King’s Speech

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to open day three of the debate on the gracious Speech from these Benches. I will be concentrating the bulk of my remarks on energy measures and will address the environment to some extent—climate change and nature being two sides of the same coin. I will restrict my remarks in the comfort and knowledge that noble friends following me are far better qualified than I am to cover the remaining topics.

I wanted to preface my disappointment with the gracious Speech by congratulating the Government on at least one item in it, so I scoured the mighty tome and found one that I approve of—the animal welfare (livestock exports) Bill. It is late, but welcome nevertheless.

I and many others were relieved that the dastardly plan to criminalise homeless people sleeping in tents and make it an offence for charities to help them had not found its way into the gracious Speech, and on that I congratulate the Government. The Home Secretary was adept at finding new ways to cast herself as a cartoon villain. She will not be missed. I am sorry that I digress a bit from the subject of today’s topics.

I jest, of course, when I refer to the gracious Speech as a “mighty tome”, because it was nothing of the sort: the legislative agenda with which we are presented is light and largely insubstantial. Before I move on to the bulk of my remarks, I express my disappointment that there was no reference to peat or the growing problem of disposable vapes. In particular, there had been hopes that the Government would address their promise to ban the sale of peat by the end of this Parliament. Implementing a comprehensive delivery mechanism to address degraded peatlands is a priority recommendation in the Climate Change Committee’s 2023 progress report, so it is a disappointment that the Government were silent on this.

Going forward, I hope that we can use the tobacco and vapes Bill to tackle disposable vapes. Aside from the damage they are doing to young people’s health, the amount of lithium that is piling high in landfills and not being recycled is criminal. The Green Alliance states that, in the past year, enough lithium to make 5,000 EV batteries was disposed of. I hope the Government will give my comments serious consideration.

The star announcement was the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, to

“support the future licensing of new oil and gas fields”,

but the more than 100 new licences granted this year did not require new legislation, nor did those in previous years, so I am a little perplexed by the Government’s inclusion of this measure in the gracious Speech. Why did the Government feel it necessary to legislate for something that already happens? Surely, in this instance, they could have spared His Majesty the embarrassment.

Unless the Minister can give us evidence to the contrary, the Bill is both an unnecessary measure and an abuse of parliamentary time. Moreover, it flouts our international commitment to curb our carbon emissions. Is it not the case that, if the UK were to extract oil and gas from all the fields currently in production, we would exceed our nationally determined contribution commitments as per the Paris Agreement? If the Minister does not have the answer to hand, I hope he will write to me.

Not only will this Bill trash our reputation abroad, but it will have zero impact on easing the burden on people struggling to pay their energy bills. Shockingly, the Secretary of State is on record as saying there is nothing in the King’s Speech to help people struggling with their energy bills today. She inexplicably went on to speak of future tax receipts funding future investment in renewables, which will bring cheaper energy bills at some point in the future. What do the Government say to people suffering from the cost of living crisis today? “Not enough” is the answer. The damage that the Government have done is so great that the measures the Minister outlined at the outset are not enough for the poorest households.

The Bill and the gracious Speech are silent on where this future investment in renewables will be deployed. Can the Minister tell us? Can he assure your Lordships’ House that that investment will be in proven, cheap renewable sources, such as wind and solar, rather than unproven sources of energy that will not come online in time, until sometime in the distant future, if at all, by which time this sorry Government will, we hope, be history? If the Government are referring to carbon capture and storage and small modular nuclear reactors then they are betting the country’s energy security and energy affordability on technologies that are unproven at scale, with no guarantee that they will ever be deliverable safely and in the required timeframe.

In her Commons speech on the gracious Speech, the Secretary of State was less than ingenuous when she said:

“Even the Climate Change Committee acknowledges that oil and gas will be part of our energy mix when we reach net zero in 2050. So if we will need it, it is common sense that we produce as much of our own of it here.”—[Official Report, Commons, 9/11/23; col. 282.]


What assessment have the Government made of our requirements for oil and gas in 2050? What are the assumptions that dictate we will need annual granting of oil and gas licences? The Secretary of State’s comments are in direct conflict with the International Energy Agency and the Climate Change Committee, which both state that no new oil and gas fields are necessary to achieve net zero by 2050. Indeed, if we are to keep within a 1.5 degree centigrade rise in global temperature, it is essential that we reduce emissions with immediate effect. Currently, global emissions continue to rise.

The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill is wrong on so many fronts. It flies in the face of our international agreements, is on the wrong side of history and will not bring the price of oil down. That oil will first go to the international markets via the Netherlands for refining, as we no longer have the refining capacity here in the UK—or are we going to take the retrograde step of bringing that industry back?

The oil and gas we produce will necessarily be placed on the international commodities market, where it will be available for us to buy back at the global fixed price. It is no use the Minister saying it will help global supply and therefore bring the price down, because it will not. It is a fact that

“UK production isn't large enough to … impact the global price of gas”.

Those are not my words, but the words of former Energy Minister, and now former chair of the Conservative Party, Greg Hands. I am very glad I look at my Twitter feed quite regularly, because otherwise I could not keep up with who is current and who is not. It has really messed up my speech.

We need more energy from renewables that are indigenous and ours in a way that oil and gas can no longer ever be. So why, I ask myself, are the Government doing this? They are doing this to create what they term a wedge issue in the next general election—how cynical. Nothing, it seems, is off bounds. Winning, whatever the cost, seems to be the only thing that matters. But they are mistaken if they think broadening the ULEZ issue in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, and doubling down on climate change measures, will translate into a winning message at next year’s general election. “Bring it on”, I say.

The Government’s actions fly in the face of scientific consensus, advice from our own globally respected Climate Change Committee and statements by the world authority on global energy requirements, the International Energy Agency. They stretch our international credibility to incredulity and will increase the cost of living for people struggling to pay their bills. If the Government truly want to help the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, then my advice to them is the following.

First, they should get a national awareness campaign off the ground, with consumer advice on how to save energy. Secondly, they should put in place a well-resourced national energy conservation programme, to bring every possible dwelling and business premises to EPC standard C, including reversing the decision to exempt private landlords. Thirdly, they should get heat pumps—ground source or air source—installed in every home, where possible, and as quickly as possible. Fourthly, they should decouple the artificially high price of electricity from costly gas. Fifthly, they should lift the ban on onshore wind, the fastest and cheapest form of energy—it is still easier to put up an incinerator or open a new coal mine. Sixthly, they should sort out the national grid and bring it to a point where it is fit for purpose, both in updating its infrastructure and freeing it so that ready-to-go renewable projects are not held back.

In conclusion, we need leadership that recognises that the green transformation needs a Government that have the confidence to put in place the necessary building blocks now, not sometime in the future.