Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Teverson

Report stage
Monday 17th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for emphasising the mitigation hierarchy in her amendment and for her speech. It is something that is really important to take notice of offshore. I was pleased to add my name to the amendment of my noble friend Lady Sheehan, and I have great sympathy with the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. However, I will speak primarily to Amendment 131.

I guess that if this Bill had come before this House three years ago, I would not have even contemplated putting an amendment down about no more coal, because it would have been totally and absolutely obvious that it would be a really stupid thing for any nation—let alone the United Kingdom—to do. However, we are in the situation where we have the Government saying that a coalmine in Cumbria should actually go ahead. I put this amendment down because I now wonder, if we have one, what else could happen. It is not specifically about Cumbria, but Cumbria is important.

Let us look at Cumbria for a moment. First, the issue does not revolve just around the production of coking coal for steel. That is estimated to be only 15% of production. The other 85% is expected to be exported. Of course, once that coal leaves our shores, we have absolutely no control over it; it is a commercial decision. We have no control over what that coal is used for, and almost certainly it is going to be used for energy and power generation. Even if we take that 15%, which is supposedly for coking coal, we have a situation where the UK steel industry is actually moving away from carbon-intensive methods into green steel. At the moment, we are some way behind our friends and colleagues in the European Union, in that they have some 38 green steel plants under plan and 10 operating at the moment, all mainly green hydrogen produced by electrolysis. The one proposed in the UK is blue hydrogen with carbon capture and storage, but that is the future. The future is not steel produced by coking coal.

So, in a way, the Cumbria mine project should be unacceptable to us, yet Michael Gove, who I had huge respect for when he was Defra Secretary of State and who introduced a huge number of important environmental improvements and plans that are still echoing beyond his tenure in that role, in December last year—only five months ago—approved the plan for that coal mine. Rather cynically, he approved it up to 2049, one year before we have to have net zero in the United Kingdom.

One of the main reasons I have tabled this amendment, apart from the fact that I would not have thought it even possible that the United Kingdom would contemplate opening a new coal mine, is our international reputation. Of course, as Members will remember, we were the president of COP 26. We had a very successful conference in Glasgow and most of us—all of us, probably—congratulated Alok Sharma on the work he did as president of COP 26. During that conference, the UK Government put out a press release about their own success. This was in November 2021, only some 18 months ago, and it heralds:

“The end of coal—the single biggest contributor to climate change—is in sight thanks to the UK securing a 190-strong coalition of countries and organisations at COP26, with countries such as Indonesia, South Korea, Poland, Vietnam, and Chile announcing clear commitments to phase out coal power”.


The end of coal; that is the message.

The BEIS Minister at the time, someone called Kwasi Kwarteng—noble Lords may have heard of him—said:

“Today marks a milestone moment in our global effort to tackle climate change as nations from all corners of the world unite in Glasgow to declare that coal has no part to play in our future power generation. Spearheaded by the UK’s COP26 Presidency, today’s ambitious commitments made by our international partners demonstrate that the end of coal is in sight. The world is moving in the right direction, standing ready to seal coal’s fate and embrace the environmental and economic benefits of building a future that is powered by clean energy”.


I applaud that statement. It is strong, determined and absolutely to the point. Yet we are about to have a coal mine that will produce coal not just for an outdated steel technology but to be used for power generation.

I am very proud of Britain’s reputation on climate change. On my Benches and others we have criticised many aspects, but we have shown, over coalition Governments, Labour Governments and even the present Conservative Government, that we have moved forward—further, in many ways, than our fellow G7 countries. That is why it is absolutely wrong that we should trash that reputation by one decision to open a new UK coal mine. Who knows? If that happens once, it can happen again. That is why this amendment is so important.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, first, I have to say to the last speaker that I did not like that word “even”; this Government have introduced the highest targets of any country in the world. They have led the world in the most remarkable way and we should thank them for it—but that makes the argument against coal mines even stronger.

The Climate Change Committee is very careful not to overstep its mark. Its job is to advise on alternative methods and on the aims that we need to set the targets. Very rarely does it say that a particular measure is unacceptable. Indeed, in dealing with the question of new oil and gas, we have been very clear that the Government have to take into account the geopolitical position: you cannot just talk about the whole issue of the environment, because we are at war in Ukraine. We have a country determined to squeeze freedom out of Europe. We are concerned in all sorts of areas and we have to make very difficult decisions, so I hope my noble friend will remember how careful the Climate Change Committee has been in looking at these issues.