Climate Change

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, the whole House is enormously grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for the positive way in which he introduced this timely debate. It is timely in the sense that we know very well that the Paris Agreement requires clear thinking, tough measures and innovation. Much of our industrial strategy will require innovation if we are to hit the targets—the 1.5% target is heroic indeed—of both reducing UK emissions and adapting to the inevitable climate changes which we know will happen. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, reminded us, there is no Article 50 here; there is no possibility of delay. We must keep very carefully to strategies that deliver.

I declare an interest as a retired farmer, because I will confine my remarks to following up on the climate change committee’s report of last November on land use—a critical contribution to the reduction of emissions. This report offered advice to the Government on the contribution that land use change could make in meeting climate change mitigation and adaption objectives. It follows a number of other reports in recent years suggesting how we could achieve more effective carbon storage from soils and biomass, and how different husbandry systems could reduce emissions.

The report recognises the key role of land managers in delivering such ecosystem services as carbon sequestration, reduction of flood risk, improved condition of semi-natural habitats and enhanced biodiversity. Yet, at the same time they have to do so while ensuring that there is sufficient food production—we should not forget the primary role of agriculture—while reducing livestock, one of the recommendations of the committee, and giving up land for increased population, wildlife and environmental protection. These are conflicting stipulations which will require the Government—as the climate change report says—to assist with “skills, training and information” for land managers.

I am not surprised that land managers and farmers find this somewhat short of what will be needed. The chief executive of the National Sheep Association was quoted as saying:

“We are seeing criticisms from welfare campaigners, rewilders, climate change campaigners”,


all of whom,

“ignore the fact that UK sheep farming works very much in harmony with our environment, our landscapes, and our human ecology”.

Noble Lords may think that that shows a level of complacency, but land managers must be recognised as essential in delivering the targets that we are setting for the land use sector. They will need more from government than assistance with skills, training and information. Just as the rest of industry is recognised in the industrial strategy to be dependent—if it is to be internationally competitive—on appropriate support from publicly funded research and development, so will agriculture need innovation, research on new husbandry systems and development on increased productivity from low-carbon production systems.

The tragedy is that, until the 1980s, we had an extremely good applied research capacity in this country. It was decimated, and we now remain heavily dependent on countries such as Holland and even the west coast of the United States of America for funding the applied research that we can implement to produce these low-carbon husbandry systems.

The present welcome focus on ecosystem services was generated way back in 2011 by the UK’s National Ecosystem Assessment—a comprehensive overview of the state of the natural environment. It offered a new way to estimate our national wealth and offered policy options that could deliver protection and enhancement to the best effect. These ecosystem services would again inevitably have to be delivered in the main by land managers. But some of the ecosystem services were incompatible with each other. Someone has to make the decision: is the ecosystem service that you want afforestation, which clearly might be appropriate in some instances, or do you want to enhance the local landscape? I can tell your Lordships one thing: the moment you make a dramatic change to the landscape there will be an awful lot of objectors.

The other requirement, which is perfectly sensible and reasonable, is that as you determine which ecosystem services you are going to favour, you have to do it not just by allowing the land managers to make up their own minds but rather by going into partnership with local authorities, local communities, the private sector, conservation organisations, water companies, and so on. So there will therefore always be a danger that the land managers who will be charged with delivering the chosen ecosystem services for enhancement will ultimately be overruled. Yet without the sense of ownership from land managers for these land-use proposals, the chances of success will be small.

There are many successful examples of clusters of farmers working together in harmony with local government and neighbours; they constitute a precedent and are rolling out best practice. So if, when the climate change committee says that the Government should provide more information and the information they are to provide is examples of best practice, that is exactly the information required.

Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I have one question for the Minister. He told the House in the previous debate that these are no-deal regulations. Can he identify for the House which parts of these regulations will not be needed if the Prime Minister’s deal with the EU were to be approved by the House of Commons?

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

I have an observation, rather than a question, to put to my noble friend. He rightly says that these are vital measures, as they are because, in our wisdom, we are apparently to leave Euratom as well as the European Union. Of course, we were members of Euratom before we were members of the EEC. Everyone agrees that Euratom is doing an absolutely first-class job and why in the EU withdrawal legislation we had to leave Euratom remains a total mystery to me. Having made that very bad decision, we clearly have to proceed as my noble friend suggests.

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, I could not agree more with the noble Earl’s views on Euratom.

I have a couple of questions. Has the Minister assessed the cost of introducing the IT systems and the necessary bureaucracy which will be over and above the amount of money we have been spending with Euratom to fulfil those exact functions?

Secondly, Regulation 6, on prohibited exports, talks about how we would be stopped from exporting to countries that do not have the right regulatory framework. Can the Minister say whether there has been any discussion with countries that are part of the same agreement and concerned about exporting to the United Kingdom on that basis? As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred to invasive species, I am tempted to move on to the subject of grey squirrels—on which we have had many debates in the past—but I think I will leave it there.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 3 seeks to ensure that the necessary agreements to secure the safeguards for our nuclear power are in place before 1 March 2019. It does not require us to withdraw but to suspend the UK’s withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community treaty until the agreements are in place.

The legal relationship between Euratom and the EU is not as clear to me as it is to the Minister. I have sought the opinion of learned friends who have told me there is no binding legal agreement that obliges us to withdraw from Euratom when we withdraw from the EU. However, the Government’s position is based upon what is stated in paragraph 18(1) in the Explanatory Notes relating to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act, which states:

“The power that is provided by clause 1(1) applies to withdrawal from the EU. This includes the European Atomic Energy Community (‘Euratom’), as the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 sets out that the term ‘EU’ includes (as the context permits or requires) Euratom (section 3(2))”.


The situation is not straightforward. I am reminded of the words of Sir Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons”—“I trust I make myself obscure”—which seems to be the situation.

As I have already stated, we are not asking for withdrawal but suspension of our withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community treaty until we have the relevant agreements described in subsections (3) (a), (b) and (c) of the proposed new clause in place to give the confidence that these agreements are complete and appropriate and will maintain the highest standards in safeguarding our nuclear power. This is essential if we are to maintain the nuclear baseload needed to underpin our intermittent renewables. As I said last night, if this fails we will almost certainly not be able to meet our reduction in emissions obligation.

Of all the world’s complex technologies, nuclear power is surely one where we must maintain collaboration with our partners, especially those in Europe, with whom we have been working so closely. To ensure that our energy strategy is secure, we must have the assurances contained in the amendment. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, in the draft transition agreement published yesterday the entry on Euratom is in green, which appears to demonstrate that there is some progress being made, apart from any legal complication which might emerge from the woodwork. The Government have committed themselves to a close association with the Euratom research and training programme. The Secretary of State has also committed to report back to Parliament every three months about overall progress on Euratom, with a first update expected before Easter. All so far so good, but this does not change the position that a default clause, such as this amendment suggests, might be sensible.

The only reason I have heard why this amendment will not or cannot be accepted is that, by our own folly, we have already given notice that we are leaving Euratom, come what may. My noble friend on the Front Bench described it as a done deal—which of course it is in terms of the Act we have already passed—but that is not the best of reasons for rejecting this amendment. After all, one Bill can amend a previous Act and if we find that the default position is needed in order to make sure that we do not fall between poles between one Bill and another, I should have thought that a fallback position such as that suggested by this rather sensible amendment would at least be worthy of serious consideration.

I recognise that the assurances given by the Government, and indeed by our Minister here, are helpful so far as they go—I have enumerated them just now—and that the disastrous decision to leave Euratom may ultimately be irreversible, but I will be listening to the Minister’s response to this debate with great care.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. I want to focus on the one issue that will cause me to vote for this amendment if my noble friend puts it to a vote. That is the way that the Government have been playing Russian roulette with our energy security by the ill-considered and ideological rush to leave Euratom without being sure that an equivalent regime is properly in place. The jeopardy this places the UK in is well set out in the latest briefing from the Nuclear Industry Association. The Government are doing a very unusual and risky thing in ignoring the advice of the nuclear industry’s experts simply because of their obsession with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which, let me remind the House, has never intervened in a Euratom matter during the duration of Euratom’s life.

There is little evidence that it is possible to secure UK accreditation from the IAEA and negotiate a raft of new nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries before exit day. As the NIA briefing makes clear:

“Without access to Euratom’s NCAs and common market, the nuclear new build programme, nuclear could be seriously affected”.


Clearly, a responsible Government would stay in Euratom and not risk the disruption and uncertainty to a critical industry that departure brings, but not this Government. They claim that they will secure an equivalent alternative set of arrangements to membership of Euratom by exit day. Their backstop for failure seems to be that by the end of the transition or implementation period they are trying to negotiate with the EU. Despite yesterday’s upbeat gloss put on the negotiations of a transitional period, no such arrangements have yet been agreed by the Council of Ministers; they may well not be before the Bill leaves this House. Even if they are agreed before Royal Assent they will not provide for a transition period beyond the end of 2020. That may still not be long enough to secure all the new NCAs the UK needs, especially with the United States.

As the NIA briefing makes clear, without these agreements the trade in goods and services to maintain our existing nuclear reactors—these generate 21% of the UK’s electricity—is put in jeopardy, as is the building of new reactors. Sizewell B is particularly vulnerable because it relies on an NCA with the United States, and a new NCA is effectively a treaty, which requires congressional approval.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, I would like to raise an issue which Ministers are usually keen not to talk about out loud—Immigration Rules. Successive Governments have been surprisingly flexible when they have been really up against it in getting specialist staff in certain capped sectors of our industries—no more so that in the NHS, where the Immigration Rules have been modified, bent and utilised to bring in specialist people when the country has had a shortage of them. In terms of this debate, what assurances can the Minister give us that the Government will not lose sight of the possibility of modifying the Immigration Rules where necessary to help specialist safeguarding staff to get into this country? I suspect that the industry would also like them to be a bit more flexible when it comes to areas where there may be problems—for example, in maintaining reactors or in getting the specialist skills needed to build reactors such as Hinkley Point C.

[The Earl of Selborne]

My Lords, for at least 20 years this country allowed its specialist skills in matters nuclear to run down. There was a failure by successive Governments to address the issues and determine what our attitude was to policy on nuclear generation, medical sciences and the like. Although things have improved a little in recent years, it is certain that we will depend on specialist skills from overseas. I doubt that it is really necessary to put this amendment on the face of the Bill, but I am absolutely confident that the Minister will agree that we will indeed need specialist skills. We must give an assurance to the industry that those specialist skills will be welcomed. Therefore, I am sure that, in responding to this short debate led by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the Minister can assure us that the Government will give due priority to those with the relevant nuclear skills.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, an important point about Euratom is that it had a research programme on connecting fusion and fission. A long-range problem in the nuclear industry is finding ways of dealing with nuclear waste. As the Euratom programme showed, one way of doing that in future would be to connect it to fusion, because fusion produces fast neutrons that can process waste and give it a shorter half-life. That is an extremely important issue, and the people who will be able to work on it will have a very broad range of specialties, not just the narrow range that experts have at the moment.

Nuclear Research and Technology (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Selborne]

That this House takes note of the Report from the Science and Technology Committee, Nuclear research and technology: Breaking the cycle of indecision (3rd Report, Session 2016–17, HL Paper 160).

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, the Science and Technology Select Committee report, Nuclear Research and Technology: Breaking the Cycle of Indecision, is the topic of our debate tonight. It is the latest instalment in the committee’s work on civil nuclear policy which goes back at least 20 years, the most relevant previous report being that of November 2011. The committee then recommended that the Government should set out a long-term strategy for nuclear energy and establish an independent nuclear research and development board which would advise the Government and monitor the Government’s progress against a nuclear research road map. Following that committee report, an ad hoc advisory board was formed under the guidance of Sir John Beddington, then the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser. The work of this ad hoc board led to the development of the 2013 nuclear industrial strategy and a nuclear R&D road map; so far, so good.

The committee’s recommendation that a statutory nuclear R&D board be formed was not accepted. Instead, the Government established the Nuclear Innovation and Research Board as a temporary advisory board for three years, with its term expiring in December 2016. Our committee therefore decided last year that it was an appropriate time to revisit this topic in the light of the Government’s forthcoming industrial strategy White Paper. We benefited greatly from the expertise of our committee clerk, Anna Murphy, our specialist adviser, Professor Tom Scott, and our policy analyst, Dr Daniel Rathbone. We are most grateful to them.

As noted in paragraph 19 of our report, the evidence showed that within its terms of reference, NIRAB has been widely regarded as a success. It was, however, handicapped by not being charged with responsibility for the full co-ordination of UK civil nuclear research, nor was it constituted to develop international co-ordination, and of course it had only a three-year timespan. Our report restates the recommendation from 2011 that a non-departmental public body should be set up on a permanent basis with a co-ordinating and supervisory role for nuclear R&D in the United Kingdom.

The nuclear sector desperately needs continuity and consistency for its research and development. The Clean Growth Strategy, published last Thursday, states:

“The Government has asked the Nuclear Innovation and Research Office (NIRO) to convene a new advisory Board, building on the success of the Nuclear Innovation and Research Advisory Board (NIRAB)”.


It is a relief to learn that NIRAB is effectively to be re-established, but it does not appear that the new advisory board will be given the wider remit we have called for, both in the 2011 and in the 2017 reports. Our witnesses seemed unaware that the Government still consider they are working to their 2013 road map. Time and again, our witnesses told us that the UK was missing a clear vision and strategy as far as the nuclear industry is concerned. We state in paragraph 52:

“In light of the strongly critical evidence we have received the Government needs to review and refresh the 2013 strategy for nuclear energy, in conjunction with the NIC”—


the Nuclear Industry Council—

“and take swift and concrete steps towards its further implementation”.

The current work on preparing a nuclear sector deal, referred to on page 37 of the clean growth strategy, would provide an excellent opportunity to review and refresh the 2013 strategy.

The strategic policy decision which needs to be addressed first and foremost was posed to us by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Council:

“Do we want to be a top-table nuclear nation, which is the role we have always occupied and done so brilliantly in the last 60 years, or are we going to settle for some other role which might not be the full-spectrum range of capabilities that we have got used to?”


I profoundly agree with him that the Government must decide whether they wish the UK to be a serious player in developing nuclear generation technology as a designer, manufacturer and operator, or alternatively to restrict its interests to being an operator of equipment supplied by others.

Once the Government have made this overarching decision, other strategic decisions will flow from this to define a clear set of objectives and timescales with which the nuclear industry can align itself. We recommend, in paragraph 58, that,

“If the Government were to decide that the UK should be a serious player in nuclear fission, the following would be the minimum steps needed to achieve this: development of a domestic research programme that is of sufficient scope and scale to make the UK an attractive partner for developing new technology to support new nuclear build (including Small Modular Reactors) in the UK and abroad; participation in and contribution to international programmes (for example the Generation IV International Forum)”.


The Government’s clean growth strategy reports that £460 million will be allocated,

“to support work in areas including … advanced reactor design”.

Can the Minister explain whether that £460 million is all new money or includes what remains unspent from the £250 million allocated over five years in 2015 for nuclear research and development?

It would be madness to attempt to develop the next generation of fission technologies on our own. If ever there was a need for international collaboration, it is in this respect, and the Generation IV International Forum is fulfilling precisely that role. We stopped being an active member of that forum in 2006 for financial reasons. NIRAB and our committee have both recommended that we rejoin the forum rather than continue with observer status. Now that the Government have declared their intention to support work in advanced reactor design, the case for rejoining the forum has become overwhelming.

There is wide international recognition that the future of nuclear energy from fission is likely to depend on SMRs, whether using light water technology—as used in existing reactors—or Generation IV technologies, for which the timescale is much longer. Those noble Lords who were in the Chamber last Thursday to hear the Answer to the Oral Question of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, on when the Government would report progress on the competition to design SMRs, will remember that the answer was “shortly”. The techno-economic assessment of SMRs was commissioned in May 2015 and completed in August 2016. This assessment is an essential piece of evidence for the public debate on whether SMRs have a role to play in the United Kingdom and in global markets for electricity generation, district heating, water desalination, and the production of certain chemicals. Should we seek to design and manufacture SMRs both for domestic and overseas markets? The delay in publishing the assessment is yet another example of the need to break the cycle of indecision. I have some sympathy with Jesse Norman MP, who in his evidence to the committee as the then departmental Minister for these matters stated that he did not think that the SMR competition should have been named a competition and that it was more a call for ideas across a much wider spectrum.

Chapter 5 of our report refers to the National Nuclear Laboratory, owned and operated by the Government but required to operate as a commercial business. We believe that the Government should make use of this resource for independent advice and provide a modest amount of core funding.

We then refer to the sorry situation of our membership of Euratom being deemed incompatible with Brexit. The die is now cast on this and the Nuclear Safeguards Bill is making its way through Parliament. When the Bill comes to this House, we must give it careful scrutiny. Unless it secures all the benefits—and they have been considerable—that we have derived from our membership of Euratom, we will face many problems, not least that of losing our lead in nuclear fusion research. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Selborne]

My Lords, I am very encouraged by my noble friend’s reply and the fact that, as I understand it, the Government are committed to rejoin, after several years, the Generation Four International Forum. What we have seen is a great signal to the nuclear community that we are setting our aspirations once more at something that is ambitious and recognises the expertise that we have in our science base in this country in matters nuclear.

We have had a very interesting historical lesson from all parts of the House, not least the Minister, and I was expecting it from the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who is a great expert on these matters. It is not surprising that successive Administrations rather lost their way on nuclear when the public felt greatly disenchanted, for reasons we all understand.

Perhaps I am eternally optimistic, but from the Minister’s response just now, the clean growth strategy and the forthcoming industrial strategy White Paper, I do see some opportunities to have the question we posed—breaking the cycle of indecision—resolved satisfactorily.

It remains only for me to thank all noble Lords who have stayed to this very late hour, by my standards, to participate in what I have found a most interesting debate.

Motion agreed.

House adjourned at 10.46 pm.

Queen’s Speech

Earl of Selborne Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Selborne (Con)]

My Lords, I propose to follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and others and confine my remarks to what the gracious Speech calls a new modern industrial strategy. When the Science and Technology Committee in the previous Parliament, which I had the privilege of chairing, took evidence on the Green Paper Building our Industrial Strategy, we were frequently reminded that industrial strategies have been formulated regularly, at least one a decade for 60 years, since the Attlee Administration. It is fair to say that most have not stood the test of time, so the first question to be addressed when formulating what the gracious Speech calls “a new modern industrial strategy” is: have we learned lessons from previous failures?

Whether we end up with a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, our long-term prospects will depend on achieving economic growth in all parts of the United Kingdom. We have to improve productivity, capture a larger share of world trade and attract inward investment. We are not going to achieve lasting periods of economic growth unless we successfully promote innovation. Successful innovation raises productivity and living standards, expands the range of goods and services available to individuals and society and allows us to live longer, healthier lives. It will not solve all our problems. I accept that, as my noble friend reminded us, lack of productivity it is very much a consequence of poor management. It is not just business that must innovate; government and social organisations need to innovate, adapt, respond to and shape the evolution of society. We have a strong science base—I do not think that is disputed—but that does not ensure that we will be among the global leaders in developing new innovative technologies and processes.

The Green Paper recognised the potential benefits and, indeed, our national dependence on science and innovation, but it failed to impart a vision of how we are going to develop a coherent strategy. It amounted to a portfolio of tactics. The Science and Technology Committee suggested that a new modern industrial strategy should first set out pathways of practical steps to a more regionally dispersed economy building on our research excellence at every opportunity. The strategy should be clear on how many sector deals the Government aspire to. They are clearly already an important component. They should also explain how transformational technologies that do not necessarily fit comfortably into existing sectors will be matured. The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, in his inspiring maiden speech, referred to the impact that robotics will have in the marine and other sectors. Many such sectors will be transformed by autonomous systems. This is an example of where innovation will lead in most unpredictable directions, but new industries they certainly will be.

We need to change the investment culture within our fund management industry to encourage, by a coherent approach to tax and regulation, the further supply of long-term capital for industry and science, particularly for emerging science-based firms with the potential to be significant global players. Brexit presents opportunities for businesses in the United Kingdom to gain competitive advantage from reforms to taxation and regulation that were previously not possible as part of the European Union framework. The new, modern industrial strategy promised in the gracious Speech must spell out clearly how such competitive advantage will be gained.