Buildings: Energy Performance

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, one would hope that the owners of those buildings would have the incentive of the cost of lighting those buildings. But the noble Lord ought to be aware that light does not necessarily always consume that much energy, particularly if the owners have switched to LED lights and other forms of lighting that can reduce their carbon footprint. What the noble Lord sees is not necessarily what is happening in terms of energy consumption.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that one of the simplest forms of retrofit to improve the energy performance of existing homes is loft insulation, yet the Committee on Climate Change, in its 2018 report, notes that loft insulation installation rates are now at their lowest for 10 years. The committee also sets a target for the Government as part of the trajectory to 2050, and the legally binding commitment we have made, of installing loft insulation in the remaining 2.5 million homes where it can be installed simply and effectively, by 2022. Does he also note, and will he comment on the fact, that the current rate of installation will mean that this target is not met until at least 2080?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that loft insulation is one of the best ways for any householder to reduce the amount of energy they use and have a warmer house. One would hope that there are two motivators here. One, obviously, is price, which should encourage people to buy their insulation and install it. We also offer advice through the Simple Energy Advice service—a new digital approach offering tailored advice to home owners—which has been available online and by telephone since the spring to encourage people to look at ways of insulating their homes.

Oil and Gas: UK Continental Shelf

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

As I understand it, although I will no doubt have to write in greater detail to the noble Lord, removing the platforms is a matter for those who put them in place. When we talk about jobs and available exploration jobs, it is worth pointing out that there will be jobs in decommissioning and removing those platforms in due course, which will make use of the expertise in north-eastern Scotland that put the platforms in and operated them.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, what is the Government’s estimate of the length of time for which we can continue to burn fossil fuels while meeting our legally binding carbon reduction commitments, as agreed up to the fifth carbon budget and beyond?

[Lord Henley]

I am not sure I can give the noble Lord those figures but I can assure him that there are opportunities to continue to meet our obligations in that respect, particularly by making use of shale gas exploration if we move onshore. We certainly reckon that current production represents some 65 % of UK oil demand and 50% of UK gas demand, but there is much more to be found.

Brexit: Energy Security (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as recorded at the back of the report: I am a former member of the Climate Change Committee and chair of its adaptation sub-committee, and a current member of the advisory board of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. I also join other noble Lords who are members of the sub-committee in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his outstanding chairmanship of this report—and indeed the other reports we have produced—and thanking the committee clerk and policy analyst.

Before we started on this inquiry I had read a report from Chatham House, published in 2016, before the referendum. It said:

“In the field of energy and climate policy, remaining in the European Union offers the best balance of policy options for Britain’s national interests”.


I had expected—perhaps even hoped—that in the many hundreds of pages of written evidence and many hours of oral evidence, including the evidence from the Minister that has been referred to, we would find out why Chatham House was wrong. Unfortunately, we did not find out why it was wrong, so I want the Minister to explain at the start exactly why leaving the European Union will be better for the national interests of Great Britain in terms of energy and climate policy.

As we know, and as the Government state in their response, the challenge for energy policy is to reconcile three imperatives that are essential for the future: security of our energy supply, affordability of our energy supply, and decarbonisation of our energy supply. As things stand, and as we have already heard from other noble Lords, the Government’s delivery of these objectives is supported not only by national legislation but by our membership of the European Union and its various component parts that deal with energy.

I will be brief, bearing in mind the late hour, but I want to spend a few minutes talking about the third leg of energy policy: decarbonisation. The Government’s response to our report makes several references to our legally binding national decarbonisation targets, the Paris Agreement and the Clean Growth Strategy. Commenting on the last of these, the government response states:

“The Clean Growth Strategy sets out how the country can benefit from the creation of new technologies and new businesses, while meeting our climate change targets”.


This may well be true but what the government response does not say is that the Committee on Climate Change has pointed out that the measures set out in the Clean Growth Strategy do not take the Government anywhere near meeting their own legally binding commitments. The committee has said:

“Although ambitious, the Strategy does not go far enough. Urgent action is needed to flesh out current plans and proposals, and supplement them with additional measures, to meet the UK’s legally-binding carbon targets in the 2020s and 2030s … Even if delivered in full, existing and new policies, including those set out in the Clean Growth Strategy, miss the fourth and fifth carbon budgets by around 10-65 MtCO2e—a significant margin”.


Without going into detail, the CCC also points to areas in which more action is needed, including transport, domestic buildings, low-carbon electricity, energy efficiency, landfill and agriculture.

The Committee on Climate Change has also pointed out that by the 2020s, about half of the required emissions reductions will be dependent on policies that come from the European Union. I ask the Minister to explain to us how, post Brexit, the Government intend to combine the objectives of maintaining a secure and affordable energy supply while meeting their legally binding commitments on decarbonisation.

Finally, I want to say just a few words about the internal energy market, although much has been said already and I do not want to repeat it. As we have already heard, the Minister, Richard Harrington, told us that the Government’s,

“top priority is to be as near as possible to the current arrangements”,

but he did not explain, given that, why he thought it was such a good idea to leave the current arrangements. If you want them to remain, why not just stay with them? More recently, on 27 April, the European Commission published its Notice to Stakeholders on Brexit and the internal energy market, which contains some stark messages for this country. For instance, as a third country, the UK will have to pay for transmission costs inside the internal energy market, which could seriously alter the economics of interconnection. What is the Government’s assessment of the Commission’s Notice to Stakeholders, particularly in the context that, as we have heard from other noble Lords, virtually all projections of UK power supply indicate that we will have to import more, rather than less, over the next decade or longer?