Great British Energy Bill

Baroness Beckett Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Beckett (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I hope noble Lords will understand, perhaps even sympathise, when I say that it is with considerable trepidation that I rise to address your Lordships’ House for the first time. For one thing, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, pointed out in her kind remarks, I am not used to being new here. I am also very mindful that this noble House will have courtesies and conventions of its own with which I am as yet unfamiliar. Perhaps I should say at once that if I am found to be in breach of any such courtesies or conventions, it will be only by inadvertence or misadventure and never through deliberate disregard.

The trepidation to which I made reference is tempered somewhat by the extraordinary courtesy and kindness I have been shown here ever since my introduction. That commenced, of course, with Black Rod, her officers and staff, and the assistance and support I have received from them, but it has been faithfully followed by officers and staff at literally every level in the House, and not least by Members themselves.

I was conscious from the outset of having Members I regard as friends in every section of this House, not least because among the great good fortune I have experienced over the years has been the considerable privilege of chairing a Joint Select Committee of both Houses, namely the Select Committee that scrutinises the national security strategy. In that context, I have been lucky enough to work with some of the most distinguished and senior Members of this House. Of course, among the most long-standing and close of my many friends here are my two distinguished sponsors, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Merron. This is only the most recent of the many debts of gratitude I owe them for the friendship they have shown over the years both to my husband and to myself.

I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to participate very briefly in today’s debate for two principal reasons. First, I recall some years ago hearing our Prime Minister speak—I think at a Labour Party conference, but I would not swear to it—when he suggested that, in the years ahead, some country was going to become the world leader in a number of key policy areas, including climate change. He said: “Why should it not be Britain? Why should it not be us?” It was a challenge I strongly welcomed then, as now. I hope the Bill we debate today—and I recognise the concerns raised by some, including the party opposite—will help to shape our approach in the future, facilitating the spread of clean energy.

My second reason for welcoming this debate is that the issue and the impact of climate change has formed the background to and context of a substantial part of the work I have been able to undertake hitherto. When the then Prime Minister invited me to preside over bringing together the departments of agriculture and of environment to form the basis of Defra, one of my reactions was to think, “That’s reform of the common agricultural policy and the follow-on to the Kyoto Protocol—this is going to be a lot of work”, as indeed it proved to be.

That was my second reaction. As I recall, the then Prime Minister had first told me that the scientific modelling of the then raging foot and mouth outbreak indicated that it would continue and perhaps even strengthen, and told me that my first duty was to work to bring it to an end. The words “hospital pass” sprang for the first but not the last time at once into my mind.

I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the world-class civil servants and experts with whom I had the great good fortune to work, respected as they were and are across the world. It is my hope that we still have in this country practitioners of that quality, so that Britain may find itself once again among the major contributors to addressing threats of such importance and relevance to us all. Indeed, the two main issues on which I hope to engage in future in your Lordships’ House are the two great threats of nuclear weapons and of climate change. It was a former Chief of Defence Staff and a Member of this House who I heard years ago refer to nuclear weapons as: “The greatest threat to the continued existence of the human race, second only”—these are his words—“to climate change”.

I confess to a slight feeling of irritation when I hear no doubt well-meaning people talk, as they sometimes do, of the threat we collectively pose now to the planet. The planet will be fine. It is the human race, along with the rest of life on the planet, whose continued existence is at risk. However, I of course welcome the serious degree of concern which such comments reflect, and wish I could be sure and confident that that degree of concern is universally shared, especially at the most senior levels of power and responsibility across the world.

I have been advised that the underlying purpose of a maiden speech to your Lordships’ House is in effect to introduce oneself to this noble House, so perhaps I should say at once that I am extremely conscious of having enjoyed considerable good fortune over my years in public life. I did not set out to pursue a life in politics, although, as I say, in doing so I have enjoyed considerable good luck along the way.

Even my first job in an engineering apprenticeship taught me a number of useful life lessons. I went from a quiet convent school to an engineering factory in Manchester’s Trafford Park, which then housed a workforce of some 20,000 strong, including about 2,000 apprentices, of which some 20 were women. Apart from the discipline of physically clocking in and out, especially at lunchtime, I learned the necessary ability to at least appear impervious to anything said to or around you, often at considerable volume—something which remains occasionally relevant and useful to this day.

Those days, however, reinforced what has since been a lifelong love for British manufacturing, and I always felt myself blessed to have over 40 years in my then constituency the last manufacturer of rail rolling stock in this country to have capacity to design, manufacture, test and service new trains, and, separately but equally importantly, the civil aviation headquarters of Rolls-Royce, a source of great pride to all who live in and associate with the city of Derby.

I am honoured to be a Member of this noble House and will endeavour to make a useful contribution here—in which endeavour I know I will enjoy much assistance and support, for which I should be extremely grateful.