Climate Change: Targets Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Whitty
Main Page: Lord Whitty (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Whitty's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I have been impressed by many of the preparations for COP 26, but I am also struck by the fact that the policies and strategies of the Government, and of most individual departments, do not seem to reflect that priority; nor did the recent Budget; nor does the legislative programme for this parliamentary Session. The drafts of those Bills which we have seen so far do not do so either, including the supposed flagship in this context of the Environment Bill itself.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, I will focus on MHCLG and the so-called reform of planning. The noble Baroness emphasised the national planning statements, but it is also true that, currently, individual development proposals do not have to have mandatory net-carbon reduction criteria. Yet building construction, demolition and subsequent building use, if taken together, add up to nearly 40% of all emissions.
Developers propose schemes that do not have net-zero objectives or even an assessment of the greenhouse gas effects; the same is true of biodiversity. Local planning authorities increasingly nod through schemes whose carbon effect has not been properly assessed, let alone whether they would create a net reduction. The contribution to net zero should be written into all planning legislation and planning procedures, decisions and appeals. At the moment, it is a very low priority.
The big developers and big housebuilders favour demolition and rebuild over retrofit and refurbish, which is usually more environmentally sensible. The materials they use for much new build and rebuild are steel, glass and a lot of plastics. The glass, steel, concrete and hydrocarbon manufacturing processes take a lot of heat, most of which is currently based on fossil fuels. None of that is weighed in the assessment of major development projects. I could say the same about the building regulations from the department. My main point is that we need a powerful, concerted, cross-Whitehall structure to ensure that saving the planet is indeed a priority for all Whitehall departments and for the country as a whole.