Onshore Wind Farms

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Teverson]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to facilitate the repowering of onshore wind farms.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

The Government recognise the importance of repowering to maximise the benefits from our existing fleet of turbines. We are working to remove barriers in the planning system to accelerate repowering and undertaking updates to planning policy in England. In addition, the Government have announced changes to enable repowered onshore wind projects that meet eligibility criteria to bid into the contracts for difference scheme from allocation round 7 onwards.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s positive reply. There are some 200 wind farm sites coming up for operational termination by 2030—some 3 megawatts of power. If we managed to repower those, we could have an additional 2 gigawatts without having new sites. That clearly makes sense. Will the Government strengthen the planning guidance for repowering, as the Minister has indicated, because that gets in the way, and will he integrate repowering into the strategic energy spatial plan? It is obvious—come on, let’s do it.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The Government are already undertaking changes to planning arrangements to make sure that schemes can proceed faster and more immediately. In the case of repowering, that is obviously the difference between having to treat a scheme as a brand new development and one that can proceed very quickly, with the necessary consents in place.

Energy Markets

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Lord, who has great experience in these matters, makes important points about how we have to cope with substantial additional electricity demand, particularly as we electrify the economy as a whole, and for new things such as data centre demand and so on. Certainly, calculations suggest that the UK low-carbon energy economy, and the tremendous steps forward in procuring offshore and onshore wind, floating wind and various other things, is beginning to inform the quantum of energy that is needed. There are a lot of difficulties in that process, such as connections which we need to get on with very rapidly and various other things, to make sure that we can decongest the system and that the energy that we are producing gets to where we want it to be. Overall, the low-carbon energy revolution is up to the task of producing the additional electricity that we are going to use in the system for the future.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the person smiling this evening is President Putin of the Russian Federation, because an economy that was hugely under pressure is going to be relieved when it comes to oil prices. In fact, I read this evening that Putin has offered to help Europe out with its gas shortage. I hope that will not be the case. Will the Minister speak to his Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office counterparts to put much more emphasis, work and pressure on stopping the shadow fleet of the Russian Federation being able to operate, which is its supply line that enables it to continue fighting the war against Ukraine that is a threat to us all?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Lord that Putin may well be smiling a little at the prospect of sky-high energy prices benefiting his beleaguered economy, and that some of the sanctions may be taken off him because people would rather like some of his oil and gas for the future. It is doubly important, therefore, that we keep those sanctions in place, that we sanction the shadow fleet, and that we make sure that the oil from Russia does not get out, by hook or by crook, into various places where it should not go. The UK Government are determined to keep that process under way. It is very important that Putin is not the unwitting beneficiary of this.

Offshore Wind

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. It gives me an opportunity to confirm the two floating offshore wind projects that have been agreed under this auction round. I might add, by the way, that the auction rounds were not a sort of shoo-in for anybody who wanted to come along and invest, as some people have portrayed them. They were very competitive. The number of entrants to the auction was substantially larger than the number of contracts finally agreed. Among other things, this shows that there is a real appetite for this kind of investment going forward.

That is the case with floating offshore wind. Although the two schemes that were agreed—one in Scotland and one in the Celtic Sea—are not, shall we say, final, full-scale arrays as far as floating is concerned, they represent a tremendous step forward in the development of offshore beyond the continental shelf in the UK. Huge new areas offshore from the UK can be opened up to offshore wind.

Of course, that price is not the same as the price we achieved with the mature, bottom-based offshore wind that we have been talking about, but, if we look at the original administrative strike prices when offshore first took off, they were not dissimilar to the sort of prices that we are now seeing for floating offshore wind. I am confident that, once those arrays get larger, and with the flow of fabrication and assistance which the noble Baroness will probably know is already happening very positively, in the Celtic Sea in particular, the net benefit for Great Britain of floating offshore wind will not just be a large number of jobs and more income coming into different areas of the UK than has been the case for bottom-based offshore at the moment. It will represent a technology that really will allow the whole of the UK to participate in the offshore wind revolution, not just the areas which hitherto have had the main developments in their particular zones.

The Celtic Sea, in particular, is just a taster of what is going to come in the not too distant future—and, by the way, it will be a future in floating offshore wind that will be a British future. Home-grown technology will lead in this particular area, which will not only have an impact in UK but will have a substantial export impact as well.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and his expertise to the Front Bench. He is certainly a very effective parliamentarian, even if I do not agree very much with his narrative. But we will see where we get to there.

I also welcome the Government’s announcement, but it is important that we remember that electricity is only part of this country’s energy need. The other sides are, in particular, transport and heating. I am concerned that, although the Government may remain strong on electricity generation, we are getting whispers of them moving backwards in those other areas, including on electric vehicles, heat pumps and finding alternatives to space heating. I would like reassurance from the Government that that is not the case. I certainly hope it is not. Also, where are we now on the future homes standard? That is absolutely fundamental for how we move forward domestically on energy consumption.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I am afraid the noble Lord will have to wait for about a week before the warm homes plan comes out. That will contain, so I am reliably informed, a great deal of detail about precisely the areas of heat, efficient low-carbon homes, heat pumps—all the sorts of things that are the other side of the energy revolution. We hope they will begin to be combined together into coherent programmes, working with each other to ensure that, among other things, that greatest piece of low-carbon energy—the energy you do not use—is properly incorporated into overall programmes.

I assure the noble Lord that this is uppermost in our minds. We are aiming, as we always have, to develop a comprehensive palette of policies that will deal with all aspects of low-carbon energy, energy security and energy efficiency. Indeed, the noble Lord will note that the AR7 announcement is not complete, inasmuch as there are further pots to be reported on, including solar, tidal, geothermal and various other things, in the next week or so. So I hope we will come back to this Chamber and compare and contrast notes on the picture that we will have when those two things have actually happened. I think the noble Lord will be pretty pleased with what will result from it.

Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Whitehead, to the Government; I used to work closely with him in opposition. I guarantee to him that if we can continue the co-operation that we had in trying to achieve the areas in climate change and energy that we often discussed, these Benches will be absolutely behind him. When he said he was going to resign from his seat at the next general election, I said to him that I was sure he would rebound back into this House, and here we are, so our congratulations from these Benches.

The Liberal Democrats and these Benches really welcome the Bill, and indeed the treaty, and it is always great to speak in the House when all sides of the House are pretty well at one. I just have a slight trepidation in that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who is following me, has a reputation in this House for being quite combative. I will be interested to see what he has to say. I am still in some trepidation as to the unanimity of the House, but we will see. The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, sounded positive, so that is something.

The way in which we judge this from these Benches—I have said this to Ministers before—is by looking at how ambitious the United Kingdom is, not just in ratifying this treaty but in making it work, do something and add to global biodiversity and the health of our planet. I am pleased that the Minister was very positive in that way. But like the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, I read the UK Overseas Territories Biodiversity Strategy, which was released last week, and there is just that one mention of the BBNJ in there. As she pointed out very well, it was mentioned only once in some 120 pages, on Bermuda and the Sargasso Sea. I will be very interested to hear from the Minister, when she responds to this debate, about other specific areas, such as the Falklands, particularly as regards the Argentinian connection. That is an excellent suggestion. Let us have an agenda there that works.

One area in particular is not really covered by this biodiversity treaty—and we have to remember the major frustration that we cannot amend the treaty, only the legislation. I am sure we would all have liked it to be stronger, but we cannot change it. Ironically, one of the areas it really leaves out is fisheries, which are the biggest threat to biodiversity and have been over time, maybe apart from climate change and acidification, which others have mentioned. We are a member of five so-called regional fisheries management organisations, which span those high seas: two tuna ones, one in the Indian Ocean, a salmon Atlantic one, and the north-east Atlantic and north-west Atlantic fishing organisations. Because of the enforcement problems that we know we have, those organisations have great intentions and are important but are not as strong as they need to be. My question to the Minister is: do we have an agenda, a wish and a determination, apart from just ratifying this treaty, to make those regional fisheries management organisations work better and to be more effective to, if you like, surf the wave further towards helping biodiversity?

I was delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, mentioned the UNCLOS treaty, because like her I was on the International Relations and Defence Committee when we looked at it. In a way it is the Achilles heel of this treaty, because its fundamental status is to say, from way back in history, that outside territorial waters and certainly outside EEZs on the high seas, you cannot intervene on other flagged vessels without going through a very long process. That is a particular problem because of the way in which flag states operate.

Noble Lords will know that the major nations with the biggest fleets and tonnage are Liberia, Panama and the Marshall Islands. The UK is 27th on that list. We have 1,000 vessels of over 100 tonnes. Panama has eight times that number. However, when it comes to tonnage, we have only 1/25th of the tonnage that Panama has because operators and state companies choose their own flag of convenience and are often not able to respond in the way that they do. Fundamentally, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, pointed out, to make the enforceability and effectiveness of this treaty much better we have to try to tighten up on that situation. The report that we referred to asked the Government to look again at the 1986 UN Convention on Conditions for Registration of Ships. That was some time ago. There have been only 17 ratifications; it needs 40 to come into force. I would love the United Kingdom to re-energise that treaty and try to get it implemented. It would make a huge difference in terms of enforceability for the Bill.

Moving on to the genetic and digital sequence side, we have mentioned the United States of America, which, under the Biden Administration, did sign this treaty but will never sign it during the Trump Administration. We might talk strongly to the United States, but there is no way that it will sign this treaty. The International Maritime Organization that we have talked about, working on the other side of the Thames, is really important. Two months ago, through intimidation, America stopped an international agreement on carbon emissions of vessels on the high seas that was about to be signed. That treaty was sunk by the United States through very aggressive activity. There is no chance whatever of the United States signing this one.

My question to the Minister is: what stops the excellent data sharing and sharing of scientific information for genetic material and digital sequence information? If British companies or British people wish to do that, what is to stop them offshoring that activity to the United States and carrying it out there without having to comply with this treaty? That is a difficult one. I would be interested to understand whether the Government have thought about that and what they might do.

Internationally, we need to look in the mirror. A number of noble Lords have said this. We are not perfect at looking after our biodiversity within our own waters and our own EEZ. Defra’s recent draft strategic look at fisheries and biodiversity has pointed out that the north-east Atlantic is one of the worst for depletion of fisheries and biodiversity. We have that in our own backyard. We need to get this right. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and I have often called for remote electronic monitoring—of not just our own fleet but anybody that comes within our EEZ. The Government have a consultation out on that. It is one of two trials that have had very little reaction from the fisheries industry, but this would be good for it as well as for us. Let us do that.

These Benches welcome this treaty. We want to get it through quickly. We want it ratified. We want the United Kingdom to be positive, an implementer and one of the nations that ensures that this treaty, difficult though it is, is a real success for the high seas.

Energy Prices: Energy-intensive Industries

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the electricity market operates on the principle of marginal pricing, whereby the wholesale price of electricity is set by the last technology needed to meet overall demand. That is why gas tends to set the price for the market. We are of course looking at this as part of our REMA review that I have referred to. But the faster we decarbonise our energy and move towards clean power, the less gas will have the influence it does in the current system.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

What lessons has the Minister’s department learned from looking at our competitors, particularly in Europe, which seems to manage this aspect of its energy markets rather better? What lessons have we learned from across the channel?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we have to look at each country, and some subsidise business costs from the Exchequer. There is no easy way through here; one way or another, there are variations in what Governments do, but we have a very tough public financial situation bequeathed by the last Government, in the form of the black hole they left us, so our options are inevitably constrained. We are not complacent; that is why we have this review of our whole energy pricing structure, and we will look at these matters very carefully. I still maintain, and I think the noble Lord would agree, that the best way to energy security and stable prices is to go towards clean power as quickly as we can.

Climate Change: Progress

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Earl is absolutely right. The Committee on Climate Change said:

“There is … unequivocal evidence that climate change is making extreme weather in UK, such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall, and wildfire-conducive conditions, more likely and more extreme”,


and the points he raised are absolutely right. We take this report very seriously. We have been in office 10 months, and we are reflecting on the specific points that the committee has made, area by area. By law, we have to respond by October, and I assure the noble Earl we will take this seriously and give a serious response. As I said earlier, this will lead into the work that we need for the NAP4, starting in 2028.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the report points out that one area in which we have actually moved backwards is the resilience of our water system, not least the atrocious situation that we still have in terms of water leakage. Is this not an example of Ofwat and the water companies letting us all down yet again? What will the Government do about it?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to point out issues in relation to water, water leakages and the performance of water companies. He will know that the Government are engaged in considerable discussions about the future of the industry. I have noted that the Committee on Climate Change in its report says:

“Through the reforms to the public water sector, currently being considered by Defra and Ofwat, the next water regulatory settlement … should fund and encourage more ambitious options to get the sector back on track for its demand and leakage reduction targets”.


We will obviously look at that very carefully.

Energy Grid Resilience

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not have the exact figures, but I will certainly find them and send them to the noble Lord. Clearly, protecting the offshore infrastructure is a very important issue for the Government. We are working with subsea and offshore operators, including the Joint Maritime Security Centre, to enhance our domestic maritime awareness. I very much take the point and will find the information and send it to him.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have a key meeting coming up with the European Union and, as part of the trade and co-operation agreement, there is, next year, a revision of the energy relationship. With regard to the resilience of our national electricity and energy systems, what do the Government expect to get out of the meeting next month, particularly on interconnectors and a more efficient form of trading between us and our European partners?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord can hardly expect me to go into the details of what we expect out of such discussions. He will know that we are embarked on resetting the relationship between ourselves and the EU. There is to be a summit between the UK and the EU on 19 May and, of course, we have been in discussions with the EU about a number of energy issues. Clearly, what we want is a co-operative relationship that recognises that there is an interrelationship between ourselves and the mainland of Europe. I cannot go into any more detail than that.

Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind and Solar Generation) Order 2025

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the persistence of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on this subject and to how she has carried this end of Parliament on a number of occasions.

I normally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, on an awful lot of things but I do not quite agree with her here. I spent most of my bank holiday break in an EV in Yorkshire, and I was delighted at how easy it was to recharge it. It was the first time for quite a while that my wife and I had been on a long journey in an EV. The difference in the charging network was absolutely amazing. I praise the previous Government’s EV charging policies as much as I praise the present Government for achieving that, but I recognise —from the Cornwall aspect—that there is a challenge here for really rural areas, and certainly when tourists come to our areas.

I wanted to contribute today to say that I very much welcome this SI and the move to go back properly to onshore wind. It is an important way in which our landowning and farming communities can diversify their income.

I turn to the limit on solar. On every solar farm I have visited in the past few years, I would ask the owners, “What is the energy capacity of this?” They would say, “It’s 49.5 megawatts”, because they do not want to trip over that barrier into the national planning scheme. So I welcome the fact that this SI will make that a lot easier.

However, the one question I would like to ask the Minister—this was raised by the Opposition Benches in the earlier debate on energy security—concerns warehouse roofs and commercial roofs. I am a great supporter of solar but, like me, many people ask, “Why are we not managing to have many more solar applications on existing commercial, industrial and car park roofs?” I recognise that there are often different owners—there is the landlord, and then there is the company that occupies under a lease—so the relationship between owners for commercial buildings is never easy. However, I say this to the Minister: it cannot be beyond the ability of the Government to find a mechanism to incentivise that to happen. It would get huge plaudits from all sides of political opinion if we managed to achieve that. It would also help with the understandable reservations that there sometimes are around the agricultural use of solar, by showing that the right things are happening in other areas too.

I would be interested to understand from the Minister when the planning regime—as we know, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is in the other place at the moment —will become law, as it surely will. It may be amended in various ways as it passes through both Houses, but might it affect this matter in any way?

I very much welcome this SI and hope that we will see a rejuvenation of onshore wind. As I often say, from my own house, I can see—the last time I counted, at least—between 30 and 40 wind turbines. I live on a hill and, to me, they are part of a living countryside. There are right places to put them and there are wrong places to put them; we should leave it to local authorities to decide what those are.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak in favour of this order. I thank the Minister for outlining its purpose.

The Liberal Democrats have always championed renewable energy. For too long, this country has suffered from the failures of the previous Conservative Government to invest in clean power and to insulate our homes, contributing directly to the energy crisis and leaving householders and businesses facing soaring bills. The vast majority of people in this country want more action on climate change. That is why we welcome this instrument as another important step in supporting the deployment of onshore wind and solar, which are both crucial to achieving the Government’s mission for clean power by 2030.

We are particularly supportive of the lifting of the effective moratorium on onshore wind. This was a deeply short-sighted and irresponsible policy, introduced via the planning changes in 2015 and 2016, which created a de facto ban in England. This ban limited deployment and caused the pipeline of projects to shrink by over 90%, with less than 40 megawatts of onshore wind generated during this decade. The reintroduction of onshore wind projects of over 100 megawatts into the nationally significant infrastructure project regime is crucial. The order reverses those damaging policies and places onshore wind on the same footing as other generation technologies such as solar, offshore wind and nuclear power stations. This provides an appropriate route for large-scale projects and offers greater certainty to industry.

Similarly, we support the decision to raise the NSIP threshold for solar projects from 50 to 100 megawatts. This change is needed in part due to technological advances in solar panels and aims to ensure that applications are processed efficiently through the appropriate planning regime. The previous threshold incentivised developers, as we have heard, to cap their capacity below 50 megawatts to avoid triggering the NSIP process. Raising the threshold should incentivise projects to develop on a more optimal and efficient scale and to ensure that mid-sized projects access a more proportionate planning route via local planning authorities. What assessments have been made of local planning authorities’ capacity and funding requirements to take on this extra work? They must be adequately resourced and supported to handle the influx of potentially larger-scale solar projects.

While we support the ambitions to streamline planning for major projects, concerns remain. The NSIP regime involves decisions made by the Secretary of State, and some respondents to the consultation expressed concern that this process might overly centralise decision-making and bypass local authorities and communities. This is particularly pertinent when considering large projects that can have a significant impact on local landscapes and communities. It is vital that the Government strike an appropriate balance between building nationally important infrastructure, protecting our precious landscapes and ensuring that local communities have a meaningful say. This Government must do more to work in partnership with local communities and ensure that they benefit from the infrastructure that they host—more “working with” and a bit less “doing to”.

How will the Government ensure that local voices are genuinely heard and their concerns addressed in the NSIP examination period, particularly for onshore wind? Can the Minister provide more detail on timelines for these frameworks and assure us that they will ensure that the balance between deploying renewable energy, protecting nature, ensuring food security and considering where best to locate projects is effectively struck?

Finally, the decision to set the solar threshold at 100 megawatts aims to avoid artificial capping and incentivise optimal site sizing. The impact assessment mentions monitoring and evaluation plans, looking at whether projects are clustering below the new thresholds and whether planning timelines for projects have increased. Can the Minister confirm how the planned post-implementation review and ongoing monitoring will assess whether the 100-megawatt thresholds are achieving the desired efficiency and optimal site sizing? All these projects will require timely grid connections, and I encourage the Government to support agrivoltaics.

Other noble Lords spoke about the need for more solar on rooftops and in car parks; for example, France generates 5% of its electricity from car parks alone. The Government may want to look at an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill on that. I very much welcome signs from them that new homes will have solar panels installed. There are issues around the way that some of the warehouses have been designed; they have not been built to take the weight of solar panels.

These legislative changes are a necessary step, but successful implementation requires careful consideration of local impacts and ensuring that our planning system is robust and balanced and takes communities with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for explaining the details of this statutory instrument. In essence, this order would enable onshore wind projects over 100 megawatts and solar projects over 50 megawatts to be considered under the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime. This effectively bypasses local planning authorities and grants direct approval to the Secretary of State, thereby overriding local consent for large-scale wind and solar projects. The Government have argued that this is necessary to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy in line with their decarbonisation goals and their commitment to becoming a clean energy superpower. However, several important concerns must be addressed, particularly around local involvement, fairness and the broader economic impact of such an approach.

First, let us discuss the issue of subsidy. Much like offshore wind, onshore wind projects are heavily reliant on subsidies, costs that are ultimately passed on to consumers. While the Government have touted these renewable projects as cost effective in the long term, it is crucial to ask what the clear cost-benefit case is. If we are to depend on these subsidies to push through such large-scale projects, we must ensure that they provide tangible benefits to consumers in terms of not just cleaner energy but affordability. As we know, the transition to green energy must be balanced with the economic realities that hard-pressed families and businesses face today.

Secondly, there is the matter of local consent. Communities should have a say in the decisions that affect their landscapes and way of life. Local buy-in is paramount, and people who live in the affected area should not have their voices ignored. There is real concern that this SI removes that critical step in the planning process by placing too much power in the hands of the Secretary of State and bypassing local consultation. Onshore wind projects can be a significant imposition on the local environment, and it is only right that communities are properly consulted and their concerns are considered before these major decisions are made.

The Government have argued that they need to expedite these projects to meet their decarbonisation targets—targets that are at the outset entirely arbitrary. Furthermore, if the Secretary of State is to take on final decision-making powers for these projects, what accountability mechanisms will be in place? Removing local authorities from the process must not also remove transparency. What assurances can the Minister provide that decisions will be subject to robust oversight?

Thirdly, there is the Government’s selective approach to energy. We have seen instances where good solar projects, which were designed to be sensitive to the local environment and not disrupt prime farmland, have been rejected by the Government or the National Wealth Fund. Are the Government picking and choosing winners in this energy transition? Are we truly seeking the most affordable, secure and environmentally responsible solutions or are we being driven by ideological preferences for particular types of energy, regardless of their practicality or cost effectiveness? This approach is flawed. By bypassing local consent and placing unchecked power in the hands of the Secretary of State, this order undermines democratic principles.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

If I understand this, you are moving from 50 megawatts to 100 megawatts. So the 50 to 100 goes under the Town and Country Planning Act as local decisions. You are actually increasing it; previously the 50 to 100 was under NSIP. Therefore, what you are saying is completely wrong.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

We are saying that we want to make sure that we have consent in the local community and robust oversight, and that the order does not undermine democratic principles. That is what we are trying to do, and we also do not want to disregard the voices of local communities. That is the essence of our third concern.

The Government’s selective and ideologically driven approach to energy is concerning because it raises serious questions about the cost-benefit of these projects, especially when subsidies are passed on to consumers without a clear return on investment. While the Government champion renewable energy, they do so at the expense of affordability, fairness and proper local consultation. That will not bring the public with them on the journey. Rather than rushing through this legislation to meet arbitrary targets, we need an energy strategy that prioritises practicality, respects local concerns and ensures that the transition to green energy is both affordable and inclusive for all.

Transport Decarbonisation Plan

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, no, I cannot give a specific answer, but the noble Lord makes a very important point. He will know that international aviation comes within the calculations in relation to carbon budget 6, so we need to take decisive action in this area. We have the SAF mandate, which he has referred to. For 2025, the overall trajectory is set at 2% of total fossil fuel jet supplied; this will increase annually to 10% in 2030 and 22% in 2040. We are building on what has gone before and taking it very seriously.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to invest further in the national cycle network? Cycling was heavily promoted during the Covid period but seems to have gone backwards since then. It is an important part of decarbonisation. How can we move it forward?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it is such a pleasant surprise to hear some Member of your Lordships’ House speak positively about cycling, in place of the usual diatribe that we hear from noble Lords on that subject. I am a little biased in this area, as noble Lords will understand. I know that the Government are talking to UK cycling bodies, and we have ambitious plans on active travel. On 12 February, we announced details of almost £300 million of funding over 2024-25 and 2025-26 for local authorities to provide high-quality and easy, accessible active travel schemes in England, but I very much take and support the point that he raises.

Energy Prices

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend on all of that. I am glad that he mentioned the importance of nuclear energy as our essential baseload. With Sizewell C, the SMR programme, the opening of Hinkley Point C and the advanced modular reactors, we have the opportunity to have an excellent industry in the UK to give us low-carbon baseload energy.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the best way to reduce the costs of energy is by not needing so much of it. Is the Minister strongly pressing his colleagues in government to get the Future Homes Standard out and implemented, so that families who buy new houses know they are not going to have to retrofit and will have low energy bills? When is that announcement going to be made?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

The noble Lord is clearly right that energy efficiency in our homes is necessary if we are going to meet the net zero target by 2050 and hold down the cost for domestic consumers. I cannot give him a date, but I can say that my department is working across Whitehall on the policies we need to enunciate to get going in that area.