State of Climate and Nature

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches welcome this Statement, issued in response to the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate report, our most authoritative assessment of the UK’s changing weather patterns. We also very much welcome the intention to make this an annual update.

We see this Statement as a message of hope—that together we can start to reverse the impacts of climate change. Our climate has changed in my very own lifetime. The science is absolute, and our scientists are some of the best in the world. We are as certain of man-made climate change as we are that the earth is not flat. The Met Office report focuses on 2024, when the UK experienced its second-warmest February, warmest May and warmest spring since records began in 1884. The last three years have all been in the UK’s top five warmest on record. Mike Kendon, the Met Office report’s lead author, said:

“Every year that goes by is another upward step on the warming trajectory our climate is on. Observations show that our climate in the UK is now notably different to what it was just a few decades ago”.


The Met Office calculates that the UK is warming at a rate of around 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade, with the 2015-24 period 1.24 degree Celsius warmer than 1961-90. The UK is also getting wetter, with rainfall increasing significantly during the winter. Between October and March, rainfall in 2015-24 was 16% higher than 1961-90. The new normal is even more extreme.

These indisputable ground truths are an urgent and unmistakable call to action. Nature bears witness and suffers these unparalleled and accelerating changes. We are already one of most nature-deprived nations on earth. One-third of our natural species has been lost from UK biodiversity in my lifetime. Nature is struggling to adapt, just as we are. To those politicians who have given up on efforts to tackle climate change and remain happy to take funds from the fossil fuel companies, I say, you offer no solutions and no hope to our children. Like the tobacco lobby of the 1970s, who said, “One more puff of cigarette smoke in your lungs won’t hurt”, they say, “What are a few more tons of CO₂ in our atmospheric lungs?”

The UK green economy grew by 10.3% last year. A green future is our only future, and it is a good future. Global green growth is our future climate solutions, our future energy security, and our future economic prosperity.

Those who say that we cannot afford the cost of preventing climate change never calculate the devastating consequences of not doing so. Analysis from the New Economics Foundation showed that the reversal of climate policies would cost the UK economy up to £92 billion, almost 3% of our entire GDP, and mean the loss 60,000 jobs before the end of the decade. British leadership is global leadership. When we work together at home, we lead the global conversation. We are lucky: we have the knowledge, we have the technology, and we have the time to enact change. We join calls for a return to this powerful cross-party consensus on climate change. We will always seek political co-operation on these common challenges.

It feels as though Labour has found its voice and will improve its communications—and better communications are required. I ask the Government to also tackle the growing problem of misinformation and disinformation. Their own message needs to be more coherent and consistent: less talk of nature protection as a blocker, and more honesty about the complexities and challenges that we face. The nature and climate challenges are interlinked and interdependent. Nature is not only nice to have but essential to all life. Labour’s messaging on nature has been muddled, but I thank the Minister for the amendments that have been brought forward to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. These are indeed welcome.

It is vital that we build new, clean energy infrastructure, but, equally, we must support nature recovery. This Government must champion the benefits of joined-up actions on climate and nature policies. Labour’s green mission is overly centralised: it is being done to us and not always with us. If Labour fails to work with and include our communities, public support will erode. The Government must listen to and take our communities with them. They must stop trying to do it all alone and empower and include our communities to help with the task. My party has suggested how new energy market reforms could be brought in to bring about reductions in our energy bills. These matters are urgent, so I ask the Minister: when will the Government be able to bring forward their plans to reduce our energy bills?

We must mitigate and adapt; both are needed. Not a single adaption delivery pathway plan was rated as good. The simple truth is that we have been better at changing our climate than we have been at adapting to the changes we ourselves have made. Our duty as politicians is to co-operate, create change and enable hope.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and the noble Earl for their interest in the Statement.

Going on some of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Offord, he seems to be a bit glass half-empty at the moment. I encourage him to work with the Government to become a little more positive in his outlook. First, he asked about the cost of net zero. We believe that growth and net zero go hand and hand. Net zero is the economic opportunity of the 21st century, and it can support the creation of hundreds of thousands of good jobs across the UK and protect our economy from future price shocks from reliance on fossil fuels alone. We also believe that this is the way forward to getting the UK better energy security and to deliver a range of social and health benefits. Last week, the OBR showed clearly in its latest report on risks to the government finances that the cost of cutting emissions to net zero is significantly smaller than the economic damages of failing to act, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, just said.

Both noble Lords asked about bills. We are determined to cut bills for people. We appreciate that they have been high in recent years and the basis of our clean energy superpower mission is to look at how we can do exactly that. If we just carry on as we are, we are exposed to expensive, insecure fossil fuels, as we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine and prices went through the roof. We are driving forward with renewable power and with nuclear, because that is the way, in the long term, that we get to cut bills. We are also looking at how we cut the cost of electricity as part of that, so that, for example, if you put in a heat pump it makes financial sense. We have to look at it all along those lines.

Renewable infrastructure and the impact on nature were also mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. We believe that nature recovery and preserving our ecosystems are an essential part of the clean energy superpower mission. As we unblock barriers to the deployment of these clean power projects, we are committed to ensuring that, wherever possible, nature recovery is incorporated in development stages and that innovative techniques can be used to encourage nature recovery—the noble Earl mentioned the amendments that we are making to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, for example—because we want to get that balance right.

The noble Lord, Lord Offord, also talked about jobs. We are working very hard to bring in a just transition that is fair and built on the principle of fairness, because we need to ensure energy security and protect prices, as I said, but also to ensure fairness for workers, because decarbonisation has to be seen as the route to reindustrialisation. Working towards net zero and adapting to climate change are essential if we are to prevent widening inequalities and to reduce inequality as it stands. We know that if we do not act, climate change impacts more severely the most vulnerable groups, so we have to move forward on this.

The oil and gas sector was mentioned. We know that oil and gas production in the North Sea is going to continue for decades to come. We want to manage its reduction in a way that ensures the just transition and that our offshore workers can continue to work in the industries of the future. We are publishing a response to the consultation on the North Sea energy future later this year. That will look at how we can address the transition of oil and gas workers into working in clean energy. On that point, Robert Gordon University notes that over 90% of the UK’s oil and gas workforce skills have a medium to high transferability to offshore renewables.

Last time, when we had coal and steel collapse and communities were left behind, that had a terrible impact, and we are determined that that will not be the case this time, so we are working in partnership with trade unions, businesses and local communities, investing in skills and running regional skills pilots in places such as Aberdeen and Pembrokeshire.

The question was asked: why should we bother when other countries are not pulling their weight? That is not exactly true: other countries are acting. Over the last decade, there has been a transformation in the extent to which countries are taking it seriously. At least three-quarters of global GDP is now covered by a country-level net-zero target. This rises to 80% when taking account of commitments made by subnational governments. India is often mentioned. It has a target of 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030 and of reaching net zero by 2070. China is also committed to peaking its CO₂ emissions by 2030, with a target to reach net zero by 2060. I could go on.

Consumption and emissions were talked about, as well as offshoring emissions. There has been a substantial overlap between our carbon footprint and territorial emissions. This means that our ambitious carbon budget targets and commitment to making Britain a clean energy superpower will reduce our carbon footprint in the process of reducing our territorial emissions. The latest figures do not show that we are offshoring emissions from the UK to other countries. As the CCC states in its 2025 Progress in Reducing Emissions report:

“The reduction in territorial emissions since 1990 significantly outweighs the increase in emissions from imports over that period, reflecting the fact that emissions reductions in the UK have largely occurred without offshoring emissions”.


I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his support for the Statement, but also for his clear recognition of the huge challenges that we face in tackling climate change. I completely agree with him on the complexities that he was referring to. As he said, we absolutely need that balance between nature and development.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, also talked about the global impacts. I assure him that we are committed to working internationally and to multilateral action. We are not going to address climate change and the nature crisis on our own. The UK is steadfast in its commitment to the three Rio conventions, which aim to protect the global environment, the landmark Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework. We also have international milestones coming up such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. We will reaffirm our commitment to working with partners around the world to scale up integrated solutions that deliver for climate and nature. That will include demonstrating how our plans at home are working to make people in the UK safer, healthier and more prosperous.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that contrary to the dire predictions made by the noble Lord who speaks for the Opposition, the OBR’s analysis of the costs of reaching net zero suggests that, contrary to earlier estimates, they will be much lower because of the decline in the costs of clean technologies?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I can be very brief in my response. I can confirm that, agree with the noble Baroness and thank her for bringing it up, because the costs of not acting are huge. We must do it and work with others right around the globe to achieve it. Our clean energy mission and moving into cleaner, greener jobs for this country will be a central part of that work.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on this report and remind the Front-Bench spokesman that every previous Conservative Prime Minister, including Mrs Thatcher, would have understood that what the Government have said is right. The cheapest way to proceed is to go green. That is where the jobs will come from. If we hang behind, saying, “After you, Claude”, we will suffer, our industry will suffer and our businesses will suffer. It would be helpful if the Opposition consulted the Climate Change Committee or those who have spent their lives working on climate change instead of making statements which do not have a scientific basis. The science says quite clearly that what the Government are doing is right. I disagree with the Government on almost everything else that they are doing. They are dreadful on most things. On this, they are right and should be congratulated.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his very kind comments. He talked about science. It is worth pointing out that the Met Office published, alongside the Statement, State of the UK Climate 2024. That clearly shows that the UK’s climate is getting hotter and wetter, with more extreme weather events. We have also published several reports around protected landscapes targets, the outcomes framework and how we can unlock benefits for people. A lot of work is going on. It needs to come together if we are successfully to tackle the impacts of climate change so that we do not suffer more devastation in the future than it looks like are doing at the moment.

[Lord Sharma (Con)]

My Lords, I also welcome this Statement from the Government, particularly the commitment to deliver it annually. However, we need to see more engagement with the public. The Climate Change Committee, in its report The Seventh Carbon Budget, stated very clearly that we need to see more public information campaigns, so that people can understand the benefits of climate action and the climate actions available to them. Can the Minister update the House on what the Government’s climate engagement strategy is when it comes to the public?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Lord asks an excellent question, and I thank him for all his work in this sphere. It has been really important that we have had cross-party work on this over a number of years. Part of the reason for laying the Statement is that the Government believe that we have a duty to inform the British people about the scale of the climate and nature crises and the actions that government is taking in response. That is the start of a broader public discussion around this. If we are to move into a very different way of working in respect of energy—for example, moving away from fossil fuels and expecting people to make decisions about their heating, the cars that they drive and the costs of bills, as has been discussed—it is extremely important that we bring the public with us.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I have not heard many Front-Bench Statements from the Opposition as sad, inaccurate and negative as the one that we have heard this evening. I find it incredible. I hear no solutions whatever. It is a symptom of a party that has completely lost its way and feels under threat from another party, further to the right, which voters will vote for rather than this one if this is their issue. I make that warning. It suits us as Liberal Democrats—if they want to lose another 50 seats from middle England, they can go ahead and we will accept them.

Moving to nature, I too welcome this report and that it will be annual. I want to ask about 30 by 30. It is important that we are not negative about this situation. We must be optimistic but realistic that we can meet our targets. The paper issued by Defra last October defined the types of land that can be included in 30 by 30. At the moment, only 7% of that land can be included. Could the—

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I am going to ask the question. Can we find a way to define 30 by 30 land that includes ELMS, for instance, that makes that target attainable? At the moment, I believe it is impossible.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Lord asks a really important question. To meet the target, which we want to and believe that we can, we must be sure of the best way to achieve that. The land identified will be critical for that—and whether it is land or sea. A number of recent announcements will help us to work towards that—for example, the land use framework will be part of it. Banning bottom trawling in the marine protected areas will also help in the blue areas.

We are working through identifying the land that will make a difference. In the past, land that has been included—all SSSIs, for example—has not necessarily been in good enough condition to be taken into account. Taking that out has set the target back, but that is an honest approach. However, if we are being honest like that, we must be very careful about how we will achieve it and what land we are identifying. All I can say to the noble Lord is that these are really important points that we in Defra are looking at really hard to work on. We are looking at ELMS and the next batch of SFI, and what we should include in that to make the biggest difference.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer back to the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, when he referred to growth in the green economy. This refers back to a CBI report published in February, which showed that the green economy was growing by about 10%. Does the Minister share my surprise at the antagonism of the noble Lord, Lord Offord, towards these policies, given that not only is the green economy a remarkable record of success over the last few years but that in Scotland it contributes £9.1 billion to the Scottish economy and supports 100,700 jobs? The CBI report shows that much of this huge investment in the green economy is happening not just in London and the south-east but in places such as the West Midlands and Scotland.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. It is why Great British Energy has been set up in Aberdeen, for example; it is to look at the areas that need the finance. I know that other areas, in the Midlands and the north-west, that have suffered in the past for lack of investment are now going to have huge opportunities through green finance and green infrastructure being built.

He is absolutely right. It was a little disappointing, to be honest, to hear the Opposition’s response. I remember at one time when the Conservatives were talking about being the greenest Government ever.

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that talking about climate change does not really do very much about mitigating the problems we all face. What we need to see happen is what my children call “stuff”. Of course, that entails regulatory frameworks and available finance. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, commented favourably—and rightly, in my view—on the recent changes proposed to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Can we take it from the Minister that this is a precedent that will stand when similar problems are faced in trying to bring about the mitigation of the climate problems that we are looking for, and that this is the attitude that the Government will adopt towards these problems?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The Government are absolutely serious about tackling climate change. I really hope that that has come across both in the Statement and the answers I have given. We are also absolutely determined to ensure that nature and development can work together, that one does not have to be at the expense of the other, which is the challenge we have in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and why, following the discussions in the other place, we have brought forward amendments to try to acknowledge some of the concerns that have been raised also by the OEP and certain NGOs. The important thing for me is that, whatever proposals and Bills we put forward in the future, we have to look at the impact on climate change as we go forward. We have to look at the impact on biodiversity and nature, and that is what the Government are working to do.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I do not doubt the Minister’s personal commitment, on biodiversity in particular, but, given that there are still serious misgivings about elements of Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, notwithstanding the amendments last week, given the fact that there is still a serious question mark over the future of biodiversity net gain, how can we be confident that the Government are actually going to pursue properly, and in a committed way, that 2030 target? It is there in law and is fundamentally important.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

All I can say is that we are absolutely determined to do so, and I look forward to debating it with him during Part 3 of the Bill.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s priority is growth, but the Office for Budget Responsibility’s recent fiscal risks report said that climate change impacts could cut GDP in the UK by 8% by the early 2070s. The Government inherited a pretty naff, if I can pun, national adaptation programme, which was formerly known as NAP3. But a naff NAP3 was pretty inadequate; it had not been implemented effectively and is not joined up with other resilience work that is going across both government departments and local authorities.

I would have thought from the way the noble Lord, Lord Offord, was speaking that, since he was unconfident that we would reach climate change carbon reduction targets in time, he might have been upping the ante on the adaptation programme, since obviously we are going to have more floods, heatwaves, reductions in biodiversity and more general gloom. But I ask the Minister simply, in the face of the fact that the national adaptation programme is currently not adequate, will the Government radically get a grip on the real challenge of adapting to the impacts of climate change in this country and protect the Government’s growth strategies through that action?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am very pleased that my noble friend has asked about adaptation, because in my opinion it does not get talked about enough. It is going to be absolutely critical and really important that we look at how we develop infrastructure and housing. It is all going to have to take adaptation into account over the coming years.

She mentioned the third national adaptation programme, NAP3. But, alongside the delivery of that, we know that we have to drive further action. We know that we have to develop robust delivery plans ahead of the fourth national adaptation programme, which will come in 2028. We believe that we should have stronger objectives, because they are going to be crucial if we are going to have an ambitious and impactful fourth national adaptation programme. We are absolutely committed to increasing and improving the resilience of our communities as we accelerate our progress towards net zero.

My noble friend is absolutely right; it is completely critical, and vital, that adaptation is undertaken now to ensure that risks are managed efficiently and at the least cost to people.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement refers to the legal duty on the Government to halt species decline by 2030—except that is not happening. To take the example of birds, including the starlings, turtle doves and grey partridges the Statement refers to, overall, bird species have declined in the UK by 2% and in England by 7% in the five years since 2018. One of the significant contributory factors is factory farming. Globally, farmed chickens account for 57% of bird species by mass, wild birds only 29%. The arable land growing their feed is generally terrible for wild species, plus their waste causes widespread air and water pollution.

We have just seen that the absolutely awful Cranswick plc proposal in East Anglia for an existing site to rear 870,000 chickens and 14,000 pigs at one time was refused and 42,000 people signed a petition against it. What are the Government going to do to protect nature and human health and well-being against further expansion of the disastrous practice of factory farming, rather than forcing local councils to bear the weight of dealing with these applications and the legal risk of turning them down? I should perhaps declare that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As I am sure the noble Baroness is aware, we do a lot of work on farming in Defra through the pathway to better welfare conditions for farmed animals. Clearly, the important thing is animal welfare, the conditions and a farm doing the best job it can in the best conditions. I do think the emissions implications for huge farms are something that we need to address and we are looking at that extremely closely. I hope she will be interested in the animal welfare strategy when we publish it later this autumn, because that will have a section on how we are going to improve farmed animal welfare, which will have a knock-on effect on exactly the kinds of situations that she is talking about.

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, I am surprised at some Members holding up Scotland as a bastion of good practice. I understand that Scotland has had to reduce, or at least review, some aspects of its climate targets, so I am a wee bit surprised. But my main question is on China. Imports from China to the UK were worth almost £70 billion last year, but I am not impressed to hear that China’s fossil fuel production will peak by 2030. Will we continue to buy products from China or is there a process or mechanism to force, or at least attempt to force, China to get into line? If it is allowed to peak by 2030, goodness knows where the level will be at that stage.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The question of China is important, because if we are to tackle climate change globally and meet net zero, we have to look at those countries that have high emissions. Until very recently, China was very dependent on fossil fuels, but we also know that it is making moves away from that. It has been investing a lot in nuclear, for example. It is important to get this into perspective, because a huge country cannot change overnight. However, this country can provide global leadership in working with other countries as they move to the change they need to move to. I welcome that China is looking to invest in non-fossil fuels and move forwards and that it has set targets. That is very important, because it was not the case a few years ago. We need to have it within the global bubble if we are to continue to make progress.

[Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab)]

My Lords, the debate we have had on the Statement illustrates the value of maintaining the cross-party consensus that we have had on this subject to date. I was going to ask my noble friend the question that the Opposition have asked about maintaining public engagement in this debate, so I invite her to go one step further and ensure that, in that public engagement towards a just transition, we make clear what the science says about the implications and costs of us failing to act in the way that we have heard about from the Front Bench.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. As I said earlier, if we are going to move forward in the most efficient and effective way, we will have to take the public with us, because they will have to make big changes and, in many circumstances, choose to make those changes—the more information people have, the more the Government can support the changes that need to be made, but it must be done in a way that demonstrates the real science behind it. Too much science around climate change is not proven, so it is really important that we have proper scientific evidence and advice when we are talking to people.