Decarbonisation

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I totally understand the point that the noble Lord is making. He highlights the dilemma of carbon-reduction policies in these areas, where we impose carbon taxes and emissions trading systems and schemes, and of course that has an effect on domestic industries that emit a lot of carbon—the so-called carbon leakage problem. We are working closely with the steel industry to try to help it adjust to greener manufacturing methods, and of course it receives free emissions permits.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, recent reports that the Government are considering rowing back on their flagship climate finance commitment of £11.6 billion to assist lower-income countries to reduce their emissions, adapt to climate change and protect the natural environment are to be deplored. Those global benefits affect us all and would be lost to us all. Does the Minister agree that using a proportion of the funds raised through CBAM, the carbon border adjustment mechanism, to support low-carbon transition in least-developed and climate-vulnerable countries would be enlightened self-interest?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness is asking me to comment on tax policies and hypothecation of taxes, which are matters in the purview of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I shall make sure her views are communicated to him.

Geothermal Heat and Power

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of Peers for the Planet. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, for giving us an opportunity to debate the potential of geothermal for heat and power in the UK. We have only to look across the channel to see what is possible. France, Germany and the Netherlands share the same tectonic plate as us and have harnessed this deep heat source far more ambitiously than we have. That said, I want to concentrate on the potential opportunity of using the shallow geothermal energy under our feet—not necessarily as far down as even a shallow aquifer but just the heat differential that exists between the air and the ground.

Ground source heat pumps use ambient stored solar energy in the ground, where temperatures remain constant 24/7, 365 days a year, regardless of air temperature changes. The Government have invested much energy and enthusiasm—and, I think, money—into trials for hydrogen boilers in towns in the north-east. These are riddled with challenges, not least that of explosions from the leakage of a notoriously leaky gas. That is unsurprising, as hydrogen is the first, and therefore lightest, element in the periodic table.

I cannot help but compare the hydrogen trial to the Heat the Streets pilot in Stithians, Cornwall, carried out by the Kensa Group. This essentially uses the proven technology of ground source heat pumps to see whether it can be deployed at mass scale to retrofit whole streets with typical mixed housing stock of any tenure; that is, in a realistic UK town or village scenario.

We are used to hearing about ground source heat pumps in a single property where a ground loop is installed in someone’s garden. Imagine that you can pay for a heat pump in your home without the headache of sorting out the details of where the ground loop would go because someone else would do that part for you. In essence, the networked model of heat pumps is the same as the gas grid model. A white box ground source heat pump is installed in your home, and you pay a standing charge to connect to the street’s underground loop infrastructure, which has already been installed by experienced engineers. Consumers have total control over their heating. For utility companies, it is an investment that will last for decades, as shared borehole ground arrays have a lifetime of up to 100 years. For landlords, it means no more split-billing or metering requirements for tenants. I should add that the technology can easily switch to cool homes, which is becoming more necessary. In an FT article, the BBC’s Roger Harrabin referred to the Stithians scheme as “simple and elegant”. It has much to recommend it.

Such ground source heat pumps have many advantages—I shall list only a few of the most important ones. They last a great deal long longer than air source heat pumps, and therefore work out cheaper in the long run, and use 40% less electricity. Most importantly, there are advantages at an energy system level. With demand shifting and heat batteries, networked ground source heat pumps could reduce peak electricity demand by 37 gigawatts, which could save up to £15 billion a year in reduced generation and grid infrastructure costs, something that I am sure is of great interest to the Government.

It is appropriate at this stage to welcome the heat network zones that the Government have proposed in the Energy Bill, but they should be extended to cover all the UK and make a stab at identifying the right technology for the right place, working together with local authorities.

In Committee on the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill, I tabled two amendments asking for government support for pilots for a renewable-powered new town and an existing town, both using networked ground source heat pumps to provide heating. Does the Minister, who I believe is pretty conversant with this technology—probably far more so than I am—agree that properly constructed trials are essential to carry out evidence-based assessments for potential solutions that merit government support? That will be essential to evaluate which projects could meet our fast-approaching decarbonisation deadlines. I end by saying that I intend to retable my amendments to the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill on Report.

COP 28

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend of course knows this subject very well from his time as Energy Minister and makes an important point. We already have invested massively in renewables. We have the biggest wind sector in Europe by far. We have the first, second and third-largest wind farms in Europe, so we are massively expanding our renewables sector. It makes sense because particularly wind power and solar power are cheap compared to fossil fuel generation, but renewables are intermittent, which is why we will also need our nuclear generation. He draws attention to the scale of the problem we face.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I ask the Minister whether our Government are fully behind the COP 28 declaration to phase out fossil fuels, something that we tried to do at COP 27—not successfully. I assume the answer to that question is yes so, to help realise that aim, will the Government commit to the UK joining the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We are committed to phasing out fossil fuels and I outlined in a previous answer the progress we are making. But it is a transition: we have a requirement for fossil fuels during that transition period and have had exchanges about that before. I do not know the details of the declaration that the noble Baroness refers to, but I will certainly have a look at it.

Climate Change Committee: Discussions

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the Climate Change Committee about (1) the impact newly licensed oil and gas infrastructure will have on domestic and global emissions, and (2) the design of their ‘Climate Compatibility Checkpoint’.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government work closely with the Climate Change Committee and are grateful for its expert independent advice. The committee provided advice on 24 February 2022 in relation to both new licensing and the climate compatibility checkpoint; the advice was published on the committee’s website. Officials also had several discussions with the committee throughout the design process for the checkpoint. Its advice was considered in the final design, which has now been published on the GOV.UK website.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, the climate compatibility checkpoint, in reference to new oil and gas fields, is, quite frankly, doublethink in Orwellian proportions. Can the Minister confirm that the IEA, the IPCC, the vast bulk of UK scientists and the Government’s own net zero tsar, Chris Skidmore, have all stated that the opening of new fields is incompatible with keeping global warming within the 1.5 degree scenario necessary to protect us and the natural world from catastrophic climate breakdown?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I do not agree with the noble Baroness. She is dead wrong about these matters. The reality is, whether the Liberal Democrats like it or not, that we get about 75% of our energy from oil and gas. That is declining, and the North Sea is a declining field. Unless she is proposing to tell voters that they should disconnect their gas boilers or not drive their cars anywhere, we have a requirement for oil and gas in the future, albeit for a declining amount. Therefore, the only question is whether we get them from our own fields and employ British workers, paying British taxes, or whether we import them from abroad, which usually has a higher carbon footprint. That is the choice that faces us.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 124 in my name, but, before I do so, I will take some time to support my noble friend Lord Teverson’s Amendment 131—I will not say much else until he has had a chance to speak to it. I also support the amendment in this group in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which would stop the issuing of new licences for fossil-fuel exploration and exploitation in the North Sea.

Amendment 124, on “flaring and venting”, follows on quite neatly from the two amendments in the previous group on energy conservation in the home. I am delighted by, and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on, her decisive win on that issue. The Government ought to have grasped that low-hanging fruit with both hands already, and flaring and venting in the North Sea is more low-hanging fruit that the Government have failed to grasp. It too could use energy that we already generate in a much more effective and efficient manner. A ban on oil and gas flaring and venting in the North Sea is the single most effective action that the Government could take to dramatically reduce methane emissions from that sector.

--- Later in debate ---

I thank all noble Lords for their amendments and hope, perhaps without too much optimism, that with these reassurances they feel able not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

Flaring and venting is something that I am keen on eliminating, and I will use every opportunity in the House to progress the issue further. Therefore, would it be sensible for the Minister to agree to meet with me and other noble Lords who have expressed an interest in this issue, so that we can talk sensibly about it, going forwards?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I did organise a recent meeting with officials to discuss the issue, at the request of the noble Baroness’s Front-Bench colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The noble Baroness had the opportunity to attend if she had wished to.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the intention of my amendment is quite stark and seeks to take out those provisions which allow the so-called hydrogen village experiments to take place. Why? Primarily to save British taxpayers a huge amount of money on something which is clearly, as one would colloquially say, a white elephant. Even if we had the trials—which I suspect might not happen anyway for various reasons—the lessons from those would show us that this should not be rolled out.

In order to have clean hydrogen, it has to be produced by electrolysis. There are other ways of producing hydrogen, as we know, and there are all the different colours, but at the end of the day we have to use electrolysis in the long term to produce hydrogen that is seen as a renewable fuel. The cost of that hydrogen is estimated by scientists to be something like five times the cost of the electricity used to generate an equivalent amount of heat through an efficient heat pump—it is five times more expensive. Even if we talk about economies of scale, there is no way that that cost is going to come down; in fact, it would come down only in relation to the cost of renewable electricity itself, which is its source of energy.

I suggest that we scrap this plan because clearly science says that this is not the way to use hydrogen for heating. I am a great fan of hydrogen, as I am sure most people in this House are, and it needs to be used for certain applications for which it is very difficult to use other renewable resources. We know what those are: they include a number of industrial processes and heavy transport, and it may be used for trains in certain areas and for heavy goods vehicles for some while. It is important that we use hydrogen for those purposes. It can never ever be used as a grid gas as methane is at the present.

Let me give an example of what perhaps is an even better way of achieving what we are doing. Down in my own neck of the woods, in Cornwall, we have a scheme financed by the fag end of ERDF funding. A village called Stithians has put in ground source heat pumps as a street utility, much as you would with a gas grid. I suspect that this is far more economical, and it is also liked by the residents. There have been demands for other streets in the village to have the same application.

This is in contrast to the towns in these experimental areas. As I judge it—my postbag says this to some degree, although I hear it from others as well—there is a mounting resistance to these trials going ahead. There is no great trust in hydrogen as a domestic fuel because of its properties—its ability to escape and its high flammability. These amendments take out Clauses 111 and 112, so that we can stop these trials and use hydrogen far more effectively. The money saved can also be used more effectively for decarbonisation in other areas as well. There is consumer resistance.

Assuming that the Minister is not going to accept this amendment, I have tabled another amendment arising from conversations with people involved in these trials. Many people want to opt out of them, and I fully sympathise with that. In Committee, the Minister said that households could opt out. What would the compensation be in such a case? Will the Government ensure that households can keep gas or methane, as at present? Can they guarantee this? If not, will they provide other forms of heating appliances, either electrical or an alternative form of heat and energy? Can they guarantee that there will not be forced entry into homes to make sure that the conversion takes place? I will be interested to hear from the Minister the alternatives to participating in the trial, as will people in the trial villages.

I cannot see that these trials will go ahead. There is considerable consumer resistance, and all the science genuinely says that this cannot work on a larger scale. Even if the trials do go ahead, there is no way that hydrogen is going to replace methane in the national grid or in large local heating systems. This can be done in far better ways, and the Bill allows for that. Let us call a halt to this now, save money, ease local concern and concentrate hydrogen in the areas where it can contribute and is important for our transition to a net-zero economy. I beg to move.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I realise that I am a little late arriving for this debate. Having been here from the start of this afternoon’s proceedings, I hope that the House will allow me to make my contribution.

I will speak to Amendments 53, 54 and 57, in the name of my noble friend Lord Teverson. I support Amendment 56 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake. I will not bore your Lordships’ House with the details of why my name appears on Amendment 56 in the Marshalled List with a line through it. Suffice it to say, I support the measures in it.

However, I support even more strongly Amendments 53, 54 and 57, which aim to get rid of the hydrogen trials altogether. Although hydrogen has a role in decarbonising our future in many sensible ways, domestic heating is categorically not one of them. I would recommend anyone who is not convinced by that statement to look at the work of the Hydrogen Science Coalition, a group of independent academics, scientists and engineers who give their time voluntarily and have no public or private vested interests. Its briefing is very clear on how it arrives at its conclusion that there is overwhelming evidence against the use of hydrogen for heating homes in the UK and in favour of using heat pumps and district heating networks. Equally, it makes a well-argued case against the provisions of Clause 111 that compel consumers to take part in hydrogen heating trials, not least because the introduction of hydrogen into UK homes will significantly increase the risk of serious explosions and fires, as well as increasing exposure to NOx emissions, which pose a significant public health risk.

To back up its own analysis, it cites the overwhelming techno-economic evidence against the use of hydrogen for heating buildings compared with other sources. There have been 37 independent studies on the use of hydrogen for heating since 2019, by organisations such as the IPCC, the IEA, McKinsey, Imperial College London, the Potsdam Institute, the University of Manchester, the Wuppertal Institute, Element Energy, the International Council on Clean Transportation, the Energy Transitions Commission, et cetera. Every one of these studies has ruled out hydrogen playing a major role in heating buildings because it will be too expensive and inefficient compared to other clean alternatives such as heat pumps and district heating. Too expensive is putting it mildly; it will be six times more expensive than going down the heating networks route.

Chris Skidmore, chair of the net zero review, said in a recent article in the Times that he

“did not think the UK should embrace the idea of repurposing gas networks to run hydrogen boilers, a proposal that is being trialled at a pilot project at homes in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire.”

The House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee recently said that hydrogen is

“not a realistic replacement for natural gas”

and is “not a serious option” for heating. A House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report in December 2022 said that hydrogen is likely to play only a limited role in home heating and is not a panacea. Lastly, in a report in January 2022, the International Renewable Energy Agency—IRENA—said that residential heating is the lowest-priority application for hydrogen

“because heat pump solutions and district heating options already exist.”

I apologise for labouring the point but it is important for the people in the trial villages of Ellesmere Port and Teesside. The provisions of the Energy Bill that give gas companies a new power of entry into homes to cut residents off the gas network without their consent are particularly worrying. The bottom line is that the Bill should not be promoting hydrogen heating trials that expose consumers to health and safety risks and excessively high energy costs.

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in this group but I do not propose to detain the House for long. My views on hydrogen are relatively well known, and we had a good debate in Committee on Clauses 111 and 112. I support the previous speeches and the approaches taken to get the Government to think again about the need for these trials to be included in the Bill.

I welcome government Amendment 55, which would provide for regulations that would make some rules for the trials a “must”, rather than a “may”, which is at least an acceptance that this is a prerequisite. We need clear regulations setting out the rules that must be adopted and followed by anyone involved in these trials. But I do not think that goes far enough, because there are still a number of unaddressed issues. Therefore, I am quite sympathetic to the idea of simply removing this from the Bill and thinking again. I am also sympathetic to the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, who have suggested that the Government ought to undertake a certain number of measures before they embark on a decision about these trials, including involving statutory agencies such as the Environment Agency in the trials, and the Health and Safety Executive on safety issues, so that we can properly assess their environmental impact—so that we actually are using them to trial something.

Energy Bill [HL]

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 33, which is around the decommissioning costs of carbon capture and storage installations. First, I will read what is in Clause 85(1) about financing costs:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for requiring relevant persons to provide security for the performance of obligations relating to the future abandonment or decommissioning of carbon dioxide-related sites, pipelines or installations.”


It is not often that one is shocked in Grand Committee in the Moses Room. Normally it is a feeling of impotence when you are going through SIs, rather than some sort of greater emotion, but I was shocked when we discussed this. I asked the Minister how we protect the funds that are for decommissioning at some point way into the future. How are we sure that they are not like the dodgy builder who takes your deposit and then, when you ask him or her to decorate your house, the phone is no longer answered and the money has disappeared? How do we know, in this rather difficult area of energy, that those “relevant persons”, and more importantly their banks accounts, will still be there so that in some distant future, maybe decades ahead, this money is available?

If I am honest, when I had the answer from the Minister—which I cannot quote as I have not looked it up—I was shocked that there did not seem to be any provision for protection of the rather large sums that I expect to be there. That is why I have introduced this amendment. It is very simple and demands that when these payments are made they are effectively put into an escrow account, or at least a ring-fenced fund of some sort, so that they are there when these facilities need to be decommissioned. It is then up to the Secretary of State to agree when that money can be disbursed so that decommissioning can take place or disbursed because the funds are no longer needed.

It is as simple as that. It is about protecting that money that we as taxpayers and citizens of the UK are owed when that decommissioning happens and making sure that the money really is paid rather than having disappeared at the time. I see no guarantee within the three pages of other details about how these funds should work. I hope the Minister can come back to me and reassure me that, if he is not going to accept this amendment, the Government will ensure that this money is ring-fenced and is there for us and future generations when we reach that decommissioning point.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest in the register as a director of Peers for the Planet.

I shall speak to only one amendment in this group, Amendment 33, in the name of my noble friend Lord Teverson, to which I have added my name. It aims to ensure that decommissioning funds, as the noble Lord has explained, are available for decommissioning when the time comes. I support it not least because it complements Amendment 222A, which I tabled in Committee, on transparency of decommissioning, particularly with respect to future taxpayer liability for decommissioning relief deeds, which are agreements between the individual oil and gas companies and the Treasury. The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have both expressed concern about this public liability. I quote from the 2019 NAO report on decommissioning:

“With decommissioning activity increasing, the government is paying out more in tax reliefs for decommissioning at the same time as tax revenues have fallen due to a combination of lower production rates, a reduction in oil and gas prices and operators incurring high tax-deductible expenditure.”


That represents a triple whammy for UK taxpayers since, as the report says, for the first time ever, in 2016-17,

“the government paid out more to oil and gas operators in tax reliefs than it received from them.”

The scenario under which that public subsidy of oil and gas production took place in 2016-17—that is, the triple whammy of lower production rates, a reduction in oil and gas prices and operators incurring high tax-deductible expenditure—is the future outlook for the gas and oil sector as the world moves ever more rapidly towards decarbonisation. The USA’s inflation reduction Acts and the imminent EU response via the green deal industrial plan will turbocharge that transition, and rapid transformative change is very visible on the horizon.

While oil and gas expansion currently looks secure, it is only artificially so, given the very generous tax reliefs, subsidies and other support that the Government continue to provide, not least via decommissioning relief deeds. With over 100 new licences for exploration and production on offer, the risk of stranded assets is compounded hugely. Why do the Government persist in giving preferential treatment to fossil fuel producers? That is a question that I have put to the Minister before on several occasions, and I hope that this time there might be an answer.

It used to be that a ceiling of sorts was kept on the overall cost to the taxpayer by the fact that a firm could not claim back more in decommissioning tax relief than it had previously paid in tax. That makes sense but, since 2017, the Government have explicitly said that when firms default the partner firms that pick up the bill can claim back more in tax relief than they have ever paid. That certainly needs some digesting.

It cannot be right to put on life support an industry that has had its day—life support that is publicly funded. The amendment asks the Government to take precautions with the public purse, uphold the “polluter pays” principle and ensure that operators of new fields and buyers of existing ones accept that they cannot escape their responsibility to our planet, the one and only planet that we have.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, in speaking to the amendments in this group, I particularly thank my noble friend Lady Liddell for the well-informed and detailed explanation of why the amendments in her name and that of my noble friend Lord Foulkes are so important and relevant. What we heard was the crossover between the considerations within these amendments and the discussions that we had on the previous group regarding the work that we believe needs to be done to strengthen the hand of Ofgem, particularly to justify and evidence decisions, as we heard, enabling strategic anticipatory investment.

--- Later in debate ---

I apologise for the long update but, reflecting on these points, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

Before the Minister sits down, I will ask him to clarify a couple of things. First, I welcome his statements on decommissioning, but can he confirm whether the safeguarding of decommissioning funds will include all fields, both existing and new? Secondly, can he confirm that it is the FCA that will provide the regulatory oversight for decommissioning funds?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It would depend on what the noble Baroness means by “decommissioning funds”. What would the decommissioning funds be for? In response to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I outlined our intention to ring-fence the CCUS decommissioning funds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 40 relates to the carbon take-back obligation. We had an excellent debate towards the end of Committee about the question of what government policy is on the supply side of the equation of tackling climate change and environmental impact. On one hand, we had a group of Peers who were talking about the need to increase our extraction of fossil fuels and to move into fracking and other types of exotic extraction. On the other hand, we had an amendment which said, “Absolutely no more—turn off the licensing completely”.

It struck me that there needs to be a path through those two positions. We need to start making this industry responsible for the impact of its product. When we look back, we will wonder how we allowed ourselves to carry on extracting fossil fuels in an unlimited way and putting them into the market without the Government having a policy on that aspect of the problem.

This amendment is designed to introduce a policy that would make the extractors of fossil fuels—the oil, gas and coal producers—responsible for the greenhouse gas impact of their product. A requirement to bury back the greenhouse gases arising from those products would be phased in over time. If the industry cannot find sufficient carbon capture and storage opportunities to permanently store those greenhouse gases, it should be paying a buyout price of £200 per tonne of CO₂, representing what is expected to be the social impact price of carrying on this unlimited extraction.

Should the UK be seeking to do this in what is essentially a global market? The international dimensions are at the core of why we need to do it. At the moment, as individual countries and companies, we all tell ourselves that it is important to extract every last gram, ounce or therm of gas, oil and coal out of our economy because others are going to have not to use theirs. Everyone is incentivised to think that they will be the one burning the last therm and the last tonne. Continuing with that approach is a collective international suicide pact. If every country carries on extracting to the very last atom of carbon left in our oil and gas fields, we will go well beyond 1.5 or 2 degrees. In doing so, we will remain hooked on this commodity. It will remain cheap, affordable and available. We will not make the break from fossil fuels that we know we need to in order to address not just climate change but the security, resilience and efficiency of our energy systems.

It is important that we start the debate about government policy on the continued extraction of fossil fuels in this way. At the moment there is no policy. That is why it falls to the planning inspectors to decide whether we should have a new coal mine and to other regulators to keep exploiting the economic value of the North Sea for oil and gas without reference to its future unsustainability. It is not sustainable now. We need to signal a move and acknowledge that this industry needs to adapt. If it wants to pursue carbon capture and storage, let us oblige it to do so.

I am perfectly happy with the Government supporting the first carbon capture and storage projects to get them started and for cost discovery, but there should not be a continued subsidy of that solution. We should oblige the industry to do it. In making it responsible for the impact of its products, it will discover whether it is cost effective, whether it can be done cheaply and whether carbon capture and storage is real. Let us allow industry to discover that. If we give it the obligation, everyone will move forward together on an equal playing field. We could take the responsibility away from the taxpayer and the bill payer and give it to the industry. Quite frankly, at the moment it has more than enough resources and profits to be able to invest in that and to find the least-cost solutions.

Admittedly, Amendment 40 is a big thing to introduce on Report. I am simply seeking to start a debate about this. I hope that I receive some support and that it will be considered in the other place. I look forward to the Minister’s comments. I beg to move.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 40 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington—I hope I can refer to her as my noble friend. I have done so in solidarity with her and in acknowledgement of her dexterity and expertise in handling the excesses of the oil and gas sector, rather than from a steadfast conviction that the carbon take-back scheme is the deterrent needed to curtail the enthusiasm of the financial markets in their continuing and increasing support for the sector.

I want to find out more about the scheme and to raise some questions posed by it. I get that this novel scheme is cleverly devised, accounting for not just the carbon neutrality of the production of fossil fuels but their deployment, subsequent combustion and release into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases. I support that, but I also have concerns.

Electricity Supplier Obligations (Green Excluded Electricity) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction of the SIs. I will take the Electricity Supplier Obligations (Excluded Electricity) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 first and then the other one second. I can broadly support this SI, but I have a few points that I want to raise.

The Explanatory Memorandum explains that the proposals were made in the review of the scheme to provide relief to energy-intensive industries for a proportion of

“the indirect costs of funding renewable electricity policies”.

However, it makes no mention of the responses to the consultation. I am afraid that I have been unable to find a government response on these proposals. My first question to the Minister is: is that response in the public domain and, if so, where can I find it? Also, how many consultees responded on questions 3 and 4, which cover the proposals in this regulation? What was the distribution of views and what alternative proposals were made? Did any consultees highlight risks or unintended consequences? It would have been useful to have seen responses on that.

As trading data will be unaudited, what independent checks will be carried out on that data to ensure that gross value added is not being under-reported or energy costs overstated to meet the eligibility criteria of at least 20% of the GVA being from electricity costs? When will the Government respond to the other proposals in the review?

I will close with a thought on a more strategic outlook that the Government could take. Rather than piecemeal subsidies, a possible longer term and more comprehensive solution to carbon leakage would be the carbon border adjustment mechanism, whereby high-emissions industries migrate to the parts of the world with the lowest effective price on carbon. A CBAM would allow tariffs to be charged on imported goods in proportion to the difference between their emissions and those for the corresponding goods made at home. Ministers reported in May 2022 that they would consult on such a mechanism by the end of last year. That time has come and gone, so I wonder whether the Minister could provide an update to the Committee on when we might have that consultation. There are rumours that it might be due to start in the next month or two. Can the Minister confirm that or say no to it?

I turn to the Electricity Supplier Obligations (Green Excluded Electricity) (Amendment) Regulations 2023. The Minister mentioned briefly, and it was laid out clearly in the Explanatory Memorandum, why the UK’s departure from the EU means that the UK Government are no longer required to make provision to exempt certified green imported electricity from EU member states from the electricity supplier obligations—that is, as the Minister explained, from payments which are used to support feed-in tariffs and contracts for difference. This instrument will remove the green excluded electricity exemption from the contracts for difference scheme so that the electricity from renewable sources that is imported to Great Britain from an EU member state, and is currently exempt from the contracts for difference reconciliation scheme, will no longer be exempt.

The Explanatory Memorandum tells us that the current

“exemption benefits licensed electricity suppliers in Great Britain who import renewable electricity from EU member States”.

That is clear so there is an incentive to import green electricity, as things stand, which is a good thing. Can the Minister confirm that the proposed abolition of the exemption means that the energy supplier obligation reconciliation payments will have to go up, as a result of losing this benefit? That is the logical conclusion of the statement in the EM. Removing the exemption will put in place an incentive instead for energy suppliers to move away from green energy imports from the EU, and I wonder whether that is the Government’s intention.

Carbon Budgets: Methane Flaring

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of methane flaring on meeting the United Kingdom’s carbon budgets; and what plans they have to ban this practice.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government recognise that eliminating routine methane flaring is a priority. North Sea flaring has halved in the past four years. We have committed to make every effort to ensure that routine flaring from oil and gas fields ends as soon as possible, ahead of the World Bank’s zero routine flaring by 2030 target. Methane emissions are fully accounted for in the UK’s carbon budgets, and the oil and gas sector is on track to deliver against this target.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, the figures the Minister has quoted are hotly disputed by the respected journal Energy & Environmental Science. However:

“With natural gas prices at historic highs, gas flaring is an extraordinary waste of economic value … alongside its negative impacts on climate change and human health.”


Those are not my words but the words of the IEA’s recent technology deep dive report into flaring. Why do the Government not just stop this historic madness, follow the Skidmore review recommendation and ban flaring and venting, other than in an emergency situation, as Norway did in 1972?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

These are complicated technological and economic matters. If it were as simple as the noble Baroness makes out, we would do it, but we are working to do it as quickly as possible. The figures that I quoted are from a press release from the North Sea Transition Authority that was issued today—the authority must have seen the noble Baroness’s Question. Flaring is down by 50% since 2018. We must not get this out of proportion; of the UK’s methane emissions, only 1.6% are from the oil and gas sector, compared with the likes of the 49% that come from agriculture.

Domestic Heat Pumps: Budget Underspend

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reasons for the underspend in the annual £150 million budget to install domestic heat pumps and other low-carbon alternatives to gas boilers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, despite it being a challenging year for the energy sector, provisional data from Ofgem shows that we have received 14,100 applications so far. Industry has reacted positively to the scheme during its first year, with suppliers developing competitive offers alongside the grant. The Government recently launched a targeted marketing campaign to increase public awareness. We will consider options such as increased marketing, as well as keeping grant levels under close review.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. We know that heat pumps are the only show in town today that can deliver low-carbon domestic heating cheaply and quickly. In 2022, a whopping 20 million heat pumps were installed across 16 EU countries, yet our Government fall short time after time in delivering even the basics needed for success, such as home insultation measures, a skilled workforce and improved public awareness. What plan do the Government have to move their woeful current rate of under 10,000 in almost a year on the boiler upgrade scheme to their target of 600,000 a year by 2028? Without a plan, the target is pie in the sky.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness obviously did not listen to the Answer that I gave her, because I just said that we have received 14,100 applications for the scheme. But this is not the only scheme by which heat pumps are installed. There are those that are installed by the private sector, and they are already starting to be installed in many new properties. A range of our other schemes—the social housing decarbonisation fund, home upgrade grant, et cetera—also support the installation of heat pumps.