Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, in February 2004, I introduced a debate on climate change in your Lordships’ House. It was prompted by the stark warning of the then Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King, who said that,

“climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism”.

The Blair Government took Sir David King’s advice seriously and worked up a consensus on the way forward, a point powerfully made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in his excellent introduction. That Government established a Joint Committee of both Houses—of which I was fortunate to be a member—to work on a draft Bill. It took evidence and advice. It proved a worthwhile way forward and the resulting Climate Change Act was a world first. I believe that everything the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said needs to be a lesson learned today.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, was a little upset by the remarks of my noble friend Lady Featherstone, who criticised this Government for squandering four years and the progress made until 2015. Consensus does not mean we should not be able to criticise lack of action where it happens. That is important too. I hope we will build a consensus today, but at the same time we must expect critical friends, or even critical opposition, to move us forward.

I will spend most of my speech on an issue that was mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Rooker, Lord Deben and Lord Whitty, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and possibly others, and that is soil. Soil has such a critical role to play in both mitigating and adapting to climate change, so it is a good thing that Defra is working on a new strategy, but I must say to the Minister that the call for research does not explicitly mention carbon storage or climate change. Perhaps it is implicit.

Much worse was an issue I discovered from my recent Written Question: there is a chronic shortage of soil scientists. The answer to this Question on 5 April was that there are five professors of soil science in England and Wales, and 25 academic staff in total. That is certainly not enough to action Defra’s requirements for an innovative approach to monitoring soil health in England and Wales. I ask the Minister what urgent action the Government will take to resolve that issue, if we are going to develop appropriate soil metrics and a new environmental land management scheme, as the Government have set out in their future farming Command Paper and the 25-year environment plan. We must resolve this lack of soil scientists.

There is an interesting international soil initiative. I declare an interest here as a part-owner of a vineyard in France. After the Paris climate change accords of 2015, an initiative was launched by the French called 4 per 1000. Basically, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere increases by 4.3 billion tonnes a year and the world’s soils contain some 1,500 billion tonnes of carbon as organic matter. If we increased that organic matter by just 0.4% a year, primarily by improving and restoring degraded agricultural land, it would go a long way towards halting the annual increase in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. At the same time, it would improve a lot of other things such as soil fertility, which would help food production, water and biodiversity. Those are all worthwhile efforts.

Changing attitudes to soil involves farming very differently. No-till farming is now gaining hold. There is also more mixed farming, with fewer monocultures. Perhaps the plan will look forward to taxing the bad—that is, nitrogen-based fertiliser—and we have already had a lot of discussion about rewarding the good by helping farmers who increase natural capital and farm ecologically. In that regard, I should perhaps declare my co-chairmanship of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology.

Equally important is clear labelling for consumers, because they need to know that they are buying something that is the best. That brings me to my last point. In the last century, we had labelling of what miles per gallon a car would do; in this century, we need much clearer labelling about carbon footprints. Perhaps we even need to move to a system of personal carbon allowances, with labelling telling us just how much of our personal carbon allowance we are using up. I hope that some think tank will return to personal carbon allowances. Even since 2012, when the last substantial work was done on this issue, all sorts of mechanisms such as phone apps have been developed that make it much easier for a person to know exactly how much carbon they consume. There are those who, like me, want to combine climate change issues with social justice issues. Of course, those with the biggest incomes are often the biggest emitters of carbon, through flying more and having two cars, bigger houses, et cetera. The UK is in a great position technologically to enable us to maintain our lifestyles but to reduce our emissions.

Climate Change

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, in declaring my interest as a vineyard owner, I am intrigued by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, that vineyard-based solar panels are a practical idea. I see that he is not in his place at the moment but I will take this up with him when he returns. The idea of clambering over the panels when pruning or harvesting is definitely a challenging one.

On a serious note, I believe that one of the worst threats of climate change will be to our agricultural systems, because of extreme weather events. Reports from Australia today show record temperatures of 46.6 degrees. One of the results is that 2,500 camels have been culled—camels are used to hot conditions, so that is pretty severe—and wheat yields are down by one-third to a half. Perhaps more insidiously threatening is that soil moisture is at an all-time low. That is important because it makes recovery much harder. If noble Lords think about how difficult it is to get a totally dry sponge to absorb water at first, that should give them an idea as to why totally dry soil has problems reabsorbing water. Equally disastrous, of course, is too much rain too fast, flooding out newly planted seeds, for example.

Recently the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology had a meeting on agriculture and climate change. We had a presentation from Professor Gideon Henderson, which was especially memorable. Usually climate change discussions leave you feeling depressed—as my noble friend Lord Teverson said in his excellent introduction—and full of fear for the next generation. However, Professor Henderson’s message was different. He had just finished chairing a working group for the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society, and the resulting report is an ambitious plan for how the UK can lead the way in deploying greenhouse gas removal technologies to achieve net zero-carbon emissions by 2050. His conclusions were very land-use based: ramping up forestation, habitat restoration and, crucially, soil carbon sequestration. His emphasis on soils as a major part of the solution was especially interesting to me. Our soils have an extraordinary capacity to absorb and hold carbon if land is farmed and used in the right ways. We could turn the agricultural sector from a major greenhouse gas emitter to a really effective carbon sink.

When Professor Mark Kibblewhite from Cranfield gave evidence to the same all-party group three years ago during the soil inquiry that we held, he made the point that soil research should be fully integrated with other areas of research, such as climate change, but that was not really happening. Given that that was three years ago, I ask the Minister: is such research now better integrated?

We need to change the way in which we produce food and, to some extent, our diet. However, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Bethell—one of the meat lovers among your Lordships—that he will not have to give up his fillet steak; he just needs to change the sort of steak that he is eating. Luckily, production methods that are high in animal welfare and low in greenhouse gas emissions can coincide. For example, the meat from pasture-fed livestock in the UK, where grass grows in abundance, is more nutritious and more welfare-friendly, as the animals spend more time on pasture, and avoids imported soya, which may well have caused deforestation in somewhere such as South America.

Pasture-fed livestock is one example of a win-win-win situation. One thing that the Government could do to help it is a simple labelling regime. At the moment you can label your meat “pasture-fed” if it is fed on pasture only 51% of the time, but it needs to be fed on it 100% of the time to gain those benefits. I hope the Government will support the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association and make that small change.

Another example of a win-win-win situation is agroforestry. A much more forested landscape, with all that carbon capture, offers less soil erosion and more shade and windbreaks for animals. Under CAP rules you can have such a scheme but so far the UK Government have refused to implement it. Whether or not we end up with Brexit, we must ensure a much more positive policy on agroforestry.

This is about how we use our land. When the Agriculture Bill comes to your Lordships’ House, we should make sure that we have some provisions in it for ensuring that in future our agriculture is better aligned to dealing with climate change as well as food production, because at the moment that is missing.

Warm Home Discount (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the Minister to this addition to her brief—that is the best way of putting it—and look forward to debating energy issues with her in the months to come. I thank her for introducing the regulations this afternoon.

The Minister will of course know that it was the last Labour Government who initially took steps to convert the earlier voluntary scheme into a compulsory scheme back in 2009, so of course it is natural to expect that we welcome the proposed extension of the scheme. No one should struggle to heat their homes over winter, and the continuing scandal of fuel poverty and excess winter deaths shows how vital this policy has become. However, we have major concerns about the delay in tabling these regulations, which have now been echoed by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which concluded that the delays will make the policy intent unobtainable this winter. That is the reason I am moving the amendment this afternoon. I will therefore ask the Minister about the timing of these extended regulations, as it appears increasingly unlikely that the policy objective of reaching customers before the winter months will be achieved.

The policy was announced by the Chancellor in November 2015, but by all accounts—the Minister confirmed this—there was a delay of five months while cross-departmental wrangling was resolved. However, I do not accept what the Minister said—that this can be written off as an unusual period. After the four-week consultation ended, it took another two months for the regulations to be laid before Parliament, and now here we are on the last day, rushing them through.

The result of this delay is that the rebates will begin to apply only in December, with some not being received until January or February next year, which is well after the cold winter weather will have set in. A number of respondents to the consultation raised particular concerns about customers on prepaid meters, who have to pay up front, often on the most expensive tariffs, and who will not receive the payments in time to make a difference to their fuel poverty. Does the noble Baroness agree that this delay is unacceptable? What steps is she taking to address the problem through departmental co-operation so that these events do not happen again? What dialogue is taking place with the suppliers to introduce the rebates in the speediest possible way, given that this delay has occurred?

Secondly, there remains a problem with targeting the payments effectively. The then Secretary of State acknowledged earlier this year that only 15% of households in receipt of rebates have both low incomes and high energy costs—that is, they are in fuel poverty. Meanwhile, in 2014 over 10% of households were classified as being in fuel poverty, and the number is rising. There is an urgent need to target the payments more effectively to those most in need. Therefore, can the Minister clarify how the proposed data sharing will improve targeting to the most vulnerable customers, many of whom are unaware of their entitlements to these payments?

Finally, how do the Government intend to address the criticisms of the CMA and others that energy companies continue to overcharge their customers? This is compounded by the difficulties that suppliers put in place for customers seeking to switch. Indeed, a recent Sunday Times consumer advice article recommended that people did not even try to switch suppliers until the Government had made the process easier. For that reason, I am moving the amendment and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for bringing several aspects of these regulations to our attention—not least the comments from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

Of course, as the Minister said, the Prime Minister, in one of her first speeches, made many comments on social justice, but I fear that these regulations were written before she made that speech and perhaps there has not been a chance to assimilate the new spirit that she wants to introduce. As I understand it—perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—the regulations contain several things that are less than desirable, one of which is that they cover only the next two years, whereas in last year’s spending review there was a guarantee that the scheme would carry on until 2021.

On the larger picture, it is very depressing that the long-term strategy of reducing bills through energy efficiency—particularly measures that came in under the coalition Government, such as the zero-carbon homes measure—have been put on hold and we have seen this Government back-track, not least in the recent Housing and Planning Bill. Therefore, we have a big problem. The fact that people are in severe fuel poverty and are unable to heat their homes during the winter is, as has been said many times in this Chamber, one of the biggest disgraces for a civilised society.

The funding for the years after 2018 will be based on the number of customers who have benefited from rebates. What do the Government intend to do to promote the scheme to people who can benefit from it, making sure that they do not miss out?

Finally, the Explanatory Memorandum says that the Secretary of State can conduct a review if it is thought desirable. Perhaps the Minister can say a little more about under what circumstances it will be desirable. She mentioned that there would be another opportunity for noble Lords to comment, but we feel very strongly that this review needs to happen so that we are quite clear about the effect of the regulations and so that we have another chance to push for something better.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, any of us who have witnessed genuine fuel poverty—disabled pensioners, for example, saving pennies to try to keep warm—will not fail to have been deeply moved. Therefore, in the light of what we have heard, will the Minister tell us whether it might be possible to make sure that this coming winter we are able to assist those people by bringing forward the Government’s plans?