Queen's Speech

Lord Bishop of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Liverpool]

My Lords, thanks to the Benches opposite, the United Kingdom has established its reputation on the world stage as a leading voice on climate change. It is the hope of many on these Benches that the new coalition Government will continue to show strong international leadership by what the United Kingdom says on the global stage as well as by the way it rebuilds a green economic recovery.

In the run-up to the election the Green Alliance’s report, The Last Parliament, made a powerful argument that now is the time for action. The report reminds us that over the next five years Parliament has the last opportunity to take action on the national and international stage and prevent runaway climate change. Failure to stabilise emissions in that timeframe will dramatically reduce our chances of keeping global warming below the predicted 2-degree rise in global temperature. The Government have declared that they want to be the greenest Government. This is not simply a desirable ambition; it is an essential requirement for a secure future.

I am interested to see how the Government’s plans will impact on the north-west of England. The region is the most renewable-energy-rich region in the United Kingdom, offering opportunities for its continued economic development, especially with the creation of green jobs and green economic growth, as well as contributing to the national economic recovery. We therefore welcome the plans for setting up the green investment bank. I hope there will be many branches in the north-west. However, it is with great concern that we learn of the intention to create local enterprise partnerships to replace the regional development agencies. The RDAs have a long track record and, especially in the north-west, have been an investor for—and not a cost to—central government. The NWDA’s investment in projects resulted in a net increase of wealth of £5.20 for every £1 invested. In 2009-10, the NWDA played a pivotal role in attracting more foreign investment to the region than any other outside the south-east, creating or safeguarding more than 14,000 jobs. The point of mentioning the RDA in a speech mainly about the environment is that the RDA is the key to developing a renewable energy strategy and green jobs in the regions as a major part of the development of the UK’s renewable energy strategy.

The UK faces challenging targets for carbon emissions. We cannot achieve these without the close integration of infrastructure planning, economic growth and energy generation. The proposed abolition of the regional spatial strategies seems to remove the mechanism to align infrastructure priorities with economic potential. We have a national requirement to develop a sustainable, reliable, renewable energy supply. The development of the national infrastructure must contribute to this. It is important that the Government replace the Infrastructure Planning Commission with a system that is not just, as they say, efficient and accountable, but that counts the carbon of new infrastructure planning. I have argued for this in previous debates and will continue to make the point that planning permission must take account of the carbon footprint; otherwise, it drives a coach and horses through any strategy for reducing our carbon emissions.

There is no mention of nuclear power in the gracious Speech. We must avoid falling into the trap of believing that nuclear is our primary and easiest energy solution. I share the concerns expressed about nuclear energy by the Secretary of State. I question the development of nuclear energy on the grounds of proportionality. The energy consumption of one generation burdens 100 generations with the problem of dealing with the waste. I urge the Government to strive for a rich energy mix, including the abundant—and as yet almost entirely untapped—renewable energy sources around our country. For example, up to 20 per cent of the electricity required by the United Kingdom could be provided by the waters and tides of our coast, predominantly on the west of the UK.

At home, the Government have an important role to provide the initiative for changes in lifestyle. I hope the government policies, such as establishing a full system of feed-in tariffs and encouraging home energy efficiency improvements, will encourage people to change their lifestyle. Without a change of lifestyle, the policies themselves will not deliver. The climate of political opinion on climate change has changed radically over the past five years. Through the new Government’s legislative programme, the momentum must be sustained if the climate of opinion and action is to change more quickly than the climate itself.