Climate Change Risk: National Audit Office Guidance

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Notwithstanding the NAO guidance, the Government continue to publish their own guidance on climate change risk, including digital articles and blogs and cross-government insights, as well as updates to existing guidance. The Government remain alert to climate change risks when publishing new or updating existing guidance. I assure the noble Lord that the Treasury requires all departments to adhere to the Green Book guidance when providing a business case.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The Treasury is one of the two government departments that is excluded from climate change commitments. I wonder if that is part of the problem with it understanding the whole issue of the climate emergency. When I talk to people who sit at the other end of the building, from all sides they say that the Treasury is the biggest block to putting in climate change measures that will help to preserve people’s health and the planet’s health. I am wondering whether the Treasury is unable to calculate the cost of inaction, because that is the big problem. If it does not understand that inaction will cost more than taking the right actions, it is unable to do its job properly. I would like to offer the Treasury some Green Party help. We have superb economists who can explain it very simply to the Treasury so that it can understand that doing nothing is the worst possible option.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am always happy to listen to the noble Baroness. Regarding the Government’s actions, she will know that it is completely the opposite of doing nothing. We have an enormous agenda. The Government have stated their ambition that we should be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. I referred earlier to the GGCs. She asked about the role of the Treasury. We are mobilising £26 billion of government investment directly from the Treasury into the green industrial revolution. We have worked closely with the other departments to develop the net-zero strategy, with which she will be familiar, and our own net-zero review, published alongside this, highlights the factors to be taken into account.