Net-zero Test for New Policies

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We are indeed committed to publishing this, exactly as I said, and we are making a considerable commitment towards meeting our targets. We have the most ambitious programme of emissions reductions in the whole of the G7. Let me give an example of how difficult these areas are. It is easy to say that, yes, we must embed net zero in all our policies, but the other place is currently having a debate brought forward by the noble Lord’s party on removing VAT from domestic fuel. Everybody can see why that might be important at the moment but, arguably, such a test would fail the commitment on net zero, since most fuel is still produced by carbon-intensive methods. These are difficult policy areas; we have to balance the overarching aim of net zero with other commitments on fuel poverty, et cetera.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Anyone watching the Government can see that there is no coherence and that they do not understand net zero. That is why it is so important to take up this idea. Any Government who understood net zero would not have made a deal with the Australian Government for lamb and similar things. That is not a net-zero deal. At the same time, they are condemning British farming to sometimes going out of business. Does the Minister agree that the Government have to step up a bit and be a little more ambitious on net zero?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I understand the point that the noble Baroness is making—I know that she is very passionate on this subject, and we have debated it many times—but we have the most ambitious net-zero goals of all of the G7. The noble Baroness puts her head in her hands, but that is true. Of course, you could always argue that we should go further or faster, but that would be expensive and would affect our competitiveness. At the end of the day, the UK is responsible for 1% of worldwide emissions. We need to make sure that we go forward in a co-ordinated manner with other countries across the world and approach this problem together.