Queen’s Speech

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, has just referred to this debate as something of a ragbag of a debate, as we switch rather randomly from environment to transport to local government. I shall talk generally about the issues of environment and climate change. Specifically, I shall address the need to ensure that we have people in this country who are trained with the skills necessary to ensure that the policies that are put into effect in relation to climate change can be implemented. The gracious Speech contains two specific references to climate change—one in the third paragraph, ""to seek global and European collaboration to sustain recovery and to combat climate change, including at the Copenhagen summit next month"." It goes on to say: ""Legislation will be brought forward to support carbon capture and storage and to help the most vulnerable households with their energy bills"." We have already had the first reading of the Energy Bill. I join those who welcome the proposals to help the vulnerable households that are hit by rising energy prices. Equally, it is important to recognise that at a time of increasing energy scarcity, we want people to economise in their use of energy and that encouraging energy efficiency in their homes is just as important as compensating them for the cost of the energy that they consume. In addition there is the Flood and Water Management Bill, to which many have referred. The noble Baroness, Lady Knight, concentrated on some aspects of that Bill just now. That Bill relates to climate change even if it does not specifically mention it. In the coming year, the impact of the legislation that was passed last year, especially the Climate Change Act, is extremely important. That Act was a milestone in our efforts to combat climate change, committing the UK to ambitious and legally binding targets which in turn will require a radical change in our energy infrastructure. Side by side with this legislation, the Government published in July their own White Paper, The UK Low Carbon Industrial Strategy, and at the same time the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan. A whole clutch of energy White Papers were published at that time. The UK is now committed to 20 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020—and, one hopes, if the Copenhagen summit is successful, to a 30 per cent reduction and 80 per cent by 2050. The aim is that this will be achieved by a major expansion of wind power. I have to say, although I am not in any sense a climate change sceptic, that I share something of the scepticism expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Reay, about whether we should put as much emphasis on wind power as we do. There is also a new commitment to tidal and wave power, new-build nuclear, and, as mentioned in the gracious Speech, the development of carbon capture and storage. Again, I share the scepticism of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, about whether that can really play very much part. This is all very encouraging. As the Observer leader of that time remarked: ""Mr Miliband has taken the Government from a position of merely making vague proposals for achieving carbon emission cuts and has, instead, given us a specific recipe for responding to global warming in the short term"." But equally the two companion White Papers published at the same time, on transport and business, are not nearly so encouraging. It is all very well having a low-carbon vehicle strategy, but there remain many unanswered issues in transport, not least the question of emissions from aviation and shipping, and the electrification of the railways. To some extent, some of those doubts were answered by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in his introduction. I was particularly pleased at what he had to say about the development of the high-speed rail links. Business has yet to show that it really understands the aims of the emissions trading scheme, which is in many senses at the centre of the Government’s strategy towards a low-carbon economy. For that matter, the ETS has yet to prove that it can be an effective vehicle to cut carbon emissions. To date it has had very little impact. Meanwhile, the evidence from scientists shows increasing urgency of action. There is evidence that Arctic and Antarctic ice is melting more quickly than had been predicted, leading to a faster rise in sea levels and temperatures than previously foreseen and in turn to the sort of unpredictable weather patterns that we have seen in the rainfall in Cumbria last week. It was presented as a once in a thousand year eventuality. However, among the weather experts brought on to various programmes to comment on the event, some admitted that in future it was likely to become a once in a hundred year eventuality. Only yesterday, Dr Tom Watson, chief scientist at Defra, was quoted as saying that the chances of holding temperature gain over the next 50 years to 2 degrees are increasingly small. As Dr David King—until last year Chief Scientific Adviser to Her Majesty's Government—has been stressing, the combined effect of an expected population growth from 6 billion to 9 billion, pressure on agricultural resources, running out of fossil fuel energy and climate change create a frightening scenario. One problem that I find most difficult to deal with is with what I call the "free-rider" mentality. Free-riders are not necessarily climate change deniers, but those who argue that their contribution is so negligible to the whole that it is not worth making. It is, for example, quite extraordinary that, at a time when we needed to be moving to smaller, more energy-efficient vehicles, large four-wheel drive monsters became so fashionable. It is a mentality which says, "Why should I do it, if others do not do it?" and it applies as much internationally, among countries, as it does nationally, among people. But it is worth remembering the other side of that coin, which is, "I would do it, if everyone did it". That is why at Kyoto, and now at Copenhagen, the aim is to get every country to buy into the package, and why it is so necessary for Governments to provide leadership. People are prepared to change habits surprisingly fast when leadership is there. Just look as what has happened with smoking; it is a quite amazing change over the past few years. Look at what has happened to plastic bags over a very short period of time. What is so refreshing about the announcements last summer from Mr Miliband is that at last he seems to be providing a bit of leadership. I was a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee five years ago when we made a series of inquiries into energy efficiency and renewable energy. It was so clear even then that people were waiting for a strong lead from the Government, and this lead was not forthcoming. Looking back over the past two decades, many of us will see them as wasted years, when we could have been doing so much more. If we are to meet the targets that we are setting ourselves for 2020 or 2050, it is vital that we have the skills to deliver on those targets. At present, one in three firms operating in what is termed the environmental sector says that it is hampered by skill shortages. For example, there are delays in installation of passive solar panels linked to hot water systems because of a shortage of plumbers who have the necessary training in this area. The nuclear sector reckons that it will need to recruit between 6,000 and 9,000 new graduates, mostly with engineering specialisms, and between 3,000 and 5,000 technician-level recruits. Add to this the number required to develop the new on-shore and off-shore wind capacity, wave and tidal energy developments planned, new coal-fired power stations if we develop carbon storage and capture, high-speed rail and upgrading our flood defences, not to mention the aim for Britain to become a centre for the production of low-carbon vehicles, and it becomes apparent that the number of young people graduating from our universities in engineering disciplines—some 30,000—is not likely to be nearly sufficient to meet future needs. So what about these skills issues? There are three different issues that we have to look at. One of them is encouraging more young people to study the science, engineering and mathematical subjects at university. That is a huge problem at present because of the failure of departments in universities to recruit young people. That in turn goes back to the schools, which are not preparing young people to go forward in those subjects. There is a great deal to be said for a policy that ensures that young people, if they wish to, can study specific sciences at GCSE and take the triple sciences. I do not understand why the Government have opposed what would be a real incentive for young people to take up the sciences—namely, to promise that they would not have to pay university fees if they studied maths, physics or engineering. This could have a considerable impact on numbers going to universities and studying these subjects. Secondly, there are problems with technician-level skills. American research suggests that in areas such as energy efficiency and the retrofitting of old houses, what is required are people trained in traditional construction skills but provided with up-to-date training in energy-efficient construction. For example, when we have to move to feed-in tariffs we shall need electricians who know not only how to install and fit photovoltaic solar panels but how to integrate the connection into the power supply so that the power can feed back into the national grid. What this requires is add-on modules to an apprenticeship and, for older workers, short courses to cover those modules. While plans are afoot to expand the number of young apprenticeships, there are real problems in relation to older workers where funding for adult apprenticeships has been cut back. The Government are putting much more emphasis on employer-led initiatives. The Leitch report says that adult skills are to be "demand-led", and demand here means employers. Yet, as Defra has noted, there is a lack of employer engagement with environmental issues. The training costs of an add-on short-course module of the sort that I have mentioned might be between £2,000 and £3,000. Perhaps for a company that is not so much, but for an individual putting himself or herself through such a course, with no subsidised student loans such as higher education students get and only a commercial career development loan available, it would not be feasible to contemplate funding oneself. That is a major disincentive for such people. Thirdly, in the UK there is a lack of management and leadership skills and of a general awareness of the need for resource efficiency. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talked about the work that WRAP does with companies, and others have spoken about the Carbon Trust. We rely increasingly in this country on small and medium enterprises, but Defra has found that there is not a willingness on their part to engage with the environmental agenda. It has been an uphill struggle for the Carbon Trust, WRAP and their SME counterparts. Yet both organisations, when invited in, are able to point to considerable savings. The Aldersgate Group, in its pamphlet Mind the Gap: Skills for the transition to a low carbon economy, highlights as an example of what can be achieved the case of John Menzies, the newspaper and magazine group. With a small grant from the Department for Transport and with the backing of the sector skills council, Skills Council for Logistics, some of its long-haul drivers were each given half a day’s training in eco-driving. The result was a saving of 10 per cent on fuel costs. As a result, Menzies has now extended the training to all its drivers and claims considerable gains in both fuel costs and vehicle maintenance as well as, for society as a whole, a considerable drop in vehicle emissions. With the clutch of White Papers and publications that have come from the Government in this past year, we are beginning to see the emergence of a clear strategy towards a low-carbon economy. Many, like me, feel that at present it is perhaps a bit too little and too late. Had we, like the Germans, recognised the opportunities that such moves would bring, we might, like them, be able to point to job creation in green technologies, which have brought something like 250,000 new jobs to that economy in recent years and provided a firm backing for its present moves out of recession. It is galling that much of the low-carbon technology that we are now installing comes from countries like Germany and Denmark, but for their part it is creating a vibrant new industry and many new jobs. The lessons to be learnt are ones we know quite well—that it requires a long-term, stable regulatory environment, supplemented by investment in the necessary skills. Sadly these are lessons that we have repeatedly failed to learn. Let us hope that this time we shall be more successful.