Cost of Living

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, would like to offer my thanks to my noble friend Lord Whitty for initiating this important debate. I could not help smiling when he referred to the conversion to gas boilers. I remember it well: the sheer delight of coming down in the morning and not having to rake the ashes out of the grate and start the coal fire again, because it had been replaced by a gas fire.

What I would say about the current situation is that it is a very dynamic one. There is not going to be one system in the future, by any means, but one thing we do know is that gas is going to be with us for the next 20 to 30 years. That is a reality, and one that lots of people do not like to face, including some of those sitting alongside me. No doubt I will be chastised and told that it is not true and we can do it all with renewable energy, but that is a very debatable assessment of the situation.

When I say that it is a dynamic situation, well, carbon capture and storage is there and it needs to be refined, but it is certainly something I believe will happen. However, there is a supreme irony in the current situation, and this Government have to take the blame. We decided that fracking was not acceptable any longer, and nobody seemed to worry about the fact that they are still fracking in the USA and Qatar. Could the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, tell us why it is acceptable to ship liquid natural gas all the way from the USA and Qatar, then deliquefy it and use it? We do not want fracking in this country, but we do not care how it happens elsewhere. We could have had a safe, reliable system and created thousands of jobs; it was ready and there, but a hysteria was created about it. We were told that we had to stop drilling, because we had 0.5 on the Richter scale. If a lorry rumbles past your house, it would be more than that. It was an absolutely ridiculous decision to make. I can understand the political pressures, and why it was made, but it is a situation that we are paying for and will continue to pay for—and it will not do anything about improving the environment.

Of course I believe in renewable energy. I was a bit puzzled when the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, said that nobody was going to invest in their houses. Plenty of people around me are investing in solar panels, even though the subsidy has gone, and there is a good return on them. She is shaking her head, but you only have to look at roofs if you do not believe that. I want to make a plea, when we talk about renewable energy and nuclear and so on, or hydrogen, that we have a holistic analysis and not the idea that there is just going to be one solution.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, referred to small-scale medium reactors, and it looks like a promising area—who knows? There is hydrogen as well. I also think that there are some possibilities, without wanting to seem patronising to people, and ways in which you can save energy. You can save by the way you cook, and by wasting less food, which makes an important contribution. Trying to educate people in their lifestyle is important, and the Government should be thinking about that, in my view.

Of course I believe in things such as the green homes scheme. I am puzzled why that has been abandoned because that would have a long-lasting effect. I also agree with noble Lords who have referred to things such as the windfall tax. I am looking forward to the Minister being able to address all these issues. There is a real challenge—and not just for the Government—in how we analyse the best way to help people in the future when we know the cost of living is rising. Is the only solution to increase benefits? Part of the solution, in my view, is getting people back into employment. Not only is that better for them individually; it sets an example to their families, so that another generation of young people do not feel that the only income coming into the family is benefits.

I hope that people will recognise that I am trying to make a serious contribution on things such as fracking and the need for a more holistic analysis.