Net-zero Carbon Emissions: Behaviour Change

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to contribute to what has been an excellent debate and I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, on leading the debate and choosing such a timely moment to do so. I am slightly confused, because I had the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, down as being the action man for the environment, so I hope we are not going to see interdepartmental strife as to who the true advocate for environmental measures in this context will be. But as my noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate identified, we are looking to see joined-up government here.

A number of noble Lords have mentioned new boilers in new houses. We have been promised them, but just not yet—I think by 2030. That begs the question of what is going to happen to those new houses that do not have those boilers and at whose cost will refitting the boilers be.

What I took mostly from the introductory remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, was how to involve the public, not just through schools, universities and higher education, but each and every one of us as we lead our daily lives.

My noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate has bought a hybrid. I was foolish enough, 20 or 30 years ago, to buy my first diesel car because the then Government said that this was the way forward and we were all invited to drive not just SUVs but 4x4s. If you live in the rural part of North Yorkshire that I do and want to visit your family at Christmas, 40 minutes away, you often have six inches of snow to go through. With my first purchase of a diesel car, I was then faced with the fact that fuel duty was very high and the car tax had increased, so I am going to let others play guinea pig with the hybrid and electric cars until such a time that we have sufficient power points. I understand the Government are now thinking of turning off the power for powering up electric cars for nine hours overnight; I think that is going to cause enormous problems. I hope my noble friend will take the opportunity from the Front Bench to show that that is not the case.

I have been heavily involved with the issue of flooding, not just as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Water Group but as vice-chair of the Association of Drainage Authorities and, in my previous life, as chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and, before that, as shadow Minister, as well as MP for the Vale of York, which was prone to substantial flooding. I have followed the flooding events that my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, referred to and the impact that floods can have.

What hugely disappointed me this week was that water companies came up with a formula to stop surface water flooding going into the combined drains, foul drains and every form of drain in the event of a major surface water flood and, potentially—as we know happens on many occasions—coming into people’s homes and forcing them out for up to six months while the public health issue of sewage is removed. This was such a simple measure to make homes safer, more resilient and resistant to floods, but we could not even get agreement in the House. I think we have a long way to go in this regard.

I think it was under the Blair Government that there were three reviews: the Cave review on competition policy in water, the Pitt review on flooding and the Anna Walker review on water efficiency. We now have retail competition in water, particularly in Scotland, where it was led, and to a certain extent in England. We have more or less implemented nearly all the Pitt recommendations, apart from the most crucial one of ending the automatic right for water companies to have to connect. This means that, in times of flood, as I mentioned earlier, floodwater and sewage is taken not just into rivers but into people’s homes as well.

The often-overlooked recommendations of the Anna Walker review strike a chord with the remarks from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, on how it will benefit the public. One of those was a very simple measure to, in a household of, say, four, heat up and use only the water that you need, rather than leaving the hot water on the whole time. I regret that the Walker review never really got any traction and I hope that we can revisit those recommendations.

I live in a deeply rural farming community. Farmers want to play their part and we can help by substituting imports for locally produced food. Here, I would like to give a shout out to Shepherds Purse Cheeses, the makers of which live just across the field from us and are doing a very good job of making sure we eat more Mrs Bell’s Blue rather than Roquefort. So there is a lot that each and every one of us can do.

I end with a plea to my noble friend for more joined-up government between the departments in question: BEIS, Defra and MHCLG. More especially, when we pass legislation such as the Agriculture Act, the Trade Act and eventually the Environment Bill and the planning Bill, we need to ensure that all the recommendations reflect the issues we have discussed this afternoon.