Climate and Ecology Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, as a number of Members have said, we have a Conservative Party leadership election at the moment that could determine where this country goes on this subject. I have to completely reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that two members of that leadership campaign, Mr Sunak and Mr Tugendhat, have signed the Conservative Environment Network’s pledge, so maybe we are saved; I do not know. Future policy certainly seems questionable, but we will see where it goes.

One of the things that always happens in debates on the environment is that the Minister, whoever she or he is, reminds us that the UK is a leader on the climate challenge. Actually, it is true to say that we are. We can be proud to a degree as a country that we have had leadership in both Houses and, generally, on all sides of the political spectrum. It is subject on which we have made good progress to some degree.

However, I have two points to make. On climate, we are nowhere near where we need to be to meet our sixth carbon budget. As the Climate Change Committee’s report said so well last month, the situation is stark in that we are likely, under the present climate change strategy, to meet one-third of the necessary cut in emissions. We might be lucky to meet another quarter through the current strategy, but some one-third would still not be met.

We have those climate challenges, but the Bill is not just about those. I congratulate my noble friend on introducing it, and I should have declared my interest as chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. Very relevant to that is the fact that the Bill is also about ecology, ecosystem services and biodiversity. There, we are hardly anywhere at all. I am sure the Minister will remind me, but I think that we have missed 14 out 16 of our Aichi targets and we are pretty marginal on the other two. There again, not only are we worse than the rest of the globe but that performance is derisory in terms of what we need to do. Although there are targets that are trying to change that and prevent that move backwards on biodiversity by 2030, I see very few signs of us meeting them. As we have been reminded, the UK is one of the most nature-depleted nations on the planet, so we have huge challenges there. That is why I very much welcome the Bill. It might not be perfect in every way, but it would move us in a direction in which we need to go.

There are real reasons why I like the Bill. One of them, which has been mentioned already, is that it does not treat climate and ecology as separate subjects but brings them together. Areas that overlap both those subjects include nature-based solutions and adaptation, which tackle both these major crises together. I congratulate the people who have written the Bill on that.

I want to follow up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, about the citizens’ assembly. I think all of us had high expectations when, in 2019, the House of Commons Select Committees set up the citizens’ assembly that met in Birmingham. Unfortunately, as the noble Baroness said, the assembly was disrupted by the Covid pandemic, but it did not grind to a halt. It showed, as many of these assemblies have done, that if you bring together a mixture of citizens across the spectrum, and if they fully understand information that is not biased but practical, then citizens’ assemblies, education and the act of going through these issues with individuals and communities make it possible to deliver messages that have practical application to our citizens, and which will make our politicians—who, unlike us, have to be elected—brave. One of the criticisms we always have is that it is great to have targets but if we do not deliver on them, enforce them through legislation or make things happen, we are wasting our time. So I welcome the citizens’ assembly; I am not sure how it would work but we could flesh that out to make it possible.

I like the fact that the Bill relates to the earlier COP—I forget the numbers now, but I am thinking of the Paris conference; I am sure my noble friend knows which one it is—which started making real commitments on tackling climate change in future with the 1.5 degree target. The Bill takes its base from there, rather than the strange numbers we have from 1990 and the Climate Change Act, and apportions how much carbon is left that we can put into the atmosphere.

Returning to a point made by the right reverend Prelate that has not been mentioned much during the debate, I have always been an advocate of following carbon consumption figures, on which the UK is not as good as it is on carbon production. We have got better and the trend has started to be the same, but we are still far from where we need to be. On imports, whether of animals or whatever, the Bill would make sure that carbon consumption starts to be taken into consideration. The system in the Bill is not pure but through it, we would notice imports, so I welcome it.

This Bill is an important one, and it is a start. I would love it to get into Committee so we could shake it up a bit, but it is absolutely where it needs to be. It concentrates on where this nation needs to aim, and on real leadership for this country on both these agendas.

I have a question for the Minister. We are finally going to have—in December, I think—the biodiversity COP 15, which was originally going to be in China but is now in Montreal. It is a crucial conference but the run-up to it has not been particularly successful. I would like to understand from the Minister how the British Government view that and what ministerial representation we are going to have there.

I welcome the Bill and hope it will proceed through the House. However, we do not just need legislation; we also need action and implementation to make sure that our aspirations are really met.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on securing the Second Reading of his Private Member’s Bill—I fear that the Lords’ team in the clay pigeon shooting is firmly doomed.

At the outset, I pay tribute to my officials in the Box, because although they are BEIS officials, this is more of a Defra debate. I am the Whip for both departments, so some of this stuff is familiar to me, but they have been working like Trojans in the background to get me answers on specific points from two departments. It is a marvellous example of the way both departments have been working together at very short notice.

Tackling climate change is of course of the utmost importance to this Government. As many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Oates, noted, tackling climate change is of particular importance to young people. The Government are committed to being the first to leave the natural environment in a better state than that in which they found it. I also thank the Church for its work on climate and environmental issues, as highlighted by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans,

We have already achieved a lot on our road to net zero. Between 1990 and 2019, we grew our economy by more than three-quarters and cut our emissions by 44%, decarbonising faster than any other G7 country. However, I acknowledge that there is still a lot of work to be done and that we cannot do it alone. Worldwide emissions also need addressing urgently; importantly, the leading role we are taking is not just to reduce our emissions but on new industries and exports in tackling climate change around the world.

The UK already has a world-leading emissions reduction framework in place. The Climate Change Act 2008 was the first of its kind and made the UK the first country to introduce a legally binding, long-term emissions reduction target. Last October, we published the Net Zero Strategy, building on the Prime Minister’s landmark Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. It is a cross-economy strategy which keeps us on our path to net zero by 2050. The strategy includes the action we will take to keep us on track for meeting carbon budgets and our 2030 nationally determined contribution.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, said, we must ensure that we reduce our emissions in line with carbon budgets. Last June, the Government set the sixth carbon budget, setting a level representing an approximate 77% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, including international aviation and shipping, compared to 1990. This bold step demonstrates our continued leading role in tackling climate change. Our domestic target is consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature goal to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and pursue efforts towards 1.5 degrees. The sixth carbon budget is another indication of this Government’s dedication to Britain’s green industrial revolution, positioning the UK as a global leader in the green technologies of the future.

To oversee progress, the Climate Change Act established the Climate Change Committee, an independent statutory body to provide expert advice to government on climate change mitigation and adaptation. As highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, its role in providing such independent expert advice is widely accepted as global best practice. Indeed, our 2050 net-zero target was considered, in line with advice from the Climate Change Committee, the earliest feasible date for achieving net-zero carbon emissions. Our carbon budgets are also in line with the latest science as the level recommended by the Climate Change Committee.

As noble Lords will know, the Government have also brought forward the first Environment Act in over 20 years, with ambitious measures to address the biggest environmental priorities of our age; this includes restoring and enhancing nature, which is of immense importance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, noted. In England, the Environment Act will drive the long-term action nature needs to recover through legally binding targets, new policy measures, a new environmental enforcement body—the Office for Environmental Protection—and placing environmental principles in domestic law in a consistent and transparent way.

Nature has been in decline for decades, so our target to halt the decline of species by 2030 will be a major challenge. Through this target, we are committing ourselves to an ambitious objective and leading the way internationally by going beyond what is required under the CBD and setting key targets in law. Our recent public consultation included a proposal to reverse this loss by 2042, alongside other proposed targets, including to improve water quality and availability. The noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Bennett, referred to those as vital issues, which the Government have rightly seized. The Government have an explicit duty to ensure long-term nature targets are met. Five-yearly interim targets will help the Government stay on track in meeting the long-term targets, similar to the five-year blocks we have already set in our carbon budgets.

The four countries of the United Kingdom have also agreed to develop a new UK biodiversity framework. Our collective intention is that the new framework will set out shared priorities and areas for collaboration across the UK. It will support our collective responses to the global framework of goals and targets expected to be agreed at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 15th Conference of the Parties, COP15. I am pleased to confirm to my noble friend that I received a WhatsApp message from my noble friend Lord Goldsmith saying that he will attend in his capacity as head of the delegation. This is our chance to agree a Paris moment for nature by adopting a high-ambition global biodiversity framework. We have asked the Joint Nature Conservation Committee to advise on and co-ordinate this process, on which discussions are under way.

A number of noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to public engagement, which we regard as incredibly important. The Government already track public views on climate change on a regular basis through the BEIS Public Attitudes Tracker, which is published every quarter. It measures public awareness, attitudes and behaviours relating to the department for policies on issues such as energy, consumer rights, artificial intelligence and workers’ rights. The survey shows that awareness of the concept of net zero among the public has increased compared with 2020, from 52% to 87%.

We also regularly fund public dialogues, which provide in-depth insight into citizens’ views to inform a wide range of policy areas. In recent years, we have run public dialogues on a range of climate and environment issues, such as net zero, heating, transport decarbonisation, hydrogen, food, CCUS, advanced nuclear technologies, energy and the environment. The Government will continue to engage the public on the changes needed to deliver net zero by the 2050 target and to listen to the public’s feedback. That is not to diminish the contribution of county councils, such as in Leeds, in running their own public consultations and feeding that information back to, in this case, BEIS.

The support of UK-based companies will be vital in meeting our net-zero target. Recognising the important role of measuring and reporting energy use and carbon data, the Government introduced a new streamlined energy and carbon reporting framework on 1 April 2019. Streamlined energy and carbon reporting is designed to be a light-touch reporting regime that sets out minimum mandatory reporting requirements. The Financial Reporting Council oversees compliance with streamlined energy and carbon reporting disclosures requirements as part of its role. At the same time, it spreads the benefit of measuring and reporting key energy and emissions data, and creates a level playing field where all large or quoted UK organisations are required to report publicly their energy use and emissions.

I turn to the other points made by noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, asked why we have not adopted the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations on diet change. Our policy is to make it as easy as possible for people to shift towards a greener, more sustainable lifestyle while maintaining people’s freedom of choice, including on their diet. The Government have no intention of telling people to eat less meat. We recognise that more people are choosing vegan and vegetarian options, and we are working to support sustainable food choices. Supermarkets have already demonstrated significant efforts to market plant-based products. Although food choices can have an impact on greenhouse gas emissions, well-managed livestock also provides benefits, such as supporting biodiversity, protecting the character of the countryside and generating income for rural communities. Our food strategy, published in June, identifies new opportunities to make the food system more sustainable.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the UK follows the agreed international approach for estimating and reporting greenhouse gas emissions under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris agreement, which is for countries to report emissions produced in their territories. All UK domestic and international GHG emissions reduction targets are based on territorial emissions. The UK’s independent climate change adviser, the Climate Change Committee, has also recommended that this remains the right basis for the UK’s carbon targets. None the less, measuring consumption-based emissions provides helpful insight and supports policy development, enabling us to keep track of our carbon footprint and informing our efforts to reduce it—for example, through our efforts to reduce carbon leakage.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, noted, working with local authorities is of the utmost importance. The Government recognise that local authorities can, and do, play an essential role in driving local climate action, with significant influence on many of the national priorities across energy, housing and transport, which are all needed to achieve net zero. The net-zero strategy sets out our commitments in enabling local areas to deliver net zero. They include setting clearer expectations on how central and local government interact in the delivery of net zero and building on existing engagement with local actors by establishing a local net-zero forum, bringing together national and local government senior officials on a regular basis to discuss policy and delivery options on net zero. We are continuing the local net-zero programme to support all areas with their capability and capacity to meet net zero.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blake, also asked about energy efficiency and the Energy Security Bill. As she will know, the Government are investing more than £6.6 billion over this Parliament to improve energy efficiency and decarbonise heating, and an additional £3.9 billion of new funding to decarbonise heat and buildings, bringing existing government spending to a total of £6.6 billion across the lifetime of this Parliament. We are scaling up our consumer advice and information services to help households understand how to reduce their energy demand effectively—

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I remind the Minister that the manifesto commitment was for £9.2 billion on energy efficiency.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention.

We announced a zero rate of VAT over the next five years for the installation of insulation and low-carbon heating.

The Bill would legislate in some areas where we already have a well-developed legislative framework in place and, where we do not, there are sound policy reasons not to adopt them, but I thank the noble Lord for bringing the Bill to the House and enabling this debate. The Government are not convinced that the Bill is the right solution to the matter that has been raised, but I assure the House that the Government continue to press ahead with our world-leading climate and nature goals. We will continue to monitor the situation and to make improvements where needed, as our record has shown.

In closing, I reassure the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, on the issue of red squirrels, in which I know the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, is also interested. He may have heard this week of the long-awaited research into a chocolate contraceptive paste put into funnels accessible only by grey squirrels, which will prove very effective in keeping down the grey squirrel population.