Fossil Fuels: Lobbying

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

To avert climate breakdown, the vast majority of the fossil fuel industry’s coal, gas and oil reserves need to stay firmly in the ground. Yet successive Governments, led by different political parties, have failed to take the kind of action that the science demands. They have known the indisputable facts and the consequences of inaction. Such consequences include the fact that the costs of delaying, and of failing to address climate, economic and social chaos, far outweigh those associated with an orderly transition along the lines of a jobs-rich, inequality-busting green new deal. Yet Government after Government have continued with business as usual. Government after Government have refused to grasp that despite some breakthroughs, successes and progress, the big picture has continued to get worse.

I do not deny that we are now seeing record amounts of energy being generated from renewable resources, for example, but these very welcome achievements do nothing to eliminate the dangerous damage arising from the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels. Given what the experts have been saying for decades now, we have to ask ourselves why this Government, and others before them, have presided over, and colluded in, the frankly criminal decisions that have seen yet more oil, gas and coal continue to be explored and exploited. The answer to that question can be traced back to one consistent factor: the role of the fossil fuel industry in our politics. For over those very same decades when climate scientists have been warning of the rapidly shrinking window to avert a climate emergency, fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists have been denying the science, and then they have delayed, weakened and sabotaged climate action. Those tactics have enabled them to make billions in profits, while heating the planet and destroying communities.

In this debate, I want to highlight some of the ways in which fossil fuel influence is exerted in our politics and to propose how it should urgently be curtailed. I want to start with a case study, featuring the little-known fossil fuel lobby group Offshore Energies UK—OEUK—whose members include North sea operators such as Equinor, Harbour Energy, BP and Shell, and whose activities have resulted in a windfall tax that actually rewards companies for digging up more oil and gas, and a “price floor” introduced entirely at the industry’s behest. Let me explain how that has happened. According to analysis of data in the public domain, OEUK and its members met UK Government Ministers more than 210 times in the year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—that is nearly once every working day. In June 2022, in that one month, when the Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Bill was drafted and consulted on, the industry went into lobbying overdrive: OEUK and its operator members had twice as many meetings with Ministers as they did in the month before or after. It also held a parliamentary reception, in the name of the all-party group on the British offshore oil and gas industry, for which it provides, conveniently, the secretariat. The main message for the MPs and peers in attendance was that the windfall tax would “undermine and disrupt” investment in the sector. In a meeting a few days later with the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, the industry spelt out what it wanted to see in the Bill. Its recommendations, also put in writing to the Treasury, included protection for petroleum revenue tax repayments, which are, in essence, an existing tax break that can pay fossil fuel firms back for taxes they have paid in the past. The subsequent legislation did exactly as OEUK requested. Moreover, it introduced an enormous 80% “investment allowance”, which, combined with existing tax breaks, means that fossil fuel companies can claim £91 back for every £100 they invest in UK oil and gas extraction. As a result of that climate-wrecking loophole, Shell, for example, went on to pay no windfall tax at all in 2022.

The lobbying around the Bill was happening in the context of a wider lobbying campaign by OEUK, which had been urging the Treasury all year to reinstate regular meetings of the so-called “fiscal forum”, an advisory group that basically invites OEUK and its members to shape their own tax regime. On 9 December 2022, they got their wish; the fiscal forum met again, hosted by the new Chancellor, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), and the industry used the meeting to claim, yet again, that the windfall tax would harm investment in the sector. That meeting occurred in the wake of the Chancellor’s already having announced further changes to the windfall tax regime that would, in effect, see taxpayers actually paying and handing over money to oil and gas firms for investments being made. None the less, those companies wanted still more and they used the fiscal forum to demand that a price floor be introduced—and, surprise, surprise, they got it.

In spring 2023, OEUK board members of Harbour Energy and Equinor met with Treasury officials. The minutes, secured via a freedom of information request, state that the “Equinor reps smiled” at Government’s reassurances—yes, I am sure they did.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is eloquently setting out how the Government are responding to heavy lobbying from the fossil fuel industry. Does she agree that no future generation—neither our children nor our grandchildren—will ever thank us, the politicians of today, for having put all our energy and focus into the energies of the past? Does she agree that the fossil fuel industry should really look at itself as well?

[Caroline Lucas]

It will come as no surprise to the hon. Member that I completely agree with her. I do wonder what our own kids will think when the planet continues to heat still further, and what their kids, in turn, will think. What were we thinking of? What was the fossil fuel industry thinking of, certainly, beyond its profits? Apparently very little.

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[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I understand, of course, why he would want to make it. I would simply say that there is concern around perceived influence as well as direct influence. I have no reason to doubt for a second what he has just said—I am sure that it is absolutely true—but at the same time, when people outside this place look at the facts that I have been laying out this evening, in a dispassionate way I hope, alarm bells will start to ring, at the very least. We are talking about an industry that has a massive impact on the future of our planet, and I think it right, given the access that it appears to have to people in high places, to have this debate and raise those questions in this place.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, although we all roughly agree that we need to get to net zero, the biggest problem is the pace of change? The fossil fuel industry has successfully lobbied us all to say, “Not so fast! You can’t do it so fast. Don’t pull the rug from under our feet.” That is the biggest danger we face, because if we miss the target, there is no point talking about net zero. We have a 2050 target and we need to reach it urgently; we cannot delay any further, or go at a slower pace than necessary.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, which reminds me of a powerful thing that the US campaigner Bill McKibben says: delaying is the new denial, and winning slowly is the same as losing. There is a real imperative here to be fast.

Energy Infrastructure

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse]

Let us not make the 2050 target something that we cannot reach. We must reach it—it is an absolute necessity that we do. I will not give way to people who will not follow the science, and who deny that evidence.

To reduce territorial emissions by 68% from 1990 levels, the UK must now quadruple its rate of emissions reductions outside the power sector. The CCC uses a variety of indicators to measure the UK’s progress in reducing emissions, and we are only on track on nine out of 50. Today’s debate focuses on energy infrastructure; even power, which has been the only success story so far when it comes to net zero, is now falling behind. We will miss the target of decarbonising the power system by 2035, which the Government should be very worried about. The CCC says that renewable electricity capacity is not increasing at the required rate. One of the biggest barriers is grid capacity: our unprepared infrastructure has left ready-to-make renewable projects waiting up to 15 years to connect to the grid. It is high time that the Government put their mind to those huge delays and create a regulatory system fit for the net zero challenge.

At times like this, we need more Government, not less. The prevailing laissez-faire attitude of hoping for the market to settle all our net zero challenges is no longer fit for purpose. The CCC has said that we could have mitigated the energy crisis if the Government had rapidly deployed onshore wind and solar power—here lies the hypocrisy. On the one hand, the Government say that they do not want to interfere with the market; on the other, they actively limit the onshore wind and solar industries. The de facto ban on onshore wind and a framework that does not create enough incentives for the solar industry have meant that people in the UK have paid far higher prices for the energy crisis than would otherwise have been necessary.

Offshore and onshore wind deployment has been slow, and solar is particularly off track. We need to deploy 4.3 GW of solar per year to meet our target of 70 GW by 2035, but last year only 0.7 GW of solar was deployed. On estimates days, we discuss Government spending, and the UK is clearly not spending enough on net zero. As Lord Goldsmith detailed in his resignation letter, the problem is that the Prime Minister is “simply uninterested”. [Interruption.] The Minister says “rubbish”. He will have the opportunity to respond in his speech, but I am very much talking about the facts.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Member is making a powerful case, and I thank her for it. The Secretary of State told me yesterday that ending new North sea oil and gas licences is, in his words, “bonkers policy”. Does the hon. Member agree that what is really bonkers is a Government subsidising oil and gas companies to drill more of the very thing that is destroying our planet, and handing billions in subsidies to the fossil fuel companies in the middle of a cost of living crisis?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I could not agree more. This is about creating level playing fields—at least for the renewable sector versus the oil and gas industry—but we do not even have that.

The US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act will be transformative, and will incentivise huge investment in new renewable technologies and crucial net zero infrastructure.

Reaching Net Zero: Local Government Role

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Caroline Lucas

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of local government in reaching Net Zero.

I thank the Members across the House who supported the application, as well as the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate today, World Environment Day.

The Government ignore at their peril the vital role of local authorities in delivering net zero. The Committee on Climate Change, the National Audit Office and the independent review of net zero all agree that the UK cannot meet its net zero targets without local authorities. The CCC shows that local authorities have influence over a third of UK emissions. The net zero strategy puts the figure at 82%.

Local authorities determine what is built in our communities, how we get from place to place, how we reduce our waste, and much more. They are best placed to understand their communities and deliver policies that fit their place. Those communities are let down by a Westminster Government who prevent local authorities from decarbonising their areas according to their need. Forty per cent of people most trust their local authority to act on climate change. That is much higher than the faith they place in central Government or in business. It is time that the Government treated local authorities as equal partners and gave them the funding and powers that they need to reach net zero.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. On funding, does she agree that, as well as reversing the 13 years of serious cuts that are preventing local authorities from greening elements of their areas, we need to move away from piecemeal competitive funding for specific projects? Such funding means that local authorities cannot plan for the long term and waste a huge amount of time bidding against each other, rather than getting the funding they need to roll out now.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I totally agree. The hon. Lady pre-empts what I will say later in my speech. The competitive process wastes so much time and local resources that could be spent on delivering projects.

More than 300 local authorities have set a net zero target and declared a climate emergency, and 132 councils have net zero targets of 2030 or sooner. Liberal Democrat-run councils have had remarkable successes in implementing sustainable, green policies against a backdrop of substantial barriers; they could do so much more. My Bath and North East Somerset Council has become the first in England to adopt an energy-based net zero housing policy. That ensures that any new housing development is energy self-sufficient and puts a limit on building emissions. My council is also the first in the west of England to adopt a biodiversity net gain policy. But such brave initiatives cannot survive unless central Government are truly behind such progressive policies and support rather than undermine local authorities, particularly when it comes to planning applications that go to appeal where developers get their way and do not build the green buildings that we need.

Beyond Bath, the Liberal Democrat-run Cheltenham Borough Council has implemented a green deal that has helped local businesses to invest in solar panels and heat pumps, led by the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate, who, I hope, will tell us all about it once we have had a general election. In Richmond, the Liberal Democrat council has been independently recognised by CDP—a global not-for-profit charity that runs disclosure systems and is regarded as the gold standard for environmental reporting—as one of 123 cities and boroughs across the globe taking bold environmental action.

In Stockport, Liberal Democrats successfully implemented the Stockport schools climate assembly. That involved young people from several schools coming together to learn about, propose, debate and vote on climate action ideas. Their first ask was to make sustainable and biodegradable period products more available in schools. The council responded by creating a programme that delivered funding and training to implement that. Stockport Council has called on the Manchester Mayor to roll out such school climate assemblies across the region. I will go further: we should have them across the UK.

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[Wera Hobhouse]

I agree; I could not have put it better myself.

Let me return to the grants, which are currently rigid and tied to certain areas, meaning that councils can end up with money for projects that are not right for their communities. Not only have we not got enough money; when we do have it, it is often not the right sort of money, nor what our communities need. For example, a council could receive money for additional bus lanes when increased bus services would be preferred, or they might receive money designated for e-bikes when such provision is not really right for the needs of the community. Net zero grants must be made more flexible to help local authorities to spend the money on projects that work in their area.

The Government have spent more time blocking local authorities than they have empowering them. Many councils I have spoken to said the biggest barrier they face in implementing net zero policies is central Government. Onshore wind is an example. Some 77% of people would support a new onshore wind farm in their area—people know that renewables are the solution to our energy crisis—but the Government’s effective ban on onshore wind has denied communities this investment. Housing is another example that has already been mentioned. The UK has some of the leakiest homes in Europe. Net zero will remain a pipe dream in the absence of a huge and comprehensive retrofit programme; we need to understand the scale and we need the money to retrofit.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful that the hon. Lady is recognising the problems around funding, but also around regulatory frameworks. She will know that a report by UK100 has said that local authorities face what they call “Kafkaesque” barriers to pursuing net zero, one of which is in the area of transport. As she knows, the all-party parliamentary group on the green new deal undertook an inquiry on transport, concluding that we need local authorities to have the powers and the funding to modernise their own local public transport networks. Does she agree?

[Wera Hobhouse]

Indeed. Again, the hon. Lady pre-empts me; I will come to that point in a minute. Local authorities need much more control over what is happening in their local transport provision. The situation is wholly inadequate. If we really want to provide an alternative to motorised travel, we need good local transport and bus services, but we do not have them. Local communities are crying out for us to design and implement such services, but local authorities must be key partners as only they have the structure and relationships to deliver the programmes we have discussed.

Let me return to housing. We Liberal Democrats have campaigned relentlessly to get the Government to introduce higher efficiency standards for new builds and not wait until 2025. It is irresponsible to delay further and to hamstring local authorities’ ability to raise standards, and it is ridiculous that we are building homes now that will need to be retrofitted in five or 10 years’ time. That is such a waste of time. Why not regulate now to build the houses for the future? The chair of the national Climate Change Committee has called this a “stunning failure” by the Government to decarbonise homes, and I fully agree.

Planning and listed building laws also contribute to our leaky buildings. We Liberal Democrats run councils with some of the most precious historic buildings and streetscapes in the country, such as in my city of Bath. This is a blessing and a curse. We represent some of the most beautiful areas in the world, but we are often unable to retrofit and reduce the emissions of historic houses and buildings. Currently, national planning policy puts heritage concerns above climate concerns. That is counterproductive. If councils are unable to retrofit these properties and make them more energy efficient, many will become uninhabitable.

Public Access to Nature

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Caroline Lucas

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I agree very much with that point. Inequalities go right through from start to finish in terms of access to the countryside, and I will say more about that, but he also rightly points to the fact that this is nothing new; this is part of a history of land grabbing that has been going on from the enclosures onwards, if not before that. It is something that we need to address if we are serious about wealth inequalities in this country as well as health inequalities, because unless we address the issue of the distribution of land, we are not going to solve that problem.

There is economic sense in increasing access to nature, too. Figures suggest that the NHS could save around £3 billion in treatment costs every year if everyone had access to good-quality green space. Despite the importance of access to nature to the nation’s health, and that significance only being underlined throughout the covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, there is no national strategy for ensuring that everyone can enjoy access to nature. My first question to the Minister is whether she will look to rectify that and to direct and co-ordinate policy action and resources across Government.

As the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) set out, we know that access to nature remains incredibly unequal, and covid underlined that. Black people and people of colour, as well as poorer households, are far less likely to live close to green space. Friends of the Earth research suggests that 40% of people from ethnic minority backgrounds live in the most green space-deprived areas, compared with just 14% of white people.

While I welcome the Government’s goal outlined in their environmental improvement plan to enhance engagement with the natural environment and the commitment that everyone should live within a 15-minute walk of a green or blue space, the Minister will know that, as it stands, that commitment is not legally binding. It urgently needs to be accompanied by ambitious legislation, together with funding for local authorities to help achieve it.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate, of which I am a co-sponsor. Does she agree that, along with access to nature, we need restoration of nature? Local authorities can lead the way, but they need the money, and it is so important that our urban communities in particular can benefit from local authorities restoring nature where they can.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention and very much agree with the point she makes. Local authorities have a vital role to play, and yet their budgets have been slashed over the past 13 years.

To return to the issue of how the lack of access has played out in different constituencies, new research by the Wildlife and Countryside Link shows that in more than one in 10 neighbourhoods, between 90% and 100% of the population currently have no access to nature within a 15-minute walk. The Right to Roam campaign recently calculated that 92 constituencies in England currently have no right to roam at all, with many more than that having very little access.

The Minister might be aware that when the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill was going through the Commons, I tabled an amendment on Report that would have created a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and required public authorities to increase equitable access to nature. That call is backed by the public, with 80% of people wanting to see a legal right to local nature. With that Bill now going through the Lords, I urge the Minister and the Government to pick up my amendment and show the level of ambition that is needed.

I know that Ministers are, rightly, extremely proud of the English coastal path and the establishment of the coast-to-coast national trail. I welcome these efforts, which undoubtedly improve ease of access, but I am concerned that they do not begin to address the scale of the challenge at hand—not least because, for example, much of the English coastal path, which involves essentially a pretty thin strip of land along the coast, was already accessible through existing rights of way. The coast-to-coast route has long been an unofficial long-distance path linking east and west coasts across northern England. Last year it was designated as an official national trail, but as a result, it needs to be better signposted, better maintained and better publicised.

The bottom line is that much more needs to be done to improve public access to nature. As such, I urge the Government to look closely at other proposals, such as giving national park authorities a range of new purposes, including one to improve people’s connection to nature, which would also implement a key proposal from the Glover review of protected landscapes. Will the Minister look again at embedding public access into the new environmental land management schemes, which would help farmers to create more opportunities for people to enjoy the outdoors? Will the Government remove the new 2031 deadline for recording historic rights of way? The reimposition of that artificial deadline risks losing thousands of footpaths.

Will the Government urgently conduct a mapping review of existing open access land? Ministers have tabled a further amendment to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to defer that review until the end of 2030, which is more than 25 years after the first maps were produced, despite a legal requirement that they be updated every 10 years. Will the Minister bring forward new funding for local authorities to maintain public rights of way? Finally, will the Government support local councils and national park authorities to improve access to the countryside for everyone, including those with disabilities and those who do not own or have access to a car? For both those groups of people, much of the countryside remains out of reach—a situation that has undoubtedly been exacerbated by cuts to local bus services.

Having said that, I am just going to give a quick shout-out to the Brighton & Hove bus company and its “Breeze up to the Downs” service—I am sure the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown will agree. That service is supported by the council, the National Trust and the South Downs National Park Authority. Those kinds of models, which enable people to get into the countryside affordably and easily if they do not have a car, need to be supported. I will also use this opportunity to congratulate the former Green administration in Brighton and Hove, which blazed a trail with its transformative city downland estate plan. That plan contains commitments to consider proposals to designate every site under the council’s management as statutory open access land.

Fossil Fuels and Cost of Living Increases

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and join him in paying tribute to Warm This Winter, which has done fantastic work in gathering those case studies and presenting them to us. I congratulate the Scottish Government on their announcement this morning about a presumption against more fossil fuel exploration, because we know that getting more new fossil fuels out of the ground is driving both the climate crisis and—ironically, at a time when gas is nine times more expensive than renewables—the cost of living crisis.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The Government seem to have no money for working people, yet when it comes to fossil fuel companies they have been able to find—from somewhere—£13.6 billion since the Paris agreement. To give the Rosebank oilfield £500 million in taxpayers’ money is a disgrace when families face immense pressures. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is time for oil and gas subsidies to be phased out once and for all?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and she will not be surprised that I entirely agree that fossil fuel subsidies should go. Indeed, that has been said at several of the big climate global conferences—the conferences of the parties. There is supposed to be an agreement on getting rid of the subsidies, but we are certainly not leading by example, sadly.

I want to speak about prepayment meters, although I will come back to the subject of Rosebank. One of the ironies about Rosebank is that most of the oil extracted is for export in any case; we cannot even argue that it is doing anything to help us here at home. However, there is something serious going on with prepayment meters, and I am particularly alarmed by their forced installation. We have seen stories in the press, for example, of mothers returning home to find that meters have been installed while they were out. Locksmiths have come in and people have forced their way into homes to install prepayment meters. Not only that, but magistrates have been approving hundreds of warrants to install meters in just minutes—496 warrants in three minutes and 51 seconds, to be precise.

Prepayment meters should not be installed by warrant, and they certainly should not be approved en masse in such a manner, with no consideration of individual cases and individual vulnerabilities, but when I asked what assessment the Government had made of the impact on vulnerable people of the batch approval of warrants, I was shocked to receive an answer stating that

“the information which must be provided to the court is identical in each case”.

In other words, it makes no difference whether cases are considered individually or together, but that represents total disregard for individual people’s welfare and extraordinary complacency regarding the failings of the system. Surely the Minister sees that if magistrates are not provided with adequate information, they are unable to make informed decisions that take into account people’s vulnerability.

In answer to another question I asked, the Minister simply tried to pass the buck to Ofgem, but given that the Government have the power to implement a moratorium on the forced installation of prepayment meters by court warrant, that, frankly, does not wash. The forced installation of prepayment meters is hugely distressing; it is an invasion of privacy.

Will the Minister commit himself to introducing a much-needed ban and to putting an end to the intolerable situation in which vulnerable people are forced on to higher rates, which brings with it the added risk of self-disconnection? Citizens Advice has reported a significant increase in the number of people it sees who cannot top up their prepayment meters each month—from 1,119 in November 2021 to 3,331 in November last year. Forcing people on to prepayment meters quite simply should not be happening, which is why the ban is needed so urgently.

I want to emphasise that the difficulties facing households are not inevitable. Ministers are fond of blaming those difficulties on President Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, with the Chancellor pointing to what in his autumn statement he called

“a recession made in Russia”.—[Official Report, 17 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 855.]

While that is true in part, blaming it entirely on President Putin is, frankly, dishonest. The crisis is one of political choices—choices that have been made not just over the past 12 months, but during the past 12 years of Tory rule. As we now know, the decision by the Conservatives, under David Cameron’s regime in 2013, to cut the so-called green crap has added billions to household energy bills, with installations of loft and cavity wall insulation subsequently falling off the cliff by a staggering 92% and 74% respectively in 2013.

Indeed, while there were 1.6 million installations of loft insulation, for example, in 2012, that dropped to just 126,000 the following year. Installations of cavity wall insulation dropped from 640,000 in 2012 to just 166,000 in 2013, and in 2020 there were just 72 installations of loft and cavity wall insulation combined. That is a damning indictment of the Government’s approach.

The poor state of the UK’s inefficient housing stock meant that in June last year households at energy performance certificate band D or below were effectively paying what has been called an inefficiency penalty of about £900 on average per year. It is frankly unforgiveable that in response to the current crisis the Government have once again overlooked and paid insufficient attention to the importance of energy efficiency. Their own Climate Change Committee expressed regret in November that it was now

“too late to introduce new policies to achieve widespread improvements to the fabric of buildings… this winter.”

For almost a year, the Government refused to act on what was the cheapest and quickest way to cut energy bills and address the UK’s notorious leaky houses. This is nothing short of a scandal, and it is also such a wasted opportunity, because ending our society’s addiction to fossil fuels also brings with it an opportunity to create warm, decent homes for everyone, where households are not shackled to high energy bills or trapped in dank and draughty homes, unable to turn the heating on.

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[Caroline Lucas]

I certainly welcome that intervention and agree entirely on welcoming the use of the contracts for difference mechanism. Tidal has huge potential and that is one way to maximise that. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we will be looking this afternoon in the Environmental Audit Committee at ways in which we can unblock more solar power, for example, by enabling the batteries, alongside household solar, to be installed retrospectively at lower VAT rates. It is odd that, at the moment, there are reductions on VAT for solar panels but not for the batteries for households that want to store energy.

[Wera Hobhouse]

On that point, does the hon. Lady agree that the Government should seek to incentivise further private domestic installation of solar panels or ground-source heat pumps by considering an offsetting of the investment against income tax?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for that proposal, which is not one I have looked at, but which sounds interesting. I would be interested to know what the Minister thinks of that.

I will bring my comments to a close simply by saying that, in responding to the multiple crises that I have set out this morning, it is important that we do not store up more problems for the future. Rather than harking back to the fossil-fuel era, I ask the Minister one more time if he will finally prioritise the quickest and cheapest way to bring down bills for the long term, and introduce that desperately needed street-by-street home insulation programme. Again and again, we have seen Government schemes that are not working. The green deal scheme and green homes grant both collapsed and did massive damage to supply chains, with businesses unable to have confidence in what the Government were introducing.

We urgently need an end to the fossil-fuel era, which was kickstarted by coal and colonialism. Instead, we need resilience for the long term, with good green jobs in every constituency, warm homes that are not vulnerable to global gas prices, and the abundance of renewable energy with which these nations are blessed. Only then can we avoid future energy crises, create a more prosperous society and ensure that everyone shares in a transition to a zero-carbon economy.

Fossil Fuel Extraction

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I think I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The truth is that although mistakes have certainly been made in Germany in the past, the idea that new nuclear now can help the UK get to net zero fast enough is simply misguided; it is too costly and too slow, and it simply will not get us where we need to be quickly enough. What is clear, however, is that phasing out fossil fuel production, and fast-tracking progress towards safer and more cost-effective alternatives, will require unprecedented international co-operation.

I want to begin with a quick reminder of the science and with what climate experts are saying about fossil fuel production. Last year’s United Nations Environment Programme production gap report concluded that in order to limit warming to 1.5°C, the world will need to decrease fossil fuel production by at least 6% per year between 2020 and 2030. At the moment, there is no collective means of reaching that hard scientific deadline together, of accounting for the global impacts of choices made unilaterally by individual nations on our shared planet. Yet a universal and equitable approach is critical, as the Tyndall Centre’s own production phase-out report warns. It says:

“For a 50% or better chance of 1.5°C, our analysis shows that all producer countries must peak their production immediately and begin an uninterrupted decline. Expanding production in wealthier producers would either shift poorer producers (in fact all producers) onto more steeply declining pathways with earlier end dates, or put the temperature commitments beyond reach.”

Let us be absolutely clear: the UK is one of those wealthier producers, which together produce more than a third of the world’s oil and gas. Moreover, the UK has a moral responsibility to go further and faster than the vast majority of the world, because our historic cumulative emissions are so much greater. Tyndall analysis finds that the UK must reduce our oil and gas production by 50% in six years, which equates to an 8.3% reduction year on year, and must cease it completely by 2034—and that is just for a 50% chance of staying below 1.5°C once equity is factored in.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

We now have an end date to phase out diesel and petrol cars, which has forced the industry to put its mind to it and follow very quickly. People and organisations can then follow suit. If we had an end date for extracting fossil fuels, would that not concentrate minds, with people working much faster than they do now, when they think we can have business as usual?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution and I completely agree with it; that is exactly what this fossil fuel treaty is all about. It is about countries setting those end dates and then working towards that reduction swiftly but in a coherent and co-ordinated fashion.

The International Energy Agency has been similarly clear that countries, including the UK, must halt all new fossil fuel exploration and development from the end of 2021 if we are to keep below the 1.5°C threshold. In its recent assessment of the climate compatibility of new UK oil and gas fields, the Climate Change Committee stressed that extra extraction of gas and oil will simply support a larger global market overall. We know that if oil and gas are produced, they are consumed, so extra oil and gas production can reasonably be assumed to result in extra global consumption. Although the CCC has not been able to quantify accurately the impact of new domestic production on global consumption, every expert is clear that the direction of travel globally has to be weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. The Committee therefore recommended a presumption against exploration, explaining that

“an end to UK exploration would send a clear signal to investors and consumers that the UK is committed to the 1.5° C global temperature goal”.

When it comes to the UK’s ongoing diplomatic responsibilities as COP President to strengthen climate ambition internationally, it is clear that any domestic policies that increase the fossil fuel market undermine that ambition and open us to the accusation of gross hypocrisy. Of course, I understand that the Government have other responsibilities too and that this debate is happening in the midst of a cost of living crisis. While companies such as BP and Shell are raking in eye-watering profits, millions of households are pushed into poverty. Yet only a tiny proportion of the oil and gas industry’s total capital expenditure is going into renewables—just 1% in 2020 and still only in single figures today. I wholeheartedly support efforts to cut the UK’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels and to shield families from the effects of high global gas prices. What I do not support is the pursuit of policies that will end up exposing people to more costs in the long term.

I do not support historic decisions such as gutting energy-efficiency subsidies, effectively banning onshore wind in England and scrapping the zero-carbon homes standards, which together have actually added £2.5 billion to UK energy bills over the past decade. When we know that energy security quite literally starts at home, it is frankly shocking that the Government’s energy security strategy failed to deliver a retrofit revolution for the UK’s leaky homes. I do not support any strategy that defines winning at this critical juncture in human history in terms that literally sacrifice the future of humanity, or indeed policies like a climate checkpoint that would somehow greenlight the pumping of new North sea oil and gas when there is no global scenario in which that is compatible with keeping 1.5° alive and climate justice—a critical threshold which, let us remember again, means that every producer country must peak their production immediately and begin an uninterrupted decline.

It is very possible to reduce people’s energy bills here in the UK, cut carbon dioxide emissions, end fuel poverty, and stop oil and gas profits from filling Putin’s war chest. If we choose that, we can manage our way fairly and safely through this crisis. We can choose not to fall into knee-jerk responses that undermine our shared prosperity. Ambitious investment in insulation and heat pumps through a retrofit revolution, alongside meaningful direct financial support for struggling households, is the first step.

As the CCC states:

“The best way of reducing the UK’s future exposure to these volatile prices is to cut fossil fuel consumption on the path to Net Zero—improving energy efficiency, shifting to a renewables-based power system and electrifying end uses in transport, industry and heating. Any increases in UK extraction of oil and gas would have, at most, a marginal effect on the prices faced by UK consumers in future.”

Systemic change is the next step: ambitious, consistent and aligned with 1.5°. It is the very opposite of immediately turning off the taps now, which is not something I have ever advocated, so I hope the Minister will not repeat his Department’s regular assertions that those of us who are campaigning against new extraction are envisaging an immediate closing of the taps. We are not, and never have. In fact, many of us are fiercely calling for a just transition for offshore workers. I remind the Minister that it was MPs on the Government Benches who voted against my amendment to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, which would have helped oil and gas workers access jobs in renewable energy more easily.

Given that we are operating within the immutable reality of hard physics, it is short-term policies such as licensing more oil and gas production that increase the likelihood of being forced into unplanned shock actions. To put it another way, if we turn on more taps, as the Government’s energy security strategy suggests, it is inevitable that we will end up watching the flood waters rise on the future and be forced to take drastic action—inevitable because pumping more fossil fuels from new wells undermines our fundamental ability to keep the global temperature increase to 1.5°. Why would anyone choose that trajectory, no matter what the perceived short-term benefits, rather than take a sensible, managed global approach to fossil fuel production? Why indeed? And yet, without a fossil fuel treaty to guide us constructively through what is a life-critical mission, we risk sleepwalking into just such a scenario.

The 2021 UNEP production gap report warns that Governments currently plan to produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with limiting heating to 1.5°. The IPCC’s latest report warns that emissions from existing and currently planned fossil fuel infrastructure are higher than the pathways for 1.5° allows. No amount of political wishful thinking can magic away the science or the threat of catastrophic global heating if we do not start to act globally now to manage fossil fuel production and its phasing out. My first question to the Minister, then, is whether he will tell us whether the UK has a date by which it plans to end fossil fuel production. Does it have a coherent road map to get there?

Let me say a few words about the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. It originated in 2015 in Pacific island nations. It has been endorsed by 43 cities and sub-national Governments, from France to Costa Rica to Australia. It is backed by more than 2,700 global scientists, Nobel peace prize winners and climate leaders. It stems from the recognition that the world ultimately needs a formal process—a legal architecture—to deliver a negotiated instrument on the managed transition away from fossil fuels. Of course, that will require building political momentum both within and outside the UN community. International co-operation is vital to enable countries to reduce their mutual dependence on fossil fuels, to manage the decline of production to support workers and communities, to transition rapidly to renewable energy, and to build more diverse economies.

There are three main elements to the treaty proposal: first, to prevent the proliferation of fossil fuels, with a worldwide moratorium on the development of all new oil, gas and coal reserves so that we see an end to new exploration and production; secondly, to manage the decline of production by phasing out existing stockpiles to include the removal of production subsidies, the dismantling of unnecessary infrastructure and the shifting of support to safer and more sustainable alternatives; finally, to speed up a just and equitable transition to 100% renewables. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government disagree with any of those objectives? If they do not, is he prepared to join others in advocating globally for such a treaty?

Of course, we do not have to wait for the treaty; we can start now by scaling up domestic measures to reduce fossil fuel supply, alongside the reduction of demand. As the Minister will know, the CCC’s pathways would see the unabated consumption of gas “virtually eliminated” by 2050. The CCC recognises that, even with a significant role for carbon capture and storage, total UK gas consumption must fall by 50% by 2035 and by 75% by 2050. According to official figures, it takes on average 28 years to go from the discovery of a new oil or gas field to production, which would bring us neatly to that same date. That reinforces, yet again, the unsustainability of the granting of new exploration licences. What is more, 70% of what is left in the North sea basin is oil, not gas—and it is not even the type of oil that we use in UK refineries anyway.

The Government are fond of saying that it is better to produce gas at home than to rely on imports but, of course, it is not our gas: it belongs to private companies and will be traded on global markets to the highest bidder. Contrary to what the Government often claim, the carbon intensity of oil and gas produced in the UK is pretty average and in fact higher than that of Norwegian gas, which is our main source of imports. Ministers need to scrap the very notion of the climate checkpoint and the outdated legal duty to maximise the economic recovery of North sea oil and gas. They need to rule out once and for all the possibility of drilling at Cambo to signal clearly, right now, that Shell will not be given approval for the new Jackdaw gasfield.

Jackdaw will not lower bills or make our energy more secure, but it will produce pollution equal to half of Scotland’s annual emissions. No Government in their right mind would consider such a move, and nor would they continue to support the fossil fuel industry through tax breaks and financial support for exploration and for research and development, yet that is happening, to the tune of £12 billion a year. I know the Treasury does not consider a penny of that to be a subsidy, but New Economics Foundation analysis found that around £10 billion-worth is indeed covered by the subsidy definition used by, for example, the International Monetary Fund.

In fact, the UK’s tax regime makes it the most profitable country in the world for oil and gas companies to develop big projects. Shell alone received a £92 million tax rebate from the UK in 2021—the largest total from any country in which it operates. Yet when I have challenged Ministers previously, I have been met with arguments about how much tax the sector pays, or a refusal to recognise the definition of a subsidy that I use. I stress that that definition follows exactly the principles used by the World Trade Organisation, the IMF, the OECD and the Overseas Development Institute. It is at best quibbling and at worst dissembling.

It is deeply disappointing that the UK has consistently bowed out of G20 efforts to grapple with subsidies by refusing to take part in its peer review on the ground that the Government disagree with the definitions in use. Will the Minister reconsider that position? Whether fossil fuel companies pay tax and how countries interpret what counts as a subsidy are not the issue. The issue is whether the net effect is public money being given to fossil fuels when the world promised in the Glasgow climate pact to stop inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, bearing in mind that even the IMF says that any fossil fuel subsidies are inefficient.

Glasgow also gave us promises about coal. As the Minister will know, the UK made addressing the issue one of its four priorities at COP26, with the Prime Minister declaring that

“Glasgow sounded the death-knell for coal power.”

We are also, of course, a founding member of the Powering Past Coal Alliance. All that makes it particularly puzzling that the Government have failed to take a stand against the Aberpergwm deep coal mine in South Wales, extending its licence. That would allow it to run until 2039, extracting a further 40 million tonnes of coal and emitting up to an estimated 100 million tonnes of CO₂.

Just this weekend, we have also seen the prospect of the first new deep coal mine since the 1980s rear its ugly head again. We are told that the proposed Cumbria mine is needed to provide coking coal for the steel industry until 2049, yet less than 10% of that coal is expected to be used by the UK steel industry; 85% of it is planned for export to Europe. We should be investing in green steel production instead. The CCC is clear that coking coal used in steelmaking could be displaced completely by 2035, only halfway through the mine’s proposed lifetime. The Tyndall centre says that, for developed nations such as the UK, coal production needs to fall by 50% within five years and be effectively eliminated by 2030—nine full years before Aberpergwm would cease production and 19 years ahead of when the Cumbria coal mine is projected to close.

The IEA is similarly explicit: if we want even a chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°, no new unabated coal plants, no new coal mines and no new mine extensions can be approved for development after 2021. Globally, we know that the world already plans to produce 240% more coal than is consistent with 1.5°. Some may argue that Aberpergwm is a drop in the ocean, but this is the bigger picture we need to keep in mind. Will the Minister assure us that his Government will not permit any new coal extraction in the UK?

To sum up, meeting the demands of the science has implications for where our pensions are invested and what our banks are funding. It has implications for the donations given to political parties, for the ways in which insurance companies operate, for how food is grown and produced, for how we travel and for the offsetting rules that incentivise continued extraction and use of fossil fuels.

A fossil fuels treaty would enable the necessary disentangling of our economy, our politics and every other aspect of our lives from fossil fuels. One of the stepping stones towards a treaty is setting up a global registry of fossil fuels. That could be hosted by an organisation such as UNEP and would be a comprehensive, transparent, public source of data on estimated fossil fuel reserves and production. If we want to manage fossil fuel production, we need to know what reserves are out there, and who is planning on using them. Some countries have already embraced the principles behind that approach—those that back the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance, for example. The UK could and should be next.

As I said at the beginning of this debate, we are in a week of global advocacy for the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, and I want to end by recapping the questions I have asked the Minister. First, will the Government revisit the UK’s decision not to take part in the G20 peer review of financial support for fossil fuel production? Will they instead engage meaningfully with the process, including being open to assessing the UK’s support against various definitions of subsidy? Secondly, will Ministers undertake to discuss the proposal for a global registry of fossil fuels with counterparts in countries such as Denmark, France, Sweden and Luxembourg, which seem to have successfully overcome the commercial confidentiality objections mooted by the North Sea Transition Authority? The authority should itself be required to publish its field level data on oil and gas reserves.

Thirdly, Stockholm+50 in June is a key moment to build significant political momentum around the proposal for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Will Ministers commit to going there with the intention of helping initiate a negotiating process for a treaty to phase out fossil fuels within the UN system? Finally, have the Government set a proposed end date for oil and gas extraction and production? When will that be and is there a road map, beyond what is set out in the north sea transition deal? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Community Energy Schemes

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Something does not work, and I will come on to why it does not work. The whole system is outdated and does not allow for the changes that we need to make to get to net zero. We have to test what works on the ground. The number of licences that have been granted speaks for itself. We have made no progress, yet the Government accept that community energy is a good thing and we should all support it.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. On the issue of the Government saying it is a good thing, does she agree that the trouble in this country is that community energy is seen as a thing on the side? It is a cherry on the cake, and not the substantial part of the energy mix that it could be, as it is in places such as Germany, where there is a right to sell to the rest of the community. When we have that, we end up with a proliferation of local energy companies, a real diversity and ecology of energy companies, and a much stronger sector as a result.

[Wera Hobhouse]

In other countries there are much more diverse markets for this, and we really have to look at why it does not work in this country. I agree with the hon. Lady—absolutely, it has to be at the core of the transition. It is about power and people, so we are here to make a strong case to the Government to listen and really understand the benefits of local community energy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing this important debate.

It is just two weeks since the conclusion of COP26 in Glasgow and I welcome the focus that the debate places once again on how we practically deliver on the UK’s climate targets. We know that the Government’s recent pledge to decarbonise the UK power system by 2035 will require not just leaving fossil fuels in the ground where they belong, but a significant increase in renewable energy generation. Although progress has been made, with renewables generating 42.9% of electricity generation in the spring of 2020 and the Government committing to 40 GW of offshore wind by 2030, it is clear from everything we have heard this afternoon that community energy generation remains the missing part of the equation.

As we have heard many times, a failure to remove the barriers being faced by local suppliers is what is holding us back. Indeed, while large developers will soon benefit from the contracts for difference scheme, projects smaller than 5 MW continue to be excluded. Yet as the Minister will be aware, the potential for community-scale renewable energy generation is enormous. I am particularly delighted to hear the number of times that a report by the Environmental Audit Committee has been cited in this afternoon’s debate already. As a member of that Committee, I was pleased to sit in the deliberations as we came up with the figures that by 2030 the sector could grow by up to 20 times, powering more than 2 million homes and saving 2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ each year. It is a very powerful report and I commend it to those who have not yet had a chance to look at it.

The report made it clear that the UK’s outdated regulations are unfit for the present, let alone for the future. As things stand, as the hon. Member for Bath reminded us, community energy generation makes up less than 0.5% of the UK’s total electricity generation and there has been almost no growth in the sector in the past six years. Compare that with a country such as Germany, where there are 200 local energy companies, and with energy systems in countries such as Denmark, which are entirely decentralised. In comparison, the UK is an incredibly centralised four-nation country with an incredibly centralised energy system, and local energy companies have been little more than collective purchasing vehicles.

In other countries, local energy systems incorporate all aspects of generation, storage and supply. Households, communities, schools and businesses become joint producers and consumers in the local energy system, with vested interests in generating clean energy as well as consuming it, yet here at home, as Community Energy England has so clearly set out, Government policies have made it more difficult for the sector to flourish. The outdated market that we have largely dates back to the 1990s, when the sector was privatised, and prohibitive costs combined with the complexity of licensing laws are stifling community energy schemes.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Can the hon. Lady outline that the whole idea does not work because the improvements to the grid have not materialised in the way that we had hoped, or rather the way that the Government had hoped, and that we need big grid improvements to deliver net zero?

[Caroline Lucas]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention and she is absolutely right. It feels to me as though this absolute reinforcement of the grid is often the poor cousin in these debates and does not get much of a look-in when we talk about what needs to be done, yet it is absolutely critical. If we do not do that, the rest of what we are discussing will not count for much because it will not be possible for it to be realised if the grid is still in the dilapidated state that it is in now.

Earlier this year, the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I am pleased to serve, wrote to the Secretary of State following our inquiry into community energy and specifically recommended that the Government remove the regulatory barriers to allow community energy projects to sell their energy to local communities. The Secretary of State subsequently promised to publish the Government’s future plans for community energy in the net zero strategy, yet disappointingly that strategy contains neither a plan nor the practical support measures needed and that the Committee had recommended. That is why the Local Electricity Bill, of which I am also a proud co-sponsor, is so important, and why it seeks to remedy successive policy failings, by giving people the right to local electricity generation. As others have said, it would create the right to the local supply of electricity, allowing community generators to become local suppliers, and require Ofgem to establish the local supplier licence process, ensuring that the costs and complexity of becoming a local supplier were proportionate. Other measures to support community energy schemes include expanding and extending the rural community energy fund to include urban, heat, energy-efficiency and retrofit projects.

I want to say a last word about how community energy has a role to play in helping to build thriving, resilient communities. I was struck by the fact that in its final report, Climate Assembly UK placed a strong emphasis on fairness and leadership from Government. Community energy is that chance to deliver on both those fronts. Quite simply, enabling community energy projects means supporting thriving communities, where the profits from generation are reinvested locally. It means that, in transitioning to a zero-carbon economy, we are not simply building a new industry on the same old model, with profits concentrated at the top and communities denied a share of the benefits or unable to access the jobs. We are turning that on its head. We are creating something new and better, delivering decent green jobs and energy, investing at a local level in those resilient local economies. That is what a green new deal worthy of the name looks like in practice.

Community energy projects deliver significantly more social value than commercial models. Although the sector currently relies on volunteers, Power for People estimates that almost 60,000 skilled jobs could be created up to 2030, if policies such as those in the Local Electricity Bill are implemented. As I said, community energy is not just a nice-to-have extra to be excited about—the cherry on the sustainable economy cake. It is a fundamental part of the total energy mix.

Finally, I pay tribute to Brighton and Hove Energy Services Co-op—BHESCO—an award-winning social enterprise in my constituency, which since 2015 has completed 58 community energy projects, estimated to reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 7,000 tonnes over their operational lifetime. They have told me clearly that they could do so much more if the rules were changed and they were allowed to fulfil their potential. All they are asking for is a fair playing field for community energy projects that now struggle to make a business case, so that they could do the practical local projects that involve people and communities in inventing and adopting climate solutions, which bring huge social and community benefits.