Called-in Planning Decision: West Cumbria

Baroness Worthington Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Climate Change Committee and a former Minister who had to do precisely this: act in a quasi-judicial manner. So I have to say to my noble friend that it would have been perfectly possible for the Secretary of State to turn this down and not agree with the inspector. Can my noble friend explain how the Government are going to say to the rest of the world that they preferred the judgment of a generalist planner to the expert advice of the Climate Change Committee, the International Energy Agency, my right honourable friend Alok Sharma, who led our delegation for net zero at COP 26, and, as the noble Baroness opposite referenced, the chairman of the Climate Crisis Select Committee? It seems we prefer the reference of a planner to all the expert advice that the Government have.

Secondly, how do the Government maintain that this is carbon neutral when it does not take into account the burning of the 85% of this coal that will be exported? We do not know whether it will go to the European Union or to countries that have no interest in fighting for climate change; it could go anywhere.

Thirdly, can my noble friend the Minister explain something? There is a plenty of coking coal in the world. No one is going to dig less coking coal because we are doing it. How do we know that we will be able to compete with them? After all, they are not going to do it to the standards of which my noble friend has spoken.

Why did the Government not say no to this and instead ensure that the 500 jobs would be replaced by jobs in new renewables and nuclear generation? This shows the rest of the world that, when push comes to shove, we do not up stand up for what we promised.

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

First, more jobs and money coming into the area will help local services and shops, and the economy of the area. Secondly, I do not know; I have not read the planning application in detail, but I will look at it and respond on what is required. I would be surprised if it did not require local investment; most planning applications of this size do.

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I back the speakers who have gone before me, but I will focus on one aspect of this. It was called in on the basis of the international and national implications of the mine going ahead. We have heard nothing about those international implications. Nothing in the inspector’s report nor in the words of the Minister has answered the irrefutable evidence from Sir Robert Watson, the former chief scientist at Defra, who quite rightly pointed out that the biggest impact this will have on the global climate is to justify continued investment in fossil fuel extraction across the planet. That is not even counting the effect of the exported coal that will be burned, over which we will have no control whatever. The Government have said nothing that can answer the problem that this has serious international implications.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, mentioned that this was going to damage our reputation. I believe this is a co-opting of our reputation. The reason this has been pursued in this country by the Australian backers of the project is so that they can go around the planet and say, “Of course we can invest in coking coal and invest in coal. Even the UK, the accepted leader on climate change, is building new coal.” That is the international implication of today’s decision, which the inspector failed to answer, and it is why everybody is outraged that we are doing this in the 21st century. There is no real need for people to be sent underground to pull out fossil fuels that will be burned, adding to concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are already too high. Nothing the Minister has said has answered these questions, and I expect that this will not be the last we hear of this. Whether the mine ever gets built is still open to debate.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

As I have already said, the application has been agreed this week, and it now has six weeks to be challenged. I am sure the issues the noble Baroness raises about the international impact were taken into account by the inspector at the time, but as I have said before, this mine is to be net zero. The inspector said in his report that he did not expect it to have any effect on climate change, and I would leave it there. However, if I can give the noble Baroness anything further in writing about the international implications, I will do so.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Worthington Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his speech opening this debate and congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, for their powerful maiden speeches. I look forward to their future contributions. I draw attention to my interests as co-director of the Quadrature Climate Foundation and co-chair of the Peers for the Planet cross-party group.

As noble Lords have previously noted, we are facing the interrelated and urgent threats of global climate change and biodiversity loss. We should not, however, make the mistake of seeing the growing climate risk as merely an environmental issue. Human society has arisen and thrived during a period of relative climatic stability, but we have changed this. We are now entering a period of instability. We have rendered our planet less safe; like an alcoholic who has damaged their body through excessive consumption, our addiction to fossil fuels has rendered our unique home prematurely fragile. The effects of our continued reckless use of the planet’s resources will touch on all aspects of our society and economy. We are gambling with the youth of today’s future, and they are rightly demanding that we do more.

Within the Government’s Queen’s Speech, it is regrettable that not more is said on the subject. I do not, however, agree that we need a new climate change emergency Bill. We may not need legislation at all to meet many of our decarbonisation goals. I say this because Part 3 of the existing Climate Change Act was designed to give future Governments the powers that they need to take action to tackle sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, public consultation is all that is needed in order to use secondary legislation to, for example, reach 100% sales of electric vehicles by 2030 or to bring agricultural sources of emissions into a carbon cap and trade regulation that would create much-needed clarity and incentives for carbon-friendly farming. I urge the Government to use these powers now and consider whether they need to reinstate the information-gathering powers in Schedule 4 to the Act, which were subject to a sunset clause.

It is welcome that, we hope, the Environment Bill will be finalised this Session. However, the Bill is not new and lacks the specific long-term targets that will give it power, such as passing the Climate Change Act without the carbon budgets and long-term target. I am afraid that, as it stands and without clarity on the policies that tackle the reasons why existing targets are not being met, it will therefore be ineffective.

I am particularly concerned by the treatment of air quality. Just six clauses devoted to this most pressing of challenges for the Government, at every level, is not dealing with it effectively. As the coroner recently confirmed, polluted air has the capacity to kill and preys on the most vulnerable in society—the young, the old and the poor. I am told that the Government have many of the powers that they need to crack down on the sources of the problem. Why, then, have we not made more progress? I support a much more comprehensive approach, consolidating and updating existing powers and reorienting to be more specific about the goal. We should be completely eradicating sources of airborne pollutants that cause harm to human health—those that arise within our borders and are, therefore, within our control. This goal would have the triple benefit of solving air quality, helping to meet our climate goals and rejuvenating our towns and city centres.

This is a short speech and I am glad to be back in the Chamber after a considerable absence. I look forward to engaging in this Session. I conclude with the suggestion that the Government take a close look at the recently passed climate change law in Spain. Over a decade ago, the UK led the world in legislating to protect the world from a looming climate catastrophe. But just a few days ago, Spain stole our crown, passing a Bill with a set of clear and unequivocal regulations, including: outlawing the sale of vehicles that emit carbon dioxide by 2040 and their circulation on the streets by 2050; limiting all new coal, oil and gas extraction projects; and stipulating that, within two years, all towns or cities with more than 50,000 residents must have a low-emissions zone, such as those in place in Madrid and Barcelona.

I believe that we can and should be doing more. We need a global race to the top, with countries competing to reinvent our economies, so that we no longer pollute our lungs, skies, rivers, seas and soils. I support the Government in all the efforts they take to make this a reality.