Carbon Budgets

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Henley

Monday 8th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

Obviously, that will continue to be available but this goes back to the original supplementary question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. If we want to make any further changes to how we measure international emissions in relation to what we might import, we would have to deal with that internationally.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend explain to me how it makes sense to cut down trees in North America, including Canada, turn them into chips, ship them across the Atlantic to Liverpool and then across the country to a power station so as to burn them instead of coal, while at the same time arguing that people should get rid of their wood-burning stoves?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is slightly wide of the Question, but I accept that shipping wood across the Atlantic in dirty burning boats is sometimes not the best way to go about things—although, in the transition to getting rid of burning coal, it is a great improvement.

Nissan in Sunderland

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Henley

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Yes, it does. The EU was responsible. Under Gordon Brown’s Government we were encouraged to buy diesel cars and to put diesel fuel into them. The duty on the fuel was reduced. So to blame the manufacturers and Brexit for this problem is quite ridiculous. What are Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan, which have to plan in the long term for the production of their cars, to make of a regulatory regime that flips from being in favour of diesel one day to being against? Why are we surprised that Nissan no longer wishes to concentrate on producing diesel-operated vehicles in Europe and instead wishes to look to the future, to electric? Are the Government not to be congratulated on encouraging that investment in the north-east—an investment in the future, not in the past?

[Lord Henley]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for making those points and making them so well. I also declare an interest as an owner for the last 30 years of a whole series of diesel cars. Further, my wife—possibly inadvertently—bought a Volkswagen diesel at probably exactly the wrong moment, just before the scandal erupted in that field. I think we can say that changes to diesel regulations are a factor in decisions being made—decisions that the whole automotive industry has to make. It is also a factor for the Government to consider in deciding which new technologies we should support in future. I can give an assurance to my noble friend that the Government will continue, as he suggested, to support those new technologies.

Carbon Emission Reduction Targets

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Henley

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I do not have absolutely at my fingertips how well each department across the government estate is doing in terms of the Greening Government Commitments, but I can assure the noble Lord that this has been going on through Governments for many years; I remember it happening as long ago as in the 1990s. The Government are moving in that direction. Whether the pay of Secretaries of State should be involved in this is a matter beyond my pay grade.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, is it possible that the Church of England might link the stipends of vicars and bishops to making the heating systems in their churches more efficient and greener?

[Lord Henley]

I am sure that the Benches represented by the right reverend Prelates, which are particularly well occupied today, will have noted what my noble friend has had to say.

Brexit: Employment Protection for Women

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Henley

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for referring to that research, which of course I am aware of. We are also aware of the EU minimum standards and of where we are at the moment. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made clear, we will continue to meet those standards, but we will also be quite clear that we are ahead of European Union standards on a whole host of different areas, whether that is paternity leave or shared parental leave. We are doing our bit and will continue to do so; it is a matter for the UK Government to then decide in future.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that, when we have left the European Union, we will be able to enhance women’s rights in the workforce and not have to seek the agreement of 27 other member states and the Commission to do so? If the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, wishes to see improvements, it will be this Parliament that decides, and that is why we are leaving the European Union.

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend makes a very good point. There was an intervention in the debate on Monday from the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, when she asked exactly this point about why we could not meet European standards and so on. She ended up by citing me and saying that I had replied,

“that the Government would take note of what the EU does in the future but that the whole point of Brexit was that we could make our own decisions”.

She went on to say:

“That is exactly what many of us are extremely concerned about”.—[Official Report, 5/3/18; col. 949.]


But as my noble friend has made clear, it is a matter for the United Kingdom Government and for the United Kingdom Parliament to decide these matters in the future.