Net-Zero Carbon Emissions

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I agree with her every word. In doing so, I pay tribute to her foresight and determination in creating a forum for Peers who are interested in tackling the climate emergency but rather bemused by its urgent complexity by setting up Peers for the Planet.

The complexity of the climate emergency is that the science and evidence before us are telling us with increasing urgency that climate change cannot be tackled issue by issue in silos. It is evident that our natural planetary systems inextricably link humans, animals, microorganisms—including viruses, the skies, the oceans and all land and its features, such as glaciers, forests, mangroves, coral reefs, peatbogs, mountains, lakes, farms and cities. That complexity is encompassed in many ways by this timely debate, tabled by my noble friend Lord Teverson, because it asks us to focus on the need for an integrated government approach if we are to successfully meet the interlinked challenges needed to get to net zero.

This is an important issue, and I thank my noble friend for bringing it to your Lordships’ House via Grand Committee. Declaring a climate emergency, setting a net zero target and even agreeing to the agenda for the sixth carbon budget, as set out by the Climate Change Committee, are, quite frankly, meaningless unless accompanied by meaty government processes that cover all arms of government, including its agencies, and all levels of government, especially those such as local authorities, which are rooted in their place and in touch and in tune with their communities.

The fact that my noble friend intimates in the title of his debate that the case for joined-up government needs to be made tells us that the Government’s words are just that: words. To date there has been little commensurate action to underpin their stated ambitions and intentions. I totally agree with the urgent need for a Cabinet Minister responsible for tackling the climate and biodiversity emergency, which many previous speakers have called for.

I will divide the rest of my contribution into two parts, the first focusing on local government and the second on one of the more egregious examples of unjoined-up, incoherent national policy-making by the Government. I very proudly served as a councillor for Kew ward in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. My roles for four consecutive years included that of assistant cabinet member for environment and climate change, and sitting on the planning committee, which was an interesting and fascinating experience. It will be crystal clear to anyone who has been a councillor that local government is key to success in reaching net zero targets.

I will pick out just a few of the myriad ways in which local government is essential to realising the CCC’s agenda for achieving net zero by 2050. Behavioural change is identified as a crucial component of success. A top-down approach will not on its own effect that; psychologists will tell you that peer pressure from friends, family and neighbours will have the biggest impact. We need to work from the ground up, and local authorities are well placed to do just that. They have the power to influence how residents use their local spaces; they can tweak local road schemes, encourage more walking and cycling and better eating habits and, crucially, put in place measures to increase energy efficiency in their local housing stock.

According to the CCC, local authorities have powers or influence over a third of emissions in local areas, much of which come from housing. To meet net zero, virtually all heat in buildings will need to be decarbonised and heat in industry reduced to almost zero carbon emissions. Given the importance of achieving success in this area, it is extremely frustrating that the green homes grant has been such an abysmal failure—cut in just six short months. Can the Minister say why the scheme, for which there was great demand, was cancelled? Can he also say why no notice was given and what will replace it?

I turn to local authority funding. The UK, despite its size, is one of the most centralised countries in the world; only about 5% to 6% of all tax revenue is raised by local government. However, it has not always been this way. In the 19th century, local government in Britain was as decentralised as Germany is today. It was only in the post-First World War era that Whitehall gradually accrued the spending power that previously lay with town halls. Given the growing inequality among the regions of the UK, I do not think that change has been an unqualified success.

To play their essential role in meeting the net-zero target, local authorities must be adequately funded. When grant schemes such as the green homes grant are suddenly cut off, that really hurts not just local authorities but local businesses and jobs. With £2.1 billion of EU structural funds cut off after Brexit, it behoves the Government to seamlessly put in place their successor scheme. We are heading towards the end of April 2021, and still there is no sign of the promised consultation on the shared prosperity fund. When can we expect it? Also, when will the Government issue the sovereign green bond, announced by the Chancellor in the House of Commons last November? Can the Minister confirm that, when set up, it will be able to make loans to local authorities?

I have just one other question for the Minister on funding for local authorities. Do the Government have a view on the new report from the London School of Economics and Leeds University, produced in association with the All-Party Group on Sustainable Finance, UK100 and HSBC? The report assesses how UK policymakers can engage the financial sector to meet the net-zero target and its commitment to the levelling up of regional economies in the context of Covid-19 and Brexit. Its authors and supporters would like to see Ministers make a strategic commitment to a just transition for jobs, including plans for mobilising public and private sector finance to deliver place-based projects which tackle both environment and social challenges. Will the Government respond to the report and put their response in the public domain?

I want to dwell on jobs for a moment. Maybe the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I think the green homes grant scheme, in large part, fell because of a lack of skilled people to carry out the installations and the complete lack of an efficient process to administer the scheme. Local authorities know their workforce. They know where they are; they know what they do. They will be invaluable in helping to get people reskilled and ready for new jobs in the greening of various sectors of our economy. The only way that communities will be ready to take advantage of the new jobs that green investment will bring is if there is strategic planning for the right sort of skills training and knowledge base that will be needed in the local neighbourhood. Central government does not have that knowledge—which, by the way, is not the same as data. If we are to reach our net-zero targets, local authorities will be key to successful transitions to new industries and new ways of doing things. We must value them, and we must fund them.

In conclusion, I will say a few words on the incongruity of the Oil and Gas Authority’s policy of maximising economic revenue and the legally binding target of net zero by 2050 both sitting within the same legislature. To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade, oil and gas production around the world needs to decline by an average of 6% per year between now and 2030, according to the UN Environment Programme 2020 Production Gap report. Instead, current global plans to increase production would lead to 120% more fossil fuels extracted by 2030 than would align with the Paris Agreement. Here in the UK, under the recently announced North Sea transition deal, the Government plan to continue to issue new licences to explore for and extract oil and gas. How is the MER—maximising economic revenue—policy compatible with our leadership of the climate emergency agenda and our standing on the global stage for COP 26 in November this year?

It is clear from our continuing MER policy and, indeed, the fiasco around the controversial Cumbrian coal mine that our legislation is not fit for the purpose of meeting the net-zero targets, and legislative alignment is sorely needed on our national planning regime. My final question to the Minister is: will we get our domestic legislation in order before COP 26? It would at least give departments a fighting chance of pulling in the right direction at all levels of government.