Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord almost pre-empts what I was about to say, so I thank him. As if this is not enough to give politics a bad name, the events of last week, I am afraid, leave a nasty taste in the mouth. The Northern Ireland Assembly’s DAERA scrutiny committee met last Thursday and heard from Stena Line, the key ferry company linking GB to NI, and the UK Chamber of Shipping. All parties there, bar the Alliance, expressed concerns. The Minister is an Alliance member, of course. The committee was ready to reject the order but was told that there was a Northern Ireland-specific impact assessment around, and agreed to postpone its decision until Monday this week so that members could read the impact assessment. On Monday, the committee met again and was presented with no NI impact assessment because no such impact assessment existed. Officials suggested that the impact on Northern Ireland was already assessed but, again, this is not true.

The Frontier Economics study often cited was commissioned in 2023 by Whitehall departments, not the NI department. It mentions Northern Ireland a few times but provides no quantified estimates of the impacts on Northern Ireland’s consumers or business. It also spends a lot of time emphasising cruise liner shipping, which is not even covered, and barely touches on freight routes. The Government have acknowledged that Northern Ireland is more exposed to cost transmission through maritime freight but surely then there should have been a dedicated economic impact assessment carried out. Did the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland ever even discuss it with Secretary of State Miliband to point out the unfairness? Sometimes we almost question the role and purpose of the Northern Ireland Office. The impact assessment statement was just a ruse to prevent a vote last Thursday that would have gone the wrong way, and to buy the Government time.

Over the weekend, Northern Ireland officials lobbied MLAs very hard. Even the Secretary of State was engaged in texting and maybe even telephoning party leaders with the argument that had never been mentioned in the other place when this was discussed, saying that the entire EU reset would be threatened if the Assembly blocked the SI. The people of Northern Ireland expect their Secretary of State to at the very least put forward the arguments as to why they should not be subject to discriminatory treatment, leading to higher fares. It is clear that Northern Ireland does not have a Northern Ireland Office that works for the people of Northern Ireland the way in which the Scotland Office does.

The committee voted by five votes to four to approve the SI. One MLA, Michelle McIlveen, described these events in the following terms in the Assembly. She stated:

“What happened was, frankly, disgraceful. Last-minute pressure was placed on parties by UKG. A new dimension associated with CBAM and impact on EU negotiations was introduced. No facts, detail or proper briefing, just smoke and mirrors. That is not the way that we should do our politics, and interference at such a late stage is highly suspicious”.


The EU reset argument is nonsense. It played on the suggestion that if this order is not passed, that would be the end of any discussion on maritime greenhouse gases. In truth, however, as noble Lords know, regulations are pulled fairly regularly to make corrections and replaced a few days later with a new set of corrected regulations with “(No.2)” added at the end. The order that we are discussing is blatantly discriminatory and I call on the Government to commit at the very least to withdraw it and table a draft (No.2) order, which can have the same wording as the current order but applies the same exemption to Northern Ireland or Scotland. I appreciate that there may be noble Lords who wish to mention some other areas of the United Kingdom that have not been exempted.

Stena Line and the UK Chamber of Shipping have asked for reasonable adjustments: a 12-month delay to allow them to prepare, a Northern Ireland-specific economic assessment, a phased introduction period, and revenues raised to be targeted towards maritime decarbonisation. All those seem eminently sensible to me, as I hope they do to other noble Lords. I support the regret amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, but I feel very strongly that we are fed up with regretting things—regret does not change anything. That is why, unless we get a very strong response from the Minister—although I appreciate that he is not making these decisions—I believe that, for the sake of the people of Northern Ireland and for the sake of decency and fairness, I will be forced to push this to a vote.

I will mention something that came up in the other House. The honourable Member for North Antrim and the honourable Member for South Antrim both spoke against this and the Conservative Members voted against it in Committee, but of course with the huge Labour majority it went through the House. The 50% reduction was raised, which Northern Ireland is of course getting. The Minister there responded by saying:

“I wanted to clear up a couple of points … The 50% reduction that applies to Northern Ireland is there to create parity between vessels that operate between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and those that operate between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland”.—[Official Report, Commons, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 3/2/26; col. 13.]


Of course, the Republic of Ireland is under the EU’s 50% reduction. The honourable Member for North Antrim responded:

“The Minister is telling the Committee that parity with the Republic of Ireland is more important to him than parity with the rest of the United Kingdom”.—[Official Report, Commons, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 3/2/26; col. 14.]


That tells us something. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

My Lords, I should inform the House that, if this amendment is agreed to, I will be unable to call the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, by reason of pre-emption.

Energy Prices

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot give a definitive date for future legislation, as the noble Earl will understand, but he is right about market reform. We are considering fundamental changes, including zonal pricing. I understand that the previous Government looked at marginal pricing when they started their work but decided not to make any changes. On input, I would be very glad to meet with the noble Earl to discuss his proposals.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will not be surprised by my question: what price tidal power?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it depends on whether tidal power can offer value for money. I recently met with a number of developers who are interested in developing tidal power. I understand their passion and the potential, but we must ensure that it provides value for money. However, the door is open to further discussions.

Energy Costs for Businesses

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, as ever, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising these very serious matters and particularly the plight of the Uighurs in Xinjiang province, which we have debated. He knows from my response in the Great British Energy Bill that we are looking at this very carefully. He is right that there is a tension, and clearly many of our solar panels come from China with all the attendant issues that this involves. But we have established the Solar Taskforce to look into the issue of supply chain, and we will be taking very seriously the points that the noble Lord has raised.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, I have berated my own party over many years on this subject; I shall now enjoy doing so to the noble Lord’s opposite. What is the Government’s attitude to tidal power, which is indefinite, utterly predictable and costs nothing once installed?

Surplus Carbon Emissions

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As we debated extensively last night, it will have a negligible impact.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, following up the supplementary question from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, does noble friend agree that the Scottish Government, and indeed the British Government, could well add tidal power to their list?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend is relentless in his pursuit of tidal. He is right; it is an important component. It is not yet at scale; it is at a relatively small scale of development, but we supported it under the previous CfD round, and I am sure that tidal has a bright future ahead of it as part of our wide energy mix.

Biomass: Power Generation

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I do not agree with the noble Baroness—I often do not agree with her. This is not a business scam. It is actually bill payers’ money, not taxpayers’ money, but we spend it on a number of different sources, including those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Birt. It is not an either/or equation; we need a variety of different sources of fuel for our electricity and our energy uses. If the energy crisis taught us anything, it is the importance of not relying on one particular source. Yes, we need wind, solar, biomass, nuclear and some gas-fired generation in the short term. We need a resilient energy mix across all the different sources.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, on the general subject of renewable energy, in the announcement yesterday of two new gas-fired power stations, an announcement was also made that there were times when renewable energy was not available to generate power. Does my noble friend agree that this simply is not true? Tidal power is constantly available.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord has asked me about this a number of times. As I have said to him, we are supportive of tidal power and are allocating funds to its development through the various CfD auctions. But I think he will recognise that it is not yet available at scale and in the quantities we would need. We are very proud of our renewable resources: almost 50% of our electricity production is now from renewables; we have the five biggest wind farms in the world; we are easily the biggest producer in Europe; and we are seeing lots of applications for solar development. Renewables are great, but it remains the case that they are not available all the time; we need more storage and back-up, and need other sources as well.

Hydrogen Heating

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I think the CMA is looking into some of the claims. Chancellor, it is a complicated area, because you can blend hydrogen into the existing gas network and that will work perfectly satisfactorily with all existing gas appliances. In that respect, all appliances are hydrogen-ready. But I am sure Ofgem will want to look at the full implications of that as well.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

When my noble friend helpfully lists forms of alternative renewable energy, could he be kind enough to include tidal?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I know my noble friend feels very passionately about this. As I have said, we allocated some contracts for difference in the last round for tidal. I am sure we will want to do so in the next round again, provided the bids are competitive—but it does contribute a relatively small part of our energy mix.

Carbon Capture and Storage Infrastructure Fund

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, this makes me think that we cannot win on this. One part of the Opposition does not want to award these contracts at all and the Labour Party thinks we should have done it earlier. The reality is that we are proceeding with negotiations. It is our aim to have the contracts let for the first 10 projects by quarter 3 of next year. This is a really exciting technology, but we need to do the negotiations properly and get maximum value for money for the taxpayer from what is an emerging new industry.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

Can my noble friend bring the House up to date on the Government’s support for tidal power?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend is dogged in his pursuit of this, and I have answered his question before. As he knows, under the last contracts for difference round, a number of tidal projects were successful in receiving funding.

2030 Emissions Reduction Target: Heating

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Indeed we are. The situation in France and for ourselves is very different, because France has not had the availability of domestic gas that we have had over the years. Nevertheless, I agree with the noble Baroness’s point: we need to expand the number of heat pumps being installed. In fact, we are already doing many of the measures that she outlined.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend please put greater emphasis on the development of tidal energy, which would greatly reduce carbon emissions? I think he will tell us that the infrastructure is extremely expensive; that is true, but thereafter it is utterly free and totally predictable.

Cleaner Energy Technologies

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Well, if the noble Baroness is referring to the legally binding carbon budgets, of course by their very nature they are legal targets and we have to meet them. We have met all our carbon budgets so far—in fact, we have exceeded them—but of course as we go on it gets more difficult. We have lots of ambitious policies to continue rolling out renewables and other carbon-reduction technologies, but we will respond to the CCC report in due course.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, not unexpectedly, I ask: “Tidal power?”

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Yes, well, however many times the noble Lord asks me that question, he gets the same answer. We are supporting tidal stream technology under the latest CfD round—and of course we keep the technology under review and, if the costs come down, we will want to continue to support it and roll out further projects.

Carbon Budgets: Methane Flaring

Lord Geddes Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am happy to arrange a briefing with officials for the noble Lord if he would like, but the technical difficulties are, first, technological, in that it requires a lot of new infrastructure and pipework to be installed, and some of the facilities that flare are oil platforms that do not have facilities to pipe the gas to shore. Secondly, there are huge economic costs associated with it; obviously, some of the infrastructure goes back to the 1970s.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, would this problem not be greatly reduced if we put more emphasis on tidal energy?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend is dogged in his determination to get tidal on the agenda. I agree with him that we need more renewable energy, and we have allocated a number of CfD contracts to different forms of tidal energy.