Non-Domestic Alternative Fuel Payment Application Scheme Pass-through Requirement Regulations 2023

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend and the department for bringing this measure forward—it is deeply appreciated among businesses. Do we know what the duration of the support will be in this regard?

I take this opportunity to thank the department for bringing forward the impact assessment as part of this, because we are very quick to criticise departments when they do not include such assessments. On this occasion, however, it is very thorough and greatly appreciated. I have learned a new term—counterfactual. I am not quite sure what it means, but we are told that the option of this support is being considered against a “counterfactual of doing nothing”. I do not know whether this is yet another Americanism that has crept into the English language.

I shall just press my noble friend on one point. He has been quite clear about how the intermediaries are responsible for identifying the end-user, yet on page 4 of the 36th report, printed on 10 May by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, it is clearly stated that the committee wishes to report defective drafting in Regulation 5. This refers to the fact, stated in paragraph 3.2 of the report, that there is

“no mechanism in the Regulations for enforcing these requirements. This reflects an approach adopted in previous instruments dealing with the pass-through of scheme benefits by intermediaries”.

How does my noble friend and the department respond to that charge against them?

That is the only question that I have. I wholeheartedly welcome the regulations before us this afternoon. It is extremely important that the support is given, particularly in areas such as rural areas which are off grid.

I know I said that that was the only comment that I had, but I have one last question. On the £150 going to the smaller users, does that mean that the civil action can be pursued through the small claims court, which obviously would not significantly add to their costs, if they had to bring such a claim to which my noble friend referred? I thank my noble friend and the department for bringing forward the statutory instrument before us today.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I thank the Minister for a very familiar speech. Obviously, in principle, we very much support the statutory instrument. What struck me about it, if I am honest, is that when it arrived in my inbox I thought, “I thought we’d done all this”. If you look at the graph on the impact assessment—like the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I welcome it—the big heist in energy prices was in June last year, so we are a long way through from that, by almost one year. Maybe I have misunderstood something, but it seems to have taken a huge amount of time. I realise that the statutory instrument came into effect in April, but it seems an awfully long time has been taken in managing to get this amount of money. It may not be large, but it is important to non-domestic users.

I would be interested to understand from the Minister how well the pass-through mechanism has worked to date on the other scheme. Have there been complaints and have there been any court procedures for people to claim their 2% on their proportion of the original amount of money? Have there been complaints to the department, or has the Minister found that the scheme has worked fairly well so far, as I would hope?

I would also be interested to understand the number of businesses that the department expects should benefit from this scheme. That may be in the impact assessment— I tried to find it there, but I could not, and my apologies if that is so.

I want to come back to the area of enforcement. The Joint Committee was strong on this and rightly so. Big amounts of money may not be involved here but whoever wrote this statutory instrument, as with the previous one on pass-through, must have had their tongue well in their cheek when they said that people could go through a civil claim and get 2% on the money outstanding, given that, at most, it is a fraction of £150. This is still an invitation for people to say, “What the heck? I’m not going to bother with this bureaucracy and I’m not going to do it”. For a country that takes the rule of law seriously, it is a principle that when one has a statutory obligation, there is a method of enforcement if that is ignored. It may not be used but it should be there.

I therefore should be interested to hear from the Minister on those areas, particularly on how successful the existing pass-through arrangements have been to date.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

3rd reading
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, one of the things that strikes me most about the passage of the Bill through this House is that it is has been the opposition parties saying to the Government, “Get on with it. We actually need this Bill through to give the powers that we need to meet decarbonisation and modernise the energy production system in this country”. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, that the amendments that have been made by this House are absolutely in line with the Government’s decarbonisation objectives. I hope that the Commons, as well as the Government themselves, will consider them as positive rather than negative.

I will not go through the long list of other Peers named by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie. What I will do is to say a great deal of thanks to Peers for the Planet for its work in the House, to the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, whom I have enjoyed working with very much indeed. From our own offices, I thank Sarah Pughe and Sarah Dobson.

We look forward very much to not having to play ping-pong on this Bill. Maybe that is too much to hope for but I thank the Ministers, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, for their co-operation during the passage of the Bill. I also thank their teams. I look forward most of all to the Bill being implemented, so that the country as a whole can move ahead in its aims and objectives.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on steering such a major Bill through. I am mindful of the fact that it was originally going to be an energy security Bill. I know that I and a number of noble Lords focused on the environmental aspects, particularly the mitigation hierarchy. I welcome the fact that this is to be enshrined in the levelling-up Bill, and look forward to pursuing it further on that Bill with my noble friend on the Front Bench.

I ask my noble friend to be mindful of the fact that the Scandinavian countries, led by Denmark, have raised a flag about Russian vessels masquerading as fisheries vessels. These are, it is assumed, purposefully undertaking spying operations, particularly to look at the underground cables and the major offshore wind farm operations, notably operated by Denmark. I understand that we are to have a major operation where a lot of this work will co-ordinate around the Dogger Bank, so I urge him to be mindful of the security risk associated with such a major area of the North Sea, where we are extremely vulnerable to such operations by Russian and other forces which may not be so conducive to our energy security as we might wish.

Energy Bill Relief Scheme Regulations 2022

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to congratulate the Government and my noble friend the Minister on bringing through the enabling Act and in particular the regulations before us this afternoon. I commend the support the Government are giving both to non-domestic and domestic customers. If my noble friend will permit, I have a number of questions I would like to press him on, but that does not detract from my overall support for the scheme.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee prepared a very helpful brief, which states that the instruments are made to delegate powers to enable the Secretary of State to make technical rules for the effective operation of the EBRS, including rules for the calculation and recovery of accounts. Paragraph 7.1 of the helpful Explanatory Memorandum appended to the regulations states that the Secretary of State

“can reimburse licensed non-domestic energy suppliers applying price reductions on customers’ bills representing the wholesale energy price element of the bill. This will allow non-domestic customers to receive the benefit of such a discount.”

I welcome what my noble friend said about landlords passing this on to those who operate the businesses; that will be very welcome indeed.

Paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum say that the Secretary of State is required,

“within 14 days of the schemes’ introduction date, to make rules about further reductions”.

The rules will apply to the supply of gas and electricity for the period referred to by my noble friend. Will there be an opportunity for the Committee or the House to see them in advance and to scrutinise them? Will they be laid before the House? I realise they are technical rules, but it would be helpful for us to see them.

Paragraph 11.1 refers to stakeholders, individual organisations and so forth. I would like to make plea for the plight of publicans in pubs, restaurants, bars and cafés, who will benefit from this scheme until the end of March. It is particularly welcome in the run-up to Christmas, and in January and February, which tend to be slow months, as it recognises their need to incur high energy and electricity costs to make a welcoming atmosphere. My noble friend is probably not in a position to tell us today—we will have to wait until tomorrow or even the March Budget—what will happen after this scheme expires. I do not want to be like Oliver Twist and ask for more, but it would be helpful for businesses to know what the future will be. My noble friend has rightly identified that the regulations and the enabling legislation under which they fall are intended to prevent closures and job losses resulting from high wholesale energy costs, which we know are largely global in nature.

I also make a plea for non-domestic customers and businesses that operate in rural areas. The Minister and I are from the north-east of England. I grew up there and represented part of North Yorkshire for 18 years in the other place. In about a week’s time, we will have the first anniversary of Storm Arwen, when a number of businesses closed. Those who were not fortunate enough to have generators were heavily penalised. As part of learning from that, I met our local director of the NFU, which is keen to work with the Government and other bodies to see how we can enhance infrastructure and the grid in rural areas where we are heavily dependent on off-grid fuels such as oil, solid fuel and LPG, and to look at what prospect there might be for developing those off-grid resources. It is basically about lessons learned from Storm Arwen, in what was a very difficult time.

These regulations were debated in the other place by the Delegated Legislation Committee on Monday 14 November. It was asked then why there had not been a greater assessment of the impact of administration and resource costs on Ofgem, which will be heavily involved in monitoring compliance. Has BEIS looked at that? Will it have time to do so in the next few weeks? Secondly, if a company has outstanding debt on bills of greater than 28 days, it effectively does not qualify. For what reason has that benchmark been chosen? With those few questions, I wish Godspeed to the regulations and congratulate my noble friend and his department on the work they have done in this regard, for both non-domestic and domestic customers.

I have one further question, which relates more to domestic customers. What I would identify as sharp practices are being developed by electricity providers on the back of the Government’s generosity in this regard. When a customer is in credit, their direct debit payments are going up, which I can see no rhyme or reason for. If a customer is in credit, why on earth would you seek to increase their direct debit, particularly when the Government have lent the generous help that they have? Another such practice happens when, no matter how many meter readings they may give, the customer ends up with an estimated bill. Again, that seems to be a way of bumping up the price. I would welcome any response that my noble friend has to what seem to be developing sharp practices.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, we on our side very much welcome this relief for businesses and commercial operations with regard to energy prices. Again, I very much echo the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, on the fact that the evaluation does not take place until three months. I understand the issue of how you would evaluate it before that, but there is no obligation to put forward further plans until the end of the scheme, after six months. I would be interested to hear an answer on that.

Contracts for Difference (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2022

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend and congratulate him on presenting the regulations to us this afternoon. He will be aware that there were great hopes, particularly off the Yorkshire and Humber coast, that facilities had been identified which would be appropriate for exactly the type of venture that is set out in the regulations before us today. So I welcome the regulations, but is my noble friend able to confirm that he believes that the take-up on the proposals for carbon capture and storage will increase and multiply because of the content of the regulations before us this afternoon?

Separately—he might think I am going off-piste here, and I probably am—can my noble friend explain something? If I understood it correctly, one of the difficulties we have with wholesale gas prices impacting the UK as they have—though perhaps not as badly as in other European countries, which rely heavily on Russia—is that we have gas storage of only 60 days, which is about two months. That strikes me as being terribly low. I do not suppose that that would benefit from these proposals, but I would like to understand why, historically, we seem to have a lower storage capacity than other European countries. Is that something that the Government might be minded to look at that?

The only other point I wish to make, which I am sure my noble friend is very familiar with, is the point raised in the 37th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which I find myself in some sympathy with. Even though I am a lawyer by training and spent about nine months of my training going through all the scientific evidence—produced mostly by scientists rather than lawyers—on whether fluoride was a carcinogen, I find that even these small regulations before us this afternoon are full of jargon. There is a request in paragraphs 22 and 23 of the 37th report that the Explanatory Memorandum perhaps be revised to enable us humble Members of the House to understand better its contents. Can my noble friend simply confirm that that is the case? If that could happen in advance next time so that, when we see the Explanatory Memorandum we are better able to follow it, it would be very welcome indeed.

I thank my noble friend and his department for all they are doing at this particularly difficult time, and I give a warm welcome to the regulations this afternoon.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, in fact we should congratulate the Minister, because the officials have rewritten the Explanatory Memorandum. There are two versions of it on the website, and one of them explains all the acronyms in a footnote. Strangely enough, I knew all the ones they listed, but I was unclear about a couple in the rest of the report. It is not there—it is on the website.

First, although the Climate Change Committee and the Government are right that carbon capture and storage technology is needed, exactly as the Minister said, we also need a slightly cautionary note about it. In a way, certainly in terms of power generation, it is a far less efficient way of producing power; it takes energy to produce it, as we are all aware. An opportunity to produce power without CCS is obviously better, although I entirely understand that industrial processes are different.

The other thing I am always cautious about—I know that most of the basis is putting it back under the sea or wherever—is the element of putting pollution back under the carpet to a degree. I am not saying that it is unsafe or anything, but it is always better if we can avoid that.

On the propositions here, having read the Explanatory Memorandum, I understand that the fact that this can include retrofitted power stations is unclear. Clearly, it is much better in all sorts of ways to have retrofitted ones than have to build new ones, although I suspect whether that is economically possible or right depends on whether the particular gas facility—I presume it would be gas; I suppose it could technically be coal—has been future-proofed in terms of utilisation. That is good.

What really concerns me is that the SI says you do not have to use a pipeline. The amount of carbon dioxide coming out of a power generation station of any size will be quite substantial; the thought of trucks in urban areas moving carbon dioxide, maybe over many miles, across the surface outside a pipeline seems quite a challenge in terms of noise, congestion and carbon footprint—depending on how that transport works. I would be very interested to understand the logic behind that from the Minister. As I understand it, this will primarily be in clusters, which it seems to me will always need to be pipeline-based to get the carbon dioxide out to a storage facility, whether it is undersea or wherever. I would be very interested in the Government’s view of why this is necessary, what they expect and whether there will be any limits on how this transportation takes place. Clearly, pipelines must be absolutely right for this rather than some sort of other surface transport.

The SI also goes through the payment mechanisms. I am interested in the Explanatory Memorandum here, particularly on the availability payment. Paragraph 7.13 says that this is a payment for availability to dispatch electricity, and performance. I thought we had a thing called the capacity market to do that. Why do we need this? Does it not compete with the capacity market? I do not understand what the difference is or why we are inventing another load of systems for this. On the variable payment, again, would a strike price not work better? I understand that those options are still available, despite these amendments.

Then we come to the merit order, which says “We will compensate the price to make sure that we have non-carbon intensive gas stations producing electricity ahead of conventional ones”, which is clearly absolutely right for decarbonisation, but it has a cost. The economic analysis in the paper says there is no cost to the private sector, which I guess is right, but I would like to understand what the size of the cost to the taxpayer of all this is expected to be.

Lastly, I would be interested in the government estimate of the extra cost of producing CCS electricity through a gas station compared to conventional generation. The department must have done this to work out roughly what the public expenditure requirements might be.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, although I am very much in favour of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, as well.

Devolution has not been a disaster in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or, indeed, London. It has strengthened the United Kingdom, our economy and our society. My great fear is that the overwhelming application of the market access principle—with those few exceptions: life or health of humans, animals and pets or public safety and security—is far too restrictive and will mean that important parts of devolution erode and disappear over time.

As with Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, I am particularly concerned about the environment, including climate change. I will be brief on this. We heard arguments in Committee that the most important thing was maintaining strong competition in the United Kingdom. I agree with that, but, like all things in market economies, that needs to be constrained in certain ways. While we need market competition to remain strong, it is equally important in a modern economy that innovation can take place. Competition in environmental regulation and some of these other areas is equally important to stimulate innovations in the nations of the United Kingdom that others can follow when they are successful. I see that as a key part of this process: being able to keep at the same time the different ways in which the nations of the United Kingdom can interpret environmental and climate change needs.

I am delighted that the Minister responding is the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who is the Government’s Minister for Climate Change. I am sure he will be absolutely persuaded by these arguments that we need these environmental innovations to help with climate change as we move forward—as the Prime Minister wants us to, as he showed in his 10-point plan today—and to make sure we keep that progress and do it in the many ways the nations of the United Kingdom wish.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am most grateful for this opportunity to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who chairs our EU Environment Sub-Committee so expertly and courteously.

I take this opportunity in supporting Amendments 10 and 11—I would marginally prefer Amendment 10, but presumably they are for debating purposes—briefly to ask my noble friend Lord Callanan whether our understanding of the Bill as currently drafted is correct, in that it appears to be very tightly and prescriptively drawn, as so expertly indicated by the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Anderson. Would protection of the environment or the labelling provisions proposed by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham be permitted? Is my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe correct that, for example, the labelling provisions set out by my noble friend Lord Young would already be allowed?

My understanding is that member states such as Denmark can already provide additional information for consumers, such as the calorie content of beers and other foods, and that we have not gone that far yet. Would that be permitted under the Bill as currently drafted, or do we need the amendments in this group to be moved? That would greatly assist me understand how exactly the provisions in the Bill as drafted are to be interpreted.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as co-chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. I shall speak also to Amendment 142. Both these amendments relate to reducing the transition period for the introduction of ELMS from seven years to five years. I suspect that Members are probably not that keen on the idea at the moment, so for the next couple of minutes I intend to try to persuade them otherwise, because it is important that we reduce the transition period.

Members and indeed the country as a whole are aware of COP 26 this year which was supposed to take place in Glasgow concerning the climate change agreement and getting the Paris agreement carried forward in a positive way to meet our planetary carbon emissions targets, but many people are not so aware of a second major conference, COP 15, about the diversity convention. It was supposed to take place this year in Kunming, China but it has also been postponed until next year.

Biodiversity is a global crisis equal to climate change. Biodiversity is not just a problem of equatorial rainforests; it is a problem in Europe and here in the United Kingdom as well. The 2019 State of Nature report states that

“15% of species in the UK are now threatened by extinction,”

41% are in decline and a third remain effectively static, with only a small proportion gaining in number. Biodiversity is not just about bird spotters or twitchers and a comfortable feeling about nature, important though it is for our mental health and the energy of our countryside. It is also about supporting natural systems and allowing them to operate—ecosystem services such as pollination, soil formation, clean water, atmospheric oxygen, disease control and many more. All these are essential not only to the natural world around us but to our economic performance and indeed to our continued existence on this planet.

One of the great things that I have always praised in the Agriculture Bill is the idea not just of public money for public goods but that it should be concentrated on building up and improving biodiversity and nature in our countryside. That is important because about 70% of the land in England and across the UK is used in agriculture. However, I regret to say that it is because of agricultural management that biodiversity in this country has declined so significantly. I do not blame the farming industry and individual farmers for that, but I do blame the financial incentive system within which they have had to operate.

Why am I asking for the transition period to be reduced from seven to five years? It is because the biodiversity issue is a global crisis as well as one here in the United Kingdom. If we take no action and carry on with business as usual, economic systems will fail. At the end of seven years, we will be almost half way through the period of the 25-year environment plan, which I also welcome, although it must be properly financed and delivered.

It may sound trite, but I remind noble Lords that the Second World War lasted for a mere six years and we managed to overcome all the problems and challenges that affected us globally within that time. At the moment we are in a transition period, moving from being a member of the EU to our global position in just 11 months, with all the challenges that that poses, so surely we can manage to implement ELMS over five years rather than seven. I also remind noble Lords that, on nature depletion, the United Kingdom is not in a good position. We ranked 29th from the bottom out of 218 countries. That is why this issue is so important. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who is the illustrious chairman of our EU sub-committee. For the record, however, I would like the transition period to remain as it is.

I want to speak to Amendment 143, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for lending their support. It is a simple amendment, which would delay the start of the seven-year transition period away from direct payments coming into effect from 2021 to 2022. I should like to pause here to explain why this is necessary.

In seeking to delay the start of the transition period to the new policy framework to 2022, I accept that there is wide support across the House for the government objectives in the Bill to move towards a new framework of support for agriculture that focuses on public payments for public goods and increasing productivity. Much of the detail will be set out in supporting regulations and in the Environment Bill, of which we in this House have not yet had sight. However, the changes being envisaged will be the biggest in a generation and look set to be in place for many years to come.

I accept that we are leaving the European Union but note with regret that, in the four years since the vote in June 2016 signalled the beginning of a process of change, particularly in leaving the CAP, we have made very little progress in developing the necessary mechanisms, policies and schemes that would be worthy of the major changes that we are expecting in this Bill. I accept that much of this is down to the political impasse leading up to the last general election and, more recently, to the pressing issues around controlling Covid-19, which I am sure have affected Defra as they have many other departments.

It is essential that we take the time to introduce new schemes and measures that will stand the test of time, rather than simply bringing them in quickly for the sake of it. I fear that there is an overarching desire through the Bill to show that things have changed as a result of our departure from the European Union, rather than to ensure that we put in place good, made-for-purpose, fit-for-purpose, resilient schemes. Let us face it: our track record in delivering new schemes and new IT to support them is not that great.

Following the environmental land management scheme tests and trials, which themselves have been impacted by the issues surrounding Covid-19 and are ultimately delayed, the Government intend to conduct a pilot in England of a new ELM scheme in 2021, with a view to it being fully operational by 2024. However, if it is true that the Rural Payments Agency will be in charge of running these pilots—I hope that my noble friend can put my mind at rest on that—we have to question its capacity to run such a pilot when it is already struggling to deliver business as usual. Once again this year, the RPA has had to ask the Treasury for funding to bridge payments to environmental stewardship and countryside stewardship applicants before being penalised for failing to meet the required payment targets by 30 June this year. What reassurance can the Government provide that there is adequate capacity within the RPA to deliver the pilot, or does my noble friend think that another body would be more appropriate?

I also place a question mark on the extent to which the Government would be able to spend any money saved through the reductions in direct payments starting in 2021. I understand that Defra has identified this as a potential problem and is therefore looking to make an announcement in September about enhanced options for countryside stewardship and productivity schemes. However, we have none of the detail available to us today. In my view, the sensible thing is to delay the start of the transition period until 2022. That is not kicking the can down the road but giving the Government and Defra the time and space to deliver the good schemes that we know they are capable of, rather than producing half-baked schemes.

The reasons for this delay are these: we are being asked to take a lot on trust; we have not had sight of the Dimbleby food strategy, which I understand will not reach us before Report; we have not had the results of the trials of the ELM schemes; the OEP has yet to be set up; and we do not know what its relationship to the Environment Agency, Natural England and the RPA will be. We owe it to Defra to give it time, because of the Covid pandemic, to reach a proper conclusion to these schemes. I therefore ask the House to commit to supporting Amendment 143.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to have this opportunity to speak to Amendment 35A to Clause 27. This is a neat amendment which encapsulates three important points. Paragraph (a) states that quota

“may not be sold … to other persons following the original purchase”.

It should specifically not be sold to non-active fishers and should be

“prioritised for sale to vessels under 10 metres.”

Paragraph (c) has been debated to a large extent under the previous amendment, and the fact that that amendment was carried negates my having to speak to that part of my amendment.

My main concern lies with a practice that has become widespread. I do not think it was ever intended that quotas should be tradable, but it is a bit like the milk quotas. If you give something an economic value, it suddenly becomes of great interest. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, spoke about hedge funds. I was surprised to learn that football clubs had chosen to invest in fish quotas. I cannot think of anything that could possibly be further removed from an active fisherman. I would like to return to active fishermen benefiting. We have discussed how boats under 10 metres do not have access to anything other than shellfish, for which no quota is set, but they would like to have further access. As I say, that point has now been addressed, but I would prefer to see that quotas are not sold under any circumstances to non-active fishers. I should be interested to know the Government’s position—whether they would look favourably in that regard.

More especially, I should like to concentrate my remarks on the fact that this practice of quotas becoming tradable is regrettable. We should revert to the original practice, where those who bought the quotas kept them and did not sell them on. I do not think it is good practice to sell the quotas on and, if we can couple ownership to the use of quota, we will develop more responsible behaviour as to how the quota is exercised. It would be my fervent wish that quota is, in both the shorter and longer term, owned and used by fishermen directly, which gives everyone the opportunity to behave better, not being able to cut and run and sell quota off as surplus to their requirements purely as an economic commodity.

With those few remarks, I hope to gain the support of the Government in this regard for ceasing the practice of tradable quotas and to revert to practices where the quotas are sold to those who use them and, ideally, active fishermen. I do not intend to press this to a vote, but at this stage, I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for tabling this amendment; I will be interested to hear the Government’s response to it. As the noble Baroness said, milk quotas became purely financial instruments, and it is absolutely right that we should not be in that position. They should not appear on the London futures market or whatever it may be because that is not what this is about, especially in the area of fisheries.

However, in Cornwall there is an organisation called the Duchy Fish Quota Company. While it is not itself a fishing concern, it attempts to use money from donors to buy quota in order to keep it for Cornish fishers. It does so because we have the exact problem that has been set out so well by the noble Baroness: these quotas are traded and there tends to be a concentration of them with the risk that they can be owned outside the United Kingdom. The nice thing is that if this problem could be solved through such an amendment or a similar policy, an organisation like the Duchy Fish Quota Company would no longer be necessary. I am strongly in favour of this amendment in principle and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response in terms of its policy for the future in this area.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I very much support the amendment. I admit that there is, perhaps uncharacteristically, a smidgen of innovation in this part of the Bill. The noble Baroness is absolutely right, and I will listen to the Minister’s reply very carefully because, as we know from Northern Ireland and “cash for ash”, these schemes can have unintended consequences. While, as always, I commend the Government on being determined to keep the discard ban active and well managed, we need to understand how this will operate practically and make sure that those unintended consequences do not arise.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I seek clarification as I raised a number of points earlier in the Bill relating to this issue. The amendment is useful in that regard to tweak information out of my noble friend. I wondered what the background was to the move away from eliminating discards to this discard prevention charging scheme. Is it from the model developed in New Zealand, and are the Government satisfied that that model is working better now than when there were initial teething problems?

I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify, but I understand that this provision is not deemed to apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Has he had any discussions with the devolved Administrations to see if they are proposing to go down this path at a future stage? I understand that the Scottish Government may bring forward their own Scottish fisheries Bill in this regard; I simply do not know the answer to that.

In Clause 28, how does my noble friend imagine the discard prevention charges being monitored? The way that subsection (4)(a) and (b) is drafted could indicate that this is a voluntary scheme. Are the Government minded to link the scheme to the REM that we discussed earlier, and would that involve cameras on boats as well as other equipment?

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 77A, I will speak also to Amendment 80A. I also have a few comments on Amendment 124 from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, which seems very sensible.

The Minister will recall my concerns on earlier clauses as to how policies such as discard charging schemes and other items will be policed. I have tabled these two amendments as a way of allowing me to debate these issues. In particular, I understand that it is quite possible—this was not news to my noble friend and other noble Lords—that a Scottish fisheries Bill may be introduced. While I understand that Clauses 15 and 17 will apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, is the discard charging scheme intended to apply only to English boats or also to foreign boats operating in UK waters? In that case, Scottish boats would be included as well. How will REM—the remote electronic monitoring—work? Is it envisaged that cameras will be included in all cases? Will it be a mandatory scheme? Will it be a statutory provision of the licence that British fishing boats under Clause 15 or foreign boats under Clause 17 require as to how it will apply? I do not see how the scheme will work if it is not mandatory and does not include cameras.

As my noble friend is aware, I am particularly exercised about the discard charging scheme. I would have preferred the original government policy, which clearly pointed to complete elimination. The purpose of these amendments is to allow my noble friend to explain how it will operate in practice. Will it apply to all British boats or only to English boats? What will the relationship be if the Scottish Parliament passes a separate fisheries Bill, and what will our relationship be with foreign fishing vessels? Will they be put on exactly the same footing and will it be a mandatory scheme? Which clauses will it apply to?

In Amendment 124, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, is doing something not dissimilar to what I am doing. He too refers to remote electronic monitoring with cameras, which, unless my noble friend can put my mind at rest about how any remote electronic scheme could work without cameras, I am keen on. Can the noble Lord tell me why he seeks to phase this in? I am much more at one with the Government, unless I have misunderstood the drafting of his amendment, which talks about this being phased in. I hope my noble friend insists that this is brought in immediately as a provision of the licencing regulatory regime.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, we come now to one of the most important groups of amendments. I was interested in the reply given by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to the fourth Oral Question earlier, which was about what the Government are doing to make this country an environmental leader. He went through a number of Bills which are going through at the moment, including the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill, before mentioning the Fisheries Bill. He is right on the first two. Under the Agriculture Bill, there is ELMS, a very radical policy to ensure that farmers who are paid a subsidy produce public goods. A lot of those are going to be focused on the environment. As the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said, as part of the Environment Bill we have net gain and nature recovery networks, both of which I applaud. They will add greatly to the environmental growth of the United Kingdom.

What does the Fisheries Bill do to enhance the UK’s environment? The withdrawal Act gave us control over the EEZ, but all the Fisheries Bill does is change one set of administrators to another, replacing a lot of objectives in the common fisheries policy with similar ones. There is nothing in this Bill that enhances the marine environment. I cannot think of anything in it, as it stands, that does that.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and have added my name to it. I know that my noble friend the Minister will say that the amendment is not needed, but I would argue that it is. If there were no changes to the joint fisheries statement, we should be able to understand why that was the case and why everyone had agreed. It would be helpful to have more openness and transparency in that regard.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group which I am sure the Minister will be able to bat away quickly and easily. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on his amendment: it is a problem that I thought we would never have, but he suggests a way to resolve it and I am sure that he would make an excellent independent adviser if it should ever arise.

Clause 3(1) states:

“The fisheries policy authorities may at any time prepare and publish a replacement JFS.”


It comes back to trying to make the rules clearer. Can one of the authorities trigger this, or does there have to be a consensus? I look to the Minister for guidance on what precisely that mechanism is.

I always like simplification in life. While I understand what the Bill is trying to do in requiring two fisheries statements, it would be great to have a combined document so that everybody could understand how the policy looks as a whole. That would be terribly useful to the consumers of the legislation; that is, the industry and all the stakeholders.

I would be interested to hear from the Minister how the department came to six years as a review period. We have American presidential elections every four years, the World Cup is every four years, the Olympics are every four years, and fixed-term Parliaments are every five. Why six? It would be better if it was five. Six years seems a long time in terms of marine ecology and fisheries statements. It should be looked at just a little more regularly.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Committee stage
Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, this is another probing amendment, following on from the discussion I had with my noble friend the Minister in preparing for Committee. Its aim is to tease out from the Government which international fisheries policy authorities they intend to co-operate with.

The back narrative of this is that in paragraph 71 of the political declaration published in October, it is stated, in respect of fishing opportunities, that:

“The parties should cooperate bilaterally and internationally to ensure fishing at sustainable levels, promote resource conservation, and foster a clean, healthy and productive marine environment, noting that the United Kingdom will be an independent coastal state.”


This will be extremely important when, as we see later in the Bill, a fisheries policy authority, when publishing a fisheries management plan, has to have regard to changes in circumstances, one of which could be changes in the UK’s international obligations.

My noble friend has expressed very clearly our desire to maintain our role in UNCLOS—the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Presumably we were an independent member of UNCLOS before we joined the European Union. I would like confirmation that our status in that regard has not changed. I know that there is a verbal commitment to our continuing engagement with ICES—the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea—but will we maintain the same level of spending as in the past? I am not clear, either, about which budget this will come from—the Defra budget or another departmental budget. It would be helpful to know that. We took evidence from ICES in connection with our work on the energy and environment sub-committee, and I have visited the ICES headquarters in Copenhagen twice. It is important for us to continue to rely on the excellent research work that it does.

I am not aware whether there will be any change in our status in relation to the Food and Agriculture Organization—particularly the fisheries and agricultural aspects of its work—or what our dependence on it will be, but that is also extremely important. One non-governmental organisation that I presume we have left, now that we are an independent sovereign state, is the European Environment Agency. It is of particular historic interest—I want to place this on record—that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, is a great expert in this field and was a leading environmentalist in the European Commission for a number of years before he was elected to the European Parliament. He is still a highly regarded and internationally respected environmentalist in his own right. Will the Government commit to continuing to work very closely with, and rely on the work of, the European Environment Agency with regard to fisheries but also on other environmental work—particularly agriculture, when the Agriculture Bill comes up? I hope that we can keep the door open to the work of the European Environment Agency.

I would be interested to learn about the nature of our new relationships with international parties such as Norway, Iceland and the Faroes that the Bill sets out, particularly—dare I say—if a fisheries dispute arises. The Government have clearly stated that we will not be subject to any jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, but I argue that there is a degree of urgency about fisheries policy—and other policies—since we are now an independent coastal state. Who will arbitrate in the event of any fisheries dispute in our new relationships with Norway, Iceland and the Faroes? More importantly, what will the dispute resolution mechanisms be with regard to any dispute with the other 27 European Union countries? If, for example, France was to follow through with its threat to blockade the continental ports, despite a fisheries agreement being in place, thereby preventing our fisheries products accessing the market—a very real prospect—what would the dispute mechanism be? We need to know. I am not aware what it would be and I seek reassurance on that.

International relations are particularly important because—I place this on record—the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea requires the UK to participate in management based on an agreement on straddling stocks, which means that we would need to negotiate almost everything. With those few introductory remarks, I look forward to clarification on the issues that I have raised this afternoon. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for introducing at last the other people who deal with our fish stocks—other national authorities. The fundamental flaw of this Bill is that it seems to ignore the rest of the world, while our fish stocks—most of them, including their spawning grounds—are outside our exclusive economic zone. Later in the Bill we come to amendments where, I hope, we can strengthen it so that it notes and acts on the real world, where this resource is not exclusive to us.

I welcome the Bill in relation to the scientific side, which, to give the Government their due, is well advanced in terms of using ICES and stock assessments, for example, and I hope that the Minister will tell us about a lot of other things that they are doing with regard to keeping within those international areas. However, we are a member of all sorts of regional fisheries organisations, such as the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission and various tuna organisations, as well as UNCLOS, as the noble Baroness mentioned. These are basic, fundamental aspirations that we need to exceed to make sure that we have the sustainability that we need.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 16th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

No, it just stays as it is.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on shining a light on this particular difficult policy area. I follow on from the remarks made by my noble friend Lady Altmann, but on a slightly different question, regarding a case study with which I am all too familiar because it concerns my own pension, so I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for raising this.

One area of EU law that has long concerned me is the free movement of pensions and that the pension to which one contributes while living and earning money in another EU member state should be recognised when one returns to the UK. In my case, I remember only too well that I contributed on two occasions, once as an employee and once as a self-employed independent lawyer. On one of those occasions, my contribution was taken and has simply not been recognised. I am sure that this is a common problem; I cannot believe that it applies only to me.

I am in a privileged position as regards my pension, other than the fact that I am told I cannot take my state pension until a slightly later year than I was expecting. When summing up on this small group of amendments, can my noble friend give the House assurance that, where an individual of whatever nationality —British, in my particular case—has contributed to a pension scheme in, for example, Belgium, France, Germany or Denmark and at some future date wishes to return to the United Kingdom, there is a guarantee that their pension will be recognised and will be paid as part of either a private or occupational or state pension at the time of retirement?

REACH etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

I absolutely endorse that: we often think of this industry as dominated by large corporates and internationals; it is not. There is a huge SME sector which is just as important in this.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

I am most grateful.

In paragraph 17 of the 15th report the department is recorded as replying to one of the concerns thus:

“Should it become clear that we are in a ‘no deal’ scenario, staffing levels will be scaled up as required over a period of several years, allowing time for recruitment and training”.


The question has to be asked: as we are on the eve of a potential no deal, what is the position now and how far advanced are we with the scaling up? Are the officials coming from the industry and from other departments? What certainty can we have that the officials who are being asked to prepare for exit day under no deal are in place and have the knowledge in this regard?

My heart sank when my noble friend said that the dedicated IT system had been tried and tested and was ready to go. Successive Governments have found themselves in an embarrassing situation where we have a new, swanky IT system in place, it has been tried and tested and is ready to go, but it has proved to fail. I think the two examples I am going to choose actually reflect badly on my own Government. One relates to the Rural Payments Agency, where we not only introduced a new system of farm payments but, at exactly the same time, introduced a new IT system which had been tried and tested—and failed. The other IT system that caused great distress throughout the country was rolled out by the Child Support Agency. Again, we had a new IT system that had been tried and tested and proceeded to fail, with devastating consequences for families across the country. I hope that my noble friend will be proved right that this IT system is indeed ready to go.

At paragraph 27 of its 15th report, the committee raises concern about the possibility of failure and disruption:

“We remain concerned … that there may be disruption to the UK chemical industry, supply chains and wider economy as a result of new requirements to register chemicals from the EU after exit”.


That is certainly something noble Lords would wish to be satisfied on this afternoon.

My final point is that the House is incredibly grateful to Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Sub-Committee B for its work in preparing us for this debate on a very important SI.

I am rather concerned that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, might be at my dinner. We were at breakfast together this morning, as indeed was my noble friend Lady Byford and a number of others. We are now together—almost—post-lunch. I pray that we might be at dinner together this evening, but perhaps we might both have a reprieve. He mentioned the need for reassurance about ongoing consultation, and that all the groups are united. It is quite a challenge to unite such disparate groups as the Green Alliance and the broader environmental groups, the health companies, the animal rights charities and indeed the chemical industry. I conclude by asking my noble friend to give the House an assurance that the consultations are indeed ongoing and will continue throughout any transitional period.

International Waste Shipments (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for setting out the background to this instrument, which I welcome. I would like to ask a couple of questions.

The Minister referred to a national plan being in place. Has anyone voiced concerns about this plan? Are they entirely happy with it? At what date will that national plan kick in?

I think that my noble friend has addressed the concerns raised by Sub-Committee B of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, but there was a scenario referred to whereby 556 UK approvals to export notified waste to the EU, with an associated tonnage of just under 25 million tonnes, might be caused to fall into an abyss. Can my noble friend put my mind at rest that the situations in paragraphs 3.6 and 3.7 on page 3 of the Explanatory Memorandum have been resolved?

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I would also like to thank the Minister very much for participating in a meeting—I only managed to get to the very end of it, but the invitation was there. I also congratulate her on making what seems like a mundane statutory instrument really exciting through the enthusiasm of her reading.

However, this is an exciting issue, and it is a global issue. This whole market has fundamentally changed since the beginning of last year—almost a year ago—when China refused imports of what it called low-grade plastic, anything below about 99.7% pure plastic recyclate. Since then, that tide of waste from the developed world to the developing world has now been stopped by Thailand temporarily, as well as by Vietnam and Malaysia. We had the irony of President Trump blaming Asia for the litter that was washing up on the west coast of America, when of course most of it had already been exported from developing countries, particularly the United States, to east Asia. I will come back to this theme at the very end, but I want to put this SI in the context of an important issue and a quickly changing world.

Perhaps I could go through a few questions about the SI itself. I understand from it that we are, obviously, already members of the OECD and tied by those regulations and agreements, but are also we signed up not just as a member state of the EU but as a member in our own right to the Basel convention, which covers this area, so that we do not have to have a treaty change for that?

I was interested that the Minister mentioned Spain and, as I understand it from her, we have got to a stage where we are agreeing to agree but have not actually agreed. I understand also that the SI’s territorial limitations are to the United Kingdom. Does the Minister have any information about the relationship between Gibraltar and mainland Spain regarding its waste disposal? I think that the overseas territory—that is its status—relies very much on Spain for that as well. I do not know whether that is included as part of the negotiations going on at the moment.

I note the Minister’s remarks on consultation, but I would be interested to understand whether waste contractors and waste exporters have now been sent precise instructions on what they have to do.

I found the actual form on page 33 of the SI rather quaint. It read a little like one of those forms you get when you go to the United States, which says, “Have you indulged in terrorist activities recently?”, as if you are going to casually tick that for yes. I was quite surprised to see such a 1950s-style document here, but perhaps it is all computerised. I would be interested to understand that from the Minister.

I want to be clear on another area which affects all these things. As we know, Defra is the department that has suffered more cuts under our fiscal regime than pretty well any other department, outside that for local government—the MHCLG, as it is now. Does the Environment Agency have the capacity to take on any additional responsibilities in this area, particularly given the rise in waste crime that there has been? Frankly, I suspect that the amount of waste crime internally in the UK is absolutely dwarfed by the amount of potential exported material that should not be exported. Despite saying that we should not export waste to countries that have lower environmental standards than us, I see no track record of that whatever.

I come back to the fundamental point I made at the beginning. I read through the resources and waste strategy published by Defra at the end of last year. Chapter 6 of that is entitled “Global Britain: international leadership”, and I could not see anywhere in it a wish to stop this trade in waste, so that we would clean up our own backyard and no longer send that waste to other parts of the world. The greatest thing about this SI ought to be that it should become absolutely redundant within five to 10 years.

Aquatic Animal Health and Alien Species in Aquaculture (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing this statutory instrument forward. He will be pleased to know that I do not oppose it; I just have a couple of questions. I remind the Committee that I chaired the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee next door for one term of five years.

My noble friend set out very clearly the importance of aquatic health to the whole of the island of Ireland. My question goes to the heart of this. I presume this is a no-deal statutory instrument; is that correct, or is it something that will continue in the event of a deal? I read with great interest of the trade deal that has been made with the Faroe Islands. I have visited those islands. I am very proud of my Danish heritage and that the Faroe Islands used to be a part of Denmark. I was intrigued to see that the United Kingdom is selling £6 million-worth of goods to the Faroe Islands, but importing £200 million of goods from them, most of which is fish, particularly shellfish. I understand that a lot of this is crabs. Will this pose a problem for Northern Ireland? Specifically, is the MSC the body that will continue to check all imports from what will effectively be third countries, including other European Union countries—the remaining 27 members of the European Union—at the point of entry? I should know the answer to this, but making the analogy with the Food Standards Agency in England, I want to ask what the relevant body will be and whether my noble friend shares my concern about ensuring that we maintain the excellent aquatic health that Northern Ireland currently has.

In paragraph 7.5 on page 5 of the Explanatory Memorandum—I think this is repeated in the next statutory instrument as well—I was delighted to see that the Government have very wisely chosen to maintain the equivalent or higher standards set by the World Organisation for Animal Health; I will not say it in French, even though I am quite proud of my French accent. I hope that is something that the Government intend to do going forward; I am sure we will discuss this. I am sure my noble friend agrees that it is absolutely vital that we maintain regulations regarding aquatic health in the EU. This is relevant because these will be third-country imports from the date of our leaving, if we leave with no deal.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, it is always with some sadness that we deal with a Northern Ireland issue, a part of this country that voted remain quite decisively yet is completely unrepresented in the other place. In fact, it is represented by a very extreme party of Brexit. However, we are where we are.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, that in my Select Committee this morning we looked at the Faroe Isles FTA and have brought it to the special attention of the House. It would be quite useful to debate it on the Floor of the House, even though it is only our 144th trading partner worldwide.

Storage of Carbon Dioxide (Amendment and Power to Modify) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, when I read this, particularly the Explanatory Memorandum, I started to feel it was an exercise in irony. Despite all the urgency of the potential Brexit, here we have a situation where it will probably be necessary to pass this legislation by 29 March 2029, given the current government decarbonisation strategy.

In 2017, as the Minister will probably remember, the Public Accounts Committee in the other place pointed out that the Government had wasted some £168 million on CCS projects—including £100 million on the one cancelled by George Osborne in the 2015 Budget—with no progress whatever.

Having said that, I agree with Claire Perry, the Minister responsible for the clean growth strategy. In the CCUS Cost Challenge Taskforce report, she said that,

“we want to have the option to deploy CCUS at scale during the 2030s”—

as long as the pricing is right.

The Minister mentioned the Acorn project. I agree that there may be some necessity to do this, but it reflects the rather tragic trajectory of government action. The fact that this core part of the clean growth strategy will not be implemented until the 2030s is most unfortunate.

The clean growth strategy called for a new CCS council—or CCUS as it is called nowadays. Has that been established and is it operating now?

As the Minister knows, I am interested in areas of international agreement, such as the Ospar Convention, which prevents the deposit of waste in marine areas of the north-east Atlantic. I seem to recall that the Government got an allowance through the Ospar Convention process for CCUS—it is seen as disposal of waste at sea, even though it is under the sea—potentially in the North Sea. The UK and the European Union are signatories of this. I am interested to understand whether the UK itself has enough permits under the convention, or a derogation in our own right to be able to continue this, rather than it being done in agreement with the European Union, with it as the signatory. Will we need any treaty revisions or further derogations from the Ospar Convention to move this forward once we are out of the European Union?

In a way, I am glad that BEIS has given this some priority—perhaps it is a sign of movement at last. I look forward to seeing those future plans for CCUS. We do of course have Drax, but I do not think it requires any geological resolution of storage, which this SI is all about.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for moving this statutory instrument. I have just one question. He said that there has been consultation with only the Oil and Gas Authority, which presumably is the regulator in this instance. Page 5 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that it will apply to,

“activities that are undertaken by small businesses”.

Was a conscious decision taken not to consult widely with the industry, and, if so, what was the reason for that? Obviously the regulator will have a view, but those who work in the industry might have an alternative view.

Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) Order 2018

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very detailed explanation of what this secondary legislation does, although I have a few questions. This is an example of where we pretend we are not taxing consumers. As this is not public expenditure, we have to put it through energy companies, which are in the private sector. They decide and spend a lot of time working out who should get these things when it could all be done a lot more simply if we did not go through this public expenditure pretence. When I go through ECO, it always seems to me that it would be so much better if it was administered by local authorities. They know households with problems and have all sorts of obligations towards private renters, who are a real problem in terms of energy efficiency and getting landlords to implement these sorts of schemes. It would be so much easier if we were honest with ourselves. This is a form of taxation, it is public expenditure, and we should just sort it out, rather than go through all the bureaucratic inefficiency that we have.

Having said that, I welcome the scheme very much in terms of moving this agenda forward. The present scheme, as I understand it, ran out at the end of September. We now have this instrument in front of us. I do not know how long it will take to get the thing started. I understand that there are some roll-over functions, and I welcome that, but so often with this sort of funding—even more so with European funding—there is always a risk that the companies and installers involved in this have a cash-flow crisis because we stop and start these programmes. I may be worrying unnecessarily, but I would be interested to understand how that gap is coped with and when the scheme is expected to really take off.

I noted with some amusement paragraph 7.20 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which said:

“There is a high level of interest in the scheme from energy suppliers who deliver the scheme, fuel poverty groups and installers, and some interest in the scheme from the public”.


That is extremely honest of the instrument, but I am sure we would all agree that it would be good if the public, who are affected by this, were motivated to push to get the scheme going. From that evidence, there may be a real need for some sort of public information scheme. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how that will be solved.

I find some of this order a little bit difficult to follow. Clearly there is an emphasis on social housing, which I welcome. Given the budget of the ECO—it is not insubstantial but it is limited—I also welcome that it is going on areas of fuel poverty rather than just carbon savings. No one is more committed to climate change issues than me but it is right to concentrate expenditure on fuel poverty.

What do we do about the rest of the housing stock that is not covered by this? The Minister mentioned that there is still a real gap in the Clean Growth Strategy in dealing with household efficiency in the rest of the market. I notice that the strategy states that it will:

“Support around £3.6 billion of investment to upgrade around a million homes”.


The programme covers 900,000 homes with an average spend of £640 million per calendar year. That works out at only about £2 billion for the time that is left until the end of March 2022. I would be interested to see what happened to the other £1.6 billion between the strategy and this paper.

On the private sector side, how do we check that landlords are meeting their legal obligations? How do we check that the measures work? I am sure that there is already a process for this but the instrument mentions the “monitored measure” option. I do not want to go into great detail but that option gives bonuses to suppliers or accounts in additional savings or help.

From the evidence, we all know that fuel poverty families getting better insulation does not tend to reduce their energy spend. Quite understandably, it just makes sure that the family is warmer than it was before, so I do not understand how we measure the effect of this given that people will probably use more energy to keep warmer instead of being cold. Are the Government confident about how these schemes are audited?

I welcome the fact that the scheme will continue beyond this until 2028, as in the Clean Growth Strategy, and I welcome the concentration on fuel poverty. Again, following the unfortunate relative failure of the Green Deal during the coalition Government, we absolutely need a national scheme to find a way to upgrade the rest of the UK’s housing stock.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I bow to the superior knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I have a couple of questions. I want to press my noble friend, if I may.

At the outset, I declare my interest in the register as a vice-president of National Energy Action. I have long taken a close interest in the Warm Front programme. Like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I welcome the continuation of the scheme. Obviously, it is a matter of record and ongoing regret that around 4 million households are still in fuel poverty. Any scheme that can be seen to reduce that is very welcome. How does the scheme compliment what is already happening? What more could potentially happen through building regulations? A more joined-up approach to warm homes would be very welcome indeed.

Being half Danish, I am particularly interested that we currently export residual household waste from the city of York and north Yorkshire to Holland at a cost to the local taxpayer. However, at the end of the day, the benefit is to Dutch residents, because the waste is burned and energy from waste is recovered in the form of district heating. My aunt in Denmark gets the benefit of that—although not from our residual waste in north Yorkshire—through cheaper electricity, hot water and heating. I am very interested to know the potential number of new district housing connections that could be made through the continued scheme before us this afternoon. Does my noble friend have a projection of that? What plans do the Government have to retrofit? There is a firm in Denmark that has changed its name to Ørsted, but I prefer the old name of DONG—the Danish Oil and Natural Gas company—which is easy to remember. It claims it could retrofit properties here in London. Is that something that the department has considered?

My last question is about the figure in the order before us today for potential savings. Is the overall home-heating cost reduction target of £8.2 billion realistic? How do the Government plan to achieve that?

Merchant Shipping (Monitoring, Reporting and Verification of Carbon Dioxide Emissions) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Teverson

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will follow the noble Lord in the same vein by asking a simple question. I remind the Committee of my historic interest as the Conservative spokesman in the European Parliament on transport issues. Can my noble friend the Minister explain the current enforcement mechanism if either a UK-registered ship or an EU-registered ship breaches the carbon dioxide emissions limit? How does she imagine that that enforcement mechanism will change in the future? Presumably the whole point of having carbon dioxide emissions limits is to ensure that, along with every other form of transport, maritime shipping abides by air quality standards. Will we be able to enforce this unilaterally going forward?

I turn to something that is very topical. Is there currently any jurisdiction for the European Court of Justice over a breach of these emissions standards?

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare that I am a board member of the Marine Management Organisation. I do not think that it conflicts with what we are considering here, but I mention it for the avoidance of doubt. I would like to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, by saying that in her role as leading the group in the European Parliament when the Conservatives were part of the EPP, which is exactly where they should still be, she was a fantastic advocate for her position. I was in a different group that sometimes became involved in things like trans-European networks, and I noted that she was very successful in what she tried to do. She presented a difficult opposition.

I want to come back to a few points about carbon budgets, which is what this comes down to. In her remarks the Minister alternated between talking about carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. There is a very important difference between those two phrases. I would be interested in understanding whether these regulations are in fact concerned with greenhouse gases or carbon dioxide emissions. I know that they refer to carbon dioxide, but most of the monitoring that is done is for greenhouse gases. Although emissions of methane are lower, it is a much more potent greenhouse gas. The difference is important and I presume that it is particularly relevant to the shipping industry, given its emissions.

I congratulate the Minister on reminding us that international shipping is the one area where we still have not solved this issue internationally. In aviation we have this rather dodgy—if I am honest—offset system. We will see how it works, but I suspect that the Amazon rainforest will not grow at the rate that aircraft emissions will. Given that sympathy, I am interested to understand whether, given the fact that we have international paralysis, and with the Government perhaps frustrated by the fact that that sector is not represented within European or British carbon budgets, the UK, as the Climate Change Committee has often advocated, will take on its leadership role in this area again and start to reconsider whether the sector should be. I am not expecting a policy decision today in the Moses Room, but I will be interested to know if the Government will start to look at that issue.

When it comes to individual matters of these particular regulations, I shall quote from the Explanatory Memorandum as the legislation refers to European regulations all the way through and it is very difficult to read, as I am sure the Minister understands:

“The amendments … remove what will become redundant requirements on the UK to make certain reports to the Commission”.


I wanted to clarify whether those requirements, whatever they are, or those reports will actually now be made within the UK anyway.

I am in particularly interested in documents of compliance. I do not know much about this topic although I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is clued up on them. I presume that they will be issued by the Marine and Coastguard Agency. I am interested to understand whether these are existing EU systems. If they are, are we having to replace the IT systems? Are they ready? How many of these things do we issue at the moment and how many are we going to have to issue after March 2019, or after the transition period if we manage to come to an agreement? As we all know, IT systems and the increase in documentation and red tape are one of the biggest challenges in making Brexit work.

I have to ask about this ability to expel ships from a port, which we are getting rid of because we already have the ability to get rid of ships for safety and environmental reasons. I am interested to understand, in terms of EU legislation, what other scenarios the Government were thinking of in that legislation other than safety and the environment, in order to understand what rights we are forgoing.