Energy Charter Treaty

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore]

If the hon. Gentleman looks at the details of the treaty, which I will come to, he will see that it does not create a level playing field for competition. It is weighted in favour of fossil fuel interests. He knows full well, given his interest in clean energy, how Northern Ireland could become a future green energy powerhouse. It wants to ensure that it can continue to build onshore wind turbines, with a huge opportunity for providing green hydrogen. The challenge the energy charter treaty provides to the UK, and Northern Ireland as a proud member of the UK, is that it takes those potential clean and renewable investments and weights them disproportionately against existing fossil fuel commitments that no other country wishes to make. That is a challenge that we need to deal with.

The charter is a relic from a bygone age, which should have long been recognised as serving an obsolete purpose that still places its dead hand across all states that signed it three decades ago, preventing climate investments and, worse, prioritising inexcusable investments in oil and gas, even when the countries themselves do not wish to make them. The energy charter treaty has effectively become a Magna Carta for fossil fuels, and it is being weaponised by fossil fuel companies to sue Governments for introducing climate policies.

Recently, Italy was sued for its ban on offshore oil drilling. The Netherlands has been sued for its coal phase-out law. Several companies have taken the Dutch Government to court for their decision to phase out fossil fuels by 2030, claiming damages of €3.5 billion. Slovenia has also been sued for its fracking ban

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

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a danger of complacency in the Government’s current approach? When I have asked questions on this issue of the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, the Minister has replied, “Well, there has never been a case against the UK, so it is not a problem.” The examples the right hon. Gentleman has just given show why it is such a problem. In the Italian case, the Government were sued for six times the amount the oil company ever invested in the project. Does he agree that there are real risks here and that we should not be complacent just because we have not yet had a UK case?

[Chris Skidmore]

Absolutely. The other risk, which I will come on to in a moment, is the chilling effect. We do not know, or are unable to quantify, the investments that could be coming to the UK but for the fear that the energy charter treaty will again place its dead hand on those investments. Withdrawal from the energy charter treaty provides the certainty, clarity, continuity and consistency—the four Cs—that the net zero review outlined as part of a mission-based approach to long-term certainty. We cannot have long-term certainty for investment in future renewable projects or take decisions potentially shutting our fossil fuel investments unless the energy charter treaty is removed. It is critical that we provide that future certainty if we want those additional investments and the opportunities offered by that inward wall of capital that is waiting to be spent. As the hon. Lady mentioned, an oil company winning £210 million from the Italian Government over their restriction on offshore oil drilling is a perfect example of the risk to which this outdated treaty now exposes the UK. She mentioned that the company won six times the amount it had ever spent on the project, and those winnings are now likely to be fed back into financing new oil exploration.

Most worrying are the continued binds that the energy charter treaty places on signatory countries to prioritise and protect private foreign investments ahead of the democratic rights of elected Governments. Through investor-state dispute settlements, Governments who wish to do the right thing by the citizens who elected them and to tackle climate change to meet their net zero commitments are having their hands shackled by the energy charter treaty, imprisoning what should be free nations and leaving them bound by undemocratic regulations that are fought over by fossil fuel lawyers in courts. At a time when the UK should be taking back its sovereignty, and when it is seeking to demonstrate its energy sovereignty, the energy charter treaty, with its use of these unacceptable ISDSs, should be a prime example of legislation that we must recognise as being at the top of any lists of Brexit freedoms. Surely the UK Government should, can and must take action now to restore our energy freedoms.

Action on Climate Change and Decarbonisation

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Chris Skidmore]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman and then to the hon. Lady, but after that I must get on, because I do not want use up all my time with interventions.

Climate Change

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Caroline Lucas

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Chris Skidmore)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019, which was laid before this House on 12 June, be approved.

It is an honour to be in the House debating this order less than two weeks after this seminal legislation was laid in Parliament. I should say that I stand here as the interim Minister for Energy and Clean Growth—as an understudy to my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry). It is a tribute to her efforts that we are debating this measure today. I am sure that she would have dearly loved to be at the Dispatch Box speaking to it herself. I pay tribute to her work, her industry, and, above all, her passion, which is testament to the legislation that is being taken through today.

The draft order would amend the 2050 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target in the Climate Change Act 2008 from at least 80% to at least 100%. That target, otherwise known as net zero, would constitute a legally binding commitment to end the United Kingdom’s contribution to climate change.

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a sobering report on the impact of global warming at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. In that report, it made clear that a target set to limit global warming at 2°C above pre-industrial levels was no longer enough. It made clear that by limiting warming to 1.5°C, we may be able to mitigate some of the effects on health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth. It made clear that countries across the world, including the United Kingdom, would need to do more. The House has heard of the great progress we have made in tackling climate change together, cross-party, and how we have cut emissions by 42% since 1990 while growing the economy by 72%.

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

When Greta Thunberg was in Parliament a few weeks ago, she called on politicians to be honest at all times. Does the Minister agree that it is a bit misleading to suggest that we deserve great credit because we have reduced emissions by 42% since 1990, since we have done that primarily by outsourcing a huge amount of our manufacturing emissions to other countries? We do not account for our consumption emissions, and if we did, our success would look rather less rosy than he has just presented.

[Chris Skidmore]

The draft order builds on a framework of legislation set in 2008; I see the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) in his place, who introduced that legislation. We have always recognised as a country that we are on a journey towards reducing our carbon emissions. That journey includes ensuring that we show global leadership and demonstrate to other countries that are not cutting their carbon emissions the need to do so. Above all, we recognise the need to do so sustainably and to ensure that we can continue to grow our economy. The last thing we want to do is reduce our carbon emissions at the risk of increasing unemployment and shrinking the economy. We have taken the independent advice of the Committee on Climate Change, which has demonstrated how we can do so not only sustainably but, importantly, in a just transition. It is important for some of the poorest in society that we have a just transition towards net zero.

Proportional Representation

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Caroline Lucas

Monday 30th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore]

No. I believe that the simplest system—putting a cross in a box and having one Member and one vote—is the first-past-the-post system. That is why the Government want to legislate to return to that system, so that we have a simple system that is well understood across all elections. The Government have serious concerns that proportional representation voting systems are less likely to be understood and followed correctly by members of the public, increasing the likelihood that ballot papers will be completed incorrectly.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the Minister really think that the population of Britain is significantly less intelligent than the population of Germany, France, Denmark and Finland—all the countries that use proportional representation? Is he saying that, with education, people could not work out how to use that system? That is a pretty big indictment.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I do not think that the national curriculum is the best possible curriculum we could have but it is a bulwark and a protection against the kind of laissez-faire approach that will be unleashed by the Bill if we do not have some protections. I assure the hon. Gentleman that if we had more time and if I had more of my colleagues on these Benches, I would love to put forward a Green party policy on the kind of inspirational education that I would love to see. That is in our manifesto. Right now, though, we are looking at damage limitation and that is what my amendment is about. I want to make sure that we do not have sponsors imposing on wide numbers of pupils their personal views about what education should be about. That is why my amendment is important.

[Chris Skidmore]

Does the hon. Lady agree that having freedom from national curriculum restrictions was extremely valuable for the academies that the previous Government set up in deprived communities? Those academies were able to filter down subjects and to teach maths and English in ways that the national curriculum would have prevented. I know that she is talking off her brief and I have enjoyed listening to the National Union of Teachers’ briefing that she has produced today, but she might like to know, given her praise of the Netherlands’ system, that the Netherlands does not have a national curriculum.

[Caroline Lucas]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the only part of my notes that is from the briefing from the NUT, much as I respect it, is the reference to the particular school I mentioned. I have made it very clear that even if that practice is not carrying on at that school, the wider point remains that it could carry on in any academy at any time because there is absolutely no protection in the Bill to prevent sponsors from imposing on schools any particular educational direction that they choose. That is deeply worrying and that is why there is, for the moment, a need for the national curriculum as a protection against that kind of utter and complete deregulation.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question about whether the freeing of academies from the national curriculum has been a positive thing, there is no overall evidence that academies perform better than other schools. Where academies have done better, it is often because they have managed to exclude more children and to use a different kind of curriculum by choosing from within the curriculum the subjects to pursue—possibly less rigorous ones academically. There is no educational argument in favour of academies—even those under the previous Government’s proposals. The Green party and I were not in favour of academies under the previous Government and we are even less in favour of them under this Government, because it is quite clear that they are going in the wrong direction.