Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis. Utilising our own domestic resources is just common sense when the alternative is to import more fuels from abroad. It would be an act of self-sabotage to put restrictions on our own domestic sector, damaging jobs and investment only to liquefy and ship gas from halfway around the world and create more emissions in the process.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I welcome the Minister to his post, but he will know that most of our gas imports are not LNG and that they actually come via a pipeline from Norway, where gas production is half as polluting as it is in the UK. New oil and gas would not only be disastrous for our climate; it would also fail to boost energy security. Following the welcome announcement that the UK will finally withdraw from the energy charter treaty, will the Government also reverse their decision to license the Rosebank oil field, which will cost the climate and the public purse extremely dear?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Member for her kind comments. While we scale up our clean energy success, including in renewables, which have gone from 7% to 40%, there is still a need for oil and gas. A failure to issue a new licence would make no difference to the consumption of oil and gas, but it would increase imports, which typically have higher emissions, and also damage our economy.

Gas-fired Power Stations

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero to make a statement on the Government’s plan to build new gas-fired power stations.

[The Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero (Graham Stuart)]

The second consultation of the review of electricity market arrangements was launched yesterday. It sets out the choices that we need to make to deliver a fully decarbonised electricity system by 2035. Since 2010, the Government have reduced emissions from power by 65% and thus made the UK the first major economy in the world to halve emissions overall. We have built record volumes of renewables, from less than 7% of electricity supply in 2010 to nearly 50% today, allowing us to remove coal altogether by October this year.

Our success in growing renewables is the reason we need flexible back-up for when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. Our main source of flexible power today is unabated gas. More than half of our 15 GW of combined-cycle gas turbines could be retired by 2035. Meanwhile, electricity demand is set to increase as heat, transport and industry are electrified. We must ensure that we have sufficient sources of flexibility in place to guarantee security of supply. We need up to 55 GW of short-duration flexibility and between 30 and 50 GW of long-duration flexibility. Our aim is for as much of that capacity as possible to be low carbon.

While low-carbon technologies scale up, we will extend the life of our existing gas assets, but a limited amount of new build gas capacity will also be required in the short term to replace expiring plants as it is the only mature technology capable of providing sustained flexible capacity. We remain committed to delivering a fully decarbonised electricity supply by 2035, subject to security of supply, and we expect most new gas capacity to be built net zero-ready. The Government have committed £20 billion to carbon capture, usage and storage, and are developing comprehensive support for hydrogen. In the future, unabated gas plants will run for only a limited number of hours a year, so emissions will be entirely in line with our legally binding carbon budgets.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am a bit tired of this Government shunning any scrutiny of their climate record and instead relying on a past record, because while the UK may indeed be the first major economy to cut its territorial emissions by half since 1990, we are not on track to achieve our 2030 targets, and if we factor in consumption emissions, the UK has cut emissions by only 23%. So let’s have a little less complacency from the Minister. He will know that the Government’s announcement on new gas-fired power stations does in fact, contrary to what he claimed, risk undermining our climate targets and leaving the country reliant on imports of expensive gas. Members should have been given the opportunity to question the Minister on its implications for the decarbonisation of the UK’s energy system by 2035, with 95% of UK electricity being low carbon by 2030.

First, why was the statement not made in Parliament? Why was it made instead at Chatham House, where Members were not able to question the Minister on the impact of this decision? Secondly, will the Minister explain how this proposal differs from the functioning of the existing capacity market, or will he admit that it is just the Government’s latest attempt to stoke a culture war on climate? Thirdly, the Climate Change Committee is clear that no new unabated gas plants should be built after 2030, so what is the Government’s timeline for developing these new gas-fired power stations?

I asked the Minister about this yesterday in the Environmental Audit Committee; I did not get a response. I also asked him what is being done to ensure that these gas plants are zero carbon by 2035; that was not set out either in the Secretary of State’s speech yesterday or by the Minister today. The Minister did tell the Environmental Audit Committee that the plants would be required to be both carbon capture and storage-ready and hydrogen-ready. That does not amount to a meaningful plan, so will he please give us more than his thus far unevidenced words of assurance, and will he explain what the Government’s plan is to support the development of batteries and long-term storage technologies and to drive innovation so that we can get off volatile gas for good?

[Graham Stuart]

It is rather odd to be asked about the ability to scrutinise this, when yesterday was the launch of a consultation that will go on for some time and, as the hon. Lady knows, I was in front of the Select Committee yesterday. It is rather strange that she should highlight that point.

The hon. Lady is confused, as she often is, because she is so political. She would appear to set politics always ahead of climate. She struggles to recognise that that United Nations framework convention on climate change rules are about territorial emissions—countries own the emissions in the territory where they take place. Her numbers on embedded emissions are wrong, but she does not care about that; she just carries on with a political diatribe against the Government, who have done more than any other in any major economy on this Earth to decarbonise their economy. And we have done it not as the hon. Lady would have us do it—by being reduced to living in yurts—but while growing the economy by 82%. It is people like the hon. Lady who make people on my side of the Chamber at times think that we are perhaps engaged in some form of madness; we are not, but she doesn’t half make it sound like we are.

Can these new gas plants be consistent with the Government’s commitment to decarbonise the power sector by 2035? Our published net zero scenarios for the power sector—I invite the hon. Lady to read them—show that building new gas capacity is consistent with decarbonising electricity by 2035. From those scenarios we expect that, even with new gas capacity, rather than the 38% of electricity generation which in 2022 came from gas, that figure will be down to 1% by 2035—or, if we follow the scenario set out by the Climate Change Committee, perhaps 2%. We are going to have that as a back-up. It is sensible insurance; it is about keeping the lights on while we carry on the remarkable transformation this Government have achieved in moving from the appalling legacy of the Labour party of less than 7% of electricity coming from renewables to nearly 50% today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I commend my hon. Friend’s unwavering commitment to advocating for the ceramics sector in his constituency. The UK Government remain steadfast in safeguarding sectors deemed at risk of carbon leakage, and I strongly encourage the ceramics sector in his constituency to actively participate in the consultation on free allocation policy, which is open.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

A new report from the Green Finance Institute and the Institute for Public Policy Research notes that a lack of public investment and strategy is holding back progress on unlocking private investment, and that the chopping and changing of policy pathways has damaged investor confidence. The Secretary of State likes to say that she has a clear strategy, so will she tell investors what it is? Will she call on the Chancellor to deliver the scale of public investment that we so urgently need to restore investor confidence and lift the UK off the bottom of the G7 league table for private investment, where we currently languish?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question, but I am surprised that she did not welcome the recent news that the UK was the first country in the G20 to halve its emissions since the 1990s, as I know that subject is dear to her heart. As I have said, in 2023, the UK saw around £60 billion of low-carbon private and public investment. We got that extraordinary success by encouraging private investment. Whether through the contracts for difference scheme, our new policies on capital allowances, or the effect of the green industries growth accelerator on the supply chain, the UK is doing everything it can to attract investment, and that is exactly why we have made those achievements.

Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitehead]

No, in line with the IEA and the IPCC, I am not in favour of new exploration licences. The point is that, in a declining market, Norwegian supply will continue to be very substantial, even if no new exploration licences are granted in Norway.

The figure cited by the hon. Gentleman is almost right —the actual figure is 34%. The United Kingdom supplies 38% of its own gas, with the United States supplying 14%, Qatar supplying 9% and other countries supplying smaller amounts. Norway already occupies a very substantial position in our present gas supplies, and I am sure it will continue to do so.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it might be useful to remind Conservative Members that, according to the UN production gap report, Governments are already planning for their existing developments to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with keeping global heating to 1.5°C or below? The idea that anyone can have vast new developments is not compatible with keeping below our climate target.

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. New licences are an international issue. If we had new exploration licences around the world, we would simply produce far more oil and gas than is compatible with the 1.5° climate target. We should just keep it in the ground.

Finally, amendment 21 would go some way towards correcting another element of the carbon intensity test. As currently drafted—the Minister will want to listen to this bit—the test will not take account of methane emissions, which is a serious flaw. The whole case for comparing UK-based natural gas with LNG is based only on production emissions. The emission of methane at various stages of the production and transportation of LNG is, in aggregate, worse than the emissions of UK-produced and piped natural gas, but they are not carbon dioxide emissions, which is what the Bill says should be measured.

LNG’s potential carbon dioxide emissions upon burning are roughly the same as, or perhaps slightly greater than, the carbon dioxide emissions from UK natural gas. As the right hon. Member for Reading West said, that is elevated by the current UK practice of flaring surplus gas, which can be measured in carbon dioxide emissions.

Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over 20-year and 100-year timeframes. Its lifetime in the atmosphere is shorter than the lifetime of CO₂, but its impact is far more significant. The Climate Change Act 2008 is quite specific on how this should be measured. Section 93, which the Bill mentions but does not act on, states that

“greenhouse gas emissions…and removals of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere shall be measured or calculated in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.”

Proposed new section 4ZB(1) of the Petroleum Act 1998 mentions the carbon intensity of natural gas, but proposed new subsection (3) defines “carbon intensity” as

“the carbon dioxide emissions attributable to its production”.

But carbon dioxide emissions in production are not the principal concern here, as the gas has not been burned at that point. Indeed, I can conceive of smart climate lawyers challenging the test’s validity on precisely that point. The Minister might therefore see amendment 21 as providing a vital lifeline to the integrity of his Bill. To that extent, the amendment might be seen as helpful, but I somehow doubt that he will take it up. To coin a phrase, “It’s the methane, stupid.” The Bill should say so.

Proposed new section 4ZB(4) already gives the Secretary of State the power to amend the carbon intensity test to include emissions other than carbon dioxide. Perhaps the Secretary of State or the Minister will shortly take that up to save the test. We can anticipate a fairly amusing statutory instrument debate when he tries to do that.

Amendment 21 would simply require the Government to produce a report analysing what the impact of that change will be. In the spirit of trying to improve a Bill that, by design, is fairly resistant to improvement, we welcome the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Reading West and the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby).

The Climate Change Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee have called for a ban on routine flaring and venting, and such a ban is long overdue. A marine spatial prioritisation policy would help to organise and plan an optimal long-term, low-carbon economic strategy for the North sea.

There is clearly significant strength of feeling across the Committee that this is an inadequate Bill, and some of the proposed tests could undoubtedly make a bad Bill a little better, although some of those tests have internal problems. We would not want to vote against those tests, but the only comprehensive climate change and net zero compatible test is the one that we and, in principle, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) have set out. It is the best available route, within a severely constrained process, to align this deeply flawed Bill with our essential energy security and climate change priorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Duguid]

I find myself looking for a point that I might agree with in the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and sadly failing. However, his point about the decline of oil and gas in the UK has been made time and time again. Ever since 2004 we have been a net importer of oil and gas, so my point about new oil and gas not being more oil and gas is about managing that decline to make up for the fact that we are not replacing that oil and gas generation with renewables as fast as we would like. I will address that point in more detail in a moment.

Those comments from the SNP leader just go to show the staggering hypocrisy and inconsistency of the SNP, but neither the industry nor the electorate are so easily fooled, particularly in the north-east of Scotland. If asked whether they support new oil and gas licences, as we have seen today, some SNP Members—and, I dare say, some Labour Members as well—may find it difficult to commit to a position, particularly when facing their constituents in the north-east of Scotland. However, this Conservative Government and, in particular, the Scottish Conservatives have maintained consistent support for the oil and gas industry—the companies, and the tens of thousands employed from right across the UK. We recognise, as this Bill does, the potential for the people in this industry not just to keep our lights on and keep the economy moving in the near term, but to lead the world in showing how a successful energy transition from oil and gas to renewables can be done. Sadly, as has been confirmed a couple of times today, all His Majesty’s Opposition seem able to offer is to lead the world in virtue signalling.

[Caroline Lucas]

In following the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), I have to say that his speech was one of startling complacency, which still seems to be based on the misunderstanding that just because we exploit oil and gas in the North sea, that somehow means that it is ours—that it gets used here, rather than being sold on global markets at international prices. So many of us have said that so many times in this Chamber, but it still does not seem to have penetrated.

I rise to speak in support of my amendments that have been selected for debate: amendments 2, 3, 13 and 14. Before I begin in earnest, I want to emphasise that seeking to amend this sham of a Bill in no way legitimises what is nothing more than a political stunt. It is not a serious piece of legislation; rather, it is a desperate and dangerous attempt to create yet another culture war. It will make no practical difference at all, given that there have been annual licensing rounds for most of the past decade, with even the board of the North Sea Transition Authority expressing the unanimous view that this legislation is not needed. The amendments I have tabled are designed to expose the falsehoods that have been told by the Government in attempting to justify new fossil fuel extraction in the midst of a climate emergency. The first is that new oil and gas licences can in any way be compatible with delivering our climate targets, and the second is that propping up oil and gas can possibly be in the interests of workers, rather than genuinely engaging with the need for a just transition and the practicalities of how it is delivered.

I will first address my amendments 2 and 3. Taken together, those amendments would insert a new climate test into the Bill alongside the Government’s carbon intensity test and the net importer test, which as we know are not so much robust assessments as they are free passes to pollute. The climate test is very simple: it would be met in a given year only if the IPCC finds that current global fossil fuel infrastructure will not emit more greenhouse gas emissions than is compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5°. According to the climate Minister, the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), that critical threshold is supposedly the Government’s “north star”—a threshold that, as we all know, was passed for the first time across the entirety of last year. I therefore hope that the Minister will support my amendments, which would ensure that proposed licensing rounds do not undermine global efforts to secure a safe and liveable planet for the future and keep that north star shining.

Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, the UN production gap report has warned that Governments already plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting heating to 1.5°. If we look at what the IPCC itself has said, its sixth assessment report was clear:

“Projected CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement would exceed the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C”.

Closer to home, the Climate Change Committee observed in its latest progress report:

“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero.”

Regardless of the claims from Conservative Members that the UK will continue to need some oil and gas up to 2050, this, and I again use the words of the Climate Change Committee,

“does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields.”

Indeed, last month its interim chair, Professor Piers Forster, was forced to correct the Chancellor on this front, reiterating:

“UK oil and gas consumption needs to fall by over 80% to meet UK targets.”

--- Later in debate ---

[David Duguid]

I am very familiar with the report the hon. Member has just quoted. Does she recognise that what Offshore Energies UK is referring to—the Goldilocks zone, as I have heard it described—is the point at which we need to make maximum benefit of the skills, supply chains and technologies that currently exist in the oil and gas industry, so that we can make the best use of those skills to deliver net zero?

[Caroline Lucas]

The best way to make use of those skills is by making sure that we put resources behind those workers so that they can make the transition, which so many of them want to do, into renewables. Right now, those workers are actually having to pay to make that transition themselves. They have to pay for the training. [Interruption.] They do. I tabled an amendment to a previous piece of legislation on education and training to try to make it much less onerous for oil and gas workers to shift into, say, the renewables sector. We need to have those plans, and we need the resources behind them to make that a lot easier than it is today.

The result and the reality is that the number of jobs in the oil and gas sector has already dropped by more than half over the past decade, despite hundreds of drilling licences being issued. The just transition plans test would be met in a year if the Oil and Gas Authority assessed that all existing seaward area production licence holders have published just transition plans for their workforce that are compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5°. Amendment 14 specifies that those plans must be agreed through formalised collective agreements with unions, and that they apply to all workers whether they are directly or indirectly employed—or, self employed, which is vital with the heavy casualisation in the oil and gas workforce.

Indeed, a report in 2020 revealed a high level of concern about job security and working conditions in the oil and gas industry, and that 80% of surveyed workers would consider moving to a job outside that particular sector. Furthermore, given the opportunity to retrain to work elsewhere in the energy sector, more than half would be interested in renewables and offshore wind. Workers are ready to lead a just transition, yet a more recent report has revealed that

“companies are increasingly announcing net zero targets—but there is no example in the UK oil and gas sector of worker involvement in decision-making on decarbonisation.”

That must change.

This amendment would be a step towards delivering a just transition that would see workers at the centre of transition planning, with a clear and accessible pathway out of high-carbon jobs. Rather than propping up jobs that we know are not going to exist in the future, the Government should be actively supporting workers to transition out of the oil and gas sector now, while also addressing their very real concerns, such as the cost of retraining, which is often borne by workers themselves, or the inferior employment protections offshore, which can lead to wage under-cutting. There are even some cases of seafarers working in the offshore wind sector being paid below the minimum wage. That is a scandal, and the Government should urgently establish a wage floor to apply to all offshore energy workers, regardless of nationality, who are carrying out any work on the UK continental shelf. The failure to deliver a just transition is not an inevitability, but a political choice. If the Government are serious about listening to workers and protecting jobs, they should have no problem supporting this amendment, which puts job security at the heart of the transition.

I note that the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) has tabled amendments 10 and 11 on a just transition, but I have to say that I do have two serious concerns. First, according to the drafting of amendment 11, the SNP test will be met

“if the OGA assesses that…new licences will support the delivery of the North Sea Transition Deal’s…emission reduction targets”.

Yet, as we know, the 50% reduction by 2030 which is in the NSTD proposal, against a 2018 baseline, is far weaker than the 68% reduction recommended by the Climate Change Committee, which it says is achievable. It is also important to note that this only includes scope 1 and 2 emissions, so it fails to take account of emissions produced when oil and gas is burned. Secondly, there is no provision to consult workers as part of this test. Therefore, given that it would fail to deliver a worker-led transition and it also exceeds the advice of the CCC, I sadly cannot vote for that.

Before concluding, I offer my support to a number of other amendments. First, I support amendment 12, on banning flaring and venting, tabled by the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma). As others have mentioned, Norway banned routine flaring back in 1971, giving the lie to the Government’s claim that UK gas has lower emissions.

Secondly, I support amendments 19 and 20, tabled by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), to amend the carbon intensity test and to include all gas, not just LNG. Given that we import most of our gas through a pipeline, it is utterly ridiculous to compare UK production with LNG that is vastly more polluting.

[Barry Gardiner]

There has been much debate today about the alternative of LNG from Qatar, but there has been a failure to take into account whether our being more dependent on LNG from Qatar would in any way change what Qatar does about its own production. It has been recorded that Qatar will increase its production by 67% by 2027, which means that that energy will be produced and will have certain emissions. At the end of the process, we might have produced something with fewer carbon emissions, but it would be better not to produce them at all.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Member makes a characteristically wise and useful point. That figure of 67% is startling and deeply worrying.

Thirdly, I support amendments 22 and 24, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle)—I hope I can call him an hon. Friend—setting out a home energy efficiency test. As we all know by now, that is the most effective way of delivering real energy security for households that are struggling so much to pay their bills.

Fourthly, I support amendments 23 and 25, again tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown, requiring the UK to have made arrangements to withdraw from the energy charter treaty before new licences can be awarded. It is totally unacceptable that the Government are mandating annual licensing rounds without having withdrawn from a treaty that allows companies to sue for lost profits. The Government previously committed to reviewing the UK’s membership of the ECT, including consideration of withdrawal from the treaty if proposed modernisation reforms were not agreed at November’s energy charter conference. As I understand it, those proposals were not even discussed at the conference, so may I ask the Minister, when he sums up, to say what is holding up their withdrawing from that treaty, given that they acknowledge that

“there is now no clear route for modernisation to progress.”

Finally, last week it was reported that British Gas profits soared tenfold last year following the changes Ofgem had made to the price cap. In the same week Government figures showed that almost 9 million households—well over a third—spent more than 10% of their income after housing costs on domestic energy bills, and it was also revealed that not a single new proposal for public onshore wind was made in England last year despite the Government’s policy changes. Those three examples are all from just one single week; this week and next week there will be more, and together they demonstrate the utter failure of this Government to make decisions that would benefit people and planet and to unleash our abundant renewables, massively upscale energy efficiency installations and work to get us off expensive and volatile gas altogether. Instead, each week we see yet more evidence that this tired and divisive Government are prioritising increasingly desperate attempts to save their own skin over measures that would improve all our lives by ensuring that everyone has a warm and comfortable home to live in, communities have been supported to make the most of the green transition and our one precious and infinitely fragile planet is finally restored.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

I rise to speak to amendment 15 tabled on behalf of the Alba party.

The choice we face is not between shutting down North sea oil and gas and carrying on regardless but how to make its continued exploitation compatible with the environmental challenges and to acknowledge the role that oil can and will play in a sustainable future for the planet. I do not disagree with the four broad objectives of the UK Government proposals, and amendment 15 would strengthen those ambitions on energy independence, safeguarding domestic energy supplies, energy security, reducing higher emission imports, protecting domestic oil and gas industry jobs and working towards our net zero target in a pragmatic, proportionate and realistic way. But I am not convinced that the Bill—and certainly Government policy as it is currently being delivered—will meet those ambitions.

If the provisions are to be truly applied to all parts of the UK as the Government state, then Scotland, the source of oil and gas and whose waters contain the lion’s share of carbon storage sites, cannot be left out of the action. Depleting Scotland’s industrial capacity has increasingly been the direction of travel from this Government in recent years and this strategy will not strengthen the Union as they claim they wish to do. They should be aware that eroding our industry and jobs will further drive up support for independence. They should also be aware that 74% of the Scottish population support domestic oil and gas exploitation and 54% of the Scottish public support new licences being granted for that purpose. Our amendment is without question helpful to all those ambitions, and indeed others, and should be supported by all sides. Its proposals are pragmatic, realistic, responsible and, most importantly, fair.

The infrastructure in Scotland is already in place to meet these objectives. In the north-east we have St Fergus and the Acorn project, in my Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency we have at Mossmoran one of Europe’s four cracker plants alongside an LNG plant operated by Exxon and Shell, and at Grangemouth we have one of the UK’s current oil refineries. I reference the points made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) with regard to the environmental impact of exporting oil and gas abroad, which should dissuade the Government from even considering closing the refinery at Grangemouth. All those operations have interconnecting pipelines that are bi-directional, so the infrastructure is all there and it is completely feasible to transport carbon from Grangemouth and Mossmorran north to St Fergus for offshore storage.

From my discussions with the operators in my constituency, I know their carbon reduction teams have been willing and ready to look at the opportunities since I was elected. Exxon has recently made a multi-million-pound investment in Mossmorran, securing its future. That is particularly relevant to some earlier comments on amendment 12 with regard to flaring. That was a persistent problem at Mossmorran where we had an elevated flare that caused light, noise, vibration and pollution, not to mention the environmental impact of the flaring. That investment has reduced flaring significantly, and all plants should seriously consider that to reduce the impact on the communities and the environment around them. That investment from Exxon is well in excess of the modest amount that is required to keep Grangemouth going; it is a multimillion-pound investment and significantly more than what is required to keep the refinery operating at Grangemouth.

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is hard to know what more can be said about this farcical and unnecessary Bill. It feels as if we are running out of adjectives. Taking part in this debate, listening to the ridiculous heckles from the Government Front Bench, almost legitimises this desperate and dangerous attempt to create yet another culture war out of something as serious as the climate emergency, but I put on record my deep disappointment that the Government are playing such dangerous games.

Ever since the Climate Change Act 2008 was first introduced, there has more or less been a consensus of a kind, with a recognition on both sides of the House that the climate crisis was real and that we needed to act fast to address it. Of course, there were differences on some of the detail, but not on that substantial issue. Now, however, it feels as if we have a Government who are putting all that at risk and that the legislation is all of a piece with Ministers rolling back pledges on home insulation, the boiler replacement scheme, electric vehicles and so on—the ludicrous list we had from the Prime Minister about all sorts of things he was going to scrap that were never Government policy in the first place.

I will add one further argument to those we have heard over the past few hours: projects such as Rosebank will not enhance our security, not just because the oil is mainly exported, but because public opposition to such projects and their unlawfulness mean that developments are subject to lengthy legal battles. That is a very real risk. Would it therefore not be better to accelerate the roll-out of cleaner energy, which is much more popular with the public, and not give, in this case, Rosebank’s owner Equinor nearly £3 billion in tax breaks? Lawfulness is particularly topical today, with a law case going on right now about whether the Government are meeting their climate objectives and whether the reports they have produced contain enough policy detail to persuade the population that we are on track to meet our climate targets. That also demonstrates, frankly, that the boosterism we have heard from the Minister is entirely misplaced. Complacency does not address the climate crisis or the fact that while the UK once had a leadership position on climate, it has one no longer.

When I listen to some of the voices on the Conservative Benches, I sometimes feel as if this place is on another planet from the one that is overheating. It is undeniable that we are living through what many are calling the sixth mass extinction. We are living through a risk of earth’s systems collapse. Scientists are running out of words to describe the seriousness and to try to wake up policymakers to exactly what is at stake. We have just heard that there is a risk of a total loss of late summer sea ice in the Arctic. That is now baked in and could happen as early as the 2030s. That, in turn, is likely to trigger even more extreme weather events in the northern hemisphere, through the weakening of the jet stream. In the Antarctic, melting of the sea ice has accelerated dramatically, which could lead to cascading collapses of the fresh water ice shelves, with catastrophic results for rises in global sea levels. New research in the Amazon has found what scientists call precursor signals of an approaching critical transition. Deforestation and climate breakdown could now cut off circulating rainfall in the basin, triggering a rapid flip from rainforest to savannah. This is what we are talking about here. Future generations will look back to this time—they may even look back, who knows, to this debate—and wonder what on earth we were thinking by giving a green light to more oil and gas licences.

When we ask ourselves why that is happening, we might also reflect on the role of the fossil fuel lobbyists. A few weeks ago, when I held an Adjournment debate on the subject of the fossil fuel lobbying that goes on in this place, I noted that Offshore Energies UK and its members, including BP and Shell, had

“met UK Government Ministers more than 210 times in the year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—that is nearly once every working day.”—[Official Report, 30 January 2024; Vol. 744, c. 833.]

The combined profits of Shell and BP alone have reached £75 billion, and I would suggest that that is not unrelated to the direction of the Government’s discussion today.

Let me end by quoting from a letter from more than 700 UK scientists who wrote to the Prime Minister last year urging him to halt the licensing of new oil and gas. They included Chris Rapley, a former head of the Science Museum and a professor at University College London, and Mark Maslin, a world-famous professor of earth system science at UCL, and they all warned against any new development of oil and gas. They wrote:

“if the UK allows any new development of oil and gas fields, it will severely undermine…claims of leadership by contributing to further oversupply of fossil fuels, and making it more difficult for the world to limit warming to 1.5°C. Therefore, the UK should commit to preventing any new oil and gas field development, and the Government should state this commitment clearly… There are those who might claim that stopping new developments of oil and gas fields would raise concerns about the affordability and security of future energy supplies, but there is now overwhelming evidence that the UK is far better served by a rapid transition to domestic clean energy sources, particularly renewables, and decarbonisation of our economy. Doubling down on fossil fuels will not lower energy bills or enhance our energy security… The IPCC report stated: ‘The choices and actions implemented in this decade’”—

now, at a time when we are all in decision-making positions—

“will have impacts now and for thousands of years’.”

The moment for political leadership is here and now, and I beg Ministers to rise to the occasion.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

There are about 18 minutes left. I call Wera Hobhouse.

Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. Not only is it better for energy security, but gas that we bring in from abroad in the form of liquefied natural gas has emissions four times higher, so if Members care about the environment, they should back this Bill.

Domestic oil and gas production adds about £16 billion to the UK economy annually and brings in tens of billions of pounds in tax revenue. To give an example of how that has helped support families with the cost of living, we raised £9 billion in tax revenue last year from the oil and gas sector. That is money that we can use to support families, as we did last winter, paying half the average family’s energy bill, which amounted to roughly £1,500 per household. If we had no oil and gas sector, £9 billion more would have fallen on taxpayers’ shoulders. Why should we concede that tax revenue to other countries? What possible benefit could the British public feel from billions of pounds in tax revenue that could be raised here being sent abroad, all to import fuel with higher emissions?

I now turn to perhaps the most important reason to back this Bill: the workers. There are 200,000 people supported by the sector, in communities such as those in Aberdeen, Grimsby and the north-east of England, and including 93,000 people in Scotland, over 10,000 people in Yorkshire and the Humber, and 14,000 people in the north-west.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The right hon. Lady knows as well as I do that most of the gas we import comes from Norway, where gas production is half as polluting as it is in the UK, so let us not have all this nonsense about imports being so much higher in carbon intensity, because those from Norway certainly are not. Does she accept the fact that most of the emissions are produced when we consume the oil and gas, and therefore will she start looking at scope 3 emissions and not just the production emissions, which are not the greatest emissions in question?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but I think it fundamentally misunderstands the energy market. When we cannot get Norwegian gas and when we have made the most of all of our gas, what is the marginal gas that we use? It is LNG, which produces emissions four times higher than the gas we can produce here. If we produce less UK gas, we will need more LNG.

Coming back to what is a really critical part of the Bill—the workers—a recent report from Robert Gordon University found that a faster decline in our oil and gas sector, which the Opposition are proposing, could halve the workforce by 2030, leading to a significant loss of skills for the future energy sector. Those are the workers whose skills we will need for our future energy production. The same report found that over 90% of the UK’s oil and gas workforce have skills that are transferable to the offshore renewables sector. However, if we do not manage that transition correctly—everybody in the Chamber today agrees that we need to transition—we will lose those very important workers and their skills. It is the same people who are working on oil and gas rigs today who we will need on the offshore wind farms of tomorrow: our subsea installation engineers who lay cables, our technicians who remotely operate subsea vehicles, our divers, our project managers, and our engineering specialists servicing our offshore rigs. Those are all essential oil and gas jobs that we know will be critical in the roll-out of our low-carbon technologies. If we do not protect our world-leading specialists, we will see communities decimated, and ultimately a skills exodus that would put at risk the very transition that we are working so hard to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Ross]

My evidence is very clear; in fact, it is the hon. Gentleman’s own words. When he cannot even tell this House or his constituents about the SNP’s position on the presumption of new oil and gas licences, that is an answer in itself—not a moot point. The SNP clearly does not support it, and he cannot quite find the words to say it yet. That is the SNP position because it is in office with the Greens in Holyrood, and they are increasingly abandoning the north-east oil and gas sector and the jobs that rely on it. As I say, that is viewed extremely dimly not just in the north-east but right across Scotland.

[Caroline Lucas]

Nobody is talking about turning off oil and gas taps overnight—nobody; not even Just Stop Oil—so will the hon. Gentleman cut the amount of rubbish coming out of his mouth? He is criticising people who are not here in any numbers to be able to defend themselves. Why does he not focus on his own record rather than attacking others in such an erroneous way?

[Douglas Ross]

It is not erroneous, because we know that the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, Patrick Harvie, has said that he would like to stop oil and gas exploration overnight. That is the Green position: they do not want oil and gas to come out of the North sea, and that will affect jobs there right now. That is the point that I, and indeed other hon. Members, have been making.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Douglas Ross]

I have already given way to the hon. Lady, and I can see that she has copious notes in her hand, so she will be contributing to the debate. I have already taken some time, so I will continue my speech.

The SNP will put those jobs on the scrapheap and turn its back on the north-east of Scotland. Yet, at the same time, Humza Yousaf is telling the people of Scotland that oil and gas revenues will pay for an independent Scotland. The SNP does not want to take the oil and gas out, but it wants to get the benefits to pay for failing public services in Scotland, which it has let down during its 17 years in power. Of course, Labour and Scottish Labour are also opposed to the Bill. Frankly, it is quite derisory that MSPs and the Scottish Labour party will not stand up for the north-east of Scotland and will allow those jobs, skills and the expertise gained over decades to be lost. The stark reality is that the Opposition parties are putting tens of thousands of Scottish jobs at risk, and putting the UK’s energy security in jeopardy when we need it most.

When illiberal, violent regimes such as Putin’s Russia are using energy resources as a means of funding their destructive wars, we cannot close our eyes and ears and pretend it is not happening. The UK will still have a demand for oil and gas products—and not just in energy but, as we have heard, in plastics and medicines, to name just a few. That demand will not go away in an instant; many of the homes that rely on those products and heating will require them for many years to come. Why should we not try to deliver on as much of that demand as we can through domestic production? Importing our energy will only increase emissions further and help those intent on manipulating energy markets for malign purposes.

I urge Members to support the Bill. Let us secure the UK’s energy future and deal a blow to the regimes that are intent on using energy as a weapon. Let us protect our economy and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Scottish and British families across the country. Let us choose common sense—a practical transition to net zero—not naivety and wishful thinking. Let the Labour and SNP Members present explain in their speeches why they will join together to try to vote down the Bill and the opportunities that oil and gas will continue to bring Scotland and the UK for decades to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

We are no strangers to hyperbole in this Chamber, but I think the exaggeration of the importance of this Bill in the debate has surprised even Government Members. To hear Opposition Members, we would think that the Government have made a bold announcement to reject their policies on climate change, to deny the science and to minimise the impact of climate change, and to say that we are no longer committed to decarbonising by 2050. None of that is even remotely true.

Nothing has changed in relation to the Government’s policy on climate change, and decarbonisation in particular. In fact, the Prime Minister recently reaffirmed that. The United Kingdom recently passed the substantial marker of being the first of any major economy to more than halve its emissions. That is a huge milestone, and that is the kind of climate leadership that is important; not making virtue-signalling announcements in this Chamber or elsewhere. Countries around the world look at us because of what we do, and we are decarbonising and leading by example.

I will take no lessons from the Labour party. I looked this up during the debate: in 2010, on Labour’s watch, the economy emitted 495.8 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent; now it is 320 million tonnes and declining. That is as a result of Conservative policies in action, where we accept the science on climate change but take positive actions on the really important thing: it is the amount of oil and carbon we use that is important, not where it comes from.

The Conservative record is incredibly strong, but we still recognise, as does the Climate Change Committee, that we need oil and gas as part of our long-term future. Currently, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) pointed out, about 75% of our energy comes from hydrocarbons—oil and gas. That is reducing, but it is on a trajectory to get to about 25% even in 2050 and beyond.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Member is taking the Climate Change Committee’s name in vain. It does not say that we need new oil and gas. It says categorically that new explorations of oil and gas are not compatible with our net zero obligations. I do not understand why he is claiming something that is different from what the committee says. He compared emissions under a Labour Government with those under a Tory Government. I am no apologist for the Labour Government, but I wonder whether he put consumption emissions into those calculations. Did he work out whether emissions have gone down in the UK because we have outsourced even more of our manufacturing to countries on the other side of the world?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. The Climate Change Committee gives us the science, and the political decisions are taken in this House. We are not talking about an increase in exploration; we are talking about a managed reduction of 7% per annum.

Moving on, the question is not whether we have oil or gas, yes or no. We need oil and gas, certainly for the transition period between 2024 and 2050, and even beyond—according to the Climate Change Committee, around 25% of our energy will still come from oil and gas. The question is: where should that oil and gas come from? If we need to supply this economy with oil and gas, it is my belief that we should use UK oil and gas, and there are reasons for that. The first is that the industry employs 200,000 people. I would prefer that employment to remain in the UK economy, rather than export it to Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia or other oil and gas producing countries. That is a reasonable position, given that our consumption is required for the future.

The second reason is geopolitical. We need an alternative to Russian gas, and not just in this country. I accept the point made earlier by Opposition Members: that oil and gas is a global market, and that 80% of North sea oil is exported to Europe. But emissions are global and so are the geopolitics. It is right, and in our strategic interest, that Europe should have a viable alternative to Russia for the supply of hydrocarbons. We have seen in the last two years the awful consequences of an overreliance on the Russian supply of hydrocarbons, and more so in Europe—Germany, in particular—than in the United Kingdom. We have become a net exporter of gas to mainland Europe—a little from the North sea, but a lot from Milford Haven. Qatari liquid natural gas is imported into our country and transported by the connectors to mainland Europe. The Europeans are sucking up very polluting liquid natural gas because they do not have a viable, cleaner alternative, which North sea gas would provide.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome). It was slightly less of a pleasure to listen to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson); I want to say a few words about the case that he made. It reaches new depths to suggest that the poorest people in the country will somehow be better off if we continue exploiting more oil and gas when clearly new and existing oil and gas are so expensive. He cited a comment by Siemens about the expensiveness of renewables, but that is precisely because they are linked to the price of gas. That is why we need to reform the totally out of date electricity and gas system that we have in this country.

It tells us all we need to know about this cynical and failing Government that the legislation they chose to debate first in 2024 was a Bill to mandate the annual licensing of oil and gas products in the North sea; not legislation that rises to the immediate challenges that we face as a society—from the cost of living scandal, which sees families unable to meet their basic needs, to the planetary emergency rapidly unfolding before our eyes—but instead a Bill that is frankly no more than a political stunt at home, yet at the same time a very dangerous signal to other countries abroad of a UK doubling down on the fossil fuel economy.

The reality, as many have said, is that the Bill is entirely redundant, with even the North Sea Transition Authority expressing its “unanimous” view that it is not needed. As the Minister knows perfectly well, there have been annual licensing rounds for most of the past decade, driven by the frankly obscene duty to maximise the economic recovery of UK petroleum. Despite the hundreds of licences that have been issued in that time, a paltry 16 days’ worth of gas has been produced. As others have said, it has been estimated that, between now and 2050, new licences would provide the equivalent of just four days’ worth of gas each year, so it is hardly the energy security that we have been promised and that we have heard so much about from the Conservative Benches over the past three or four hours. Of course, any oil and gas, which is extracted, will be owned by companies and sold on the international market to the highest bidder—unless the Government, unbeknown to us, have in mind the renationalisation of energy, which would be a very interesting conversation to have, but when I last checked, that was not their policy.

This oil and gas in the North sea does not belong to the Government and it will not bring down bills. Let us not forget either that 80% of UK oil is currently exported, as was the equivalent of more than 60% of gross gas production last year.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. One such example is Gazprom International UK, which continued to produce gas from the North sea last year. This subsidiary company paid a €1.7 million dividend in June 2023. Does she not think it hypocritical of this Conservative Government to talk about this Bill in terms of national security, while, simultaneously, allowing a Russian energy giant to extract gas from the North sea and pay taxes in Moscow?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Member for his point and it is incredibly well made. I shall say a little more on that subject very shortly.

Essentially, this Bill is nothing more than reckless political theatre. It is nothing more than a cynical attempt to stoke yet more division and weaponise much-needed climate action in some misguided sense that, somehow, this will save the Prime Minister’s skin.

While the Bill serves at home to highlight the impotence of the Government, sadly its international impact is far-reaching. Despite the Prime Minister’s fairly evidence-free claim at COP28 that the UK is leading by example, the reality is that creating a climate culture war, scrapping vital policies and issuing new fossil fuel licences is the very opposite of climate leadership. The Bill sends a dangerous signal and undermines global efforts to address the climate emergency by hampering diplomacy and legitimising extraction in other countries. As Lord Deben, former chair of the Climate Change Committee, said:

“How can we ask other nations not to expand the fossil fuel production if we start doing it ourselves?”

It is frankly a scandal that the UK is among just five countries in the global north that are responsible for more than half the planned expansion of new oil and gas fields up to 2050.

While Ministers like to claim that, even with continued licensing, production from the UK continental shelf is projected to decline at 7% annually, what matters is not whether we are producing less relative to some previous time but whether the oil and gas that we are producing now is compatible with our climate goals. Clearly it is not, with the UN production gap report warning that Governments already plan to produce far more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting heating to 1.5°. The Government’s defence of the Bill, and of the continued licensing of more oil and gas in the North sea as a whole, implies that somehow the UK operates in a vacuum, and domestic decisions have no bearing on our ability to meet our international climate targets. That clearly is not the case. It is no surprise, then, that Professor Piers Forster, the interim chair of the Climate Change Committee, has said:

“UK oil and gas consumption needs to fall by over 80% to meet UK targets. This and Cop decision makes further licensing inconsistent with climate goals.”

When talking about inconsistency with our climate goals, we could also talk about hypocrisy. Since a climate emergency was declared in this very Chamber in 2019, no fewer than 17 new fields have been approved: Laverda, Barnacle, Cadet, Sillimanite, Blythe, Elgood, Southwark, Evelyn, Abigail, Jackdaw, Tommeliten, Talbot, Teal West, Murlach, Alwyn East, Rosebank, and most recently Victory. Mentioning Rosebank gives me an opportunity to come back to an issue that has been touched on a few times tonight: the scale of fossil fuel subsidies. We have heard a load of guff from Conservative Members about the importance of tax revenues from oil and gas, yet look at the amount of money we are giving to the oil and gas industry. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) spoke about tax revenues going to Russia. We could also point out that the UK taxpayer will hand over no less than the equivalent of £3.75 billion to Equinor to develop the Rosebank site, because of the massive loophole in the windfall tax that means that for every £100 invested, £91.40 can be claimed back. A bit of clarity on these issues would help.

Section 20 of the Environment Act 2021 requires that a statement be made on the front of the Bill saying whether it is in line with other environmental laws. The Secretary of State claims in her statement that

“the Bill will not have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection provided for by any existing environmental law.”

To me, that seems extraordinary because, even if one believed that the carbon intensity test would make a difference, the annual licensing rounds under the Bill could easily cancel out any predicted carbon savings and lead to an overall increase in emissions. I hope that she will tell us what modelling was undertaken to inform her section 20 statement.

Looking at its content more closely, the Bill proposes two so-called tests, which are set so ludicrously low they are impossible to fail. The first is the carbon intensity test, which is met if the carbon intensity of domestically produced gas is lower than that of imported liquefied natural gas. That test not only ignores the fact that more than half our gas imports come from Norway—via a pipeline, as we have established—where gas production is half as polluting as in the UK, but in only considering gas, it fails to take account of the fact that 70% of remaining North sea oil reserves are oil. In any case, comparing the carbon intensity at the point of production rather than combustion exaggerates the difference between different sources, given that the vast majority of emissions are produced when any oil or gas is burned. In other words, they are scope 3 emissions, which remain unaccounted for. The second test is the net importer test, which will be met if the amount of oil and gas produced in the UK is less than the UK’s demand for oil and gas. Surely that question would be much better addressed by reducing demand rather than producing more planet-heating oil and gas, yet the Government seem incapable of pursuing demand reduction in any meaningful way.

What should the Government do instead? If they were actually interested in cutting household bills and delivering energy security, they would be working to get us off expensive gas for good, rather than continuing to tether us to volatile international markets. The National Infrastructure Commission has been really clear:

“Reliance on fossil fuels means exposure to geopolitical shocks that impact the price of these internationally traded commodities.”

In its 2022 energy outlook report, the IEA reported that a higher share of renewables correlated with lower electricity prices in response to the energy crisis, with energy efficiency and heat electrification providing an important buffer for households. At a time when, as we have heard, 6 million families in the UK are living in fuel poverty this winter, we have to ask why the Government are doubling down on the very thing at the heart of the crisis.

The Government should instead be delivering a meaningful just transition that genuinely meets the needs of workers and communities, rather than temporarily propping up insecure jobs that we know will not exist in years to come. We have heard the rhetoric from Conservative Members pretending that those of us who want to accelerate a transition to a greener economy do not have people’s jobs in mind. That is totally untrue; it is precisely because we care about people’s jobs that we want them to have sustainable jobs into the future—good-quality, decent jobs—and are not pretending that draining resources in the North sea will somehow provide a sustainable livelihood in years to come.

There should be a massive scaling-up of renewables, and we should back cheap and abundant energy sources such as onshore wind, for which a grand total of zero applications have been submitted since planning rules were changed in September. There should be a nationwide, street-by-street energy efficiency programme to ensure that families have warm homes for the long term, rather than scrapping the upgrade in standards of private rented homes, which according to the Climate Change Committee could have saved tenants £250 a year, even at so-called normal prices let alone at a time when prices are spiralling. Again, what an indictment of the Government. Remember the green deal back in 2012? The Government set the interest rate so ridiculously high, as we all said at the time, that unsurprisingly the whole plan collapsed. Those homes were not insulated and plenty of energy companies, including in my constituency, went bust as a result. The Government are incompetent as well as totally ideologically driven.

The Government should be properly taxing the filthy profits of oil and gas companies rather than foisting the cost of new developments on to the taxpayer, and they should urgently withdraw from the dangerous energy charter treaty, which—it beggars belief—allows us to be sued by fossil fuel companies. A fairer and greener energy system is entirely possible, but it requires both imagination and investment—two qualities that I do not associate with the Government. The legislation makes it painfully clear that the Government are wilfully ignoring the lessons of both the climate and the energy crises, and are once again privileging their own interests above the wellbeing of people and planet. The Bill sends exactly the wrong signal at the wrong time, and actively undermines global efforts to address the climate emergency by hampering diplomacy and giving the green light to further extraction right around the world. It is not what leadership looks like, it is not what this moment demands, and all our constituents deserve better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight the benefits and attractions of South Ribble, and indeed the wider UK economy. It is not just that the areas that have those services will attract business within the United Kingdom: by rewiring and leading the world in delivering a low-cost, low-carbon energy system, we can attract more investment from abroad and have a renaissance, not least in the north of England but also in Wales and Scotland—all around the country. That is a result of the net zero policies that, uniquely, this country is managing to lead the world on following so many years of Labour failure.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Minister will know that the Climate Change Committee has a key role in advising the Government on their path to net zero, but he will also know that 18 months on from the resignation of Lord Deben as chair of that committee, the Government still have not announced a replacement, despite 60 applications for the role having been submitted and several people already having been interviewed. Are the Government scared of having their record scrutinised, or are they simply determined to destroy any last shred of the UK’s climate leadership? Will the Minister tell us now when the selection will be announced?

[Graham Stuart]

Given the hon. Lady’s lifelong passion for this subject, I find it extraordinary that she never, ever recognises the unique achievement of this country in halving emissions. I would have thought she would celebrate that. As the hon. Lady will know, the Climate Change Committee’s chair is not just a matter for the UK Government. The appointment of the chair of that committee has to be agreed by the devolved Administrations as well, and we are moving as quickly as we can.

COP28

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero if she will provide an update on the UK Government’s commitments in relation to COP28.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)]

I am glad to come to the House to discuss this important subject today. The upcoming COP hosted by the United Arab Emirates is an important moment in the climate crisis. Amid record temperatures and emissions, the first comprehensive stocktake of progress against the Paris agreement at COP28 will show that the world is badly off-track. We have made significant progress through the Paris agreement, with temperature projections shifting from 4°C before Paris to between 2.4°C and 2.7°C after Glasgow through nationally determined contribution commitments, but we know that that is not enough.

In Glasgow, we cemented the goal of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5°C as our north star. That has been carried forward by the UAE presidency. The latest science and the impacts we are seeing, even at 1.1°C, show us why. A top priority for the United Kingdom is to leave COP28 with a clear road map towards keeping 1.5°C in reach from the global stocktake. The UK heads to COP28 with a record at home and internationally that we can be proud of. The Prime Minister recently affirmed our commitment to net zero and set out our new approach to get there. At home, we have decarbonised faster than any other major economy—by 48% since 1990. Looking forward, our 2030 target requires the largest reduction in emissions of any major economy.

Two years on from Glasgow, the need to accelerate action is more urgent than ever. The world needs to decarbonise more than five times faster than we have done in the last two decades. At COP28, we want to see progress against five areas: ambitious new commitments and action, including a pathway to keep 1.5°C within reach from the global stocktake; scaling up clean energy through commitments to triple renewables, double energy efficiency and move beyond fossil fuels; progress on finance reform, delivering $100 billion for developing economies; building resilience to climate impacts, including by doubling adaptation finance and establishing a loss and damage fund; and, finally, progress on restoring nature. Action to deliver net zero is not just a matter of doing the right thing by avoiding harm; it is crucial to our security and prosperity here in the UK now and in the future.

The global net zero transition could be worth £1 trillion to UK businesses between 2021 and 2030. UK businesses are in the vanguard in recognising the opportunity. More than two thirds of FTSE 100 companies, and thousands of small businesses, have pledged to reduce their emissions in line with the 1.5°C goal under the Race to Zero campaign. More than half the signatories to that campaign are from the United Kingdom. Net zero is already an engine for growth and revitalisation of formerly deindustrialised areas in the United Kingdom. At COP28 we need to show progress in delivering the historic agreement that we landed in Glasgow, and we must use our UK expertise to scale green finance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the Minister for her response. COP28 will be the most consequential climate summit since COP21 in Paris, yet we are way off track. The UN’s recent emissions gap report warns that current pledges under the Paris agreement would see temperature rises of between 2.5°C and 2.9°C this century. Ministers are fond of saying that the UK has the most ambitious nationally determined contribution for 2030 of any major economy, yet the Minister will also be aware of the Climate Change Committee’s recent assessment that

“the UK is unlikely to meet its NDC”.

That is not least because the committee calculates that just 28% of the required emission reductions for 2030 are covered by credible Government plans. She will know that targets without plans are cheap. What concrete plans do the Government have to urgently close that gap? Does she agree that we must see an ambitious outcome from the global stocktake, with significantly strengthened 2030 NDCs and new economy-wide targets by 2025 that see the richest countries going further and faster?

Does the Minister share my outrage over reports that the UAE plans to use its role as COP28 president to secure oil and gas deals? What assessment has she made of the impact of that on trust in the negotiations? Will she explain why the UK is pushing for the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels, rather than of fossil fuels in their entirety? Does she recognise the view of the High Ambition Coalition, which says that we cannot use abatement technologies to “green-light” fossil fuel expansion? How will she ensure that any agreement that includes language on abatement has real teeth, delivers real cuts in fossil fuel production, and does not simply allow for the continuation of business as usual?

The Minister will know that a properly resourced and operational loss and damage finance fund must be a litmus test for success at COP28, but there are reports that the Government will be contributing to that fund from their existing climate finance pot. Does she agree that we cannot tackle ever-increasing challenges from an ever-depleting pot of money? What plans do the Government have for new and additional finance? What innovative sources of finance are they looking at? What assessment have they made of the impact of the UK’s reclassification of climate finance on climate vulnerable countries? If the Government are serious about leading by example, will they finally reverse the greenlighting of the obscene Rosebank oilfield?

[Amanda Solloway]

I reiterate that the Government take this issue incredibly seriously, and there are two ways of demonstrating that: the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who usually deals with such issues, is at COP28 and ready for the conference; and we now have a distinct Department for this issue, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. We know that we are leaders in the field. I take this issue seriously, not just for the people of the United Kingdom, but for the planet as a whole. Thinking about my granddaughter, we really do have a commitment to ensuring that we are doing everything that we can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

There were no answers!

[Mr Speaker]

Please. The Minister will answer as she sees fit. I am sure that at the end you will want to raise a point of order. That is the time—you cannot have a second bite of the cherry. I went out of my way to ensure that this issue was covered, so please—I am sure other Members will ask questions, and it is up to the Minister how she answers them. I am not responsible for that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

As my right hon. Friend knows, the ESO has conducted an investigation into Bradwell and its suitability, but I am happy to meet her again to discuss Bradwell, the location of future projects, and how we might work together to ensure that her constituents see the benefits of any future energy infrastructure built in that part of the country.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It now seems clear that the funds that the Government plan to commit to loss and damage at COP28 will come from the UK’s existing climate finance commitments. We cannot tackle the climate crisis by robbing Peter to pay Paul. Given that a properly resourced and operational loss and damage finance fund has to be a litmus test of success, will the Minister commit to looking at new and additional forms of funding, including a permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel companies and a tax on high-emission travel, to deliver new finance and make polluters pay?

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight loss and damage as we approach COP28. We were pleased to play our part on the transitional committee in getting a recommendation to COP, and we look forward to its being operationalised in the near future. I agree with her that, if we are to get the scale of finance that is required, particularly for the most vulnerable countries at the front end, we need to look at innovative ways of adding to that finance.

Making Britain a Clean Energy Superpower

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I will make some progress.

Oil and gas is an industry that supports 200,000 jobs and is expected to provide £50 billion of tax revenue in the next five years. That is the people and the money that the Labour party would send abroad, because it is not against oil and gas jobs, just against British oil and gas jobs—and for what? To increase our reliance on imports from foreign regimes with higher emissions and to send away billions of pounds of investment in carbon capture and hydrogen schemes. Opposition Members support those technologies but would rather the taxpayer footed the bill for them.

With our ambitions on net zero and for our energy security, it is critical that we make the most of our own home-grown advantages, but Labour and the SNP’s policy means jobs abroad, investment lost and energy security sabotaged. You do not have to take my word for it, Madam Deputy Speaker—the unions are sounding the alarm. It has been said that Labour “does not… understand energy”, is self-harming and “naive”, and that its policies would leave our oil and gas communities decimated, turning our oil and gas workers into the “coalminers of our generation”. Those are not my words but those of the GMB and Unite. We want to keep jobs and manufacturing here, but Labour has not understood that we needs natural gas supplies. Those are the words of industry. The important truth is that we know we need to transition to clean energy, but it is the same people, communities and expertise that will unlock the green transition. The skills of those working on oil and gas rigs today are the same skills that we will need for the offshore wind jobs of tomorrow.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am losing track of the number of times I have pointed out in this Chamber that just because we extract oil and gas from the North sea does not mean that it gets used here. It gets sold on global markets to the highest bidders, as we have said 100 times.

When it comes to annual licensing rounds, which the Secretary of State is flagging up, is it not the case that the North Sea Transition Authority was already licensing in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019? It only stopped because of the climate compatibility checkpoint. The tests that she sets out are not worth the paper that they are written on; she knows as well as we do that they are impossible not to meet, because they are set so low. Will she stop pretending that the Bill is serious, and just admit that it is nothing more than a gimmick?

[Claire Coutinho]

It is not a gimmick to protect 200,000 jobs. It is not a gimmick to protect the investment that will go into the cleaner energies of the future. On the hon. Lady’s first point, 50% for the gas supply that we use here comes from domestic production.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

It was my honour to attend the state opening of Parliament this week, representing the people of Banff and Buchan, particularly on this occasion of the first King’s Speech in over 70 years. I join others across the House in thanking His Majesty King Charles III for delivering the Gracious Speech.

In general terms, the King’s Speech shows that this Government are making the necessary long-term decisions to get this country on the right path for the future. One of the criticisms I am sure we all receive across the House is that politicians often focus too much on short-term outcomes, so this long-term approach is to be welcomed. This bright future will be delivered by growing the economy, strengthening society, keeping people safe and promoting our national interests.

The topic of today’s debate is making Britain a clean energy superpower, and it is on growing the economy and particularly the subject of energy security that I would like to focus. That will come as no surprise to most people in this House, as I have spoken at length in this place on the combined subjects of energy security and net zero even before that became the name of the Department headed by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). The main thrust of my contributions has been, I believe, to reinforce the critical role played by oil and gas companies; their workers with their skills and expertise; the technology, supply chains and service companies; and, yes, the capital that those companies bring in making this country’s energy transition a success. I recognise that this appears counterintuitive to some across the House, but delivering on our energy security objectives and on our energy transition objectives are not mutually exclusive goals.

I therefore welcome the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill that was introduced this week. While this country continues to scale up our domestic, renewable and low-carbon sources of energy, data from the Climate Change Committee tells us that we are currently 75% dependent on oil and gas for our energy needs. As the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband)—who is no longer in his place—mentioned earlier, that figure is not just for electricity generation, but includes transportation and heat. It was the Climate Change Committee that pushed for the very ambitious target of the UK getting to net zero emissions by 2050. That target was put into law by this Conservative Government—in fact, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore)—making the UK the first major economy anywhere in the world to do so.

That data from the Climate Change Committee also tells us that by 2050, when we reach net zero, this country is predicted to still be at least 20% dependent on oil and gas. As has already been established, we have decarbonised faster than any other G7 country compared with 1990 levels: we have reduced emissions by almost 50%, with a target to reach a 68% reduction by 2030. We have almost completely transitioned away from coal, which provided 70% of our power generation in 1990 but provides less than 2% today, and the deadline for zero unabated coal power has been brought forward to 2024—just next year.

However, we have some way to go if we are to get to net zero. I make no apologies for saying this: we absolutely must continue to develop and install more and more renewable, low-carbon and sustainable sources of energy to generate the electricity and provide the heat and transport that our economy needs. We will continue to deliver more wind, solar, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and other technologies to actively reduce the demand for oil and gas. We have come a long way, but we are not there yet. We need to get from where we are today to where we need to be in the future through the energy transition that we have already embarked upon—an transition that the oil and gas industry has been embarked upon for decades.

To give an example, we need look no further than Peterhead power station in my constituency. That power station came onstream in 1980, and is today the only dispatchable thermal power station north of Leeds. Originally designed to run on fuel oil, which already made it cleaner than coal-powered stations elsewhere in the country, it was operating fully on natural gas by the 1990s. In the 2000s, combined cycle gas turbine technology was installed, which made the station even more efficient. It is now towards the end of its life, and a new power station is planned to be built at the same site. With roughly two thirds of the capacity of the current power station, but linked to the Acorn carbon capture project at the nearby St Fergus terminal just up the coast, that new facility will generate power that is at least 95% emission-free. As many in the House will know, Acorn forms part of the Scottish CCS cluster, which will help decarbonise industrial processes at the Mossmorran liquefied natural gas plant in Fife and the petrochemical complex at Grangemouth in the central belt, among others.

As I have said, the energy transition is already happening, not just within the hydrocarbon production industry but by utilising the skills, technology and supply chains of that industry. I welcome this Government’s recognition of the vital role that oil and gas companies, and their more than 200,000 workers across the UK, will have to play in that energy transition.

The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill will require the North Sea Transition Authority to run an annual process inviting applications for new production licences in the UK continental shelf. A licensing round would take place only if the UK was projected to import more oil and gas from abroad than it produces domestically—that is, to continue being a net importer. The carbon emissions linked to UK gas production would also need to be lower than the equivalent emissions from imported liquefied natural gas. Those two tests are already included in the Government’s climate tests for new licences, known as the climate compatibility checkpoint. The Bill would make the tests legally binding.

I have heard some Members say, including today—in fact, I think it is the official Opposition’s policy, or at least it has been their policy—that not only should we not award any new production licences, but we should simply keep producing from the wells we have. That shows a staggering lack of understanding of how oil and gas reservoirs work. According to Offshore Energies UK, the trade body for the offshore energies industry,

“There are currently 284 active oil and gas fields in the North Sea and by 2030 around 180 of those will have ceased production due to natural decline.”

OEUK has warned that without fresh investment, by 2030 the UK will be reliant on oil and gas imports not for 50% of its needs, as it is today, but for 80%. As I have said, more than 200,000 jobs depend on the continuity of North sea energy companies. That workforce has developed world-leading specialist skills since oil and gas production from the UKCS began in the 1970s. About 90% of those workers have skills that can be readily transferred to renewable energy production, and in the growing carbon capture, utilisation and storage sector that figure is probably closer to 100%.

To recap, why does the UK need more oil and gas licences? Data from the NSTA shows that the UK replaced only 3% of production with new reserves in 2022, meaning that only one new barrel was invested in for every 33 barrels produced today. The UK is expected to close production from 20 fields this year, while only two new fields will start producing, and for every oil and gas well drilled, around three are closed. Even with an increase in new wells, we will not be producing more oil and gas; even in the most optimistic projections, with new oil and gas, production is predicted to continue to decline by 7% a year. Let me repeat that: new oil and gas does not mean more oil and gas, but we do need to maximise the amount of oil and gas we get from the UKCS for as long as we need it. And need it we will —need it we do!

As I said earlier, as we grow our capacity for renewable, low-carbon and sustainable forms of energy, our demand for oil and gas is set to decline, from 75% today to 20% in 2050. As such, if we need oil and gas, it makes sense at the most basic level of understanding that we should produce it as locally as we can. The carbon footprint of importing liquified natural gas, for example, can be anything between two and five times that of domestically produced gas.

[Caroline Lucas]

What about Norway?

[David Duguid]

Norway is the two. Actually, it is broadly equivalent, but apart from Norway, any gas coming in from overseas has between two and five times the carbon footprint. New oil and gas capacity will reduce exposure to global instability—the kind of instability that we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine. This Bill means that we can reach net zero without unduly burdening families and businesses. Data from the North Sea Transition Authority and the Climate Change Committee tells us that if we produce as much oil and gas from the new wells as we can, that will still merely slow the decline in production. Even with an optimistic 7% year-on-year decline—I mean optimistic from a producer’s point of view—that decline is faster than the average global decline needed to align with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 1.5°C pathway.

Finally, if we follow the SNP’s presumption against new oil and gas or Labour’s Just Stop Oil approach and shut down this vital industry too soon, we will not see a massive transfer of workers to the renewables sector, as is predicted. We will not even see a bunch of unemployed oil and gas workers; we will see a massive exodus of those oil and gas workers, going where the oil and gas industry is being promoted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I would like to start by saying what I think we can all clearly see: that the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill announced in the Gracious Speech is no more than a cheap and divisive gimmick. It is nothing but a last-ditch attempt to boost the Prime Minister’s ailing poll ratings and simultaneously prop up the dying oil and gas industry. It is a deeply dangerous attempt at that, because undermining the hard-won climate consensus for short-term electoral point scoring is simply reckless and threatens the progress that all of us in this House have worked so hard to achieve.

In reality, the Bill will make no difference at all. It will require the North Sea Transition Authority to run an annual process of inviting applications for new production licences. However, as the Minister well knows, the NSTA was already holding annual licensing rounds—most recently in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. This was only paused in 2020 when it said that it would await the so-called climate compatibility checkpoint before opening further rounds. Now that the checkpoint is in operation, we can expect the NSTA to resume regular licensing rounds, not least because it has the obscene legal duty to “maximise economic recovery” of petroleum from the North sea.

Instead of adding more obsolete and outdated legislation to our statute book, the Government should be bringing our laws up to date and ensuring that they help, rather than hinder, our transition to a zero-carbon society, especially when this embarrassment of a Bill will do absolutely nothing, as so many hon. Members have said, to help those struggling households facing energy bills that are double what they were two years ago, with a staggering 6 million households in fuel poverty as we head into the winter. Indeed, it was the Secretary of State herself who let the cat out of the bag earlier this week by almost immediately contradicting the Prime Minister’s claim that new licences would help to reduce bills by admitting, as we have heard, that

“it wouldn’t necessarily bring energy bills down, that’s not what we’re saying.”

Even the Prime Minister’s closest allies cannot stand by his falsehoods, and it is no wonder. Despite the Prime Minister’s failed attempts to present this legislation as “benefiting families”, the truth is that the only people it will help are the fossil fuel companies that pocket the profits, because any oil and gas that is extracted will be owned by private companies and sold on the global markets to the highest bidder—I really do not understand what is so difficult about getting one’s head around that—and because

“more U.K. production wouldn’t reduce the global price of gas.”

Those are not my words, but those of Tory party chairman and former Energy Minister, the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands).

If the Government genuinely cared about reducing households’ costs, they would look to urgently decouple the price of electricity from expensive gas. If they genuinely cared about people’s bills, they would work to get off costly fossil fuels altogether, including by bringing forward a much-needed and long-delayed nationwide, street by street, local authority-led energy efficiency programme to upgrade the UK’s cold and leaky homes. If the consequences were not so dreadful, the Prime Minister’s claim that his party is saving British families money would be frankly laughable, because the Climate Change Committee itself has been crystal clear that the callous decision to scrap the upgrade to the minimum energy efficiency standards for private rented homes

“will lead to higher household energy bills”.

In fact, at current prices, tenants of upgraded homes would stand to save over £300 a year, and would still save about £250 at so-called normal prices. What we have is an energy affordability crisis, not an energy supply crisis, so the Government’s decision to double down on the very thing that is driving high energy bills is not just negligent, but positively absurd.

Let me turn to some of the Government’s other misrepresentations. It is exasperating that, despite being told time and again that new oil and gas extracted from the North sea will not improve the UK’s energy security, Ministers continue to rehearse the same old tired line, with the Prime Minister once again pointing to energy security in Tuesday’s debate. Let me remind the Minister again why new licences will not deliver on that goal. First, 70% of the remaining North sea reserves are oil, not gas, the majority of which will be put in tankers and exported overseas because it is not suitable for UK refineries. Secondly, the hundreds of licences that have been issued already in the 13 years under Conservative Governments have provided the UK with a grand total of 16 days’ worth of gas, half of which was exported to the Netherlands. Thirdly, the NSTA has itself confirmed that new licences would only make a difference to gas production “around the edges”, given the age and geology of the basin. As I have said, the best solution to volatile gas prices is to reduce our dependence on gas altogether, not to redouble it.

When the Prime Minister announced this Bill on Tuesday, he emphasised its importance in

“supporting hundreds of thousands of British jobs.”—[Official Report, 7 November 2023; Vol. 740, c. 20.]

I very much share his concern for workers in the North sea, but the reality is that, while the Government have awarded more than 400 new licences in the last decade, over 200,000 jobs have been lost in the sector over that same time period, because—I say it again—the North sea is a declining basin. So may I urge Ministers to stop playing politics, and instead get on with delivering a proper just transition for workers and communities, alongside unleashing our abundant renewables to create good, well-paid green jobs for the long term?

May I also draw Ministers’ attention to the words of Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, who recently said that those expanding oil and gas production could be

“taking very unhealthy, unwise economic and climate risks”.

While they may profess the economic benefits of new oil and gas, we should not ignore the risk of stranded assets, as Mr Birol suggests, which it is estimated could exceed $1 trillion globally, nor the Office for Budget Responsibility’s warning that continuing to rely on gas at our current levels could cost more than double the public investment required for the transition to net zero.

Finally, it was utterly bizarre to hear the Secretary of State say earlier this week and again today that the tax revenues from future oil and gas production, which may not materialise for decades, could be invested in renewables. Why not just invest in renewables in the first place, and do it now?

[Hon. Members]

We are!

[Caroline Lucas]

No, you are not. From a sedentary position, Ministers say, “We are”, but I would draw their attention to the last round for offshore wind. Tell us again how much that delivered? It was a big round zero —so let us be a little bit serious about this issue.

Moving to the specifics of the Bill, the Government’s proposed tests are simply not worth the paper they are written on. These tests are meant to ensure that a new licensing round supports the delivery of net zero, if indeed such a thing were possible with a new round. Let us look at the tests. The net importer test is supposed to ensure that the UK remains a net importer of both oil and gas, which clearly does not relate to the impact of oil and gas on our climate at all.

The carbon intensity test is to ensure that the average carbon intensity of domestic gas is lower than the average carbon intensity of imported liquefied natural gas. It is profoundly frustrating that the Government continue to point to LNG, the dirtiest form of gas imports, while ignoring the fact that more than half of our gas imports come via a pipeline from Norway, where gas production is half as polluting as in the UK. Worse, these tests ignore the fact that new oil and gas production can never be compatible with our climate targets.

The Climate Change Committee itself observed earlier this year:

“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero.”

Indeed, it went on to spell out:

“The UK will continue to need some oil and gas until it reaches Net Zero, but this does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields.”

I know the Minister may say that what they are proposing is not an expansion and that even with continued licensing, as we have heard, production from the UK continental shelf is projected to decline at 7% annually, while not proceeding with new licences increases reliance on imported LNG. Yet that thinking implies that this new production in the UK will replace expansion elsewhere, and we know that that is simply not the case.

However much the Government choose to ignore our climate reality, the truth is that there is already far more coal, oil and gas in existing developments than can be safely burnt if we, our children and our grandchildren are to have any hope of a liveable future. Indeed, I draw their attention the latest UN production gap report, which was published just yesterday. It revealed very plainly, as I say, that Governments already plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than will be consistent with limiting heating to 1.5°C.

I do wish the Government would end the misinformation that they continue to promulgate. Instead, would the Minister confirm if these tests will be replacing the climate compatibility checkpoint, which is marginally more robust despite abysmally failing to take account of scope 3 emissions—in other words, those produced when the oil and gas is actually burnt, rather than just the extraction emissions—and if so, will she admit that this is a further weakening of our climate commitments, and heed the advice of the Climate Change Committee and halt this legislation all together?

Will Ministers also stop Rosebank, which was cynically approved during conference recess, when there was no opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny? The project is no less than a climate crime and would leave the UK’s climate record in tatters. At nearly 500 million barrels of oil and gas, this development is enormous—triple the size of neighbouring Cambo. If its contents were to be burned, they would produce over 200 million tonnes of CO₂; that is more than the combined annual CO₂ emissions of all 28 low-income countries in the world, which together are home to 700 million people. That is not to mention the fact that the British public would carry almost all the costs of developing Rosebank, thanks to the Government’s generous subsidy regime, which would hand Equinor over £3 billion in tax breaks, all while Equinor pockets the profit. In what world could that ever be justified, let alone in the context of the climate and cost of living crises?

Let us remind ourselves that this Bill has nothing to do with protecting households, and everything to do with populism and division. It is just part of the Government’s cynical attempt to stoke yet another culture war by falsely pitting meeting our climate targets against the cost of living scandal, rather than taking steps to address the very real concerns that families up and down this country face. Instead, we have this pitiful Bill, which will do nothing to help anyone except the fossil fuel companies.

Why are the Government not delivering the future we know is possible by, for example, bringing in a green new deal Bill to kick start the transformation we need: a future in which everyone has a warm and comfortable home to live in and the scourge of fuel poverty is eliminated; a future where everyone has access to good green jobs and a proper just transition has been delivered for workers and communities; a future that is powered by cheap and clean renewables, rather than the fossil fuels which are driving the climate crisis; a future in which the Government have responded to the urgency of the climate and ecological emergency, as we know the public are crying out for them to do? It is entirely possible to deliver this future, yet what has been made painfully clear by this King’s Speech is that this Government are neither capable nor willing to do it. We are out of time for our country and our climate. We need a general election now.

Net Zero by 2050

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

My right hon. Friend is a huge champion of all environmental issues, and I look forward to speaking to her Committee in due course. It is really important that we have a just and fair transition—that is exactly what the proposals we have set out aim to do. She will know that tax matters are for the Chancellor but, again, I would be happy to speak to her further about those issues.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Honestly, this statement takes Orwellian doublespeak to new levels. It must have set some record for the largest number of misleading statements in the smallest amount of space. I do not know how the Secretary of State has the gall to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that this is about easing the burden on hard-working people, when she knows that all the evidence shows that what has been announced will increase costs for ordinary people.

For example, we have heard from the Climate Change Committee that the changes when it comes to landlords and efficiency standards in homes will cost renters an extra £300 a year. The Office for Budget Responsibility is clear that, as a result of the changes that are going to be made, our dependence on gas will cost us more. If the Government really cared about hard-working families, they would not be handing Equinor £3 billion to develop the climate-wrecking Rosebank oilfield; they would be admitting that what the Secretary of State is doing is ripping up the climate consensus for short-term electoral calculation and populist right-wing propaganda.

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question, but if she had any constituents living in properties off the gas grid, it would be clear to her how worried people were about those policies. We have given them this reprieve because we understand that putting in some of those technologies, such as heat pumps, would have cost them thousands of pounds—making sure that they had the right insulation in place, for example.

Turning to Equinor, far from us paying that company money, that is something that will pay tax into the Exchequer, unlocking green investment and allowing people in the wider sector to continue in 200,000 jobs across the economy. Those are jobs, people and communities that we will need in the transition to renewable energy, because they are the same people with the same skills that will be used. It would be right for the hon. Lady to talk to the people of those communities about this issue.