Environment Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Marlesford.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to be allowed to intervene—briefly, I was withdrawn from speaking in this group—and I would like to support what the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, has said about the concerns of small breweries. I was to some extent heartened by the Minister’s response that there is provision for making special arrangements in the regulations, but I would just like to ask him whether he recalls, five or 10 years ago, the rather serious activities of the major brewers in kicking out and treating badly many small pub landlords, which ended up with a lot of fuss. In the end, a Pubs Code Adjudicator was appointed to try to protect the independent landlords and, to some extent, the beers that they supplied. We have to remember that the big brewers are not charities. It is really important for the growth of the industry and the variety that the new brewers provide that there is a real, solid protection for the small brewers when it comes to the deposit return schemes. I hope that the Minister can confirm that.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I remember well the scandal of five to 10 years ago. Indeed, there were a number of people in my own former constituency who were affected, and I was very much involved in the all-party group that called for the Pubs Code Adjudicator, so I very much note his comments. I hope that the noble Lord was reassured by the reassurances that I provided in relation to small businesses and our attempts to insulate them as far as possible from any avoidable cost.

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Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

157: Clause 73, page 63, line 29, at end insert “, train, ship or aircraft;”
Member’s explanatory statement
This Clause appears to enable the Government to recall pieces of internal combustion engines that are no longer compliant with emissions legislation. This amendment, as well as others in Lord Berkeley’s name, is to probe why trains, ships and aircraft are not included as they are capable of similar emissions.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 158 and 159 and comment on the other amendment in this grouping. This is to do with the environmental recalling of motor vehicles, which covers everything in Clause 73(3). As I read it, this is for the purpose of the environmental impacts, which in Clause 73(6) include

“any impact on the environment caused by noise, heat or vibrations or any other kind of release of energy or emissions resulting from the use of the product.”

I have tabled this amendment to probe Ministers as to why the clause relates only to motor vehicles, which I think are effectively road vehicles, and does not include emissions from trains—there are a lot of diesel trains around—from ships, certainly within UK territorial waters, or aircraft. We have had many debates about emissions from aircraft, although fewer about ships and trains. They all have the same ability to emit harmful emissions and do everything mentioned in Clause 73, a clause that I of course support.

Amendment 159 relates to similar pieces of equipment. Construction equipment, bulldozers and cranes, and agricultural plant or equipment are all powered by motors that emit possibly—in fact, almost certainly—harmful emissions. I want to probe the Minister on why these are not included in this rather excellent piece of legislation. It will be quite difficult to get them into the regulations. On the principle that most of this equipment has motors that cause noise, emissions or a combination of the two, I think they should be included in the same clause.

Some vehicles are major polluters because there are so many of them, and you can include cars and trucks in that. There are probably fewer agricultural vehicles, such as tractors, but some of the ones that I have seen certainly do their bit to pollute the environment. I would be pleased to hear from the Minister why they have been excluded.

There has been a lot of talk of biomass being able to fuel aircraft in order to make them zero carbon, but if we ever got to a stage where aircraft could be powered by a fuel that was 100% biomass, it would need so many hectares of land on which to grow that biomass that we would probably all starve around the world. That is not a long-term solution. Aircraft cause just as much pollution as everything else. Obviously we need to have international agreements on all these issues, but we still need to do our national bit.

So those are the big numbers. Conversely, Amendment 279 in the name of my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester and other noble Lords is a plea for an exception to Clause 73. Railway locomotives, road vehicle chimneys and even stationary steam engines emit quite a lot of harmful emissions, but there are so few of them around that one could argue from a heritage point of view that they should be excepted from Clause 73. I shall listen carefully to what noble Lords say about this amendment, but because there are so few of these vehicles around there is a strong argument for excepting them from the clause. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and I beg to move.

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I understand the passion that I could detect in my noble friend’s voice. However, I repeat that we cannot list everything that the Bill does not apply to. I can reassure my noble friend that the Government are not doing anything that would impact on heritage vehicles, nor would they plan to do anything that would. An exemption is just not needed because these are not caught within the scope of the Bill. Again, I say that the Minister and his officials are happy to continue to engage with him and others as this guidance is developed.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken on this group. We have had a really good discussion, especially about older steam engines. I certainly would support an amendment that put this in the Bill, because it is a really serious issue, and it does affect stationary engines as well as moving ones, as noble Lords have said.

I shall also read with interest and in detail the Minister’s response to my three amendments. I find it odd that we are not looking at legislation that applies to all machines—if you can call them that—that emit emissions. Whether they are air, sea, river or road-based, they all emit emissions, and so to me, they should all be treated in the same way in this legislation.