EU Referendum Rules

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Lilley

Monday 5th September 2016 Westminster Hall

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

I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) because he made some very powerful points.

The petition that we are discussing has more than 4 million signatures. To me at least, it is an understandable expression of pain and anger in response to a bitterly fought EU referendum campaign that has left this country, as the hon. Gentleman said, deeply divided. Pain and anger is certainly felt in my constituency of Brighton, Pavilion. It had one of the highest rates of people voting to remain—about 69%—and one of the highest numbers of people signing this petition: about 19,500 at the last count. But however much many of us might wish the outcome of the referendum had been different—I certainly do—and however much we might argue that the level of lies and misinformation during the campaign undermines the legitimacy of the outcome, I agree with those who have said clearly that trying to impose a retrospective threshold and in effect rerun the referendum is bad politics and worse democracy. Indeed, what better way would there be to reinforce the perception that the so-called metropolitan elites care nothing for those in more distant and perhaps disconnected communities than simply ignoring everything that they have said?

Instead, the anger and alienation felt by many who voted leave needs urgently to be addressed. For many, it was a howl of rage against exclusion and powerlessness. Their voices have to be heard, not just in the referendum but all year round. A crucial way to ensure that is to crack open the current political system, which encourages the main parties to listen almost exclusively to swing voters in marginal seats at general elections and ignore everybody else. If we are to set about healing the deep divisions in society that the referendum has laid bare, one task must be urgently to build a more representative, inclusive democracy, and that can be brought about only through electoral reform. If the Brexit campaigners were serious about giving people back control, a good place to start would be democratic control. A political system that delivers government on the basis of just 24% of the eligible vote clearly does not give us that.

Brexit means Brexit, so we are told. I believe that we need a second referendum on the terms of any Brexit deal because we have absolutely no idea what is on the other side of the door marked Brexit. We might have chosen to open that door, but even now, two months after the vote, we have no idea—not even the dimmest shape—of what on earth is on the other side.

The Government’s paper on alternatives to EU membership gave four options. The BBC lists five. The Centre for European Reform sets out seven. Which of those was voted for by those voting leave? None of them. How many will we end up with? Well, one of them. What parliamentary or, indeed, public scrutiny have we had of an actual plan to leave the EU? Absolutely none because there was not one and there is not one. That is why I strongly support not just maximum parliamentary scrutiny but calls for a further referendum on the terms of Brexit once they are clear, and on our future relationship with the EU, so that we can all assess what that looks like in the real world. During the campaign, when pressed on the alternative to EU membership, leave campaigners would squeal that they could not possibly be expected to answer those questions because they were not a Government in waiting, but rather they wanted the British people to be in control. What would fulfil that promise more thoroughly than ensuring that the public get the opportunity to cast a positive vote for what a potential Brexit looks like, in addition to their vote against remaining part of the EU?

Before a referendum on the terms of Brexit takes place, lessons must be learned and the Government need to take a long hard look at the Electoral Reform Society report called “Doing referendums differently”. Let me give just a few quotes from it. It says:

“There were glaring democratic deficiencies in the run-up to the vote, with previously unreleased polling showing that far too many people felt they were ill-informed about the issues…the top-down, personality-based nature of the debate failed to address major policies and subjects, leaving the public in the dark…misleading claims could be made with impunity.”

The Electoral Reform Society calls for

“a root and branch review of referendums, learning the lessons of the EU campaign to make sure the mistakes that were made in terms of regulation, tone and conduct are never repeated.”

I echo that call, because it is clear that there was so much misinformation; yes, it was on all sides, but I believe that on the leave side it was particularly egregious. We were told that we could end freedom of movement and keep full access to the single market. We were told that we could continue to benefit from being part of the single market, yet somehow take back control, make all our rules here in the UK and cease having to follow EU rules. Then there was the famous £350 million a week for the NHS; the truth is that we will not have any extra money, let alone an amount anywhere near the lie of all lies that disgraced the side of a perfectly innocent bus for months on end.

[Sir David Amess in the Chair]

[Mr Lilley]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the EU has free trade agreements with some 50 countries, only three of which have in return granted free movement of labour and made a contribution to the EU because their Governments were planning to enter the EU? The other 47 have free trade agreements with no free movement and no contribution. Why should we be different?

[Caroline Lucas]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a wealth of difference between free trade and being part of the single market? He has talked at length about tariff barriers. The big issue about membership of the WTO is non-tariff barriers. He really should keep up with where the debate is at. That is where it is at right now. All this focus on tariffs was a very clever red herring for people who do not know about trade agreements, but I have actually studied them, I have worked on them for years, and I can tell him that there is a wealth of difference between trade agreements and membership of the single market. That was yet another lie perpetrated during the referendum campaign.

We need people to be given a say and to have real control over the terms of any Brexit deal. We need maximum public engagement and parliamentary scrutiny. That means that the Government must set out their plan for what they want Brexit to look like. They need to present that to the people in an early general election to secure a mandate that currently they do not have, then they need to ensure full and proper parliamentary debate and scrutiny, and only then allow MPs to vote on whether to invoke article 50 and set in train the formal process of leaving, so that we know what direction that train is going in. In addition, we should argue for wider public engagement, giving opportunities for meaningful input throughout the process, as well as maximising input from civil society organisations, NGOs, charities, businesses, local authorities and other stakeholders. To claim that we want to take back control of the UK’s future, but refuse measures to maximise parliamentary and public scrutiny, is unforgiveable, contradictory and harmful.

The Greens argued during the referendum campaign that outside the EU there is a very real danger that the UK will seek to compete with other countries by weakening social and environmental protections and by becoming, in effect, a tax haven. That is still the case. In the debate running up to a second referendum on the terms of a Brexit, some of the key issues that we will want to keep in mind, in terms of how we might vote in that second referendum, are, for example, whether we can maintain freedom of movement and full rights of EU citizens in the UK, whether we can continue to have full access to single market and, crucially, whether we can have the important environmental protections that we currently enjoy thanks to our EU membership—whether on air, water, or wildlife. It is not just keeping what we have; we should improve that and absolutely lock it down in law. One big concern that people have right now is about what will happen to the habitats directive and the birds directive; those are the gold standards for environmental protection and we need them to be preserved in any new environmental settlement. Perhaps that needs to be in a new environmental Act, but whatever happens, there must not be a race to the bottom on standards. We need to retain EU-derived workers’ rights, social and consumer protections and human rights, again, as a bare minimum that we should seek to build on. We should be putting young people first.

Finally, we should ask the Government right now to give a guarantee to EU nationals who have made this country their home in good faith; the Government should say right now that they are welcome to stay and that they have an absolute right to stay. Anything less is simply using people’s lives cynically as chips in a bargaining negotiation, and that is neither right nor moral.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Lilley

Monday 18th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lilley]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is yet another example of the perverse effects of what we do. We impose costs on our own country, our own industries and our own households but we do not even achieve the objective of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, in these cases we probably marginally increase them.

My appeal to the House is that we start looking at this whole business in a rational way. Let us take all the targets to which we are committed as a given. Like the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), I think they are unnecessary and unwise, but let us take them as a given and seek the least costly way of achieving them. Let us seek to achieve them in a way that will place the fewest burdens on British households and result in the fewest job losses and the least destruction of industry and output. Let us not measure our success by how much pain we can inflict and how much harm and burdens we can submit to, as we have done through the 50 shades of green up to now.

[Caroline Lucas]

Given that the right hon. Gentleman is apparently genuinely concerned about costs, why does he not extend that same analysis to nuclear energy? For example, Hinkley is going to put a massively greater strain on household budgets than renewables would do and it will not help us to get emissions down for at least a decade.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Lilley

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I shall be brief because I know that others want to speak. I also want to leave as much time as possible in case we get the opportunity to push more of the amendments to a vote.

On the Government amendment on the impact of shale gas on carbon budgets, I hope that the Minister will confirm that, should the advice provided indicate that there is indeed a risk of undermining the UK’s domestic or international climate change commitments, that would categorically result in a halt to exploitation and extraction.

Amendment (b) does not go far enough, particularly on climate change, but I will support it. I am concerned, however, about what I see as collusion between the Front Benches to take away people’s right to say no to fracking under their homes and their land. Asking for people to be notified is very different from asking for their consent. This is a slap in the face for the 99% of the people who responded to the consultation who were absolutely against the removal of the right to object. Given public opposition to changing the rules on trespass, it is regrettable that we shall not have the opportunity to debate and vote on that tonight.

The Government’s attempt to weaken the partial protections in amendment (b) is reprehensible: failing to ban fracking in groundwater source protection zones, failing to require an environmental impact assessment, and failing to rule out fracking underneath as well as in national parks and protected areas. If the wording is somehow insufficient, the Minister should go away and redraft it. The Government should certainly not use that excuse for weakening safeguards. Worse still is the new definition of fracking in Lords amendment 21B, based on a specific volume of fracking fluid. That risks allowing significant fracking with less than the defined volume limit to go ahead, without even the safeguards that are before us today.

What a mockery this is making of legitimate public concerns on fracking, and indeed of the democratic process. The paltry hour scheduled for today’s debate is particularly disgraceful, given the lack of time that we had to debate the issues on Report. These are far-reaching changes that are being discussed here, and our constituents deserve better. Parliament has let them down tonight.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

The one point on which I agree with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) is that we have inadequate time to debate this important issue tonight. We also have inadequate time in which to debunk the many myths that she herself propagates. Indeed, she relies on their not being debunked. We all want our water supplies to be pure in quality and ample in quantity. One of my first successes in the House was to secure the closure of the Friars Wash extraction plant in my constituency following over-abstraction from the aquifer that was damaging the aquifer and threatening the chalk streams in the area. I would therefore support any measures to protect the quality of our water supply if I thought that it was threatened by fracking—but I do not think it is.

A number of those who write to me are genuinely convinced that there is a serious threat and that as a result of fracking their water supplies will be contaminated and their health put at risk. We should be clear, however, that the majority of those who are hyping those fears are not primarily concerned with the quality of the water. Their campaign to prevent the extraction and use of fossil fuels in this country is what motivates them, and that is a perfectly legitimate objective, but it should not be achieved by hiding their real motives behind some grossly overblown, exaggerated fears relating to other matters. They know that they will not succeed on the CO₂ thing, because to abandon the use of fossil fuels in this country would be dramatically to undermine our quality of life. In any case, if we did not extract shale gas and oil in this country, we would simply import it from abroad, so all we would be saying is that we should make other people rich while impoverishing ourselves and not creating jobs and opportunities where they are most needed in this country.

UK Shale Gas

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Lilley

Thursday 18th July 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate and colleagues from across the House for supporting it. It gives us an opportunity to examine some of the measures that the Government are putting in place to promote shale gas, and to explore the implications of fracking for our constituents, our countryside and our climate. I read with interest the Hansard report of Tuesday’s debate, which focused in particular on the details of community benefit packages but also touched on some issues that I am sure we will return to and explore further in this debate.

Before I discuss those questions, in light of recent lobbying scandals and concerns about inappropriate corporate influence on politics and policy making, I will declare my relevant interests. I am a proud, albeit small, shareholder in Brighton Energy Co-operative, which invests in community-owned solar power in Brighton and Hove and whose vision for community-owned renewables at the heart of our energy system I openly support. I have a similar very small interest in the Westmill Wind Farm co-operative in south Oxfordshire. I hope that other Members speaking today will agree that in the interests of transparency and rebuilding trust in the political process, it would be beneficial if all of us declared fully all interests relating to the energy sector or energy companies.

As part of the spending review, the Government set out their commitment to put in place the conditions to allow the shale industry to “reach its full potential”: new planning guidance, community benefits and tax breaks. The planning document was to be published by 18 July, in the depressingly common pattern of waiting until just before the summer recess to publish unpopular policies, but I was told this morning by the Department for Communities and Local Government that it would, after all, be published not today but “very soon”. That is even worse for the House’s ability to examine the details and hold Ministers to account on behalf of our constituents. I am sure that we would all like to hear from the Minister the reasons for the delay. It is hard to avoid concluding that his colleagues in the DCLG are scared of scrutiny.

It is also pretty appalling that the new planning guidelines are set to come into force without public consultation, denying communities that stand to be affected by fracking any say in the new process. It is clear that Ministers and the fracking firms, which are, sadly, increasingly indistinguishable, are keen to press on rapidly, but it is wrong to refuse to consult on new planning guidance aimed at making it easier for developers to cast aside community concerns.

Even from a perspective of due procedure, I cannot see how the decision to deny communities a say in their new planning rules is remotely in line with the Government’s own definition of circumstances in which consultation is unnecessary. The relevant Cabinet Office principle makes it clear that that is appropriate only in the case of

“minor or technical amendments to regulation or existing policy frameworks, where the measure is necessary to deal with a court judgment or where adequate consultation has taken place at an earlier stage”.

Many of my constituents have e-mailed me over the past few weeks to call for a full public consultation, as well as for new planning rules that are strong on tackling climate change and follow the precautionary principle when it comes to issues such as groundwater contamination.

Another spending review measure is the consultation on tax incentives to encourage companies to press on with shale gas exploration. The Treasury is proposing reducing the tax payable on income from 62% to 30%. One of my concerns is that tax breaks for fracking amount to an additional fossil fuel subsidy, which is exactly what the UK and other G20 nations pledged to phase out three years ago. It looks like a backward step. Fossil fuel subsidies, which amounted to $500 billion worldwide in 2011, are effectively an incentive to pollute. Earlier this year, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, called them

“public enemy No. 1 for sustainable energy development”.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady make it clear that what she calls a fossil fuel subsidy in the case of the UK is, overwhelmingly, simply a lower rate of VAT on all energy use? Is she calling for a higher rate of VAT on all energy use, or just a higher rate on fossil fuels? To describe it as a subsidy is surely nonsense.

[Caroline Lucas]

I do not think that it is nonsense. The Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, is in the middle of an inquiry into fossil fuel subsidies, and it is clear from some of the evidence that we have received that many people think that the Government’s definition of subsidy, which is narrow and does not include tax breaks, is wrong. I am happy to say that I do not think that fossil fuels should have tax breaks. Whether or not we want to call that a subsidy, I am clear that I think it is, and I am against it.

Charles Perry said in evidence to the Committee:

“The media in this country…would like us all to believe that we are paying a lot more for renewable energy as consumers, but if you compare what we are paying for renewable energy versus fossil fuels, it is six times more for fossil fuels as a taxpayer than it is for renewables.”

That sums up what I am saying.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be at this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and I am delighted that you are a chairman of so many things. I congratulate the hon.—and old Malvernian—Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on obtaining the debate. I mention her school since she seems to be obsessed with other people’s schools. It is important to have the opportunity to debate the issues.

The hon. Lady asked Members to draw attention to their interests. I invite everyone to look at my interests, as declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. They will find that I have no interest in fracking or in any oil and gas companies in this country. Over my lifetime, I have been—indeed, I still am—involved in an oil company in central Asia and I was involved in analysing oil companies and predicting energy prices for 20 years, when I had a proper job before coming to this place, so she may try to insinuate that that somehow makes me too well disposed to the oil and gas industry. She may therefore be surprised that, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) will confirm, I was the only member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee who criticised, as she does, the suggested special tax breaks for fracking. On the basis of my knowledge of the oil and gas industry, I think that they are probably unnecessary, and we should not give away unnecessary tax breaks; although if they are necessary, that would be fair enough.

I want to draw Members, attention to one interest that is not declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I probably share this interest with all other Members, although too many ignore it. It is my interest in my 70,000 constituents who want their heating bills kept as low as possible, my interest in the people in this country getting jobs and my interest in reviving the manufacturing industry in this country and providing it with fuel that is as plentiful and cheap as possible.

I have great respect for the hon. Lady and those who, like her, simply want to keep fossil fuels in the ground, although if that was my objective, I would start by keeping coal in the ground rather than gas, which produces only half or less of the carbon dioxide emissions of coal. I do not support such a policy because, probably like her, I take as given the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summary of the science, I also, unlike her, accept its summary of the economics of taking action to prevent global warming. It has concluded that, in relation to the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere, it could not identify

“an emissions pathway or stabilisation level where benefits exceed costs.”

Unless and until we can find a pathway or a stabilisation level for CO₂ that will produce greater benefits than its costs, we should not set about impoverishing this generation in the vague hope that we may make some generation in the future richer.

[Caroline Lucas]

I think I said that the driver for increasing fuel bills for most people today is rising prices of gas rather than renewables or anything else. Those interests that the right hon. Gentleman declared at the beginning of his contribution around jobs and keeping fuel bills low are better met through green energy sources than through gas, the prices of which are pushing up bills right now.

[Mr Lilley]

The current cost of electricity produced from gas or coal is £50 per megawatt-hour. The current cost of producing it from windmills is £100 per megawatt-hour. For offshore windmills, it is £150 per megawatt-hour and for solar it is off the scale. If we think that we will get cheaper, lower energy bills by going to energy sources that are two, three or four times as expensive, we are living in la-la land.

[Caroline Lucas]

Far from my being in la-la land, the right hon. Gentleman has very effectively not answered my question. I said that if we were to look at a fuel bill to try to ascertain which elements made it high, we would find that it was gas rather than renewables. Yes, renewables have a greater degree of subsidy now, but that is because they are new. They have a rate that will enable them to come to grid parity very soon. Gas, by contrast, is an old technology and hardly needs those kinds of subsidies.

[Mr Lilley]

Even that is not true. The most recent generation of gas turbines are so much more efficient than the previous ones that the savings from replacing all our gas turbines with the most recent generation would probably be greater than the savings in CO_2, emissions from using wind. I will, if I may, make some progress.

Until we find a way of controlling CO₂ levels in the atmosphere that will not cost more than the benefits of doing so, we should not impoverish this generation. My respect for the hon. Lady and her colleague, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), begins to evaporate when they abandon their real belief, which is that we should not burn any fossil fuels, and start to concoct fabricated fears and spurious arguments against fracking. Their first argument is that there will not be much there—that was what they originally said. Now the British Geological Survey says that there is probably an awful lot there, but that we will not know until we have drilled it.

The hon. Lady went on to say that the process will be so costly that it will cost more than the price, in which case no one will extract it, so her fears can evaporate. She clearly does not believe her own argument otherwise she would not even bother to attend this debate because it would not be important. She alleges that it will be more difficult geologically to extract shale in this country than in the United States, and that the geology here is less attractive than there, but that is simply not the case.

When the Select Committee interviewed Cuadrilla and BHP Billiton in the States, we asked them how thick the shale beds were in the States that they typically extracted from. They said 300, 400 or 500 feet thick. How thick is the Bowland shale? It is a mile thick; up to 20 times as thick as in America, which means that from one surface pod, we can get up to 20 times as much fracking as they can in the States—perhaps it is only a dozen times.

Green Economy

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Lord Lilley

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I apologise, but I will not give way again, as I do not have much time left.

For many low-income households the green deal financial mechanism simply does not stack up. [Interruption.] The mechanism is based on loans with interest rates of between 6% and 7%. That creates the risk that these loans will be taken up by middle-class and well-off households, which might be able to afford to take them up without needing any support, rather than by less-affluent families with next-to-nothing in their pockets. Although there are limitations in respect of this market mechanism, if we are going to use it, we will at least need support to bring interest rates down to a more realistic level—as Germany has done through the development bank, KfW.

Renewable energy enjoys massive public support. That is true even of wind—although judging by the outcry from some Tory Back Benchers, we would be forgiven for assuming otherwise. In November, a YouGov survey found strong support for renewables, with 60% of people supporting wind power subsidies. The Prime Minister said in his half-speech at the clean energy ministerial meeting in April that he passionately believed that the rapid growth of renewable energy was vital to the UK’s future, but, sadly, his Government’s policies do not reflect those warm words. Instead, we hear rumours that he and his Chancellor are seeking backroom deals for a 25% cut in subsidies to onshore wind. Any reduction beyond the proposed 10% cut to wind subsidies would fly in the face of environmental and economic common sense, jeopardising the future of both onshore wind and investment in other renewables across the country, as well as the thousands of jobs they could bring.

The solar feed-in tariff fiasco provides another example of coalition Ministers creating harmful uncertainty. As one solar company in my constituency described it, the industry has had to endure a series of “unsettling knee-jerk changes” that have undermined not only investor confidence, but public confidence in the solar industry. Solar energy has huge potential in the UK and it is a tragedy that we are not supporting it more.

Marine energy also has massive potential. With the right support the UK industry could seize almost a quarter of the world’s potential market, according to the Carbon Trust. That would be worth an estimated £29 billion per annum to the UK economy by 2050 and would support more than 68,000 jobs. Sadly, that potential looks hugely unlikely to be realised, given that we have a Government Budget with a £3 billion tax break for more offshore oil and gas drilling—

[Mr Lilley]

rose—

[Caroline Lucas]

I will not give way, because I am running out of time. I am sorry. I was going to say that we also have a draft Energy Bill that threatens to usher in a new dash for gas.

Finally, in my last 40 seconds, I wish to pick up on the way in which “accelerate green growth” is being used in the motion, as we need to be a little clearer about that. Of course we need faster growth in some sectors of our economy, including in renewable energy and energy efficiency, but we must stop pretending that we can have infinite growth on a planet of finite resources. The current economic crisis gives us the opportunity to change direction and get on the path to a very different kind of economy, one that it is not measured solely by GDP. The problem with GDP is that it measures everything in cash terms; it does not measure what is growing, and it does not give us any sense of the quality of the economy and whether it is delivering true well-being.