Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2021

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, looking around I see lots of former Members of the European Parliament. I think there are half a dozen speaking in this debate, including my noble friend the Minister, and until a moment ago another was on the Woolsack or perched on the steps of the Throne as I started. It is a tribute to the popularity of our new colleague, my noble friend Lord Kamall, that there should be this support from different Benches. We former MEPs know what it is to deliberate unreported and unremarked; we have what the police might call “previous” in this department. However, I hope that in the circumstances your Lordships will indulge me if I add my voice to previous speakers in welcoming my noble friend Lord Kamall. He is a man of immense breadth of character, a handy cricketer, a brilliant footballer and a very talented bass guitarist, but also a man of extraordinary modesty.

Over the past month, there has been a lot of press coverage of the change of leadership in the Scottish Labour Party. People have been saying that the new Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, is the first Muslim leader of a British political party and the first ethnic minority leader. I wish Mr Sarwar every success: you do not have to be a Labour supporter to want the best for the Labour Party in Scotland. It is a party with a terrific tradition—the party of Keir Hardie, John Smith and, indeed, of that flinty patriot, the noble Lord, Lord Reid, who is sitting opposite now. Of course, anyone who first becomes a dentist and then a Labour MP in Scotland is plainly elevating the public weal above his personal popularity, so I wish Mr Sarwar the best. Yet it is not really the case that he is either the first non-white or first Muslim British party leader, because my noble friend Lord Kamall had led not only a British political party but a coalition of European political parties with extraordinary diplomacy and talent, remaining popular until the end. That is quite some achievement, as his predecessor in that role, my noble friend the Minister, can confirm.

The Motion on the renewables order is a tribute to two aspects of our current energy policy that deserve a little more acknowledgement. The first is the value of an intelligent use of market mechanisms to deliver environmental goals. Aristotle said that that which no one owns, no one cares for; the use of sensitive and carefully laid incentives so as to encourage the private sector to deliver goals which deal with externalities has been one of the great elements of the UK’s success in getting to a diversity of supply. Secondly, it illustrates that, very often, the things which make the biggest difference in environmental policy are quite technical issues of this kind, rather than sweeping and sometimes histrionic global statements of intent.

As my noble friend the Minister said, the measure effectively restores the mutualisation proportions to what they were when the Bill was brought forward and the change was first made in the previous decade. I share my noble friend Lord Kamall’s ambition that we should get to the point where renewables become competitive, and where technology delivers what state subsidies have, until now, been required to help with as the booster rocket. I support these temperate, judicious and targeted measures.