Queen’s Speech

My Lords, I do apologise. Still, I was surprised that there were not more. My noble friend Lord Greaves was right that, as the Marine and Coastal Access Bill has its Second Reading on Monday, we should probably not go into detail about it now. I will, however, say: thank goodness that at last it has landed here in Parliament and we can get on with that important work. I think there will be broad consensus across the House. There is a huge task there with regard to marine management as well as the renewables programme and everything that will be required to put that in place, particularly in the waters of England and Wales. It was quite interesting that, on climate change, the gracious Speech stated that, "““my Government will work towards European action on economic stability, on climate change, on energy, enlargement and security””." I suppose that that is in a way quite right, because we are at a critical moment in climate change. The Poznán meeting on climate change is taking place at the moment. It leads up to the Copenhagen conference in 2009, which will really show whether Kyoto will survive or die. If it is to survive, which I presume all of us here hope, as it is the only game in town despite its many difficulties, the European Council must tomorrow make sure—I know that the Government and the French presidency will lead on this—that that climate change deal does not unravel. We can understand the difficulties of Poland—perhaps less so those of Italy—and the east European countries in meeting that. If Europe does not stick together and lead that process, there is absolutely no chance for the rest of the world, even though the United States might now come in more positively. We are on the cusp of taking that process through to Copenhagen next year. In the past month, we have had the carbon budgets arrive in the United Kingdom. That is after the Climate Change, Energy and Planning Bills became Acts. That area of work has been done. The boxes have been ticked. One could almost take it from the Queen’s Speech, although I know that it is not meant in that way, that that is it, that we can now leave it to Europe and Copenhagen to sort it all out, and that we have done our bit. However, we all know that the real action starts now. The global policy responses to climate change and Kyoto have had little effect as yet. We are approaching 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is to be compared with 270 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. If business continues as usual, we will be up to 750 parts per million and a rise in temperature well beyond two degrees. We have a number of problems ahead of us: a predicted growth in population from 6 billion to 9 billion by 2050; an increase in transport, with 1 billion more cars expected on the road, mainly in India and China, by 2030; and rising energy intensity. Even with all the actions and more that we are talking about being taken and working globally—not business as usual—we will still have carbon emissions in 2030 at 25 per cent above what they are now. That is the scale of the challenge. We in the United Kingdom congratulate ourselves on having already met our Kyoto targets for greenhouse gases by their being some 12.5 per cent less than in 1990. However, if you look at it in a different way and include aviation and shipping, and look at carbon consumption rather than carbon production by the UK economy, you will see that we have gone up by something like 19 per cent and have understated our figures by 37 per cent. That is the size of the problem that we still have here. When I look at the gracious Speech, I think, ““That’s fine. We’ve got the targets right. We’ve got the committee there that’s going to start to look at making the necessary tough decisions for us””. I congratulate the committee on its work so far, but what are the challenges for the year ahead? Why are we still allowing the construction of buildings that use oil heating? We should just say that that should not be allowed to happen. In our membership of the EU Council of Ministers, why are we not being far more insistent that car emission regulations should not be diluted? Why are we allowing it to happen? Why do we not have standards of carbon emissions for power stations? They produce a large proportion of our total carbon emissions. Why are we waiting until 2016 for domestic housing stock to be carbon neutral when we have the technology now? Why are we putting £10 million into anaerobic digestion demonstrations here when we know that they already work in Germany? Why do we not just transfer the technology and get on with it? I do not understand. A number of noble Lords mentioned Heathrow. I was not one of those who objected to the third runway. I thought we should get the carbon price right. We should get the market perfect and let the market decide about the investments. But when you look at the figures and what is happening in terms of the challenges faced by the UK, the European Union and the globe, you see that we have to start making tough investment decisions. Such decisions embed carbon into our economy well into the future. The marginal cost of operating air out of those facilities goes down immediately. Once the infrastructure is in place, you use it and maximise its capacity. I am a convert. Having been sceptical of my own party's position, I have come to the conclusion that you have to make difficult decisions, not just to show leadership, but because you are stuck with power stations and other types of infrastructure for 50 or maybe 100 years. I would ask another thing, not in terms of infrastructure but in a more personal way. With so many more millions of people now in energy poverty, at a time when energy prices are now going down on the wholesale and commodity markets, why are we not being far tougher on our energy companies and on the way that social tariffs are implemented? In terms of carbon budgets, I would like to bring to the Minister's attention that the committee lays down that there need to be clear strategies to achieve emissions reductions in aviation and shipping. What will the Government do about that? It also says, although not as strongly as I would like, that: "““Conventional coal-fired power generation should only be built on the expectation that it will be retrofitted with CCS equipment by the early 2020s””." I think that it should happen before that, but at least it is being laid down by the committee. We are now at a point where we not only have to set ourselves targets, but Europe and the United Kingdom have to continue our leadership. We also have to persuade others and deliver decisions, not just about markets and mechanisms; we must take some tough decisions about regulations as well. This has been an interesting debate. I thank noble Lords for having educated me on equality in local government, an area that I hope we all now agree should be subject to subsidiarity. From these Benches we look forward to contributing to the Government’s programme and improving the legislation to a large degree in what might be a rather less hectic Session than last year.