Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Lord Bishop of Norwich Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, for many years the UK could rightly claim to be a world leader in responding to the dangers of climate change by taking action to reduce our carbon emissions. We rightly showcased that when we hosted COP 26 in Glasgow. However, I am increasingly concerned that our global leadership is slipping away. At COP 28, we joined the rest of the world in committing to:

“Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.


This Bill commits us to fossil fuel production at the same time as we are asking other nations to transition away. Our messages are, at best, confused. Various noble Lords have contributed their concerns during this debate, including on methane venting and flaring, which I share.

It is a privilege to follow the excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, because I can jettison much of what I wanted to say. I also want to speak about marine protected areas. Her expertise in this area has been important to hear. With the analysis that she has given us and our knowledge that the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referenced, recommends that no industrialised activities should take place within marine protected areas, my question to the Minister is: what steps are His Majesty’s Government taking to safeguard these marine protected areas, and why are they not taking the IUCN’s recommendation seriously by excluding MPAs from extraction in this Bill? I would certainly support the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, proposes.

My second point is about our 30 by 30 commitment. Our biodiversity commitments do not stop at the deckchairs on the beach. The Government have committed to preserving 30% of land and sea for biodiversity by 2030. The 30 by 30 pledge is backed by targets set out in the Environment Act to halt the decline in species abundance, both on land and at sea. My second question to the Minister is: how do His Majesty’s Government intend to meet the 30 by 30 target while expanding offshore drilling?

My third point is about spatial planning. The UK Government are signatories of the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, target 1 of which states that Governments will:

“Ensure that all areas are under participatory, integrated, and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning and/or effective management processes addressing land and sea use change, to bring the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance … close to zero by 2030”.


This marine spatial planning is essential for managing the inevitable conflicts that arise from different activities at sea, yet a 2023 Defra report assessing the east marine plans found they were outdated and that the

“intended outcomes are no longer aligned to the UK’s national priorities”.

These marine plans should set nature and climate as the major priorities for the use of the sea and, at the very least, protect MPAs from drilling. That brings me to my third question to the Minister: will His Majesty’s Government commit to create a spatial plan outlining where and when activities could take place, with a hierarchy of priority that makes space for 30 by 30 and decarbonisation first, and not allow more drilling in MPAs while this is being finalised?

The King’s Speech at the opening of this Session of Parliament spoke about holding

“other countries to their environmental commitments”.—[Official Report, 7/11/23; col. 4.]

At the time, I noted in my maiden speech in your Lordships’ House that

“the UK Government can do that with credibility only if we are an exemplar ourselves”.—[Official Report, 13/11/23; col. 310.]

Ensuring the protection of our marine life would put us back in the leadership chair, not slumbering in that deckchair on the beach.

In the gospels, we meet the first disciples, including St Peter, on the beach, mending their nets. They were fishermen and knew well the beauty and diversity present in the sea. In one famous story, Jesus encourages the disciples to do something totally different from what they were used to: to cast out into the deep. We too are now in an era when we need to do things differently and not follow the same old ways. We need to put away the old way of damaging nature and instead do all we can to preserve and protect it. Psalm 104 speaks of the sea,

“vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number—living things both large and small”.

My concern is that this Bill risks further damaging that vision of the psalmist: of the sea “teeming with creatures”.