Climate Change

Debate between Lord Benyon and Caroline Lucas

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I have been present during this debate, but I had to go to another meeting. I hear what she is saying about onshore wind, but does she agree that 7 TWh of onshore wind power were generated in 2010 and that the figure is now 30.4 TWh? It has increased and it can increase more, but she has used this rhetoric time and again to say that it has not increased. It really has, and much more can be achieved.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I apologise for not hearing him earlier. I was too busy expounding my case. I am glad to take his intervention, but I do not agree with him. Of course, yes, we can say that onshore wind generation has increased from 7 TWh to 30 TWh, or whatever the figures were, but it would have increased an awful lot more if this Government had not effectively blocked its expansion. That is what they have done in recent years. Local communities are being told that they have absolutely every right to block onshore wind, yet they are not being given the right to block fracking. That just seems to be absolutely incoherent, so I rest my case that an awful lot more could have been done on onshore wind, not least because it is now one of the cheapest forms of energy generation, if not the cheapest. We do not have the counterfactual about how much could have been done if we had had an enabling Government for the last few years rather than one who have blocked onshore wind. Immediately post-2010, good work was done, but in the last few years they have been blocking it. The right hon. Gentleman can roll his eyes as often as he likes, but that is the case.

I conclude by saying that this is not the time to be patting ourselves on the back; it is the time for rolling up our sleeves, picking up the fire extinguishers, putting out the fire and treating this as the emergency it undoubtedly is.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Benyon and Caroline Lucas

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

indicated dissent.

[Richard Benyon]

I know that that was not quite what the hon. Lady said, but I have the scars on my back. When the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) was Environment Secretary, he rightly made Britain stand up for the conservation of the seas by opposing the over-fishing of tuna in the Atlantic. The first thing sitting in my in-tray when I arrived at DEFRA in 2010, however, was a very big infraction fine against the UK for going against the EU’s direction to fish unsustainably. I also remember working with organisations such as the International Whaling Commission and sitting for hours in a meeting of the EU co-ordination body before putting our case for better whale and cetacean conservation, only to have Britain’s pro-environmental polices watered down. We have an opportunity, if we can get this right, to be more ambitious than that.

On Second Reading, I looked for measures that would secure for the long term the environmental protections we have learned to value—I entirely agree with the hon. Lady and others that measures such as the water framework directive need to be transposed into UK provision—and for a replacement mechanism following the loss of infraction. Infraction keeps Ministers awake at night, but what is the position for a sovereign nation on its own, outside a pan-national body? I have looked for an alternative, and I was tempted by her new clause, and by the Leader of the Opposition’s new clause, because I thought they might tie future Governments. However, after consultation with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), we looked for another mechanism.

Working with the Environment Secretary has been a textbook lesson in how to improve law. He and the Government recognise that there is a governance gap that we have to fill. One suggestion is the belt-and-braces but perhaps over-complicated arrangement that the hon. Lady and others have suggested, but there is an alternative that I find intensely attractive. When we took the issue to the Secretary of State, he listened and then asked questions—the process was rather like a university tutorial—and he then asked us back to tell us what he had done. His suggestion, which has been backed up by the Minister today, is something that green groups such as Greener UK and the Green Alliance have been asking for: a proposal that really locks in these measures.

The Secretary of State first suggested that we set up this new body. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset is absolutely right, because we need, through this consultation, to ensure that the body is independent, that we know its remit, that its sanctions are in place, and that it has the level of independence of the Children’s Commissioner, for example. The Secretary of State seems determined that that is what it should be, so I think we have the offer of a very good measure, because it will secure the vital ingredient, which is the national policy statement.