Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The Government are out of ideas and without direction, either unwilling or unable to make the big decisions to give us a brighter future. What a wasted opportunity, especially when it comes to action to tackle the nature and climate crisis. What better opportunity was there to empower communities and businesses to break down barriers to tackle the biggest issue of our generation? I am pleased that the Government announced recently that they will introduce a nature GCSE, but considering the abysmal nature of what was in the King’s Speech on tackling the climate crisis, it seems to me that the Prime Minister should be the first person to take it.

Climate education should not stop with schools; local authorities could organise citizens’ assemblies, as we have proposed many times. There are so many opportunities to educate people about the dangers of our not getting this right and failing to reach our 1.5° target by 2050, but those on the Government Front Bench continue to ignore them. They continue, too, to ignore the opportunities that would arise from a green transition. A nature or climate GCSE could grow the careers and skills we need to tackle the climate emergency and get to net zero, but this Government’s attitude is that everyone except them must meet their commitments.

Rather than protecting our children’s future, the Government are protecting the interests of the fossil fuel giants. How can they seriously claim to be leaders on net zero action while introducing legislation to hold annual oil and gas licensing rounds? That is particularly shocking when compared with their unforgivable failure to allocate a single new contract for difference for onshore wind farms in the recent auction round. I would like to hear how the new legislation will bring down energy bills for a single one of my constituents. Research from Uplift confirms that most of the oil produced at Rosebank will be shipped abroad and sold on the global market to the highest bidder; it will secure the future of the oil and gas giants, but not the UK’s energy supply.

Not only does the new Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill fly in the face of our climate commitments, but it will have wide-ranging and long-term negative impacts on the sustainability of our oceans and marine life. As I say, we need education on this across the House and across the board in all our communities. Educating young children is a good start, but it seems to me that a lot more of the older generations need that education too.

When will this Tory Government embrace the clean, green energy of the future and stop delaying our path to net zero? We need more grid capacity and more Government action to capitalise on green jobs and technology. New green jobs do not fall out of the sky; they start with proper career options for young people that they can start now so that we can see the energy transformation we need.

We hear from Tory Ministers that they hope to attract more investment in renewables, but their words do not match their actions. We cannot afford for our Government to miss any more of their own targets. That, too, should be part of our education—that if we say we will do something, we should actually deliver. We must take people with us on the green transition, and education is the first step.

There are so many untapped opportunities. UK solar power deployment is already significantly behind target. The smart export guarantee should incentivise households to invest in solar panels by allowing them to sell the excess electricity they produce back to the grid at a better price and recover the cost of their investment much faster. Again, educating householders in how they can invest in the net zero transition is an important part of the puzzle. If we do not communicate properly with our citizens about what they can do to tackle the climate crisis, where will we be?

Under the current system, it takes decades for householders to break even. Householders are confused, and we need to ensure that there are trusted sources where they can obtain information about how to tackle the climate crisis and break down the barriers that we are discussing today. There must be that change to bring about the revolution in rooftop solar that carries so many benefits for people and the planet. The cheapest energy is the energy that we do not use, and reducing energy waste will lower bills and cut carbon emissions. We urgently need to upgrade our housing stock to guarantee warm and comfortable homes for everyone, long into the future.

One in four private renters live in fuel poverty, and 1.6 million children are living in privately rented cold, damp or mouldy homes. Landlords have contacted me saying that they cannot afford to upgrade their properties to energy-efficient standards. That, too, is just a bit of education, a bit of knowledge that we must share as a matter of urgency. I believe that local councils are best placed to be the trusted sources of that type of information, but the Government must see them as partners and people to engage with, and give them the opportunities and resources that they need in order to share the information that is so badly needed in our communities.

Some subsidy schemes are available to landlords, but they are not open to all landlords and they can be difficult to access. We Liberal Democrats propose that all landlords should be allowed to offset their spending on insulation and energy-saving improvements against their income tax. Only through well-targeted incentives for landlords will we make the difference for tenants who are struggling to pay their bills. If the Government disagree with our proposals, I ask them to suggest an alternative. All we have seen so far is that from 2025 landlords will no longer need to meet the energy performance certificate C standard.

There has been yet more delay. When will we see action to ensure that families do not live in poor-quality housing that is badly insulated, making their energy bills more expensive? We need the landlords on board. We need a Government who are prepared to use both a carrot and a stick, and we need a Government who are prepared to put out the necessary information and enable it to be pooled—and I would say, yet again, that councils are best placed to do that. E3G has found that raising the energy standard to C rating for privately rented homes would save bill payers about £570 a year. The Government should hold firm, and help landlords to meet these targets and keep homes warm this winter.

Since the last King’s Speech, we have not reduced our dependence on oil and gas, we have not allowed households to make more sustainable choices, we have not put out that important piece of education that people need, we have not organised the citizens’ assemblies for the sharing of information that we require so urgently, and we have not protected households from rising energy bills. Too many households face another difficult winter. The Government’s failure to deliver is becoming their trademark, and judging by the King’s speech that will not change any time soon, although I still hold out hope that it will. The Government should prove me wrong—or right.