidence in the plan, what legal framework will the Government put in place to ensure delivery?

Therefore, although I welcome the 25-year environmental plan, I feel that the proposed actions in the report are not strong enough, urgent enough or extensive enough. I encourage the Government to go much further and much faster.

Brexit: Environment and Climate Change

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

It is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who really made my role redundant as he has said everything I would wish to say. On Brexit, of which I am sure it is clear I am not a great fan, I think of the phrase, “How do you eat an elephant? One bit at a time”. This is obviously the environment and climate change bit. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Teverson and the committee on beginning its gargantuan task identifying and categorising the issues and actions needed even to begin to address extracting ourselves from the EU in this regard. I sometimes think that everyone who works on this, whether a remainer or leaver, must have at some point thought, “Wow, it would be much easier to stay”—at least, that is what I hope they think.

I hope and trust that much of what we are about to do will be to recreate what currently exists. My particular portfolio is energy and climate change. I will confine myself to those aspects of the report and perhaps look at some of the compensatory actions that we will need to take. The report rightly says that we have established in UK law our commitment to those measures contained within the Climate Change Act, including the carbon budgets and of course the well-respected Climate Change Committee—thank goodness. As I said, I thought the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, covered beautifully all the aspects of climate change policy that need to come into play. But while the Climate Change Act protects us to a degree it goes only so far.

The Government have stated on many occasions, in this House and in the other place, that they will uphold their agreements, standards, targets, commitments et cetera, but I confess that I lack confidence in the Government. When we are not held to those standards or targets, when we are no longer monitored by the EU institutions and fail standards enforced by the EU, I fear we will not meet our targets. I fear a decline and a rush to deregulation. I was a Minister in the coalition. I cannot forget those occasions when the Conservative part of the coalition went on and on about deregulation. It was almost a religion with them. Statements made on becoming a virtual tax haven and other comments in that direction do not encourage confidence in the maintenance of standards.

The emissions reduction plan was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I ask the Minister: where is it? Is it ever disappearing into the future? Although I understand that the Government believe they can hold themselves to account, I do not share that optimism. Sadly, I prefer supranational oversight in this regard. We will need to set up new institutions to deal with compliance, infraction and additional enforcement. There will need to be biting sanctions on non-compliance. If we adopt EU regulations on energy efficiency into our own law, as I think we should, and if we keep up fuel standards for land vehicles and product standards for appliances, we will surely have to comply in order to trade. We need that alignment of standards. The report rightly says that the emissions trading scheme is not super-effective but it is very important. How and with whom will we trade emissions? What will happen about updates to EU regulations? They do not stand still, so even if we adopt them as they are, we will very quickly fall behind on, for example, the energy efficiency directive.

I do not want to just go through the report: it lays out well the areas and issues of importance. I trust that we will work towards reconstituting literally all of this. If this is the opportunity that we are encouraged and enjoined to support, then we have not only to reconstitute outside the EU what we subscribed to and benefited from in the EU but to go further. We need to change gear. There is no sense of urgency currently from the Government about meeting our targets or taking new actions and producing new policies to help us reach the level of emissions reductions that the Paris agreement committed us to. That was not an EU commitment but a world commitment. If the argument that there is a big, wonderful world out there with which to trade is to hold water, we need to capitalise on the economic opportunity that the clean economy offers us. We need to act faster and more urgently to make it clarion clear to the rest of the world that we are open for clean business and completely committed to decarbonisation.

Our future prosperity is going to depend on developing an economy that is innovative, entrepreneurial, internationally open and environmentally sustainable, and one where the benefits of growth are shared fairly across the country and with future generations. Our membership of the EU guaranteed our commitments to the climate change agenda and was a safeguard against this Government or any Government undermining our ability to deliver on our legally binding targets. Will the Minister say, outside the EU, what our guarantor of delivery will be?

We must improve the efficiency of resource use and decarbonise the economy. That will help create high skills and high value-added industries able to compete in the new global markets for low-carbon and resource-efficient products, technologies and services and create jobs throughout the country. It is really as plain as the nose on your face that with the Paris agreement and the sustainable development goals, low-carbon products and services are the future, and that future is worth trillions to this country.

I have to say that the industrial strategy offered by the Government was virtually mute on climate change. We need to establish a clear and consistent commitment to policies that create long-term demand for low-carbon transport and energy efficiency, thus giving investors the confidence they need. And boy, do they need confidence, because thus far this Government have done their best to undermine investor confidence by changing the goalposts. They have taken away from wind and solar subsidies that everyone would agree were necessary to remove in the long term but which, done at a stroke, undermined all business plans—let alone the removal of the £1 billion carbon capture and storage manifesto pledge.

The Government need to strengthen their support for clean innovation and encourage the creation of clean financial products to bring consumer capital into these clean industries. As I am at seven minutes, I will simply thank my noble friend Lord Teverson and the committee for the vital work that they have done. I reiterate, however, that although reconstituting must be mandatory, it is but the minimum needed to drive both our economy and a clean planet forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the sub-committee for holding this inquiry, and for the opportunity for this thought-provoking debate today. Although this has predominantly been an environment and climate change debate, I should declare my farming interests as set out in the register. There have been a number of questions that I would like to reflect upon and, given the hour, write a more detailed reply to. Any questions that I am not in a position to attend to, I shall of course respond to in writing to your Lordships.

The committee highlights the scale and complexity of repatriating environmental policy as we exit the EU. This is not something that the Government underestimate—and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, elaborated on the range of issues at large. As the committee’s report indicates, it is of vital importance that policy stability is provided as we leave the EU and that no legislative gaps or uncertainties are created. To provide this stability, as noble Lords know, the Government have set out our plans for a repeal Bill that will convert current EU law into domestic law. We will ensure that the environment is properly protected in law and that—I emphasise this—the whole body of existing EU environmental law continues to be given effect in the law of our country, either as it stands or in a manner that ensures that it works as a UK regime.

The department is continuing its work on the operability assessment of EU legislation following exit. This is a matter of process—and I understand the issue, which has arisen before, about one-third and two-thirds. I emphasise that this work is to ensure that the whole body of EU environmental law continues to be given effect in the law of the UK. As I say, it is about ensuring the manner in which it works as a UK regime.

This is also in conjunction with our manifesto pledge to leave the natural environment of this country in a better state than we found it. We want to design an effective approach to driving environmental improvement, tailored to the needs of our country. We will continue to explore the scope for new approaches to regulation which deliver better environmental outcomes, in the context of our commitment to developing a 25-year plan for the environment.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson—and perhaps the majority of your Lordships—found this more a challenge than an opportunity, but I do think that there are opportunities that we should grasp. We should be positive about our joint determination to improve the environment of this country. That is a great opportunity for us all to work on.

The committee considered the role played by EU institutions in ensuring effective enforcement of environmental protection and standards—I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, said—but the UK has always had a strong legal framework for environmental protection which predates our membership of the EU and the oversight provided by its institutions. I was going to refer to the Clean Air Act 1956 as a first example, but my noble friend Lord Caithness took us as far back as the 19th century, when we gave a lead.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, in particular, that we were the first country in the world to introduce legally binding emission reduction targets through the Climate Change Act 2008. Our commitment to the environment can be seen through our action in extending the blue belt: 23 new areas were designated as marine conservation zones only last year. The blue belt now covers more than 20% of English waters, and our record for waters around our overseas territories is also impressive.

In considering the future enforcement mechanism for environmental law, we should recognise the fundamental roles of Parliament, the UK courts and, indeed, the electorate. Parliament is the UK’s supreme law-making body. As we have seen, particularly in this Chamber, it holds Governments to account by questioning and challenging the laws they seek to make and amend. Parliament in turn is accountable to the electorate. Our system of judicial review and its body of public law enables any interested party to challenge the decisions and actions of the Government through the UK courts.

I very much regret the lack of confidence of the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, in what I believe are our exceptional UK institutions. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, referred to the Thames Water case and the fine of £20 million. I listened very carefully to the commentary of the Environment Agency spokesperson. It shows exactly that such environmental issues are taken with extreme seriousness and rigour in our domestic courts.

Countries that are not EU members are well capable of driving environmental improvements in their countries. Many countries around the world with strong environmental records would think it extraordinary if we were to say to them, “By the way, you need a supranational body and court to ensure that you behave yourself”. They would feel extremely insulted. I will give way, but time is short.

[Baroness Featherstone]

My view was that I prefer the supranational authority to our Government here; I was not referring to other countries. Sadly, my confidence is lacking in this Government.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I am sorry that the noble Baroness does not have confidence in our institutions, our Parliament and our courts, because that is in effect what she is saying. She is saying that other countries around the world are well able to look after their own environment. In fact, in many cases, as I have described, we are already leading and are recognised as a leader of the world.

The committee is also anxious—rightly—for the Government to make clear what a free trade agreement with the EU will entail, arguing that this will have implications for future environmental policy. We will negotiate for an ambitious free trade agreement that allows the freest possible trade in goods and services with the EU. Trade and environmental considerations are closely related.

We want to ensure economic growth. Development and environmental protection go hand in hand. More trade does not have to come at the expense of the environment, and a healthy environment is in everyone’s interests. We will explore all options in the design of future bilateral trade and investment agreements, including environmental provisions within them.

In respect of the committee’s specific recommendations to review and evaluate the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy, I can assure your Lordships that we are assessing all the opportunities for agriculture and fisheries outside the EU. A number of noble Lords raised this, including my noble friend Lady Byford, who particularly raised the importance of a successful agricultural sector, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds. It is absolutely clear that a successful agricultural sector in this country is compatible and has traditionally, in so many parts of our country, been compatible with a good environment.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has always been not only an outstanding champion of Cumbria but also of the national parks, for which it is my great privilege to be responsible at the moment. Farming, landscape, environment, and the agricultural system of the Lake District are absolutely hand in hand and entwined. It has been created by generations of farmers, and it is that agricultural system that has enabled the very designation that we granted to that wonderful part of our countryside.

There is much on which the Government will be working. I would say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds that it is my privilege to sit on the ministerial taskforce on broadband and we are absolutely clear about the need for increasing the rate of superfast broadband in rural areas. We have deliberately trialled the free childcare of 30 hours in rural areas, specifically because we think it is important that everyone in this country has those advantages. We are absolutely clear that, as I say, a great and improved environment and a strong agricultural sector are compatible with each other.

The committee points out a shared interest in maintaining cross-border trade with the EU. The Government agree with that. It highlights the need to co-operate with the EU on environmental pollution—of course, due to its transboundary nature. It is our neighbour and our friend and we should do this.

The committee also expressed some concern that withdrawal from the EU may impact on achieving climate change targets. I can assure noble Lords that we will continue to work closely with EU member states and international partners to tackle environmental issues which demand multilateral co-ordinated action. We will continue to co-operate with the EU on those policy areas where it is important for us to do so, including those issues which have effects across borders.

In relation to achieving carbon targets, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, that the Government remain committed to tackling climate change and to low-carbon, secure and affordable energy and clean growth. While we cannot know at this stage what our precise future participation in EU climate measures may be post-exit, the EU will remain an important partner and we are considering how best to continue to work together.

The committee also urged the Government to engage fully in negotiating and influencing EU environmental proposals for the full term of its membership. It expressed concern about the UK’s influence post-exit at both EU and international level. It also stressed the importance of ensuring that the UK adheres to its international commitments. As long as we remain a member of the EU we will continue to play a full part in its activities and to represent the interests of the British people. My ministerial colleagues and officials continue to play an active role in the EU institutions.

I want to emphasise, particularly because it has been emphasised by three noble Lords—the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton—that, after our exit, the UK will continue to honour its international commitments. We are party to multilateral environmental and climate change agreements and are bound by their obligations.

We are signatories, for instance, to: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris agreement, which set binding emissions targets; the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species; the Montreal protocol, with its ban on most ozone-depleting substances and requirements to reduce hydrofluorocarbons—I was particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Caithness for reminding your Lordships of the London conference, and the advances and all that followed on from that conference; the Convention on Biological Diversity; the Berne convention; the OSPAR Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic; and the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions, with their restrictions on the movement of hazardous waste and commitments relating to chemicals.

More than just honouring our international commitments, the UK will remain an active country at a global level. The UK has always played a significant role at the international level, whether this be in combating acid rain, or the role that we played last year in extending the Montreal protocol. We have led Europe on issues of environmental protection, let us remember. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 provided protection in UK law for vulnerable species more than a decade before the EU introduced the habitats directive. The committee—I particularly draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, to this—acknowledged, I believe rightly, the UK’s position as a global leader on climate change. The UK’s acknowledged skills and expertise have been a major factor in developing our influence in international climate and environmental policies. These skills and expertise will stand us in good stead for continuing to influence environmental policies. We will not step back from the international leadership that we have given on climate change.

My noble friend Lord Deben, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, are all Members of your Lordships’ House who have been keen leaders in ensuring that, through all our efforts, we are better with our mitigation and our adaptation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who has recently handed over to his very worthy successor, the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, the chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and we will continue to remain a very strong partner in that. We are now considering how best to take forward that continued engagement. The UK remains committed to international efforts to tackle climate change, and working with the EU will remain as important as ever. We will also continue to strengthen our relationship with other partner countries and work through multilateral groupings such as the G7, G20 and the Commonwealth.

The noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, referred to the Copernicus project; I think that this country has had a proud history of leading and supporting cutting-edge research, and the noble Lord knows more about that than almost anyone. As we exit the EU, Her Majesty’s Government welcome agreement to continue to collaborate with our European partners on major science research and technology, so this is very much on the radar as we move into the negotiations.

A number of your Lordships, including the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, asked about resources, particularly for my department. The committee identified the resource pressures associated with maintaining environmental legislation. The Government are absolutely aware of the implications of EU exit for, in particular, my own department’s work programmes. I can assure your Lordships that Defra’s work programmes and recruitment plans are kept continually under review to ensure that we are staffed to deal with the tasks at hand. We have set up an EU exit programme to help co-ordinate, plan and assist several key work streams and are identifying and filling vacancies on a rolling basis—it has been my privilege to work with many of the officials; their commitment has been 110%, they are working extremely hard and effectively, and I congratulate and thank them.

The committee also raised concerns about the potential risk of divergent approaches to environmental regulation across the United Kingdom. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and all your Lordships that it is absolutely clear that Defra must work closely with the devolved Administrations, as it is doing. We will work in partnership with the devolved Administrations as we form our negotiating strategy for exiting the EU. It will be important to ensure that no new barriers to living and doing business within our union are created. That means maintaining the necessary common standards and frameworks for our own domestic market, empowering the UK as an open, trading nation to strike the best trade deals around the world and protecting the common resources of our islands.

A number of questions were raised. Time is pressing but I wish to respond to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who mentioned the EIB. The Government are in the process of assessing the contribution that the EIB makes. However, we are clear that the future relations between the UK and the EIB will be a matter for the Article 50 negotiations. Again, this is very much on the radar. The actual form of a dispute resolution in future relationships with the EU will also be a matter for the negotiations as they proceed.

A number of other points were raised and I will need to reflect on a considerable number of them and get back to your Lordships. I look forward to the debate on agriculture when your Lordships’ committee brings that forward. However, we have made sure that the current levels of funding for farmers are assured until 2020. Existing environmental stewardship and countryside stewardship agreements are fully funded for their duration. Clearly, we will have a major task in bringing forward our proposals for ensuring that our farmers have a vibrant future in an enhanced environment.

I hope that this has not been an unnecessarily pessimistic debate and wish to emphasise some of the significant gains that this country has achieved in improving its environment. The water environment is in its healthiest state for 25 years, with otter, salmon, sea trout and other wildlife returned to many rivers for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. We have had successful reintroductions of species such as the large blue butterfly, the red kite and the short-haired bumble-bee. We have seen many declining species such as cirl bunting, stone curlew, chough and bittern start to recover, although clearly there is very much more to do. We have an opportunity to develop an environmental policy that is bespoke to our country. We must grasp that opportunity, whatever our opinion of what happened last June. We can unleash the full potential of this country and develop innovative and efficient policies that will enable us to continue working globally on environmental protection.

I again commend the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and his committee on producing this report. It will continue to be of great value as we proceed in securing our objective to enhance the natural environment of our country and leave it in a better state than the one in which we found it. Working together—I emphasise “together”—let us ensure that there is a better environment for all. We should address with clear purpose the adaptation and mitigation of climate change—causes on which we can all unite.

Air Quality

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, but I am sorry to say that I find it totally unacceptable for a Minister say that the Government have mandated five clean air zones when 50,000 people a year are dying. I seek an assurance about all the people who are dying who are not in those five mandated cities. How urgent does he regard this? The Statement says it is a top priority. Can the Minister assure me that the whole country will be a top priority and not just five cities?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I thank the noble Baroness. It is essential that we deal with the compliance area in the plans we are going to bring forward and, yes, it is well beyond five cities. That is where we were mandating action, because there was such a significant problem, but I would not for one minute want to suggest that all areas of the country having the current levels of air pollution is a satisfactory position, because clearly it is not. That is why, in 2011, when we were in coalition with the party of the noble Baroness, £2 billion was allocated for green transport initiatives. We are actually in a world-leading position on ultra-low emission vehicles, for instance. With that £2 billion we are seeking improvements. I know that everyone is frustrated—I share that—but we really do want to make progress on this.

Brexit: Environmental and Climate Change Policy

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Parminter for securing this most important and timely debate. We have had excellent contributions from Members on all sides who have clearly understood the potentially negative impact that leaving the EU could have on our environmental, energy and climate change policies as well as the few opportunities.

There will indeed be huge challenges. My noble friend laid out with absolute clarity the crucial need for the Government to recognise the environmental benefits of access to the single market in their negotiations. Of course, as energy and climate change spokesperson, I implore the Government to recognise the equal need to ensure that energy and climate change take centre stage in those negotiations.

My noble friend called on Her Majesty’s Government to commit, in the forthcoming 25-year environmental plan: to set ambitious targets enshrined in an environment Act; to put the Natural Capital Committee on a statutory footing to drive delivery; to ensure that food and farming policy and allied fiscal measures build a natural health service, producing healthy food and protecting our environmental resource; not to revise transposed EU environmental legislation unless environmental outcomes would be improved; and to build the principles of the circular economy into their industrial strategy.

We have heard a number of important comments from across the House. I shall not go through them all as it would take more than my time. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, said that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure sustainable economic growth. I could not agree more. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said that we will have lots of opt-ins instead of opt-outs and that most of those opt-ins will need to be agreed on both sides for our well-being in the future. My noble friend Lady Scott reminded us of the improvements in air quality, beaches, animal welfare, native habitats and species extinction and that the single market has given us the benefit of common EU rules. Without such rules, how will we trade?

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, asked what would replace monitoring, compliance and enforcement, as she tries to keep her enthusiasm in the blackness that follows Brexit. My noble friend Lord Teverson spoke to us of climate change, fisheries policy and Defra, and reminded us that Britain had been a major driver within Europe of the Paris agreement. He asked where we would stand, who we would work with and who our allies would be in the future. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised the question of whether the UK Government would permit legal challenges. My noble friend Lady Miller asked how we will combine successful farming with people’s need to be in the countryside and biodiversity. How will they thrive together to work with nature?

Obviously, I want to have my two pennies’ worth, but before I go on to address some of the specific issues on energy and climate change that concern these Benches, I want to preface what I am about to say with an overriding concern about Her Majesty’s Government—this Conservative Government—and their commitment to the green agenda. In the relatively short time I have been in your Lordships’ House, this now Conservative-only Government have taken a number of retrograde steps on this agenda.

We had been doing so well during the coalition years, but the undermining of Britain’s growing green industries, and the destruction of investor confidence by measures such as the precipitate withdrawal of support for many forms of renewable energy and the abandonment of commitments to investors in carbon capture and storage, mean that investors have seen this Government put party before country. Their nervousness can now only be magnified by the huge uncertainty of Brexit. We led in Europe on climate change, and although our Climate Change Act 2008 still stands, our ability to influence and raise the game of other EU countries will be lost.

The UK will no longer have to meet targets within the EU renewable energy directive, and as it stands the UK is off track to meet the 2020 renewables targets. I would have thought the Committee on Climate Change report, Next Steps for UK Heat Policy, made grim reading for this Government, who appear to be doing nothing much in terms of effort to meet that target and who are way behind on renewable heat. Without the pressure of being a member state signed up to those targets, I fear there will be even less chance that the Government will feel obliged to keep to them. Once outside the EU, a future Administration could simply overturn the Climate Change Act if they wanted and move climate policy in a completely different direction. All that would have to be changed would be UK law, as it would no longer be subject to any EU law. If that is “taking back control”, then I have to say there is absolutely no gain in taking back control.

There is now huge uncertainty about what leaving the single market will mean for energy. EU countries already have significant control over their own energy policy, which is why there is this huge variety across EU countries. If we stay part of the energy union, we will need to continue to follow EU law, but we will not have a seat at the negotiating table. Energy is not like other types of trade. It is not so easy for us simply to say we will do trade deals with other countries such as China instead. We are connected to Europe—literally. Interconnectors, the guarantor of our energy security in terms of managing peaks and flows, are, not surprisingly, connected with our European neighbours. We need to trade energy with them. We can already feel the short-term impacts of Brexit in, for example, the dramatic decline in exchange rates, which is pushing up energy bills. Do we really think that the European Investment Bank will still invest in us when we are outside the EU? I think that is highly unlikely.

We have been a strong voice within the EU for liberalising the energy market. Without the UK there, the direction of EU energy policy may well change and we will simply have to deal with that without having any influence. The independent report by National Grid shows that leaving the EU could cost the UK up to £500 million per year in the 2020s due to the uncertainty of energy and climate investments. The most significant Brexit risk to the energy sector, according to that report, is that it will lead to higher investment costs.

What about trading emissions and the internal energy market? The Government need to move swiftly and certainly to guarantee our commitment to the environmental, energy and climate change agenda—not just with words, but with actions. New nuclear, enabling and encouraging more fossil fuels such as shale gas and ignoring the differentials relating to good or bad biogas are not going to lead to the sort of thriving, go-ahead atmosphere for energy supplies in future, let alone an economic miracle. HMG seem determined to ignore that.

This is a world that is hungry for low-carbon services and products, which was the growth market after the 2008 crash. With the Paris agreement and the sustainable development goals, those are the very products and services that we could be offering to the world if the Government had any sense. Instead, we are falling away from the global race.

We need to be bursting with ambition to capitalise on economic opportunities. We need to drive innovation. We need an industrial strategy that invests in renewables in time for that industrial strategy. We need a green regional strategy that addresses structural funds. We need to be strong in our assurances and demonstrate our commitment to the low-carbon economy. We need to ensure that we do equal or better.

Life does not, and should not, stop at Brexit. We need to push ahead. Brexit should not mean a threat to the broader context of environmental legislation. It is vital to keep on improving. Now more than ever we need the Government to step up and demonstrate international leadership on climate change; not to strip back our investment in renewables but to be bolder than ever before; to step into new growth areas such as the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon; to have a clear plan on how we are going to fulfil the Paris agreement; to retain the EU 2020 climate and energy package; to participate in the 2030 package; and to bring forward a new clean air Act to tackle pollution, protections for nature and wildlife, and strong animal welfare legislation.

I reinforce my noble friend Lady Parminter’s point about a new farming policy to provide much-needed subsidies to farms that deliver public goods, including the care of the natural environment. I am afraid this Government have been found wanting on environment, energy and climate change policies. Brexit must not be their excuse to resile, undermine or take us backwards.