UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and to speak particularly to Amendment 4 in this group. I address the attention of the Committee to my published interests in the register.

I shall make a couple of general points to start with, because it occurred to me that the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, when speaking to the last group of amendments, was absolutely right when he said there is a great tendency on the part of the Government not to put stuff in the Bill, but rather to say, “Don’t worry, the Treasury will be looking at that”, “The Government will be looking at this”, “There will be a review of this and a review of that”. That ties in with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, just said about the importance of having this firmly in the legislation. We live in febrile times and it is important that some of the key points that have been put forward around the Committee, and certainly were at Second Reading, are put in the legislation.

The second point that struck me very forcibly, made by my noble friend Lady Noakes, was the importance and status of this framework document. That really needs underlining and I encourage the Minister to write to all Members to stress what the nature of this document is. She referred to its legal status. Its legal status is certainly not as strong as that of a Bill and I would be interested to know what the lasting position of this framework document is, how it is to be enforced and so on. That is key to what we are looking at.

In addressing Amendment 4, the key point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, is about extending and clarifying the remit of the bank’s objectives. Many at Second Reading, including the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford, who are also speaking to Amendment 4, were clear about the importance of being explicit about objectives for adapting to actual and predicted impacts of climate change. As was very clearly set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the report of the Committee on Climate Change is key in this regard, under Section 56 of the Climate Change Act. The Government have said that they are committed to this; why, then, would they resist putting it in the Bill? If they resist putting it in the Bill, it will inevitably make not just noble Lords but the community and the public in general suspicious, and I think that would be an undesirable outcome.

It is surely integral to the work of tackling the challenge of climate change that we do this. I think we also need to give the sector and the wider world the security of making the importance of the natural world clear in the Bill, following the Dasgupta review, which, again, the Government strongly supported. They commissioned it and supported it; why, then, is it not to be put in the Bill? It is an integral and holistic part of dealing with the challenge of climate change that we also deal with the dangers to the natural environment. That would mean making positive efforts in relation to, for example, peat restoration, tackling coastal erosion, tackling flood management and so on. Why should this not also be in the Bill? I would be interested to hear what my noble friend has to say on this point.

It is important for the financial sector to know that the Government are firmly behind this. At Second Reading, I recall that the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who is not in her place at present, reminded us that in 2018-19—the most recent statistics—the UK invested just 0.02% of GDP in restoring nature. That is clearly not good enough for a nation that purports to be in the lead and in many ways is giving a lead internationally on this. We need to do much more. I trust that the Government can match their words with some real action and look at how we can amend this Bill in this very positive way.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chairman, president and vice-president of a range of environmental organisations. I too will speak to Amendment 4, to which I have added my name.

We absolutely must not miss this opportunity to make sure that the bank’s objectives are fully in line with the two biggest global challenges: climate change—mitigation and adaptation—and biodiversity decline. This amendment, as has been outlined, highlights the importance of the bank supporting investments that enable the UK to adapt to the implications of climate change and not just to reduce carbon. There is already enough carbon out there to have significantly influenced the climate—increased storminess; higher temperatures; impacts on human health, crops and the resilience of infrastructure; and flood risks to property, energy generation and distribution networks and transport. Some 85% of all major electricity distribution substations are on the flood plain. At high temperatures, as we already know, roads and rail melt. There are some real practical issues now which the infrastructure bank could get its teeth into.

I have read the successive reports of the Adaptation Committee to the Climate Change Committee, which I was privileged to help establish. I am delighted to see the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, in her place, and I am sure she will talk with huge authority about this. To steal her quote,

“adaptation remains the Cinderella of climate change, still sitting in rags by the stove: under-resourced, underfunded and often ignored.”

It almost makes you weep. Her reports also demonstrate that the gap between the level of risk we face in the UK from climate change impacts and the level of resilience we are developing has widened rather than narrowed. The UK is not in a good place with its readiness for and resilience against the impacts of climate change, and if the world misses its net-zero targets, we will be in an even worse place. The bank has a really valuable job to do in addressing these issues. It must do so, and therefore this should be in its objectives.

As others have said, the bank also needs to embed in its objectives a role in supporting action on the Government’s other key challenge of protection and restoration of natural capital—air, land, water and especially biodiversity—which has been on a steep decline for 50 years, and which the Government have committed to reverse by 2030.

I put the House on notice that I will become a complete bore. Having got my way with the Government yesterday when they announced that they would have a land use strategy, I can now stop banging on about that. My next subject to bang on about is the need to learn the childhood game, if noble Lords remember it, of trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. We need not just to learn that but to pull off the more difficult task of walking, talking and chewing gum at the same time. Pretty well every government policy and many public institutions should have three sets of objectives for the future: the key role that they play in whatever sphere of life they operate in, the climate change objective, and the natural capital and biodiversity decline objective. We have to become better at walking, talking and chewing gum at the same time.

As we see successive bits of legislation going through, I am sure your Lordships will hear me, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and many others banging on about that need. Remember when you were patting your head and rubbing your stomach: it was difficult but it was doable. We have to learn how to do this—to make sure that every single policy has measures for climate change mitigation and adaptation for biodiversity recovery included in its objectives, equal to the main function that it is there to deliver. This amendment would do that job for the infrastructure bank, and it would enable the bank to work for natural capital as priority infrastructure and as a key factor in screening its lending priorities.

There are several other amendments grouped with Amendment 4—Amendments 2, 3, 5, 15 and 20—which are all variations on the theme of environmental objectives. I personally think that ours is the most all-embracing, elegant and comprehensive, but I am sure there will be a degree of haggling to bring together some combined objective before Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Deben just said and shall speak in favour of Amendment 17 on energy efficiency. In addition to the points my noble friend just made about how it is very dangerous to have a list of things but leave out something so central, which the Climate Change Committee has, quite clearly and quite rightly, been calling for in support of other strands of the Bill, it seems to me that this would not only help in fighting climate change but would help in levelling up, help create jobs and help in so many other ways. It is a mystery to me why the Government would want to leave it out.

Furthermore, it is very clear from the Explanatory Notes that the talk is only of economic infrastructure—look at paragraph 34—so the assumption is that, in stressing economic infrastructure, this is not covered. The absence of energy efficiency therefore means that people think that this is not regarded as important by the Government, despite what the Government have said in the strategic steer, which I strongly support. I hope my noble friend will come forward with some compelling reason why this has so far been omitted and will say that it will be included before Report, because it seems to me that the Government, when stating that they are so strongly in support of this could very easily put this right by putting it in the Bill before Report. I hope my noble friend will tell us that she intends to do just that.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I also support Amendment 17 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to which I have put my name. All the arguments have been laid out as to why energy efficiency is important, but I share the amazement of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that this message does not seem to be getting over to the Government. It is a bit of a no-brainer, really: energy efficiency is vital not only in tackling climate change but as one of the easiest ways of addressing the impact of rising energy prices and strengthening our energy security. We need to urgently accelerate energy efficiency measures in this country. The net-zero carbon strategy had a blind spot about energy efficiency and we really are pussyfooting around.

I am old enough to remember conversion to North Sea gas. It was a splendid programme—admittedly, probably slightly simpler, but not hugely simpler, than making our homes energy efficient. It was a street by street effort; the whole nation went through it at the same time and one spent hours talking about it in the pub. There was a spirit of community cohesion around the whole conversion process and there was an end date that we had to hit, otherwise we were going to blow people up. We need that sort of programme to deal with our cold and leaky homes. We have the coldest and leakiest homes in Europe.

Just to give an example, when the energy price cap rises again in October to hit the £2,800 mark, average households in homes with an EPC of D or worse—about 15.3 million households in this country—will pay nearly £1,000 of that simply because their homes are inefficient. We cannot really continue in that mode. I believe the infrastructure bank has a clear role here.

To give noble Lords the last piece of government inadequacy on this, the Environment and Climate Change Committee of your Lordships’ House took evidence last week from the Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change. To be honest, I went home and wept, because there was huge reliance on “We’ll put lots of information into the public domain; you can go to the BEIS website and get lots of help on retrofit, energy efficiency and conversion to cleaner forms of energy”. There was a statement of completely pious hope that households would miraculously see the light and take action. That simply will not be enough.

The infrastructure bank needs to go for it. It needs to get us in the pubs talking about this national mission of a focused and sustained programme for energy efficiency. I share all other noble Lords’ view that the Chancellor’s strategic steer is insufficient. I hope the Minister will rise to the occasion, show that not all of government has a blind spot on energy efficiency and let us have it as one of the definitions of “infrastructure” for the bank.

National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, without going into that issue in too much detail—not because I do not want to but because I know my noble friend has a specific Question on tourist activity tomorrow—it is possible to overstate the significance of tourist activity in encroaching on housing. If my noble friend will forgive me, I think she sometimes does that. There is an issue with compliance with the law, which is quite separate, but I have not seen evidence of such effects from tourist activity. We encourage people to take advantage of the sharing economy so that families are able to benefit from competitive prices. I think that is a good thing.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for the Statement and for the very welcome increased protection for ancient woodland that has resulted from the useful dialogue we have had over the last year. I also welcome the toughening up of the viability assessment process. It is true that those developers and local authorities that insisted on transparency have done a great service to local people, who can understand some of the commitments included in those assessments. However, we must be very careful that the housing delivery test for local authorities does not bear down on them to the point where they are so desperate not to lose their planning powers that they simply abandon the prospect of the right home in the right place and focus instead on homes anywhere, at any cost to the environment. There is increasing evidence that local authorities feel that they simply must produce viable land commitments and local plans that deliver the housing target at the expense of environmental considerations. May I press the Minister to tell us what safeguards will be put in place to make sure that the housing delivery test does not become overbearing?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness once again for the work she did in championing the cause of ancient woodlands, including organising a visit for the two of us to somewhere east of Newark-on-Trent. That sounds like an Alistair MacLean novel. It was a very useful visit, and I am glad we have been able to do something in that regard.

The noble Baroness welcomed the viability test. On the housing targets that she talked about, so that housing authorities do not feel that they have to deliver homes of substandard quality, let us say, because of having to reach the numbers, we have made the importance of design integral to the NPPF. As a nation, we have not been imaginative enough on this but, of course, we need to be realistic about the demands placed on local authorities. They can work on common ground with neighbouring authorities, for example, to deliver. They are obliged to look at brownfield first; we do not want them to use green-belt land, except as very much a last resort, and that has to be justified, just as it does now. All the safeguards are there, but it is something we will watch like hawks.

Grenfell Tower and Building Safety

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for that question. The Government accept all the recommendations of Dame Judith Hackitt’s interim report that were directed towards the Government; of course, many recommendations are directed elsewhere, and we cannot accept those on behalf of other bodies. Obviously, we urge local authorities to be pre-emptive and respond in relation to the recommendations made to them. We have been very clear that finance should not stand in the way of necessary work, which remains our position. We are open to looking at any reasonable application in relation to that—as I have indicated, we are indeed doing so.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a resident of a Westminster City Council block that suffers from all the deficiencies that Dame Judith Hackitt’s report has outlined so well. In paragraph 1.86, Dame Judith quite rightly focuses on the inadequacy of compartmentation as a fire risk control measure. On many occasions, the multiple responsibilities for adaptations and changes in such blocks result in all sorts of people, including homeowners, undertaking changes which compromise compartmentation. By the time inspections happen, if they happen adequately at all, floor coverings, wall coverings and all manner of other adaptations are hiding a multitude of changes to the integrity of the compartmentation. I was pleased to see in Dame Judith’s report a comment on compartmentation but, so far, there has been no recommendation. Is this a matter on which the Government expect a recommendation in Dame Judith’s final report? I firmly believe that compartmentation—which is a dreadfully difficult word to say at this time of the day—is a policy doomed to failure. It is a fail-unsafe, rather than a fail-safe, policy.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

The noble Baroness makes a perfectly fair point. Obviously, there is a lot even in the interim report—it is not a short report; it has many important recommendations and constitutes important reading not just for the Government but, as I have indicated, for all relevant partners in relation to delivery of housing and those concerned with building regulations and fire safety. Perhaps I may come back to the noble Baroness on the particular point she raised; I have not read the report from end to end—I have to be candid about that—but we are expecting a fuller report in the spring, where no doubt some points that perhaps have not been fully investigated as yet will be covered.

Energy Security: Hinkley Point

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Thursday 10th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right about the importance of small modular reactors. He will know that £250 million was announced in the spending review specifically for that purpose in this Parliament. We will bring forward proposals on that early this year—that is, in the spring.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that the Chancellor is making the situation worse by flip-flopping our energy policy from the Treasury and cancelling the carbon capture and storage project, onshore wind, the feed-in tariff arrangements, the zero-carbon homes and the Green Deal, and causing huge investor and company unrest and insecurity? We will not deliver an energy supply that is secure for the future as long as that continues. What are the Government going to do to stop the Chancellor flip-flopping energy policy and to restore investor and market confidence?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is wrong: there is no flip-flopping over energy policy. It is absolutely clear and it was set out in my right honourable friend the Secretary of State’s speech that we regard security as the number one proposal. We are ending subsidies. We are moving away from subsidies to a market-based approach, which is the right thing to do. It is important that we balance the interests of the public purse with the interests of decarbonisation and security, and that is what we are doing.

Forests: Coal-bed Methane Extraction

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the process for coal-bed methane is essentially parallel with that for fracking. There are no separate considerations here—or in so far as they are separate, it is only because of the slightly different technology. Both have extremely robust systems. In addition, if fracking was involved where we have coal-bed methane, a separate system of protections and consents would be needed.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government rode rather roughshod over the environmental conditions that your Lordships’ House believed should be applied to fracking and responded by saying, “Oh well, in that case we’ll make sure that we protect areas of outstanding natural beauty and groundwater protection zones by doing it at 1,200 metres under those sites and no closer to the surface”. The coal seams in the Forest of Dean are at 450 metres from the surface, and many are much closer than that. Can the Minister confirm, or not, that the environmental restrictions that apply to fracking apply also to coal-bed methane extraction in the Forest of Dean—and, if not, what environmental protection conditions will apply? Was it wise to issue a licence when many of the environmental impacts had not been assessed in detail for this particular application until after the licence had been granted?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, coal-bed methane is not as deep as 1,200 metres. So, obviously, that is a separate consideration; we are not talking about fracking. In so far as there is fracking, if it is fracking in addition, there will be the additional protections that are available. But, as I have indicated, there are also planning consents, Environment Agency consents, Health and Safety Executive requirements, access agreements from the Coal Authority and consent to drill from the Oil and Gas Authority. We have a very effective, robust system of protections of which we can be proud.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I also support Amendments 4 and 6 in respect of the matters to which the OGA must have regard, particularly climate change. The Climate Change Act set a statutory target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. In the shorter term, the Committee on Climate Change, under the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has recommended that the UK should have a virtually carbon-free electricity sector by 2030. We are clear that many of these targets will not be met under current scenarios, and this is an area in which it will be pretty strenuous to try to achieve them. Every tool in the toolbox will need to be used.

However, we are at a point where the Government seem to be removing some of the tools from the toolbox. We see in the Bill proposed changes to planning for onshore wind, changes to planning for low-carbon homes, the feed-in tariff support and the renewables obligation, and changes to proposals on tax incentives for low-emission vehicles. There is a concern, certainly in my mind, that if we remove too many tools it will become an even more strenuous and difficult task. That is why management of the oil and gas industry in the future is absolutely vital. It is important that the matters to which the OGA must have regard take account of UK and international obligations for greenhouse gas reduction, decarbonisation of energy and the carbon budgets set by the noble Lord, Lord Deben.

The Minister may say that the OGA already has a prime objective of maximising economic recovery, although I have not heard it put quite that way before. Indeed, one of the matters to which the OGA must have regard is minimising future public expenditure. It would be a bit of a stretch to say that that was a nod towards climate change. So, I ask the Minister to consider whether an explicit reference to having regard to climate change should be added to this list. If we do not make sure that all bodies involved in the energy business also have climate change at their heart, we will see huge effects on public expenditure from the impact of climate change in the future.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken on this group of amendments, which seek to amend Clause 4, in Part 1, and Clause 9, in Part 2, of this Bill. Those amendments are Amendments 3A to 11—excluding Amendments 7 and 9 which are grouped separately—and Amendments 20 and 21.

Amendment 3A, moved by my noble friend Lady Byford, seeks to insert provision into Clause 4 of the Bill which would require the Oil and Gas Authority to have regard to the need to minimise public expenditure relating to, or arising from, its existence. Clause 4 already places an obligation on the Oil and Gas Authority to have regard to,

“The need to minimise public expenditure relating to, or arising from, relevant activities”.

The concept of “relevant activity” is intended to capture activities such as petroleum extraction or gas or carbon dioxide storage in relation to which the Oil and Gas Authority has statutory functions and functions under licences. For example, when taking decisions under licences, it is intended that the Oil and Gas Authority should have to consider whether a licence holder will be able to meet liabilities under a licence if these are liabilities that might otherwise have to be met by the taxpayer.

The question of how the Oil and Gas Authority should spend its own resources is dealt with by other means. However, there are arrangements in place to ensure that the OGA’s spending is controlled. As accounting officer, the OGA’s chief executive is responsible and accountable to Parliament for the organisation of, and quality of management in, the authority, including its use of public money. The chief executive has responsibility for ensuring that the OGA operates in accordance with the guidance set out in the Cabinet Office’s Managing Public Money.

Furthermore, the Department of Energy and Climate Change is establishing a robust governance framework to oversee its relationship with the OGA. This will ensure that any issues which may have a financial impact on government are reported to the Secretary of State at the earliest opportunity. The framework requires the OGA to have the prior written consent of the Secretary of State before it takes any action which will, or is likely to, give rise to an additional funding requirement from the department or gives rise to obligations or liabilities which are not expected to be affordable in terms of expected levy income. The Secretary of State will be the sole shareholder of the OGA and her role in this regard includes assessing and approving the business plan developed by the authority, among other things, to ensure its long-term viability and sustainability and its ability to deliver value for money in light of the strategies of the department and wider government. I hope that this explanation is reassuring.

I turn now to Amendments 4 and 6, which each make reference to responsibilities under the Climate Change Act 2008. While the OGA will be bound by any environmental legislation that relates to the exercise of its functions, it is purposely not an environmental regulator. Perhaps I may refer noble Lords to Clause 4, which refers to those matters to which the OGA must have regard—

“include the following, so far as relevant”—

so, obviously, any pre-existing legislation would be binding in relation to the OGA, and that would include the Climate Change Act.

Environmental regulation responsibilities under the Climate Change Act 2008 will continue to sit within the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which has expertise and experience in this field. There are synergies between the two forms of regulation, and the existing strong relationships between the OGA and DECC will continue. However, it is important that these regulatory functions remain separate, ensuring that the correct focus is placed on each by the different regulators. Noble Lords will also be aware that the amendments raise issues of compliance with the offshore safety directive, which requires a separation of oil and gas licensing and environmental functions, so I am not sure that it is legally possible either. I cannot agree that it would be appropriate to provide the OGA with additional environmental functions, and I hope that noble Lords will not press the amendments.

Amendment 5 includes reference to the development of carbon storage. I thank noble Lords for proposing these amendments because, as I have indicated, between now and Report I should like to look at the whole issue of carbon capture and storage to ensure that there is dovetailing between the existing regime for control of carbon capture and storage and the way that the Oil and Gas Authority will move forward on the matters in the Bill. Clause 4, as I have said, sets out a non-exhaustive list of matters to which the OGA must have regard when exercising its functions. The functions of the OGA include functions relating to carbon capture and storage. A number of the matters refer to “relevant activities”, which is defined as activities in relation to which the OGA has functions. As things stand, the relevant activities therefore include CCS. These matters include the need to collaborate with industry and foster innovation, which should help the CCS sector to achieve its aims. In addition, reference is made under the heading “System of regulation” to encourage “investment in relevant activities”, which once again should include CCS. No other sectors in relation to which the OGA has functions are explicitly referenced by this clause. Making the OGA’s mandate and associated powers on CCS explicit when other sectors are not mentioned could have the effect of prioritising CCS over other areas, which the Government would be against. An example would be maximising the delivery of economic recovery. I hope that on that basis, and with the assurance that we will look at the whole issue of CCS between now and Report, the noble Baroness will be content not to press the amendment.