Climate Agenda

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in the gap and apologise to your Lordships for having failed to get my name down in time. I start by declaring my interests and say that I shall endeavour to be crisp.

I believe that there is a real challenge from climate change and that, where one is facing a challenge, you have to do something about it. For the last six years or so I chaired a local enterprise partnership at the other end of England, which was established to address problems, to do and to catalyse things being done. We were a small organisation; we had a small budget and pretty small capacity. At about the time I took over as chair, there was a resurgence in general political awareness and interest in all the issues related to climate change. Needless to say, I and the rest of my board were bombarded by advice, ranging from eminent scientists through to cranks, mountebanks and chancers—sometimes it was not clear which was which.

What should we do? We were an organisation to do things, not to talk about things: the opposite of your Lordships’ Chamber today, where we have had a lot of talk—not that that is a bad thing, because you have to think before you act. But what should we do? I advised the board and it agreed that, within the general parameters of the relevant regulations, we should focus on what we thought would be most effective and bring the biggest bang for the buck we could. We focused on business decarbonisation and clean energy generation. I said, “Don’t worry too much about what they think in Whitehall; we’ll just get on and do it”. I believe that was the right approach, because you have to have policies that work and are sensible not merely in theory but in practice. Just as an aside, I suggest that another look at the EPC regulations against such a background would be a good plan.

It is important that we all recognise that action is necessary, and it must be considered action. As I thought about it, it struck me that perhaps the most effective response of all to climate change was one of the earliest ones. When Noah was told that the world was going to be flooded, he did not sit and wait; he cut down gopher trees and built an ark, and thereby saved the world.