Energy Costs for Businesses

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I always enjoy the noble Lord’s interventions. I recognise that there is a potential in tidal power, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is—can I say—badgering me on this and has had a debate already in the Great British Energy Bill about its potential. At this stage, we remain open to discussions about how that can be taken forward.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Could I ask my noble friend: is fusion energy still 20 years away, as it was 20 years ago?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

King’s Speech

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, on his maiden speech, much of which I agreed with. I also congratulate my noble friends on their appointment to government. I am particularly pleased to see my noble friend Lady Smith of Malvern in the Chamber today—the first time anybody has said those words here. I have heard all the speeches, and I warn my noble friends the Ministers that the one they need to examine in some considerable detail is that of the noble Lord, Lord Curry. I will not go into further detail, but in my view it bears great examination.

This is where I will lose the House. We have so much spare land in England that the brave action would be to suspend planning controls for 30 months and use building control. Both Brindleyplace in Birmingham and London Docklands were built under such a regime. Both were brownfield, which, while being a priority, is more expensive due to remediation. We need to use the lessons of things that have worked.

The last Labour Government made at least two attempts to reform planning in the interests of development. We failed. Before the 2001 election, Ministers were sent out and about on one day to show that Britain was open after foot and mouth. On the day in question, I visited various venues in Hertfordshire and reported in on some modest, sensible planning issues. I was at DSS at the time, and received a very poor response from the fellow Minister, so I complained. The upshot was that, by October 2001—by which time I was in this House and at the Home Office—I received a response from the then Planning Minister, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. He made some positive signals and promised to “change the culture”. By 2002, I was the Planning Minister, and by late 2003, someone else was the Planning Minister. That is not the way to change the culture.

What land are we talking about? As at March 2022, 35.4% of England was either national parks, green belt or areas of outstanding natural beauty. Only 10% was developed, and half of that was for transport and utilities. Residential is tiny, at less than 2%. I have heard today the phrase vast housing estates—it is less than 2%. To get growth in housing and communities—and I emphasise the second point—we need to increase the developed area by a little over 1% to around 10%. These figures are from Land Use Statistics: England 2022. The fuss is about where to build. Unless we go for new towns and cities, it makes sense to grow existing settlements for residential and community use. This is where the emotion about the green belt comes in, which is generally the collar around conurbations. A lot of the immediate collar is rubbish land, ripe for development. We can easily, and should, protect the vast areas of pleasant country, but experience shows that it will not happen without active ministerial action, supported from the very top—and I mean the very top. It is crucial that it comes from the top.

In my view, Ministers cannot be neutral on growth and planning. It has never been considered politically sexy, which is why the culture change has failed. True, by 2006, the now Dame Kate Barker had been called in; she suggested getting more certainty and less discretion in order to reduce delays in the system. Regional and local builders, especially the smaller ones, have virtually been wiped out due to planning not being rules-based. Brave developers, such as Urban Splash with its innovation, reuse of existing structures and modern methods, have contributed, but the scale has been nowhere near what is needed.

We need to look at some other sacred areas. During the evidence sessions for the recent Lords Economic Affairs Committee’s inquiry into missing workers after Covid, we were given two examples of the planning culture holding us back. Evidence was given regarding the south-west and the Lake District about the lack of housing for local workers and those coming in to work in hospitality being the cause of the lack of growth. These areas are magnets for international visitors, and hospitality and tourism are a key aspect of the economy in those areas. I briefly declare an interest: for 37 years I have owned a week’s timeshare in the Lake District, and I have seen some of the changes and difficulties. Planning is the single large reason for lack of growth, due to too much discretion leading to uncertainty. Business needs sure knowledge to grow, so the recruitment of staff can be achieved. Some of this will be in the national parks but, as I have said, the numbers involved are tiny and yet the job growth potential for local people is massive. It stops them being driven away.

We have the oldest housing stock in Europe. Average homes in England are required under present figures for demolition and new build to last literally hundreds of years. Some of it should be removed, but much could be improved from an energy and housing quality view. But it needs a plan driven by Ministers, similar to the sustainable communities plan published by Lord Prescott in 2003. We just lost our way. It was a brilliant exercise in planning for communities, but it was never really fulfilled.

Then there are questions of density levels, practical issues such as power points at 1 metre, and design quality, as advocated by the late Lord Rogers on the Bill in 2004. Habitable rooms should not be allowed to be on ground floors in flood-plain areas. There should be a requirement to grow the green belt. The last Labour Government left more green belt than they inherited, but changes were made. Local authorities cannot do this without leadership and partnership from Government.

I shall repeat the figures because of the nonsense. We see headlines about “concreting over our green and pleasant land” but residential is 2% while developed land in England is 10%, half of which is utilities and transport, so we are not talking about concreting over the country. For a little over 1%, all the growth that we need for housing and development can easily be achieved. We have to cut out some of the nonsense that scares people off. Nobody needs to concrete over anywhere; we can achieve the growth easily.

Surplus Carbon Emissions

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am afraid that the noble Baroness is incorrect; she needs to check her facts. There are a number of examples of working CCUS plants around the world. There is one in Canada, for instance; there are others as well. She is right that we are rolling it out in this country; there are two clusters we have identified, in the north-west and north-east of England—HyNet and the East Coast Cluster. We are in extensive negotiations with those clusters and want to make final investment decisions by quarter 3 this year, which will put the UK at the forefront of carbon capture in Europe.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Notwithstanding the success of the Government so far, how much of our being ahead of the curve is contributed by the fact that we have de-industrialised and de-manufactured over the last 40 years? We are now importing huge amounts of products but are not actually measuring their carbon content or taxing people bringing them in. It is not sustainable as we are going at the present time, is it?

Biomass: Power Generation

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

At the risk of upsetting a few colleagues, I ask: is the Minister aware that some of the forests in Canada and America were originally planted for paper? The paper mills closed because paper was not wanted; towns were decimated because they were one-product towns for the paper mills. Drax came along and saved some of those towns in the early days.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I do not know the truth or not of that; I will take the noble Lord’s word for it. As I said, these are complicated matters involving a number of different factors.

Oil and Gas Windfall Tax

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As I said in response to a previous question, I cannot comment on any licensing decisions—we will know about them before too long—but I can assure the right reverend Prelate that all the appropriate considerations are being taken into account by the Government and the North Sea Transition Authority on the issuing of those licences.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I agree 100% with the Government’s nuclear policy but, bearing in mind that we want the success of renewables and the end of oil and gas, what assessment has been made of the fact that by 2050—which is not that far away—when the oil and gas is gone, we will be relying on nuclear for intermittency? That will leave the nuclear situation as a stranded asset, because it really does not work that way; it has got to be a formal baseload. Once the rest has gone and we are on renewables and left with nuclear, how can it be intermittent?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I totally understand the point the noble Lord is making. He is right that many renewables are very cheap but intermittent, and nuclear will contribute towards the baseload. He is asking for long-term energy storage; the answer is hydrogen. We can store large quantities of hydrogen—some really exciting projects are coming forward—and it can then be burned, with no emissions, in a power station to provide the supplies that we will need when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

What I am therefore asking here, as with my Amendment 30 on the trade and co-operation agreement, is for the Government to confirm to us that, whatever happens as a result of the retained EU law Bill, they will not undermine the provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990. I look forward to the Minister confirming that she will not do anything that contradicts the obligations of this Government under the trade and co-operation agreement and the Food Safety Act 1990.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I agree with every point he has made; I want to be complementary, not repetitive.

Amendment 38 gives a short list of main points; at the time I tabled it, I was probably too busy to go through all the reference numbers. I am therefore pleased to support Amendments 30 and 39, which I have signed.

Unlike many of the amendments to the Bill that we have already discussed and will discuss, this group concerns products—products that we create in the UK, import into the UK and export from the UK. I can say with some confidence that, if we deviate from what has been put into UK retained EU law over which the UK has total control, we can forget my third point as we will not be exporting in the future. It is as simple as that.

I have no interests to declare, but I had two years at MAFF from 1997 and four years at the Food Standards Agency—well after the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. As I said at Second Reading, I am a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

It is not easy to keep up with all the paperwork on this, but I looked at the European Commission notice to stakeholders on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from EU food law. The version I looked at was from 13 March 2020; I could not find a later one. That was of course just after—about a month—the UK became a third country. We are out; it is a simple as that. We have continued since then with our version of retained EU law. The subject areas are enormous—there are dozens of them, some of which we have touched on today: food labelling and information; identification marks; ingredients; composition; contaminants; residue limits; food contact materials, such as packaging, which is absolutely crucial; food production rules; food of animal origin, as opposed to of non-animal origin, for which there are quite separate rules; and irradiated food. More than a dozen other aspects are covered.

I will not go into detail because, to be honest, I am assuming that the Ministers have come with good will. I do not make any allegations against them today, but I shall want to know what they say about this before we look to what we do on Report. The Bill will be slightly different at the end of Report to what it is today.

UK deviation from our current UK-controlled law has to be out of the question if we are to maintain the competency and safety of food, and the multinational manufacture of food, because there is a lot of food still manufactured partly in this country, partly in Europe and partly back into this country. It has still got to be done. The export of food to the EU and non-EU nations is a very complex process. It is our largest manufacturing sector, so why would we be so stupid as to damage it? It needs constant checking, scrutiny and proportionate regulation and, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, touched upon, we need to keep organised crime out of the loop.

Our record in recent years has been good, but it was not always so. We gave the world BSE, and therefore the new variant CJD. Some 220 people died worldwide; 178 of those were in the UK and 28 in France. The last case in cattle was in 2021, and before that, in 2018. I remember I was at MAFF when we inherited this. The scientists told us the tail of BSE would be very, very long, and we have got a case here in 2021. New variant CJD is a terrible condition, and all patients die. The post-mortem instruments cannot be used again because they cannot be sterilised. That is what we were dealing with, and it is what we are still checking on today, to make sure the food is safe. It is crucial that the TSE regulation 999/2001 continues to operate because these are the BSE checks. Our meat exports were banned for more than a decade. Billions of pounds were lost in trade. I remember the day the ban was lifted because I had the privilege of helping to serve Northern Ireland beef to traders in Brussels—Northern Ireland got in quicker than the others and got the beef over there and cooked for traders.

Food safety is not a given.

“In the UK, five people every minute are made sick from eating contaminated food. There are more than 2.4 million foodborne disease related cases per year of which 15,500 receive hospital treatment and an estimated 160 deaths”,


which is equivalent to three a week. That is a quote from page 7 of Food You Can Trust: FSA Strategy 2022-2027, published last year. Last year was the first year that the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland published a large annual review of food standards across the UK, which was really a bonus. The reference documents, which are well worth reading, are HC229 or SG/2022/34, called Our Food 2021. Time permits only a couple of mentions of the key findings from both food standard agencies:

“The evidence set out in this report suggests that overall food safety standards have largely been maintained during 2021. However, this is a cautious conclusion. The pandemic disrupted regular inspections, sampling and audits across the food system … both organisations recognise there are significant risks ahead. The report highlights two particular areas of concern. Firstly there has been a fall in the level of local authority inspections”


of the more than half a million food businesses. Furthermore,

“progress is being constrained by resource and the availability of qualified professionals”

such as environmental health practitioners. In the Times on Monday, Jenni Russell mentioned that

“Local authorities had cut their sampling for food … by more than half”.


The second concern from the joint FSA-FSS report is

“in relation to the import of food from the EU. To enhance levels of assurance on higher-risk EU food like meat, dairy and eggs, and food and feed that has come to the UK via the EU, it is essential that improved controls are put in place to the timescale that the UK Government has set out (end 2023).”

We are not checking anything; we were supposed to be checking it to the end of last year, and the Government moved the deadline. We took the view, “Well, the EU has got really good systems; we don’t need to check what comes from them, so we can save money at the ports.” How arrogant can you be? It is a pity the noble Lord, Lord Frost, is not here, because this is the kind of thing I level at people that did the sort of job he did.

The report continues:

“The longer the UK operates without assurance from the exporting country that products meet the UK’s high food and feed safety standards, the less confident we”—


the two food standards agencies—

“can be that we can effectively identify … safety incidents.”

These two concerns need answers from Ministers about cutting the regulations.

I have two final points on this important report. Somewhere there is an amendment, although I cannot remember where, calling for this joint report, which is voluntary, to be put on a statutory basis. Regarding the impact of our EU exit on policy-making, the report said that because of the retained EU law policy

“in Great Britain, there have … been few immediate regulatory changes affecting food standards.”

Here is the key sentence:

“The focus across all four nations has been on maintaining continuity and providing clarity for businesses and consumers on processes and expectations.”


Clarity for businesses and consumers is what we need to maintain; if we do not, we are sunk.

It is reassuring that so far, the two bodies have seen

“no evidence of significant exploitation by criminals.”

But in 2021:

“There were 100 successful ‘disruptions’ of criminal activity within the food chain reported by the UK’s two food crime units”,


one covering the Food Standards Agency, and the other covering Food Standards Scotland. One hundred successful disruptions of criminal activity.

The status quo is not perfect, and any change has to be controlled and not be a surprise, but given the cuts to those that protect the system, we are vulnerable. The status quo is a bit of a worry. According to the document The UK’s Enforcement Gap, produced by Unchecked UK for the decade 2009-19, meat hygiene inspectors were cut by 53%, local authority food standards staff were cut by 60%, inspection of eggs was cut by 23%, UK food laboratories were cut from 17 to 9, and local authority food sampling was cut by 59%. We have an enforcement gap recognised by the National Audit Office, which in June 2019 said that local authorities were failing to meet their legal responsibilities to ensure that food business operators complied with the law.

Compared to the 1980s and the early 1990s, we have a large and sustained increase in confidence in food; there is no question about that. There were real problems in the 1980s and 1990s, and I experienced them: I was completely unprepared to be sent to MAFF in 1997. There was a serious problem regarding how to restore confidence in food, and gradually, over the years, through the Food Standards Agency—there is a separate one for Scotland, which it is quite entitled to have—there has been a big increase in confidence in food. Ministers have kept their sticky fingers away from the food safety levers of power, but according to this they are about to put them all over these regulations. That is clearly the implication.

So, we have had a big increase in confidence in food, and it is our biggest manufacturing industry. Why put that at risk by not accepting these amendments to remove food-related regulations from the Bill? It is simple, really. That is quite easy for Ministers to say. The Minister who is going to reply is probably more experienced than most. Having been a senior official in MAFF in the 1990s, she is fully aware of what I have said about BSE and the difficulties—oh, the noble Baroness is shaking her head; another Minister will reply. Well, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, who replied to the previous group, is fully experienced in the situation with BSE. One half of MAFF was arguing with the other half. One half was protecting consumers; the other was pushing for producers. That was the dilemma, which is why today we have independent bodies such as the Food Standards Agency to deal with those two groups across the UK. It does not make sense for the Government to give the impression—because they have not said anything—that they are going to tear up and remove some of these protections or cut corners in the interests of production.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

That is a question for Defra; I cannot confirm or deny any particular regulations that will be looked at. As the noble Baroness will understand, these things are a matter for Defra.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Defra is the producer’s department; who is looking after the consumers? That was part of the problem: Defra will look after the producers and will be lobbied by the producers; where is the role for the consumers? Section 1 of the Food Standards Act 1999 says that the Food Standards Agency’s role is to put consumers’ interests above all else in relation to the consumption of food. So what is the role of the FSA? I declare an interest—because I do not trust Ministers—that I have had no discussions with the FSA about this Bill; everything I have used is public, open-source information. I want to know what the FSA’s role is, because Defra is for the producers; who is going to look after the consumers?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Lord, as a prior chairman of the FSA, will know that the FSA is a part of Defra and represents food standards.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I beg your pardon. If the Minister is not aware, the FSA is a non-ministerial department, which answers to Parliament through the Department of Health, not through Defra. That is the whole point: to keep the producer away from the consumer’s interests.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My apologies to the whole Committee for making that obvious mistake. There has been a write-round to all departments on this Bill. The repeal of EU law is being considered by each department in the write-round, and our commitment to not reducing consumer protection remains in place.