Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and although we do not always agree on absolutely everything, I reckon that I agree with about 99.5% of her speech.

First, I declare my interest as chair and director of Aldustria Ltd, an energy storage company; I will try to avoid too much discussion of that area. On these amendments, I very much thank the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, for having opened our debate today. I very much agree with the principle of what the Opposition Front Bench is trying to achieve here. What this Bill does not have—the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, put it very well indeed—is great focus or coherence. It would be good to start trying to improve that through a type of preamble that puts context, including strategic context, at the beginning of the Bill. I hope that we can refine that more on Report; it may not be perfect, but perhaps we can find a way of doing that between us.

I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, about the pricing of electricity and how that works. As he says, our European colleagues are looking at that very strongly now. There must be a better way of doing this; it cannot make sense to the public that we charge and price our main energy sources on the marginal cost of the last producer. Clearly, that does not make sense, and it does not do the reputation of the fossil fuel industry any good either. Yes, they might use their money to give back to shareholders—hopefully they will use it for different types of investment and diversification—but it besmirches the whole sector, and we need to find a way around that.

Where I would disagree very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is around trying to game or look at alternative dates for net zero. It seems to me that in September 1939 the Cabinet probably did not look at whether to declare war on Germany this month or two years later or four years later. We may criticise Neville Chamberlain for all sorts of things in retrospect, but I guess that is not one of them. It was an absolute threat to our future security, and we made a decision. If we think of the costs to this country, and to us and consumers, of our right stand on Ukraine, I guess that we have not done those calculations either—because we know that Putin’s war has to fail and that, for European security and our long-term security, we in the western world need to pursue the tactics that we have.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for her amendments, particularly in mentioning rural aspects of oil—my own household is on oil, and we are not covered by a price cap—and in particular business. In all the media coverage that we have had on this very real energy crisis over the past months, it is funny how business has very much taken second place to households and consumers. Clearly, households and consumers are ultimately the most important, but business is completely fundamental to our economic performance and being able to solve this crisis in the long term.

I am not absolutely sure about energy from waste plants. Clearly, it does not make sense to export it, but the real challenge there is in starting to raise recycling again, or even AD in terms of other parts of household waste. I was so impressed by the forensic look by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, at investment need and the scale of the challenge, and also at how we need to measure that and put proper planning into how we meet it.

The one other area that I would like to mention comes back to 2013 and the then Energy Bill, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. At that time, one big thing that we discussed was the energy trilemma of security, cost and decarbonisation. The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, brought that back up again. But what this crisis, and the almost a decade between these two Bills, has shown, is that it is no longer a trilemma—they all work in exactly the same direction. Renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels, as we know—it is why we have the huge price increases that we do. Our security is reinforced by having much more renewable generation on our own seas and our own land—and, as a result, we have lower costs and a decarbonised energy system as well. We have moved on since that time.

We need to have a focus in this Bill, and I support the amendments. We need to move on in this debate, but I am absolutely sure that we will need that coherence when we get to Report.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the whip, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, has spoiled a lot of my fun today, because I was going to tell the Government exactly what they needed to do if they were going to produce an Energy Bill that deals with the crises that we are facing. We are facing three immense crises at the moment, and one of them is, of course, the climate crisis. There are strong whiffs of climate denialism in your Lordships’ House, which I find absolutely staggering, considering that the science is so very clear on it. However, it is a bit last century, that sort of attitude, so I understand why it might exist here in your Lordships’ House. But we have those crises—the climate emergency, the ecological crisis and the cost of living crisis—and this Energy Bill is so topical. It is exactly the sort of thing that we need to bring forward so that we can deal with all these crises, and I guess make life better for millions of people in Britain and the rest of the world.

I agree with a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said. He made the point that this does not do the job. Also, I am very sympathetic to Labour’s initial amendments. I understand why they are in there, but it reads a lot more like the sort of issues that a Labour Government would bring forward—hopefully not too long in the future.

I am concerned that our time is going to be wasted on this Bill, because we have a new Prime Minister—a climate-wrecking ideologue who will make it incredibly difficult for us to get the sort of issues into this Bill that we need. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, and other noble Lords also mentioned nuclear. We have to get real on the fact that nuclear is not the answer. Nuclear power stations take a long time to come online. There will be all sorts of problems even getting them started, so they are not the answer. We have to think faster than that; they just will not work.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I agree with everything she said. My noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle suggested that I would sum up other people, but she has done a better job of it than I could, so I am just going to rant about the Bill.

The Minister said in his opening remarks something about the weather. Of course, this is an extraordinary day for us to be debating this Energy Bill. The temperature when I came into the Chamber was 40.2 degrees at Heathrow, and it is quite possibly higher now. It is highest UK temperature ever recorded, and possibly not the highest this year or in many years to come. The roads are melting, outdoor workers cannot do their jobs and London is on fire. I do not know whether the Minister has seen pictures of the fires in London that the fire brigade is tackling at the moment.

Then there are the buses that our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, put on the roads, which I said at the time were inadequate. They have terrible ventilation, and now they are stifling ovens. I invite noble Lords opposite to go and test one today and see what they think about them. They will find them extremely unpleasant.

Yesterday, the High Court ruled that, as many of us have said for so long, the Government’s climate plans are barely worth the paper they are written on. The High Court ruled that the strategy was “inadequate and unlawful”. That is quite strong language. What were the Tory leadership hopefuls promising until Alok Sharma, bless him, forced them to acknowledge previous government commitments? They were promising to rip up our net-zero targets so that we can cut taxes for the rich. It is incredible that they think that that will win them the general election at some point.

Clearly, the 2050 net-zero target is too little too late to keep the 1.5 degrees centigrade goal alive, and even then, the Government look set to miss it. The Bill could have been an opportunity to correct course and get the country on track to meet the targets, but the Government miss the mark again and again. We must limit our greenhouse gas emissions to no more than the UK’s proportionate share of the global carbon budget. This emissions reduction has to be done as rapidly as possible. Yes, there are costs, but they are nothing compared to the costs of inaction and delay.

This transition must include an end to exploration, extraction and the trade in fossil fuels. As other noble Lords have mentioned, the Government talk of gas as a transition fuel. Although I reject this argument, if the Government truly believe it, they should put this transition status in the Bill, with a legally binding pathway to phase out gas entirely. However, they have plans for new UK oil, gas and even coal extraction. None of this is sustainable; none of it is transitionary. It is all damaging, destructive, and dooms any hope of keeping 1.5 alive.

Then there is the other energy source that is described as a panacea, as the future: nuclear. We hear of small nuclear reactors, thorium reactors, nuclear fusion; a never-ending wish list of science-fiction solutions to the very real crises that we face. I call it science fiction; my noble friend called it magical maths—I think I prefer that. Magical maths: that is what the Government keep trying to do. Of course, as with magic, it is not real—let us face it. Today we heard about “jet zero”. I give it 10 out of 10 for the label, but minus 10 out of 10 for the concept of making aviation net zero.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, mentioned energy from waste. I am sympathetic to that, but we have found that when we have incinerators, recycling rates go down. The councils have a commitment to deliver a certain amount of waste to the incinerator companies, but they cannot supply all that waste because people are reducing—

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I will not take any interventions. I am so sorry; we are all tired and we want to get going, but I am happy to chat to the noble Baroness outside.

Perhaps the most objectionable part of the Bill is the Government’s quiet plan to bury nuclear waste under the sea—it is not quiet any more, of course. It is yet another example of passing on the burden of our terrible decisions to future generations. We will not solve the climate crisis by passing on a nuclear waste crisis instead.

As other noble Lords have said, insulation and energy efficiency are key to solving the crisis by significantly reducing our energy usage, but what does the Bill provide? A new energy performance certificate and a power—not even a duty—to make regulations about the energy efficiency of new buildings. It is inexcusable that new buildings are not meeting the very highest standards of energy efficiency.

One of this Government’s worst legacies will be the hundreds of thousands of leaky new-build homes that were built in the years since they scrapped the zero-carbon homes policy in 2015. Since then, we have had five years of inadequate homes being built, almost all of which will require expensive retrofitting as a result of this Government’s short-sightedness. This legislation should fix that mess, ensure that all new-build homes are zero carbon and set out a workable plan for deep retrofit of the entire UK housing stock, beginning with the communities that are struggling most in this cost-of-living crisis.

The Bill also misses the crucial role that local authorities and community energy must play in reaching net zero. Local government can be unleashed with new powers, new duties and the corresponding funding and fundraising ability to deliver. When the Minister comes back at Committee, will he table an amendment on community energy schemes? We can actually encourage people to go from “not in my backyard” to “let’s have it in our area”. That is a direct request to the Minister. It would be a real gesture of understanding what we need for the future.

The Bill has also missed the opportunity to align the UK’s emissions reductions target and strategy to the all-important 1.5 degrees centigrade threshold. Also, as others have mentioned, there is another catastrophic legacy from David Cameron’s tenure as Prime Minister: the whole issue of onshore wind. Perhaps the Minister could also table an amendment on that as a gesture towards all those in this House who care so much about that issue.

Of course, the Energy Bill should also ensure that any proposed solutions to the climate crisis as far as possible minimise damage to ecosystems, food and water availability and human health. I do not believe for one minute that this Government can rise to that challenge—but I live in hope—and nor, it seems, does the High Court.

Your Lordships’ House will work diligently, spending countless hours through countless days improving this legislation; then the Government will take it down the Corridor, as they always do, to undo all our hard work, whipping their MPs to do the wrong thing, no matter how obviously wrong it is. It is deeply disheartening and I can only plead to your Lordships that we put our collective foot down and insist on a realistic pathway to achieve that net-zero climate target.

However, luckily for the Government, who seem short of ideas at the moment, there are two Private Members’ Bills going through Parliament at this very moment that will fix their problem and fix it for the rest of us. They supply all the ideas necessary to actually get towards a carbon-neutral future. There is the Climate and Ecology Bill, which would make up for the gaps in the Energy Bill and ensure that the UK plays its full role in the global effort towards achieving 1.5 degrees centigrade, with its science-led target that we emit no more than our fair share of the remaining global carbon budget. It addresses the full extent of the climate and nature crisis, in line with the most up-to-date science. It will ensure a comprehensive and joined up approach. The Bill was written by scientists, experts and campaigners, was first introduced in Parliament by Caroline Lucas MP in September 2020 and has just been introduced in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, who is not in his place.

[Noble Lords]

Yes he is!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am so sorry; my side vision was not working.

Secondly, there is my clean air Bill, which is a great piece of legislation and would aid the health of people and the planet by reducing fossil fuel pollution. Before there is any of this “whataboutery” that we hear so much of when we are outside this House about China and India doing their share and so on, we Brits rampaged and pillaged around the globe for a couple of hundred years as the British Empire and snatched what we could. It is time to give back. It is time to do our duty as British people and give back to the rest of the world. I really hope that on this issue we do our best.

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend’s point: Rolls-Royce is indeed an excellent company, which is why we are funding it to do this work.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am so glad that the Minister mentioned safety because a recent study from Stanford University says that, overall, small modular designs are “inferior” to conventional reactors—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is not my work; it is from a university. The study says that they are inferior with respect to radioactive waste generation, management requirements and disposable options. The researchers make the point that they should not be doing this research; the vendors should. Will the Government make sure that such research is done by vendors?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Of course they are doing that research. A vital part of the work and the financing model will be to make sure that all decommissioning costs are taken into account, which is one of the advantages of the SMR process: SMRs will, we hope, be easier and cheaper to decommission. But this is all part of the design process that we are going through, and it will be subject to the proper regulatory approvals. I obviously do not agree with the noble Baroness’s anti-nuclear stance, but it is nevertheless important fully to take into account the safety approvals process.

Fuel Poverty

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The figures that the noble Lord quotes are, of course, using different metrics. There is a big debate about which is the appropriate metric to use, but we can all accept, whatever metric we use, that this a very difficult time and people are suffering. The best route to end fuel poverty is through energy-efficiency measures, and that is why we are spending £6.6 billion this year in precisely targeting energy-efficiency measures—home improvements, retrofits—towards those in society on the lowest incomes, but of course we will need to do more.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the Government’s windfall tax was clearly very good, because it helped householders pay their bills, but at the same time that money went into profits for the oil and gas companies. The Minister talks about sustainable homes, retrofit and so on, but actually the Government are not putting enough into this, and I wonder whether government policy is influenced by the fact that the Conservative Party gets donations from the oil and gas sector.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The windfall tax is taking profits off the oil and gas industry, as the noble Baroness refers to, but as I just mentioned in a previous answer—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is not enough.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness says that this is not enough, but of course, we also need many of those companies to continue to invest both in North Sea production and in renewable production. If we are going to move to the totally renewable power system that I am sure the noble Baroness wants to see, as I do, we need tens of billions of pounds of investment, often from the same companies; you cannot spend the same pot of money twice. We are spending £6.6 billon this year on home efficiency measures, and there is a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes on retrofitting and home insulation measures, and through ECO, the local authority delivery scheme and the home upgrade grant. So, a lot of work is going on in this space.

Costs of Living

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I understand the point that the right reverend Prelate is making, but, of course, those households are also subject to a price cap. The slightly higher price for prepayment meters reflects the fact that they cost energy suppliers more to serve.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain to me very simply why energy prices are going up when renewable energy prices are as cheap as they have ever been, and falling? Does that mean that the Government did not invest enough in renewable energy when, for example, the Greens started telling them that they should?

Energy Security Strategy

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As usual, given his experience of the subject, my noble friend makes important points. On the subject of a debate, regrettably that is above my pay grade, but I will pass on his comments to the Chief Whip. Obviously, I stand ready to assist the House in any debates that it wishes to have. Regarding my noble friend’s comments about North Sea oil and gas, I say that he is completely correct. We are clear that oil and gas will continue to have a role as a transition fuel in the medium term. In carbon footprint and security terms, it makes eminent good sense to source these from the North Sea. That has to be preferable to importing them either from Russia or as LNG. That is why we will ensure a future for the North Sea, making use of our great reserves as we transition. We are holding a new licensing round in the autumn subject to the climate compatibility checkpoint.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to ignore the quagmire of nuclear, which cannot come on stream for decades, and the quagmire of fracking, which is a ridiculously expensive and disruptive process, and all the other ridiculous ideas about more oilfields in the North Sea. I will talk specifically about biomass companies like Drax, which in fact produce more carbon than burning fossil fuels, yet the Government choose to give them renewable subsidies. Will the Minister meet me and one or two scientists who can explain the whole process to him, and possibly take that back to his department?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am sorry that the noble Baroness has ignored the quagmire, as she puts it, of some very important subjects. I am sure we will want to debate them in future. She raised this matter with me yesterday. In principle, I understand the point she is making, but I point her to the website of Ofgem, which does the appropriate sustainability checks on the biomass used in Drax. It is from waste sources, and it is renewable. The Greens are shaking their heads, but I am afraid there is a case for it. It is sustainable and renewable, which is why it qualifies, but it is subject to strict sustainability criteria. They are checked and published.

International Energy Agency Report

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The House has debated this subject on many occasions, and we will continue to be led by the science. My noble friend will be aware that the Secretary of State recently commissioned the British Geological Survey to have another look at the scientific evidence for fracking, but we cannot ignore the problems that were caused by the Cuadrilla test wells. If those objections can be overcome and we can gain the support of local communities, there is no reason why we cannot do it, but let us not think that this will be a short-term answer to our problems.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, speaking of responsible decisions, the last three words of the title of the International Energy Agency’s report are “help the planet”, yet the Government are currently subsidising polluting companies—for example, Drax—to the cost of £2 million a day. Will the Minister take that back to his department and explain that biofuel companies such as Drax do not produce renewable energy?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

To respond to that point would take longer than I have for this answer, but I disagree with the noble Baroness—although I have great respect for her—that biomass is not renewable. This has been studied at great length, and supporting Drax and other power stations to move to renewable sources of power with waste wood is an environmentally responsible thing to do, in our view. The energy pathway for that is audited.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak today. I came to learn and listen to the experts on areas I do not know much about. But listening to the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Clement-Jones, I am reminded of an example. I know this would not be classed as money laundering, but the well-known spiv, Aaron Banks, was responsible for what is, I think, the biggest political donation in British history—I think it was £8 million—during the Brexit referendum period. When it came to investigation by the Electoral Commission, which had the responsibility for doing this, he was not an unwitting enabler. His conclusion was, “We’re cleverer than the regulator.” The Minister does not want to be faced with that during the passage of this Bill and its actions, so he would be very wise to accept the spirit of some of these amendments.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I think it is obvious that the Minister will accept a lot of these amendments, because they are from people who are much cleverer than most of us in this Chamber.

I support most of the amendments—even all the government amendments, because they are quite helpful, particularly those that require the disclosure of whether any beneficial owners of property are subject to sanctions, and the strengthening of the criminal offences for false declarations. However, it is obvious from the speeches of other noble Lords that the Government are still falling short and that the Bill needs to be tougher. For example, Amendments 23, 24, 57 and 58 all need to be inserted into the Bill.

All beneficial interests should be registered, not just those acquired on or after 1 January 1999. That is a completely arbitrary date and should be removed. The Minister shakes his head; I guess he will argue that it is a very important date. I disagree.

This legislation is being rushed through as an emergency, but the Government are content to wait another year, following initial registration, before any changes in beneficial ownership take place. I cannot see the logic in that and I think most people will not either. It makes much more sense to update the register within 14 days of any changes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, my colleagues are doing all the heavy lifting from these Benches, and I am incredibly grateful to them. I have signed Amendment 92 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, which I think found itself in drifting into the wrong group: it is actually part of group 3. One of the reasons why I signed it is this frustration, which I know the Government share, that, before a sanction is actually put in place, the individual who is likely to be sanctioned has, in a sense, plenty of warning signs and can use that opportunity to move various resources to a safe haven.

Much of the conversation around this Bill has been on fixed assets that are difficult to liquidate—property or complex companies—and I can understand why they might be less concerned about people knowing they are about to be sanctioned having the opportunity to move those. However, those same individuals tend to have very large investments in far more easily transportable assets—cash equivalents. I know that the Government are going to be looking at cryptocurrencies, which I have been very concerned about, when they get to the second phase of this Bill. It would, however, also be wrong to ignore such assets as jewellery and art. That is not just a tale from an Agatha Christie novel. I was a banker for many years in the mid-west, and most of my clients were exemplary people, but we certainly had one scoundrel who made the slight mistake of trying to impress a very charming young woman with an English accent and, as a consequence and with the aid of specialists, I was able to seize something worth close to half a billion dollars in artwork and jewellery against an attempt to defraud the bank. I ask therefore that the Minister think about these liquid assets, which play a part of the picture, but have been very little part of the discussion.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I think that is a story for the noble Baroness’s memoirs, and I look forward to reading it.

There are lots of good amendments in this group but I want to speak to Amendments 56, 57, 61 and 62 about the implementation period. For me, the six-month implementation period makes absolutely no sense. We are trying to rush this through—we here are going to sit until I do not know what time tonight or tomorrow morning to make this emergency legislation happen, but we are still giving people six months to do this. The Government are taking so long that activists are going into oligarchs’ mansions and seizing them in London and Paris to house refugees, if we ever get any refugees here. I cannot blame this Government for the Paris seizure, but it suggests that people are getting very tired of the fact that they are being so slow about this. Why would anyone need six months? If they have been honest about paying their taxes, declaring profits and detailing the origin of their money, why do they need six months? Surely, any decent accountant—I am sure that there are several in your Lordships’ House—could sort this out within 14 days or, at the worst, 28 days. I think there is no reason for the Government not to support one of these two pairs of amendments that shorten the implementation period.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak about Amendment 92 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, which would introduce a new clause headed:

“Asset freezing in respect of individuals considered for sanctions”.


Before I address that amendment, I need to give a fuller description of my interests—or, more accurately, my non-interests—than I would normally give. The reason for that is because in the House of Commons last week during the Second Reading debate on this Bill, Mr Matt Hancock complained that the 2018 Act contained amendments that

“came from those who are acting for oligarchs and then legislating for loopholes.”—[Official Report, Commons, 7/3/22; col. 31.]

The Home Secretary responded that she “wholeheartedly” agreed with Mr Hancock.

The position is this: with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who I see is in his place, I tabled amendments to what became the 2018 Act. They were designed to ensure a fair procedure and compliance with the rule of law. On Report, on 15 January 2018, the Government brought forward at column 442 amendments of their own on these subjects which were supported by me and, much more importantly, by the Labour and Liberal Democrat Front Benches. The House of Commons was content with the provisions approved by your Lordships’ House.

It is correct that in 2017 and 2018 I did not mention that I have advised and represented one client on sanctions matters in the last 10 years. I mention it today for the avoidance of any doubt. It was President Putin’s close associate Arkady Rotenberg. I represented him in 2014 and 2015 in the Court of Appeal on a sanctions issue in family law proceedings. I also advised him in relation to his claim in the General Court of the EU in mid-2015 challenging the sanctions against him, although I did not represent him at the hearing of his case in Luxembourg in 2016.

Of course, I did not put forward amendments to the sanctions Bill in late 2017 and early 2018 to legislate for loopholes. I put forward amendments with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, as I have done on so many other Bills, because I am concerned about the width of ministerial powers and the need for fair procedures.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 9th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will set out the context for the Bill and look at some of the bigger ways forward, while my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb will concentrate more on its details.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Will I?

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am sure she will.

Unoriginally, I begin by noting that a year is a long time in politics. In January 2021, we had Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill in your Lordships’ Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord Agnew of Oulton, was on the Front Bench, proclaiming with apparent pride that the UK had

“unwavering commitment to high-quality, agile and responsive regulation”.—[Official Report, 28/1/21; col. 1810.]

I said:

“We are a major global centre of corruption. The City is an Augean stables and the Bill is clearly sparing in its distribution of shovels.”—[Official Report, 28/1/21; col. 1861.]


It is clear that Greens lead in recognising problems, with others following eventually, and we offer solutions. I have joined many others—I note the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in particular—in calling for an end to golden visas, a long and disgraceful saga threading through Governments of three political hues that eventually, very late in the day, has finally been cut off.

The noble Lord, Lord Agnew, is no longer sitting on the Front Bench. It was the Government’s refusal to tackle another, largely unconnected corruption issue that led to his dramatic resignation. Our issue with corruption is clearly not contained to one sector, area or type. It is a pervasive UK issue.

As a nation, we are today like a guilty individual hastily pushing an illicit lover out of the window of their bedroom as the world’s media comes storming through the front door, this Bill being scanty garments hastily donned in ill order. The world, with its attention focused in particular down the road on the City of London, will clearly not be deceived about our state of disarray. According to the International Monetary Fund, as much as 5% of the world’s GDP is laundered money, and only 1% of it is ever spotted. Collectively, developing countries have lost $16.3 trillion to illicit leakages since 1980. A very significant chunk of that flows just down the road from here. The Thames is dwarfed by a far dirtier and deadlier stream of corruption, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds noted.

It is worth noting that we are here today because of President Putin. His actions forced our Government to react. We should not be reacting; we should have been proactive many years ago. As the right reverend Prelate said, we should not need this spur, yet clearly the Government are like a horse that has been baulking at the gate, not wanting to be pushed away from a lush, tasty pasture even when it has been made deadly ill by the colic of ill-gotten gains.

Colic is not a contagious disease, but our corruption is. Look at how Russia got to the state it is in today; back in the time of President Yeltsin, the guidance for reshaping the post-Soviet economy was largely handed to western lawyers, accountants and businesspeople. The Russians were told that the neoliberal market model was the way forward, and it actively encouraged what amounted to a 19th-century robber baron-dominated wild east, with what had been Soviet-era senior apparatchiks almost seamlessly switching to champions of the market. We still see some of them today, very close to home.

Of course, the oligarchs bear responsibility for their choices and actions, but so do those who encouraged and enabled them. The sicknesses of our society are many. We often talk about our productivity problem and our labour crisis, but what if the bankers, instead of serving the oligarchs, put their talents to optimising the outputs of our manufacturing? What if the accountants were tracking the movements of nutrients and micro-organisms, with the aim of producing good, healthy food? What if the lawyers were caring for our old and sick?

I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Sikka—I am very sorry that we will not hear from him shortly—for the figure that there are around 400,000 professionally qualified accountants in the UK. That is the highest per capita figure in the world. We have an economy that focuses on spreadsheets, not on the quality of our society. And what have we done in terms of delivering the rule of law? It is frequently claimed that we are at the centre of the camp defending it, but we have actually been leading its absolute undermining.

A book entitled Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals will be published tomorrow. It is definitely in the contest for the best-ever timed publication of a book. The author, Oliver Bullough, notes that we do not just need changes to legislation—we need changes to enforcement, as many noble Lords have noted, and to culture and politics.

In 2016, the Government estimated that the amount of corrupt money flowing into the UK had reached £100 billion a year, and Transparency International has identified at least £1 billion of suspect property bought with Russian money alone. But the flow is not just of money; of course, there has been a massive flow into the West of Russian oil and gas. The trashing of our planet and our economic and political systems are all intimately interlinked. The impoverishment of many and the destruction of our environment are linked to the benefit of the few.

I have some specific proposals and questions for the Minister. First, will the Government now reconsider their plan for freeports? Studies by the European Parliament and the Financial Action Task Force, among others, have shown that the secrecy and extraterritorial nature of freeports are a magnet for money laundering and tax evasion. These are the kind of things we are supposedly trying to act against.

Secondly, in terms of the Russian targets for these sanctions, we are talking about an opt-in system, identifying those oligarchs that are apparently close to Putin and his regime. Robert Reich, the former US Secretary of Labor and now a professor of public policy at the University of California, suggested the freezing of all offshore holdings of Russian nationals in excess of $10 million. He estimates that this would affect 10,000 to 20,000 Russians—those who, by definition, have benefited most from Putin’s rule. How about an opt-in system instead of an opt-out one?

Thirdly, due to the prod that led us to this Chamber today, we are of course focusing on Russia, but what about many other parts of the world? I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who referred to the vicious actions of the Saudi state and our friends in the Middle East and arms customers. What are we going to do to address where Saudi money is in London and where it has come from?

I also stress to the Minister that the problem is not only people in the global south or in places that speak different languages or have different cultures from our own. There are also the tech billionaires and mining magnates, with their overweening wealth, tax dodging and exploitation of their workers. Illegally acquired wealth is far from our only problem. Unexplained wealth orders are meant to tackle that, but I suggest that we also need “all too well explained” wealth orders—you might call it a wealth tax. Many noble Lords have focused on the need to fund far better the enforcement of our laws; perhaps some of the money from a wealth tax could go towards that.

I have a final, practical question. The proposed registration will apply only to property bought in England in the last 20 years, or since 2014 in Scotland. Why not look at what is concealed by previous arrangements? Is it to be considered laundered clean, rather than just more dirty washing? Maybe there is not much desire to go further back. How much of the wealth of people in a place like this has deeply corrupt origins, stolen in the colonial and post-colonial periods?

The Greens can do nothing but support this Bill, which is a small step in the right direction. You can, however, sail even a modestly scaled superyacht through the gaps in it. I thank the Minister and his colleagues for a useful briefing that focuses on the need for a second Bill as soon as possible, but we need much more, and an acknowledgement that the problem is not simply the narrow legal framework, or individuals; the problem is our system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to say something that I do not think I have ever said before: I have really enjoyed this debate. Virtually every noble Lord who has spoken has said, “I support this Bill but …”—and then has proceeded to give a list of reasons why it really is not a very good Bill. My noble friend Lady Bennett suggested that I was going to go into detail but, until this debate started, I thought I was going to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, who has written an excellent 11-page briefing on the Bill, with three and a half pages that outline all the problems with it. I recommend that the Minister takes my copy afterwards and does something over the weekend to brush the Bill up a little.

The past two weeks have been very stressful, even being on the sidelines of watching a European war, and this seems to be the least we can do to actually fight part of that war for Ukraine. We all know that global capitalism is out of control—at least we really ought to know that by now. The mega-rich have been able to abuse their power and their wealth for far too long through investor visas, complex trusts and corporate structures, political donations—more of that in a moment—private schools, aggressive tax avoidance and legal tax loopholes. The mega-rich are actually able to pick and choose whether they obey the same rules and obligations as the rest of us have to do. It seems to me that we really need to get to grips with this. Governments all around the world allow them to get away with it. Worse, they lay out the red carpet and cut the red tape to try to attract them. We are told that cracking down on such people will just create unintended consequences and force them to flee to other countries. Well, we can hope.

These problems have been obvious for a long time, and this Government have ignored them for their 12 years in office. While I also welcome measures in the Bill and accept that it is urgent—because of course it has been urgent for quite a number of years—the Government have to face the shameful fact that they have dithered and delayed, until they have been forced to act by an illegal war. When a hard-line version of Brexit was pushed through Parliament in 2020—and I voted for Brexit; I did not realise that any Government could mess it up to this extent—we had 14 Ministers in Boris Johnson’s Government who had received donations from individuals or companies linked to Russia. Is that the reason why this economic crime Bill is so late and the measures in it so limited? Do the £3.5 million in Russian donations in the decade following 2010 explain why we have ignored Russian interference in our politics, why our intelligence services were not allowed to dig deep into the network of rich Russians and Conservative Party politicians, and why Parliament failed to push forward with the concerns brought to light by the Russia report?

I asked, I think last week—time goes so strangely here—what Russian donors to the Conservative Party get for their money. This is a question that the whole country would like to know the answer to. Is that money stopping the Government putting sanctions on large numbers of rich people who are close to Putin? Do the donations explain why we have fewer sanctions on Russia than the EU, Canada or even Switzerland? There are only just over 300 UK sanctions against Russia, 35 of which have been introduced since 22 February; and, before that, so few. By comparison, the US has sanctioned almost 1,200 individuals and companies, and a fifth of those sanctions have been introduced in the past two weeks.

So London is still a playground for oligarchs, oil barons and outright financial fraudsters—and, as has been said, it is not just Russians; there are unsavoury elites from almost every country on earth. This new legislation has to be used against all illegitimate, dubious members of the global elite, not used simply as a political tool against whoever we think our enemies are at that particular point. There has to be a constant tightening of the laws that constrain the mega-rich. The Government cannot be allowed to rest on this singular piece of legislation—or this double piece of legislation—and say, “We did it”. I regret that there is no sort of sunset clause so that we can look beyond this—the Bill definitely needs better writing.

The Bill can only be a starting point. The upcoming Queen’s Speech must include a raft of legislation to take these issues forward further and faster than many Tory voters or Back-Benchers might feel comfortable with. We really have to do more, and the Bill is only the start. The noble Lords who have explained this evening where we should be going really have to be listened to.

Revised Energy National Policy Statements

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I wish the Minister had shown me his speech before he gave it today, because I could have gone through it with a red pen. Repeating wishful thinking does not make it happen. “May” and “might” is not a policy, and I shall now describe what the Government’s energy policy should be. I am really happy to send it directly to the Minister, in case he is in any doubt about what I am saying.

If we had insulated Britain, people would not be choosing between heating and eating. If we had not “cut the green crap”, as Cameron said, over the past decade, we would be saving £2.5 billion off energy bills. If we had not had a Tory Government for the past 12 years, we would be doing a lot better than we are now.

Renewable energy was cheaper to produce than gas even before the big explosion of oil and gas prices in recent months. There is now a huge gap between what it costs to produce renewable energy and what it is sold for as part of the national grid. If renewables now dominated the energy sector in the UK, everyone would be buying electric hobs and ovens as gas prices soared and electricity prices continued to go down. Rich and poor would all be better off, and the planet would be better off; the only people not better off would be the fossil fuel companies such as Shell—but I think we can manage without their doing particularly well, personally.

We have the perverse situation where green consumers who want green energy are paying extra because we have an energy system dominated by fossil fuels. For example, if someone is selling electricity to the national grid, why are they getting only 5½p per kilowatt hour, when it is being sold back to them for 21p per kilowatt hour? I understand that operators have costs to pay, but those small-scale producers, those homeowners, ought to be getting at least twice what they are now. I have a lot of questions; that is the first.

If gas producers are pushing up the price of electricity, why are households with renewables not getting more for their investment? Why are the fossil fuel giants the ones being rewarded for destroying the planet and ripping off consumers? That is another question.

I know that the Conservative Party receives millions of pounds in donations from the oil and gas industry; we have discussed that in this Chamber before. For example, the Prime Minister got something like £2 million in donations from Russians, possibly oil and gas producers, since he became Prime Minister. The case for a dirty fuel tax is overwhelming, and I wish everyone in this House and this debate would support a move that benefits this planet and consumers. Perhaps that is another question: why not have a dirty fuel tax?

Unfortunately, we have a Government in the pay of the oil and gas industry who have agreed the price cap for consumers going up by 50% in April. By contrast, households in the feed-in tariff scheme selling electricity to the national grid are tied to the retail price index, which will go up by 7.5%. That is a decision by the Government; why is that?

The potential for solar on the rooves of houses, warehouses and shops is absolutely massive, and this is the year when the Government should be giving it the biggest push by upping the amount that people are paid. Getting solar panels on more rooftops could make us far less reliant on gas in future years. Removing the planning block on wind farms supported by their local community would stop reliance on foreign gas. In fact, bringing back all the “green crap” would make us more independent and energy secure.

It is progress—I will give the Government this credit—that the Government have removed the arbitrary cap on how large solar farms can be, but why are we still building new houses and warehouses without basics such as solar panels? Why are there any new houses being built that are not net producers of energy? That is another question. We know how to do it. We know that new houses in the decades to come will have to be built that way or retrofitted, so why do we not do it now? The clever engineers at the national grid say that they can be ready for net zero by 2025, so why cannot we make this happen sooner rather than later? That is another question.

Why can we not use the technology that we have to make renewables the dominant source of our electricity within the next three years? That is another question. Why can we not scale up the use of emerging technologies of battery storage and hydrogen production to capture all that renewable energy in a form we can use to power vehicles, houses and factories when we need it? If we show that solar panels are an investment that really pays off, then more people will see the logic of heat pumps earning them money back. Making Britain independent of foreign gas supplies is a side-benefit of going renewable, the main reason obviously being the climate crisis.

Greens are often accused of wishful thinking, but in my view, and in that of an increasing number of people, we are the realists. The reality is that we have the technology to reach net-zero carbon emissions in the next few years; what we do not have is the political will. The Government’s wishful thinking is that they can keep using oil and gas, even beyond 2050. Instead of using all the potential sources of renewables, they rely on non-existent “greenhouse gas removal technologies” —more wishful thinking—to square this circle in reaching net zero. This is the wishful thinking of politicians who have taken dirty money from the dirty-fuel industries. I am sure the Minister knows that Germany has just cancelled the Nord Stream 2 undersea natural gas pipeline and is saying that it will overhaul its energy supply strategy. I would so love the Government to do this, and I would give them full credit for it.

Another bit of wishful thinking is the Government’s approach to waste incineration, which has driven me mad since I was a councillor. It is good that the Government state:

“The amount of electricity that can be generated from EfW”—


or energy from waste—

“is constrained by the availability of its feedstock, which is set to reduce further by 2035 as a result of government policy.”

However, unless they stop local authorities building an excess of new incinerators across the country and signing up to legally binding contracts for the next 25 or even 35 years, the words have no meaning. Money talks, and the contracts require councils to burn and not recycle. In some areas, the amount of recycling is going down because of the incinerator contracts that councils have signed. Burning waste instead of recycling is bad for air pollution and, obviously, bad for the climate. Can the Government commit that they will not allow the import of waste from abroad for burning in UK incinerators?

I know that we had the debate on nuclear yesterday, where my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle demolished the Government’s arguments for it, but I will say now that nuclear is not needed. We are developing tidal and wave power. Houses leak less heat when they are insulated. We have more efficient batteries as well as the conversion to hydrogen gas. The storage of energy is becoming an everyday thing, whether that is in a car or a battery on the side of the house. In the coming decades, more and more houses and communities will become net producers of energy. Are we seriously expecting them to buy nuclear energy from Hinkley at three or four times the price they are producing it for themselves?

Nuclear is dangerous. It leaks; it produces waste that we do not know how to dispose of; and, above all, we have to build new plants on the coast in an age of rising tides. Every single IPCC report since 2007 has increased the worst-case scenario for sea levels. Sizewell C has a massive sea defence system at the height of 18 metres based on the 2018 IPCC analysis, but that worst-case scenario is already out of date this year. If we build nuclear stations, they will become islands awash with sea water.

The Government’s energy strategy needs to abandon the idea of balance based on dirty fuels, whether fossil or nuclear. It needs to do its bit to mitigate the climate emergency by fast-tracking the cheaper solutions of renewables and insulation. It needs to show some bravery and create a dirty-profits tax that will encourage clean energy. In short, the Green national policy on energy would be good for the planet, good for consumers and independent of Russian gas and the flux of world prices.