Infrastructure Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Maddock and Lord Judd
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I often find myself in agreement with my noble friend. Not infrequently, I find myself in strong agreement. On this occasion, I find myself in particularly strong agreement with his amendment and was very glad to see it.
I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for whom I have tremendous respect, although I do not spend a lot of my time agreeing with him on political matters, spoke on this amendment. It is one of the nice things about this House. I like him and have come to respect him tremendously over the years. It is good to have a word of good wishes from him on the subject matter of the amendment.
This is an incredibly important amendment. We want to have the energy necessary to enable Britain to be an effective economic power. We also, I hope by now, have central to our strategy a concern for the well-being of our children and grandchildren and of future generations in terms of climate change. There is therefore a tension between the demand for more energy and the demand to make sure that the well-being of future generations is protected.
When we are discussing climate change, all the right things are often said, but when we come to legislation that is highly relevant to delivering the goods in terms of what is necessary in policy, it gets to the bottom of the pile or gets forgotten altogether. I am very glad that my noble friend drew attention to some of the publications in which this was true.
I shall give one personal experience which rather disturbed me. A couple of years ago, I was at a gathering of businessmen not far from where I live. They were discussing energy and the contribution our part of the world could make to the energy production that is necessary. In a good way, the discussion began to be quite personal, and people started talking about their ambitions for their children. One person after another was saying how they would love to see their son or daughter going into engineering as a career and how in Britain we need to take this more seriously. They talked about engineering this and engineering that, but not one said, “I would love to see my son or daughter working as an engineer in the sphere of energy conservation and energy efficiency”. It is something to do with our culture.
I know that I go home with a sense of anxiety that we are saying the right things about climate change and the rest of it, but so much energy is still wasted at night here in our building. It is better than it used to be, but it is still going on—and that profoundly disturbs me, in the context of leadership. We want to get into the strategic planning and the context in which everything is taking place—firmly there, at the head of the stated principles—the fact that energy conservation is a priority that must be given pride of place.
I am very glad that my noble friend has introduced this amendment. I am looking at the clock. If we have not completed our consideration of this amendment by 4.30 pm I hope that I will be forgiven by the Committee for leaving. The Ecclesiastical Committee is meeting at that time for a particularly important matter—to approve the Synod’s recommendation on the ordination of women bishops—and I really feel that on such an historic occasion those on all sides of the Committee will forgive me if I have to leave before the end of the debate on the amendment.
Baroness Maddock (LD)
My Lords, I add my support to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in trying to get energy efficiency as part of our infrastructure plans. I am also very pleased to support my noble friend Lord Jenkin. Interestingly, I also knew of the quote from the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, and, if he had not used it, I would have done.
I realise that it is always difficult for a Minister to accept anything and I am not really expecting the noble Baroness to do that today, but in the light of what has been said it is important that she can confirm that she will talk very seriously about this to her colleagues. It is clear that she has other ministerial support—it is not just coming from the people talking here in Committee. So I hope that she can do that.
I am particularly concerned, coming from the north-east, for the job creation opportunities of energy efficiency. We have already seen it happening there. One problem is that the economy may be booming in the south-east but it has not been booming quite so much in the north-east. This is one area in which we do quite well and, if the Government take this seriously, we can do even better.
I have one little point to make on a comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, about the energy efficiency of this building. In the Royal Gallery there is a display about the works that they are doing in the Houses of Parliament. I noticed just this morning that in renewing the iron roofs they are putting in insulation.
I support what has been said in general and urge the Minister to take this seriously and perhaps come back on Report with something that we can all support.