Net-Zero Carbon Emissions

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the case for the integration of policy-making in (1) national, and (2) local, government to achieve net zero carbon emissions in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a director of Aldustria Ltd, a trustee of the Green Purposes Company that holds the green share in the Green Investment Bank, and an honorary president of the Major Energy Users’ Council.

Beyond the pandemic, two emergencies confront us: climate change and biodiversity loss. Both are real and, like Covid, both can be fatal to our economy and society. Members and Ministers in this House are all good at fine words when it comes to these crises, and I am sure there will be many admirable ones in this debate, but what counts is action. This debate should focus on how we deliver our climate goals most effectively and certainly. To do that, almost before anything else, we have to closely co-ordinate work between government departments and between Whitehall and our devolved nations, combined authorities and local authorities. With climate change, there is no room for silos in decision-making or inaction—if there is, we lose.

I will concentrate on the word “action”. The Government have just accepted the Climate Change Committee’s recommended sixth carbon budget—I think that legislation is being laid before Parliament today. I welcome that, as I am sure we all do. I also welcomed the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan, but without a route map—I have not seen one yet—it is a 10-pointless plan. We are still waiting for a net zero road map, the Treasury’s review of the costs of decarbonisation and the strategy for heat in homes and buildings, and whatever happened to the task force net zero? Perhaps the Minister can tell us. Did the Cabinet committee on climate change that the Prime Minister announced at the beginning of his premiership ever get past its first meeting?

Despite our strong past performance on carbon reductions in the UK—we are all proud of that—we were on track to miss our fourth and fifth carbon budgets even when our 2050 target was still only an 80% emission reduction. We have become complacent. No wonder the reception of these new targets was muted. It is easy to set targets into the future—in this case 2035, 14 years away—making it happen now is the test of our sincerity.

To quote Alok Sharma, COP 26 president and Cabinet member, on the announcement of the sixth carbon budget decision:

“Long term targets must be backed up with credible delivery plans”—


how much I agree with Mr Sharma. Chris Stark, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, stated:

“This target means every choice we make from now must be the right one for our climate.”


That means the choices made by the Treasury, the Cabinet Office, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Foreign Office and all the rest, not just BEIS and Defra.

How successful are we at Whitehall co-ordination? Back in ancient history, under Gordon Brown as Chancellor, the Treasury produced the Stern report and acted on it. The result was the Climate Change Act. But this year’s Budget was judged “climate-lite”. There were some good announcements, including green bonds—though late and long resisted by the Treasury—and the UK Infrastructure Bank, but no mechanism to ensure net zero- compliant investments and no big push of retrofit; in fact, there was a retreat on this. The Government backed away from green taxation, despite having previously trailed it in the press.

Let us be clear: if we are to win the climate change challenge, two departments have to be at the centre of it, and they are not BEIS and Defra but the Treasury and the Cabinet Office. There has to be a senior Minister in the Treasury whose sole focus is the climate change agenda. In the Cabinet Office there should be created a Minister for the climate emergency, who is a full member of Cabinet. That is the practical demand of the Government’s rhetoric and our desire to succeed.

There is one other department that I want to put in the spotlight when it comes to silos, yet it also is at the heart of climate change policy. That is the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It scrapped the 2016 zero-carbon homes deadline and did the same for the 2019 commercial buildings target. It rules the roost on building regulations, but I get no impression from it of a desperation to urgently uprate standards, let alone inspection rates. The Conservative manifesto pledged over £9 billion for retrofitting buildings, which I welcomed, but, a quarter of the way into this term of office, very little has been committed. I shall come on to the green homes grant later.

Then we had the Cumbria coal mine. It somehow did not seem to occur to the department or the Secretary of State that a brand spanking new coal mine being approved in the year of our COP 26 presidency, when the UK was internationally the co-founder of the Powering Past Coal Alliance, might just be seen as a little off-message by the rest of the world. It is amazing—and amazing too, apparently, to COP president Alok Sharma.

Whitehall silos are a challenge to all Governments—I understand that—but when it comes to climate change, we just cannot afford that luxury, or that inefficiency. As part of removing the climate silo, investment appraisal in all departments must be subject to a “route to net zero” test. That financial rigour is really important in all departmental investment.

I turn to local authorities. The great news is that more than 300 local authorities have declared a climate change emergency. That is brilliant. They are of all political persuasions, and for most it is not just a declaration but a genuine call to action. Two-thirds intend to be carbon neutral by 2030. One reason that this is good news is that some 50% of the carbon reductions we will need in the future are strongly influenced by local policy-making. But when it comes to achieving net zero as a nation, central and local government are like two ships passing in the night.

The next stage of decarbonisation will be far more difficult than what we have experienced so far. Unlike when coal was removed from power generation, our fellow citizens will notice the differences in the way they live. Local authorities are trusted by 80% of their citizens—a far higher percentage than trust, say, the electricity suppliers or even central government—so local authorities are essential to the delivery of the net zero route map. This is the case especially in such areas as the energy efficiency of homes and buildings, transport, waste, planning and the often neglected area of enforcement.

What better example is there of local doing it better than retrofit and home insulation? The fiasco of the green homes grant illustrates all too well that in this area top-down does not work. Local or combined authorities should spearhead retrofit, preferably on a street-by-street basis. To me, that is utterly obvious. Frankly, they should also be delivering the ECO—energy company obligation—programme rather than the energy supply companies. But of course, dumb Treasury definitions of public expenditure get in the way of serious delivery.

Transport is the one growing area of emissions in the UK and, with the rise of white vans and SUVs, it is not just air travel and shipping. Again, local authorities are clearly the best at delivering co-ordinated low-carbon transport plans. Only they can ensure that all citizens have access to charging points for EVs at or by their homes, not least when they do not have a parking space except on the road. Only in that way can we ensure a just transition, which we all want. Moving from landfill and energy from waste to recycling and reuse is a core local activity as well. The enforcement of planning conditions, building regulations and trading standards on energy efficiency is local but hugely underfunded, making prosecution unlikely. That under- funding of enforcement really must change.

Among all their other strategies and route maps, the Government must publish a specific plan or concordat for how they will engage fully with local authorities in the delivery of climate change goals. As part of that, there must also be a grown-up fiscal settlement between the two—difficult, I know, but it has to be done.

As part of my preparations for this debate, I decided to speak to a number of local government officers on the ground in the climate change area to understand their experience of working with Whitehall. I will give five short quotes, which all relate specifically to climate change. Here we go—in their words rather than mine. First, when it comes to climate change, government is divided on the issues at departmental level, and there is no core ethos that drives conversations down a clear pathway. Secondly, we still get pushed towards a more traditional economic justification for projects and initiatives by many departments, and the climate change agenda is too big for that. Thirdly, we have to deal with a multitude of funding streams that are complex, short-term and never allow for strategic-level planning and, equally importantly, do not allow for supply chain development, market confidence and skills development —a reflection of those short-term government policies that change so quickly, so that once you have built up the skills and the organisation, the programme ends and everything stops. Fourthly, there needs to be much greater co-ordination between the climate and ecological emergency agendas within government, as talking to Defra and BEIS is like speaking to completely different organisations. Lastly, we need some form of concordat where there is an honest discussion of what local areas can and cannot do, charting a strategic pathway linked to long-term funding. Those are their words and their experiences, not mine.

Whether it is co-ordination and unity of purpose between Whitehall departments, or central and local government, this has to work. I have made many recommendations, but I ask the Minister specifically: will he ensure that a route map is published, in full consultation with local authorities, that paves the way for close and mandatory co-operation and co-ordination between central and local government? If so, we can achieve so much more, better and at greater speed. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank everybody for their excellent contributions. We did not manage to stretch the debate out to five hours—perhaps thankfully—but we have had some really excellent subjects covered, from international comparisons to fossil fuels, education, housing, bitcoin, transport and others.

I also thank the Minister for his reply and for mainly looking to the future, rather than the usual thing that happens, when Ministers say how good we have been in the past. I am glad to hear that there will be—what I specifically wanted to see—further thought and action on co-ordination with local government in the road map to net zero. I would like something that was substantial in itself, but that is clearly not going to be the case. I just hope that it is a whole chapter rather than a page or a paragraph.

There are still lots of things to be done to get rid of those silos that we have talked about. Only by closing those gaps—whether they are between government departments and devolved Parliaments and Assemblies or between central government and local authorities—will we have any chance of meeting those targets, which we all welcome but feel slightly sceptical about at this time. I will feel secure only when I see the Prime Minister driving an electric forklift truck through a wall that says, “Getting Decarbonisation Done”. At that point, I will know that we have got it in the bag. Until then, however, we are going to keep the pressure on the Government. We will applaud their good intentions, but we will much more strongly applaud their plan to actually achieve what we all want to achieve.

Motion agreed.