Climate Change: Net Zero Strategy

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

No, it is not. The figures I quoted started from a baseline of 1990, so it actually includes some of the progress made under previous Labour Governments. There is no question that of course we have a challenge: we have the oldest housing stock in Europe, a consequence of the Industrial Revolution. Six million homes were built before the First World War, so it is a challenge, but the figures still stand: we are making faster progress than any other G7 country.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, have the Government really taken on board, in pursuing this admirable goal of NZ, the absolutely colossal increase in electricity from renewable sources—presumably wind and nuclear are the main ones—which will be required to get anywhere near replacing all the other energy we use in the economy, which is, of course, full of fossil fuels? This is a vast task, requiring immense investment and enormous planning and, although I am encouraged by what my noble friend says, have we really begun on making the 10-times expansion of wind in the North Sea and the six new nuclear power stations if they are big, or the 30 or 40 if they are small? These are vast tasks; we do not yet hear enough about how we are going to meet them.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point. I know he has a lot of experience in this area and he is right to point out the scale of the task. It is an immense challenge to be done over many years; none of this happens overnight. Some of the wind farms that are coming on stream this year were planned a decade ago; it all takes time to do, but over the next 20 or 30 years we need to make progress towards those goals. They are legally binding, so we need to meet them and we are on track to do so.