Climate Change: Aims for COP 28

Debate between Lord Harries of Pentregarth and Lord Callanan

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what they aim to achieve at COP 28 this week.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, we want progress in five areas: ambitious new commitments and action, including a pathway to keep 1.5 degrees centigrade within reach of the global stock-take; scaling up clean energy through commitment to triple renewables, double energy efficiency and moving beyond fossil fuels; progress on finance reform, delivering on $100 billion for developing economies; building resilience to climate impacts, including doubling adaptation finance and establishing a loss and damage fund; and, finally, progress towards restoring nature.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. As he will know, one particular focus at COP 28 is the agricultural sector, and in particular how it will be possible to reconcile feeding a growing world population and reducing the very extensive emissions from the agricultural sphere. Can he say a little bit more about what kind of agreement we are likely to see at the end of COP in relation to the agricultural area?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble and right reverend Lord makes an important point. Agriculture is one of the most difficult areas to decarbonise. It is of course linked into a lot of the action that has been taken on nature. It is one of our priority areas and we will be doing what we can to progress agreement.

Offshore Wind

Debate between Lord Harries of Pentregarth and Lord Callanan

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord asks a lot of different questions within what he said. I think his figure of £65 billion refers to the cost of upgrading property to EPC level C, which is a long-term aim. His separate question on hydrogen for heating is indeed a controversial subject. We will make a decision on whether to go ahead with a hydrogen village trial by the end of the year. Similarly, another issue facing us is whether to allow blending of hydrogen into the gas network; you can blend up to about 25% with the current network. Again, that is an issue where, frankly, there are a lot of pros and cons on both sides of the argument. We will make a decision on that by the end of the year as well.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

The next round comes in six months’ time. Are the Government confident that the price will be set at the right level to attract a good number of significant bids?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Of course, that will be our aim. As I said, we want to see more projects consented to and we will try to get the balance right. We will certainly learn the lessons from this round. It is obviously disappointing that we did not attract bids this time, but the offshore wind industry has been a tremendous success for the UK. We have by far the largest capacity in Europe. We have the largest offshore wind farm in the world, the second largest, the third largest and the fourth largest. One reason that developers were unable to proceed this time was pressure in the supply chain. There is pressure in the supply chain because every other country in Europe wants to copy our example, because they can see the success we have made of the offshore wind allocation rounds through the contracts for difference price system. Most other European countries are trying to adopt the same model; they are a long way behind us but trying to adopt the same model now. Of course, that brings pressure in the supply chain, which, adding in the Covid pressures as well, contributes to the increase in costs that industry is experiencing.

UK Property Ownership: Overseas Jurisdictions

Debate between Lord Harries of Pentregarth and Lord Callanan

Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is absolutely not an intention to kick it into the long grass: it remains a priority, which is why we published the draft Bill, why we invited pre-parliamentary scrutiny and why we have acted on many of the recommendations that were issued during that time, but there remains a lot of pressure on the parliamentary timetable and we will legislate when time allows.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

One hundred and thirty countries have now signed up for a global tax arrangement with a minimum tax threshold of 15%. What will Her Majesty’s Government’s attitude be towards tax havens where the tax is very much lower than that and which fail to sign up to this regime? In particular, what will their attitude be to UK property owners who register their property with companies in such tax havens?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The Chancellor continues to work with other jurisdictions to expose many of these havens and to increase the tax take. Only recently, the G7 Finance Ministers agreed a minimum corporation tax that has been implemented in many countries across the world. So, the Chancellor and HMRC need no lessons to try to increase the tax take.

Renewable Energy

Debate between Lord Harries of Pentregarth and Lord Callanan

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As the noble Lord correctly said, a number of very successful interconnector projects already exist and will exist in the future. We think they will make a valuable contribution to our energy mix and to providing security of supply.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]]

At the moment, solar power provides only 2.2% of our energy needs. What are the Government doing to increase this percentage? In particular, why are they not doing more to encourage householders to install solar panels on their roofs?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble and right reverend Lord is right that solar will play a critical role in the mix. A number of projects have already been approved and are ongoing. I am sure we will receive further bids for solar power projects in the contracts for difference auction next year.