Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Lilley

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, it is difficult to follow the noble Baroness—I seem to have drawn the short straw on that one—but it is also difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, because it is quite distressing to witness the death throes of a dinosaur.

This is a wholly unnecessary Bill. Its only virtue is that it is brief. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said that the North Sea Transition Authority, for which the Bill is allegedly meant, has been quoted as saying that it does not need or want it.

The Minister kindly wrote to us in February and held a briefing meeting early in March. He tried, and I should say failed, to outline the benefits of the Bill, so let us look at some of the anticipated and promoted benefits. One is jobs. Whether or not it is 200,000 for oil and gas and associated industries, the argument pursued by the Government is that we have to keep these jobs up and that it would be really bad for us to see all these people becoming unemployed or having to change their profession. In fact, they have skills that would admirably fit the transition to low-carbon technologies. Rather than giving the go-ahead for continued licensing in the North Sea and slowing the decline path of North Sea gas and oil, we should get a greater move on with the development of new low-carbon technologies, including by attracting the billions of pounds of potential investments that the Government tell us are out there.

New green jobs using these people’s skills is the humane way to transition from old to new technology, rather than perpetuating oil and gas to support old jobs. This is the sort of illogical thinking that we have come to expect from this Government, in this area. It is like the logic that we heard them use when talking about commissioning new gas-fired power stations to provide resilience to fluctuations in sun and wind power renewables, rather than going straight towards low-carbon, hydrogen, medium-term storage solutions, as advocated by the Science and Technology Select Committee. The only result of commissioning new gas-fired power stations is likely to be a whole load of stranded assets.

The Minister also talked about energy security, and new oil and gas licences helping to safeguard that energy security to ensure that we do not rely on hostile states. That argument does not stack up either. Only 20% of the oil produced in the UK is refined here; 70% is refined in Europe. I do not accept the belief of the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that we can force trade from having the wrong sort of oil here, with the remainder bartered with Europe. If we end up in a situation where there is a lack of security, international tension or even an international war, having 70% refinable in only Europe will leave us vulnerable.

Some 75% of our oil is exported, since it is the wrong grade for domestic consumption, and 50% of our natural gas comes from outside the UK. None of us wants to see that rise, as liquefied natural gas has a higher carbon footprint than domestic gas, but the answer is not to slow down the transition from a fossil fuel that is on its way out, but to speed it up through increased investment in renewables. They are the future, after all, and that is the most secure way forward.

I too believe that we should increase the burden on carbon capture, storage and use to meet the net-zero target. Carbon capture needs a whole load more technological development before we can really dream of relying on it for carbon removal in any major way. The proof of concept, developed into real schemes on the ground, simply is not happening fast enough or with enough security and science.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

After the noble Baroness’s gratuitous insult at the beginning, I am grateful to her for giving way at this point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

That was very kind of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. She is an apologist for the noble Baroness, Lady Young. Now I have almost forgotten what I was going to ask. Is the noble Baroness, Lady Young, happy that we should do without carbon capture and storage at a risk, according to the estimates of the Climate Change Committee, of doubling the total cost—trillions of pounds—of meeting the net-zero target?

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

I would be delighted to be confident that carbon capture and storage would fill a substantial gap, but so far we do not have the practical evidence that it can be done. Until that is so, we should not increase the burden on a technology that is not yet established or proven. I personally think that, when the Climate Change Committee put the carbon capture and storage element into the net-zero budget, it was being a bit optimistic, as it was about some other issues. When one looks at the amount of public subsidy going towards Drax—the ultimate dream for carbon capture, storage and reuse—one wonders whether this is another example of the overdue influence of industry.

The noble Lord talked about tax revenues and I was a bit speechless in response: “We are getting tax revenues from something that is quite harmful, but the tax revenues are important; therefore, we have to keep doing the harmful thing”. That is like saying that people smuggling is pretty profitable, even if it is harmful, so we should have a national people smuggling enterprise that brings in some reserves and revenue for the Government. I do not accept the tax revenue issue.

The benefits of the Bill are far from what they are cracked up to be and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, will be glad that I will talk about some downsides. The first is marine protected areas. We know that more than a quarter of the oil and gas blocks approved in the October 2023 round were within marine protected areas. Our marine protected areas are in poor condition; only 8% offer effective protection for nature, which is the reason they were created. The clue is in the title. MPAs are an important component of the Government’s Environment Act targets and their international commitment, under the global biodiversity framework, to protect nature effectively in 30% of the sea by 2030. We helped lead that framework at COP and now we are authorising additional licensing of blocks in marine protected areas, as part of the commitment in the Bill.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which is the United Nations official body, has guidance that recommends that no industrialised activities take place within MPAs. The Bill clearly rejects that guidance. Just in case noble Lords do not know what the impacts on MPAs are, I should say that they are not the same as for wind power. Some of them are about oil itself. That does not include gross oil spills; generally speaking, we must praise the oil industry around this country—not necessarily elsewhere—for having been fairly successful in reducing the risk of major oil pollution incidents. However, persistent micro-spills do quite a lot of damage to the water quality, from the top to the bottom of the sea. There are also other pollutants from other chemicals used in the operation of oil and gas extraction.

The second issue sounds a bit weird, but is quite important. There is a lot of evidence that seismic survey noise really impacts marine mammals in particular, as well as commercially important fish species and the invertebrates on which they all live. We do not yet know enough about how strong the harm is, but we know that it is substantial.

The third issue is direct destruction of seabed habitats—for example, cold-water corals and deep-sea sponge communities. It is not just that I am carrying a flag for deep-sea sponges, though as a biodiversity fan I am sure they are very lovely; they are actually important carbon storage mechanisms, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, my partner in crime, and important for nutrient cycles that help keep our oceans clean. We ignore at our peril the biodiversity and conservation downsides.

I personally think this Bill is unnecessary, unwanted and damaging to climate, biodiversity and, as we have said before, our own international reputation, which should not be discounted. It is very easy to say that the only argument we can put is that it will not look good, but that is not what we are talking about. We have taken a leadership role in the world on this issue, and persuaded other countries—of the sort that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, felt would not be persuaded—to do the right thing rather than the wrong thing. We would be junking that international reputation, as we have done successively with several announcements over the last year and a half.

If the Government really want to waste their political capital driving this Bill through, it needs substantial amendment. First, we need to exempt completely marine protected areas from the oil and gas exploration and production blocks. Secondly—and you would expect this from somebody who has spent their life in government on a land use framework—we need a sea use framework. I understand that the Government are already working on a marine spatial prioritisation programme, designed to allocate and prioritise sea space for currently competing activities. Exactly the same problem that we have on land, we have at sea. I urge the Government to complete that work programme quickly, and to add a further test—a spatial prioritisation test—to the carbon intensity and net importer tests already in the Bill, inadequate as they are. This would make blocks available for licensing only if such activities could be shown to be compatible with the achievement of the objectives of the Environment Act and climate change targets. That would be set out in a marine spatial prioritisation programme.

To be honest, the Minister knows in his heart that the North Sea Transition Authority and the nation do not need this Bill. The Climate Change Committee says that there will be a need for some oil and gas after net zero, but that does not justify the development of new North Sea fields. Although we could amend this Bill, it is bit like the pig in lipstick: we could put lipstick on the pig but it will still be a pig. Why does the Minister not just withdraw this silly Bill and we can all go home for Easter?

Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order 2023

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Lilley

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, as I sit on the Environment and Climate Change Select Committee, which is currently looking at electric vehicles. However, the views here are my own.

I am very pleased that the Government have brought forward a ZEV mandate, for all the reasons that the Minister has given. Quite a lot of us were fearful that it might not appear after the Government retreated into the herd when they slipped the phase-out target to 2035. The Government appeared to step back and let the manufacturers take the strain, which is a pity because Governments have a clear role in taking this issue forward.

The worry that I had was on the chilling effect of that change of date. There was a particularly poignant moment last week when the Select Committee was undertaking one of its outreach sessions with young people across the country in support of its electric vehicle enquiry. It was great to talk to these young folk. They are incredibly committed to the environment and absolutely get the net-zero thing. We were talking to them about the greater environmental awareness of young people, the pester power that they have with parents, and I asked them whether they were using their pester power to persuade their parents to adopt electric vehicles.

It was a bit shattering to hear them say, “There is no point in us trying to influence our parents on this because the Government have just said to them, by slipping the date, ‘Don’t worry, there is no rush. You don’t need to do it now—you can take all the time you like’”. I would like the Minister to understand just how chilling some of these changes of direction are. Even if they have internal logic of their own, the public see them as less commitment by the Government to these issues.

It would be great to see the Government active in some other measures to encourage uptake of electric vehicles, as well as introducing the mandate. I am a great believer that bans work—if you have an ultimate date for something not being permissible it concentrates the mind wonderfully—but it would great if the Government undertook a major campaign of reliable information to counteract the huge amount of misinformation about electric vehicles that is currently out there. The progress that has been made in both the technology and supporting technologies, such as charging, has been so great over the last few years. Any cries of doom and gloom about electric vehicles not being practicable at this stage are really misinformation. I hope the Minister could be persuaded to do more to have reliable information presented to the public, rather than just have it on the government website.

I note that the mandate is subject to review mid-term. I hope that, as well as the additional credit schemes for accessible vehicles and others that the Minister talked about, he might consider incentivising lighter vehicles, if that is not already being delivered by the scheme. Lighter vehicles create less pollution and road wear, and additional credits for manufacturers that create them would be a welcome step, if that is not already well advanced by the review period.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, I too am a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee doing a study of this. Unfortunately, I was unable to benefit from the huge wisdom of young people at the school she attended. Had I been there, I would have mentioned that, since we export over 80% of the cars produced in this country, the mandate for sales in this country and the phase-out date has very little effect on British manufacturers. They have to abide by the rules in their export markets. Meanwhile, 85% of the cars we consume are produced abroad.

I want to ask the Minister whether I understand properly how this system will work. Take a year when we are half way through, when the zero-emissions mandate requires any manufacturer’s sales to be at least 50% electric vehicles and no more than 50% combustion engines. Supposing that a manufacturer finds, in the course of a year, that his sales of electric vehicles fall short and the ratio turns out to be 40:60, am I correct that the manufacturer will have to pay a £15,000 fine on all 20 extra vehicles—the difference between 40 and 60—per 100 that are combustion engine? If so, my arithmetic shows that he will effectively have a penalty of £5,000 for every combustion-engine vehicle he has sold. That is a very serious penalty. I do not think people realise quite how serious it is. I am not sure whether the Government have thought through the reaction there would be from motorists if that turns out to be the case, especially as the people who tend to buy combustion-engine vehicles rather than electric vehicles are those who cannot afford expensive vehicles—because electric vehicles tend to be more expensive. They would find themselves paying that fine on usually cheaper, smaller vehicles—to the benefit of the richer purchasers of larger, more expensive, electric vehicles. Am I correct that this is how the system works?

The Minister may say that if manufacturers have excess sales of electric vehicles from previous years they can offset those, and can go out and buy permits from other manufacturers that are, perhaps, only selling electric vehicles. Who will be the manufacturers only selling electric vehicles? They will, by and large, be Chinese manufacturers exporting their vehicles to us. A manufacturer producing only electric vehicles and importing them into this country from China will be able to sell its permits on 50% of the vehicles it sells. It can get £15,000 for each of them and enjoy a subsidy equivalent to £7,500 for every vehicle it sells. Whizzo for the Chinese manufacturers—that far exceeds the effect of the 10% tariff they will have to pay on the vehicles. Am I correct too that we have invented a system that could really subsidise the import of Chinese electric vehicles?

Then I want to ask whether this will all be worth while. If it will reduce emissions, of which I am all in favour, then great. Questions have been raised about the inbuilt emissions of electric vehicles, which are heavier and more expensive than vehicles with internal combustion engines. I do not want to deal with that point. I want to deal with the fact that electric vehicles save emissions only if they use electricity produced from renewables or non-fossil fuel sources. More than 40% of the electricity we produced in this country last year came from fossil fuels. More importantly, 100% of the marginal electricity comes from fossil fuels. If we increase the demand for electricity by switching from fossil fuel powered cars to electric powered cars, the marginal electricity supplied to them will come entirely from fossil fuels, because you can increase the supply of electricity only from fossil fuels. You cannot summon the sun or hail up extra wind but you can increase the supply of electricity from gas-fuelled power plants. We probably will not actually reduce emissions until we have made all our electricity and have spare capacity from renewables or non-fossil fuel power sources. That is not planned to be achieved until 2035, which makes the phase-out date actually have some logic—at least it ties in with something else.

My noble friend the Minister read out a figure about the expected emissions savings. Does that assume that only 40% of the electricity will come from CO₂-producing fossil fuels or that 100% of it will? I suspect it is the former, whereas logically it could be the latter. I do not propose to divide the House on this issue, and I rather suspect I would not win if I did, but we should have honest answers to serious questions and not treat this whole issue as if it is a matter of virtue signalling.