Queen’s Speech

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, it was a great pleasure to hear the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I would characterise them as forcefully illustrating what value this House can bring in speaking out for freedom and against injustice, exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, and, equally, for efficiency and effectiveness and exposing the Government’s legislation and policies to the test of meeting not only the broad principles we are looking for but their practical application as well. We are all grateful to both noble Lords and look forward very much to their future contributions.

I will briefly talk about two things. First, in relation to the planning Bill, I declare my interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. I do not entirely share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, on that Bill. Clearly, Oliver Letwin’s report was right that it is not just all about planners and their speed, but they should not be absolved from the difficulties that those who are developing and delivering sometimes have in pre-commencement planning conditions and the like. A great deal of it is about diversity of supply and the delivery processes. This planning reform Bill will do very well if it focuses on that. For example, simplifying the processes of levying on developers for infrastructure is necessary, but a single infrastructure levy may not be the right answer because it must meet both the broader infrastructure objectives in an area and the infrastructure and social obligations of that development. These two things cannot be readily and easily merged into one infrastructure levy.

While I support the zonal development system, I do not think for a minute that it necessarily takes away the democratic involvement of local planning authorities. It is perfectly possible for planning authorities and the democratic process to be delivered through local plans in a zonal system. Indeed, given the importance that local plans will acquire as a result, it may encourage many more people to be involved in the plan-making stage, as at the moment they very often do not get involved and take an interest in plans only when planning applications come forward, which are largely predetermined by the structure of the local plan.

Secondly, I will mention the environment. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, is absolutely right that it must be at the heart of not just every fiscal event but every legislative programme. Given the urgency of the issue, every Queen’s Speech should be about how we meet our climate change objectives. Perhaps my noble friend will say something in responding to the debate about how we will do this, not just by setting targets and hoping that there will be the necessary transformations in production and consumer behaviour, but by putting the incentives in place between those two things. In the year ahead, we must set out, for example, how our carbon emissions trading scheme will incentivise a net-zero regime. Phasing out free allowances, increasing the auction reserve price and perhaps raising the carbon support price will take us to the point where the incentive structure gets us to net zero on the timescale required.

However, frankly, if we do it, but nobody else does, it will not succeed. We need not just the European Union to do it but the United States. We know that China is considering it, but we need them all to work together or we will end up with carbon border adjustments, which are a major source of trade friction and conflict. Not least—as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, is looking at me—we need a development programme which is sufficiently well resourced to fund decarbonisation in the developing world and developing economies as well. In this year ahead, we therefore need COP 26 to be a negotiation which delivers on an aligned structure of carbon taxation/pricing/emissions trading, which must be consistent internationally or it will fail. I look forward to that in the year ahead.