Queen’s Speech

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet. I will speak mainly on issues of climate change, foreshadowed by the speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Jones. First, I will refer briefly to two issues from the gracious Speech. I was pleased to see and am interested in taking part in the legislation on the genetic technology (precision breeding) Bill. The time that I spent at the then Ministry of Agriculture persuaded me that it is possible to use precision genetic technology to the benefit of both agriculture and consumers. As a country, we are good at regulation in these innovative situations, and we ought to pursue that.

The other issue, which gives me concern rather than enthusiasm, is the line in the gracious Speech about restoring the balance of power between the legislature and the judiciary. I worry about what that means and will listen very carefully and with some concern to the Government’s proposals in this area.

But I will speak mainly, as I did a year ago, about the climate and nature crisis confronting the country and the Government’s response to it. Today marks six months from the COP 26 conference in Glasgow and it was looking forward to that conference when many of us spoke last year. We did so despite the clouds of the global pandemic that hung above us all. We talked about the way in which it was important to find paths out of that crisis that did not set back the path on which we had embarked towards tackling the climate crisis. Today, we have different clouds above us. They are dark, and they are of war and—we talk of the cost of living crisis—of poverty. That is the problem that clouds our horizons today.

However, those dark clouds low above our heads have not taken away the clouds above them, the global clouds, or the necessity of acting internationally and nationally. I shall once again say what I have said many times: of course we are as a country a small emitter globally, but we are a leader globally. We are a leader in innovation and achievement. When we do that, we have an international heft far greater than simply our domestic achievements. It is really important, as Alok Sharma, who is still president of COP26 said today, that we do not commit

“an act of monstrous self-harm”

and that

“the current crises should increase, not diminish, our determination to deliver”

when

“the window of time we have to act is closing fast”.

So I was disappointed that the speech from the Throne did not include much greater and more comprehensive action to help people with the costs of their energy and to reduce the energy they use. We still do not do enough in a coherent and co-ordinated way to make our homes more energy efficient to reduce the cost that people incur in heating them, and we still have not capitalised on all the forms of renewable energy that we need. We should reassess the economic case for tidal power, given the economics of energy at the moment. The Minister who will reply will not be surprised to hear me say that we need to talk more about onshore wind.