Economy: Growth

Baroness Worthington Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to stand before you today to give my maiden speech. I will begin by thanking my sponsors, my noble friends Lord Eatwell and Lord Bassam of Brighton, and my mentor, my noble friend Lord Puttnam. I also extend my gratitude to all the staff of the House who have made me and my baby son feel very welcome. My elevation coincided almost exactly with my becoming a mother—in effect, two life sentences in one week. I am most grateful for the tolerance and patience that everyone has shown towards me as I try to balance these two important new roles. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hollick for tabling an important debate as it allows me the opportunity to offer some thoughts on the issue I know most about: the need to tackle global climate change with sustainable economic policy.

Climate change is the political and moral challenge of our time. Each year brings fresh evidence of the consequences of gambling with our planet's atmosphere. Future generations will judge us on how we act on this issue more than on any other. To date, sadly, our progress has been too slow. In preparing this speech, I looked back through Hansard and was interested to see that in March 1991, a week after the Budget had been published, the House held a debate on global warming. A great deal has changed since then, but sadly some concerns expressed by noble Lords two decades ago are still very pertinent today.

The good news is that in 2011 our economy is less reliant than it once was on the burning of fossil fuels. The carbon intensity of our economy has steadily fallen. The bad news is that this has not necessarily been done deliberately: it is largely due to a decline in our heavy industries and manufacturing, and to the dash for gas. To consciously reduce emissions is a much harder thing to achieve, as we have discovered in a succession of well meaning but largely ineffectual climate change policies throughout the 1990s and 2000s. This is why, when I worked at Friends of the Earth, I felt that we needed a new legal framework to begin the process of decarbonising our economy.

Having set up the campaign for new climate laws, I left Friends of the Earth to join energy company Scottish and Southern—poacher turned gamekeeper, if you will. There I was fortunate to work closely with the CEO, Ian Marchant, who was a great inspiration. My recruitment was his idea and I think that his intention was to shake things up a bit—both his organisation and my own preconceptions. Until that point I had campaigned to shut down dirty, old, coal-fired power stations, two of which Scottish and Southern owned. I still believe that we need to shut down our old coal, but I now have a lot more respect for the men and women who work tirelessly to keep the lights on. Our task is to ensure that they can continue to do so without a negative impact on the environment.

While at Scottish and Southern, I was seconded to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. There I was able to view life through yet another prism and came to better understand the process of government. I became part of the team tasked with drafting the Climate Change Bill. When the Act entered the statute book in 2008 it was a world first, committing the UK to delivering emissions cuts of 80 per cent by 2050 using a series of successive carbon budgets.

With a climate Act in place, what has changed since 1991? The only mention of the environment in the Budget Statement of the then Chancellor, now the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, was in relation to an increase in fuel duty; yet 20 years of high fuel taxation has proved only that it is very difficult to price people and goods off the roads unless there is an affordable alternative.

Last week's Budget at least contained a few more references to climate change, but it was still a long way from being a green Budget. Fuel duty was frozen, but with no clear plan for weaning us of our addiction to oil. The green investment bank, as previous speakers have said, has its hands tied. The carbon floor price is merely an expensive way to deliver no environmental impact, with no guarantees that anything will be built. Under the previous Government, an investment of just over £20 million secured jobs in an electric car manufacturing plant in Sunderland. I am sad to say that the scheme that enabled that investment no longer exists.

I am conscious that time today is limited. There are many issues relating to climate change and energy that I hope I can return to in subsequent debates. We need to have a deep debate about the role of nuclear power. The recent terrible events in Japan remind us of the risks inherent in a technology that was developed primarily for Cold War military application. A civilian nuclear programme based on inherently safer, thorium-fuelled reactors could engender a paradigm shift in how we view nuclear power.

Britain has a history of delivering industrial revolution. This revolution towards a sustainable, low-carbon economy will not be easy; it will involve countering a large number of powerful opposing forces and vested interests. However, as Archimedes once remarked, “Give me the right place to stand and I can move mountains”. I hope that in this Chamber, I am standing in the right place and that, together, we can move mountains.