UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Lord Deben Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 17 in this group, supported by the same cross-party group of noble colleagues as Amendment 4. It is a simple amendment which

“includes ‘energy efficiency’ within the definition of infrastructure.”

Last week, the IEA released new analysis showing that stronger efficiency measures can reduce energy bills, fuel imports and greenhouse gas emissions quickly and significantly. This was a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, when speaking to her amendments earlier. In comments accompanying the analysis, the IEA executive director, Dr Fatih Birol, said that

“inexplicably, government and business leaders are failing to sufficiently act on this.”

Indeed, when the UK Government responded to the crisis in costs being experienced throughout the country, they committed £37 billion this year to help households with the cost of living crisis. However, when they implemented a tax on the revenues of oil and gas companies, they failed to announce any new efficiency measures which could help reduce energy demands and bills—in the long term, rather than the short term. It is, therefore, very important that we show a priority for energy efficiency in this Bill.

I will say something a little more broadly about Clause 2(5), dealing with the “technologies and facilities” included in the definition of “infrastructure”. The Government have got themselves into their own problem here. We know that the letter that was sent—the strategic steer—references energy efficiency. It mentions

“the urgent need to improve the energy efficiency of our buildings in the context of high energy prices and the Government’s renewed focus on energy security.”

So they have given us the steer that this is a priority. However, in the Bill, they give a list which does not mention it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, pointed out, the list includes roads, gas and all sorts of things which might not be in line with the priorities. There is a real problem, which we have all discussed many times, with lists in legislation. Including a list like this implies that these are priorities—although I understand that other things are not excluded by the inclusion of some things in the list—but there is an implicit suggestion that these are the main or important priorities.

The Government really must think about that, as they must also think about the issue which we were discussing earlier about what falls within the framework document and what falls within the Bill. I was not alone in not finding the definition of parliamentary scrutiny for the framework document, which the Minister conjured up for us earlier on, very comforting: it may be scrutiny, but not as I know it in the most rigorous of ways. Of course, we can ask questions about it, but that is not quite what the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, was getting at when he asked his question.

The problem that illustrated is that, within those two objectives of the Bill, when people said that the objective about economic growth could include vanity projects in very rich areas of the country, the Government’s response was, “Yes, it could, but we won’t do it.” When we said that the Government are not explicit about nature, biodiversity and adaptation projects, alongside the net-zero target, they said, “Ah, but don’t worry, because it could include those.” I really think that there is a problem in saying, “Yes, those are the words on the paper, but don’t worry about, because we can sort it all out.” I suspect that a lot of the rest of today, and on Report, will involve wrestling with exactly where that balance between the Bill, the steer that was given and the framework document should come.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I do not think we should add too many details, so that the thing becomes a Christmas tree. Although I think I agreed with every suggestion that my noble friend Lord Holmes put forward as a principle, I am not sure that all of them are of equal value in this. However, I think the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett—she will be pleased, on this occasion, to find we are entirely aligned—are absolutely right. The Climate Change Committee has sought for a very long time to get the Government to take energy efficiency and demand reduction seriously, and there seems to be some utterly inexplicable reason that they can never do this.

I am beginning to think that this is a kind of male thing: they want to build big things—“Nuclear power stations; let’s do that”—instead of doing much simpler things. I am in favour of nuclear power, but the much simpler things are reducing the need to generate, reducing the need to use and understanding that this is as crucial a part of what we are doing as anything else. I hope that, because we have so eminent a female Minister here, she will push against this rather aggressive view of dealing with climate change, which is always to do big things. I think it is because the Government think they get votes for that, whereas with energy efficiency it is very difficult to get people to feel you have done something useful, but we are going to have to do it.

Take the electric motor car. If we are not careful, we will all be driving too much, as I do. What fun and how much better the electric motor car is than anything else, but I have to say that I ought to be careful about how often I use it, because there are resources involved which one ought to think about. If we do not have that attitude throughout, frankly, we will get the infrastructure arrangements wrong. Taking a wider view of infrastructure without thinking about the resources we are using and a reduction, within the infrastructure rules, in the use of those resources, seems to me to misunderstand what we should be doing.

Although I would not want to add all sorts of examples of things we ought to be doing, I want to make it very clear that the last speaker, as so often, got it absolutely right: if we have a list, something as important as this should not be left out, or the answer will be, as it always is, “Well, our priorities are laid down in the Act”. The Government have done that and, really, this is only an auxiliary, an addition. I want it to be central because it actually is central. It is not a question of my inventing it—it is utterly central.

I also want it to be here because this is what the Government’s advisers have said to them again and again. It really is difficult. We saw this yesterday with the so-called food strategy—it is not a strategy at all, of course. I had to ask why the Government have not even addressed the advice of the Climate Change Committee, or half the recommendations of the Dimbleby report. I think the Government have to think much more seriously about the fact that if they have advice and do not intend to do what that advice suggests, that is perfectly all right—they are the Government—but they must explain to their advisers why they do not think that energy efficiency is central to this, when that is the advice that has been consistently given.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope the Committee has been reassured that the existing definition of infrastructure allows for investment in many of the areas raised by these amendments today, particularly energy efficiency, which was raised by a large number of noble Lords.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Could my noble friend assure the Committee that she will look again at the inclusion of the diminishing of demand and energy efficiency, which the Climate Change Committee and others have specifically asked for? I think we in this Committee feel universally that that inclusion is necessary. I am sure there is a way of getting to it; I think we need this in the Bill.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I commit to the Committee that I and the Government will listen very carefully to our proceedings today and, of course, to the advice from the noble Lord’s committee and other expert advisers to the Government. On the particular discussion we are having on a number of aspects of this Bill, I think we agree on the aims that we want to achieve. We may disagree on the mechanism of it, but that does not mean that the contributions of this Committee will not be taken into account before we get to Report.

I hope that, with all that in mind, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—oh, I have skipped ahead. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, will withdraw her amendment and that other noble Lords will not move theirs when they are reached.