Reaching Net Zero: Local Government Role

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing this debate and on the email that she sent me, inviting me to participate in it. She may well regret that invitation, because I want to raise a few issues that need to be considered in relation to this subject.

In Northern Ireland, the local government elections have recently finished. For the past four or five weeks, I have been knocking on people’s doors and speaking to them about local government issues. Only one person mentioned net zero to me, and she objected to the stance I took against some of the lunatic decisions made by my local council in putting wind farms on some of the most beautiful upland areas of East Antrim, where they are visible from all around. One of the most iconic landmarks in the area, Slemish mountain—it is where St Patrick is supposed to have sat, surveying that part of North Antrim and then going out to evangelise—is now blighted by what can only be described as mechanical triffids, which have blotted the landscape. They are not good for the environment: at one wind farm, 3 metres of peat was taken off the mountain to put into roads and the foundations, disturbing the wildlife and habitat, providing mincing machines for birds in the future, and destroying the environment, probably releasing tonnes of carbon in the process.

That was the only person who mentioned net zero: most people were concerned about zero rate increases, zero tolerance of antisocial behaviour and zero tolerance of people being allowed to dump rubbish across the area.

[Daisy Cooper]

I knock on a lot of doors all the time—not just at local elections—and although not many people mention net zero in that language, they do mention their energy bills. I wager that the right hon. Gentleman did hear from people who talked about their energy bills. Does he agree that urgent climate action is a good thing not only to protect the planet, but to make people’s homes warmer and to reduce their energy bills?

[Sammy Wilson]

Ironically, the huge windmills that we see generating renewable electricity, because of the method by which they are pegged, get the most costly rate. For example, if the last unit of electricity has been produced by gas bought at premium prices on the spot market, that is the price that the wind energy companies get for the electricity that they produce. Wind energy does not reduce people’s energy bills, because that method inflates the profits of the companies that do not have to pay for the expensive fuel but can charge as if they were using it.

In answer to the hon. Lady’s point, of course there are other ways and actions. One does not have to believe that net zero should be a target by 2050, or whatever the year happens to be, to see that it makes sense not to waste energy in people’s houses. It makes sense to build houses that are energy-efficient. No one is disputing that. The issue I am raising is that local authorities are pressed for money. I listen to all the issues raised about local authorities in debates in the House, and time and again I hear about social care provision and its inadequacy, education provision, policing, and special needs education. Given the range of concerns in the House, the question is whether local government’s priority should be seeking more grants to achieve net zero—to provide more facilities and projects that aim towards that—or the more pressing and immediate needs that people experience day to day.

[Daisy Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that we tend to have a crisis every winter, but increasingly we have a summer crisis in our NHS and care sector, because of the health impact of heatwaves, particularly on older people. Does he not accept that rather than there being a trade-off between investing in the environment and taking climate action and somehow investing in people’s social wellbeing, the good initiatives are those that seek to address both, which is precisely what we can do if we take the right actions?

[Sammy Wilson]

I do not want to get into the argument, because I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would probably ask me to stop, but I do not agree with the association that the hon. Lady makes. I do not believe that we have any more extreme weather today than we had in the past. Of course we have had heatwaves and cold spells before, and that tends to have an impact on some people’s health, but there is no evidence that spending money on local authority projects that blight the environment will save massive amounts in healthcare.

Secondly, on the impact on individuals, let us just look at some recent Government initiatives. For example, to help local authorities that say they cannot meet their recycling targets, we now have a levy on companies and food producers that will cost £4 billion, according to the British Retail Consortium. It will add £148 a year to people’s food bills to give money to local authorities—it is really a tax on the consumer—to help them achieve their recycling targets. Is that likely to have an impact on people’s health? When we have a cost of living crisis, is that likely to be a reasonable use of resources? That is the kind of expenditure that we are getting to facilitate some of the green policies.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I do not regret sending the right hon. Gentleman an invitation to participate in the debate, because only through debate can we have these issues out. May I come back to something that he said about our having had wildfires and floods previously? Does he not look at the facts and statistics about increased wildfires, floods and weather extremes across the globe? Scientists are putting those facts down, clear for all of us to see. Does he not accept that?

[Sammy Wilson]

No, I do not, and nor does the evidence, which shows that the number of people who have died in extreme climate events has declined; it has fallen quite significantly during the past century. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not claim that the suggestion made by the hon. Lady is correct.

On the effects that local authority policies have had on people, in London one cannot lift the Evening Standard without reading about the impact that the ultra low emission zone is having. That impact is not on the people who make such decisions, who are usually fairly well-off. When we make decisions in the House, many of the costs of those decisions do not impact on us, but they do impact on low-income families, such as the people who cannot afford the latest car and the people who cannot afford to pay the £12.50 per day to come into the ultra low emission zone in London. Again, we have to ask ourselves about pursuing this policy in local authorities. Nobody could argue against some of the things suggested today, but for many of the others there are issues of expenditure. It is significant how many times in this debate funding has been mentioned—funding that could be used on other priorities—and it really is a question about where our priorities lie. Who do we target the money for such services at, and what impact does it have on people?

Although many Members say they want this—indeed, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) used to talk about how he wanted Britain to be the leading country in the world in reducing carbon emissions and for it to become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy—the rest of the world, sadly, is not following. That is significant, and this perhaps puts it into context: in the first quarter of this year, China’s increase in carbon emissions—not its total, but its increase in the first quarter of this year—is equal to the total yearly carbon emissions produced by the United Kingdom. When we put the fight against climate change and reaching net zero in that context, we have to ask ourselves, and I think many of our constituents will ask: why impose additional costs on us? Why interfere in the decisions that we make about how we travel, where we travel and the cost of that travel, as well as about the cost of our energy and everything else, when quite clearly those in the rest of the world, and for very good reasons, do not?

When we consider that the average wage in Africa is $1,600 per year while the average wage in the United Kingdom is £27,000 per year, can we honestly say that the African countries now burning record levels of coal—to produce electricity to obtain economic growth and provide employment for the people who every year we see coming to our shores because they are fleeing unemployment—are wrong in making those decisions? If they are not wrong, are we, by pursuing a policy obsession at every level of government of reducing CO₂—regardless of the cost for individuals, especially for the less well-off—distorting decisions?