King’s Speech

Earl Russell Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate Labour on securing a historic win and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on his appointment.

This Parliament has a powerful mandate for bold action to fight the climate emergency and ensure an unprecedented revolution in the deployment of renewable energy. We must ensure a return to the all-party consensus on climate change. This June marked the 12th consecutive month of global temperatures of 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels. Global sea surface temperatures have also breached the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold for each of the last 15 months. We are running out of time. Our global climate goals are melting before we transition away from fossil fuels.

Although the Conservatives passed a ground-breaking Climate Change Act and cut our CO₂ emissions to their lowest levels since 1879, ultimately Sunak prioritised the perceived electoral benefits of climate polarisation over climate action. Dither and delay and climate culture wars have meant that UK energy bills were £22 billion higher over the past decade than they would have been had we taken action earlier to rid ourselves of our overdependence on fossil fuels. Precious time, inward investment and our international reputation were all sacrificed.

The Climate Change Committee is clear that we are off course to meet the fifth and sixth rounds of our carbon budgets, particularly for heating and transport. Were someone to ask, “How would you get to net zero by 2050?”, the answer would come back, “I would not start from here after nine years of Conservative government”. Labour have made their job more difficult as well by deciding to cut their own £28 billion annual budget for climate change. I call on Labour to revisit these budget decisions. We have a historic opportunity to turn to the next chapter in the fight against climate change and transform the United Kingdom into the world’s leading innovative and successful green economy.

The international frameworks, legislation and policy are all largely in place. The job of government is to implement change at an unprecedented pace and scale, and that means taking critical decisions and building lots of infrastructure. The initial signs are encouraging: in particular, the ending of the effective nine-year ban on new onshore wind farms, the launch of the National Wealth Fund, the approval of three big new solar farms and the masterful appointment of Chris Stark as the head of mission control. This is all good for our energy security, reducing energy bills and ensuring a future for humanity.

I am proud of my party’s manifesto, which was judged by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to be better than Labour’s for the environment and nature. We on these Benches are committed to achieving net zero by 2045. I encourage Labour to be bold. As Ed Davey said, please steal our ideas, especially on tackling the failing water companies and the sewage scandal. We welcome Labour’s plan to make the UK a clean energy superpower, doubling offshore wind, trebling solar and quadrupling offshore wind, along with the Government’s commitment to decarbonise our energy generation by 2030, including the creation of Great British Energy.

The Liberal Democrats have always been and will always be champions of renewable energy. The UK has the third-best wind resources in the world. Renewable energy is cheap and proven and has short delivery times. It provides energy security and lowers costs to consumers. It is entirely possible to decarbonise our power generation by 2030, but no nation has ever fully decarbonised their national power generation within such a short timeframe.

Success will require an intergovernmental approach across Whitehall, the devolved regions and local government. It will also involve rapid societal change not seen here since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It means building a massive amount of infrastructure, equivalent to some seven times more over the next 10 years than was built over the previous three. The “how, not if” reforms to planning will need to be carefully balanced and communicated to ensure that we do not get bogged down in nimby infrastructure wars. The Government need to balance building with spatial strategies that include brownfield first and enhanced, larger geographical areas of nature protection.

The Government must make a number of key policy decisions urgently and set out a comprehensive policy programme. The solutions are well known: onshore and offshore wind power; rooftop solar; a huge home insulation programme; the delivery of affordable home heat pumps, the take-up of electric vehicles; a massive update to the grid and interconnectors, generating more power in the south, where it is consumed; and decisions on carbon capture and storage, medium and long-term power storage and how we get cheap energy to heavy industry and nuclear power.

We await the Bills and will scrutinise them carefully when they arrive to ensure that they work. We will hold Labour to account and push them to be ambitious. Great British Energy is welcome, but I encourage Labour to invest in community energy schemes, and I caution against on an overreliance of nuclear projects that are often over budget and delivered late.

Adaptation and resilience is the bit that no one wants to talk about, but we can no longer afford to ignore it. From our health systems to urban planning, water infrastructure, transport, flood defences, the resilience of critical infrastructure, food security and the control of wildfires, there is little joined-up comprehensive thinking going on across government. The recommendations of the Adaptation Committee of the Climate Change Committee need to be fed into Whitehall and delivered across government.

The key to success in all these projects lies in the Government’s ability to bring the public along for the transition. That requires providing real cost of living benefits to people early on. To make the green revolution work, it must provide jobs, wages and economic growth. The Government must work to provide the educated skills workforce required.

I believe passionately in the need for a just climate transition. It is essential that our citizens see tangible benefits. Another spike in the international energy markets could cost the UK an extra £50 billion. We welcome Labour’s foreign policy plans to establish co-ordinated global action on climate change. I want Labour to form ever-closer relations with Europe, and to see a return to having shared environmental standards with the EU. Global finance mitigation and adaption will be key issues at COP 29. This is an ideal opportunity for the Labour Government to show leadership. We encourage His Majesty’s Government to act with speed, but to bring society with them.