I thank all noble Lords for their amendments and contributions.
I will just make an observation first, having listened with great interest to the noble Baroness, Lady Blake. I was actually hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, would reply to this debate, as a fellow politician from the north-east of England. He will know very well that, in virtually every election that I fought in the region, the Labour Party campaigned against the closing of coal mines. I will be gracious and accept that time moves on, but it was only fairly recently that some of their parliamentary colleagues in the other place were campaigning for the opening of new coal mines and against the closing of old ones. Time moves on in politics but, had you said to me 10 or 15 years ago that I would be standing up in the House of Lords opposite a Labour Party telling me it does not want to see the opening of any coal mines, I would not have believed you.
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Turning to the substance of the amendments, I will start with Amendment 131 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Lennie, and the noble Baronesses. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, for her contribution; I do not know what the Labour Party in Yorkshire did, but I suspect that it had a similar position. Both this amendment and Amendment 138B would prohibit the opening of new coal mines in Great Britain, while Amendment 138B would also prevent the licensing or development of new oil and gas fields.
Let me reiterate the Government’s policy. As we have said many times before, we are committed to phasing coal out of our electricity production by 2024. In 2021, coal formed less than 2% of our electricity generation. This permits me another observation; let us look at other equivalent economies. Germany is a particularly good example. Yesterday, it announced the end of its nuclear production—no doubt something cheered by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the
Greens—forgetting the slightly inconvenient point that, last year, Germany generated 31% of its electricity production from coal, compared with our 1.8%. It is also in the process, as we speak, of opening new mines for lignite, the dirtiest and most polluting form of coal; of course, it has no alternative because it has got rid of the other forms of generation. I am sure that the Greens in government there are proud of their successful record.
As I said, we are committed to phasing coal out. It will form less than 2% of our electricity generation next year. It will no longer be part of our electricity system. Of course, there may still be some domestic demand for coal in industries such as steel and cement, as well as a small usage in sectors such as heritage railway. This can be met from domestic resources under existing licensing arrangements, rather than imported coal, which can have higher supply chain emissions from transportation.
In taking the decision on the Cumbria mine, the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities carefully considered all those demands for coal, the impact on climate change and, importantly, the impact on the local economy. Although coking coal will be required for steel production for some time to come, the UK is working to support the decarbonisation of the steel industry and other industries that still rely on coking coal and, I remind noble Lords, employ many tens of thousands of people. We are supporting the end of its use through the £315 million industrial energy transformation fund. In our view, the phasing out of coal-fired power plants, to which the Government have committed since 2015, is a more proportionate response than an outright prohibition on coal mining.
On oil and gas, we are working to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels as we work towards net zero, but we will need some of them for some time to come. By taking an idealistic position and preventing both the development of new oil and gas fields and the issuing of exploration licences, this amendment would cause a faster decline in UK oil and gas production. This would have considerable ramifications; critical among them is the potential severe weakening of our security of supply.
Further, a faster decline in UK production would have the proportionate effect of forcing us to increase our imports of liquefied natural gas. North Sea Transition Authority research shows that the production and import of LNG results in more than double the emissions released when compared with the production of natural gas from our own continental shelf; of course, that disregards all the tax revenues and all the jobs of the people employed in those areas. It would be the ultimate self-defeating policy. Imposing a blanket ban on new oil and gas fields would be a completely disproportionate step and would limit the UK’s ability to respond to changes in the global energy system in future.
Moving on to Amendment 104 from my noble friend Lady McIntosh, I welcome her ongoing interest in our marine protected areas network. The Government recently committed to designating three new highly protected marine areas, which will have the highest level of protection. If designed appropriately, offshore
wind developments can avoid damage to marine protected areas, so we see no need to prohibit offshore wind development in them.
The existing requirement to work through the so-called mitigation hierarchy—that is, to first consider avoidance, then mitigation, of environmental impacts—is already an established principle of environmental and planning law. Under the Planning Act 2008, the Secretary of State must decide a project’s application in accordance with the energy national policy statements and the UK marine policy statement. The Government are consulting on the updated energy national policy statements, which clearly state that applicants should follow the hierarchy to avoid, as far as possible, the need for compensatory measures. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh mentioned, this position is being further strengthened through the inclusion of the mitigation hierarchy in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which will apply to environmental outcome reports.
The Government therefore consider this to be a much more effective approach that will apply to all industries, rather than solely to offshore wind development. The expectation to follow the mitigation hierarchy is also inherent in various marine and coastal statutory provisions which, as per Clause 243(6), the Bill cannot disapply. This will ensure that applicants continue to avoid impacts as much as possible by following the mitigation hierarchy. Therefore, with these reassurances, I hope that my noble friend can see that the Government are committed to the mitigation hierarchy through a range of legislative and non-legislative mechanisms, which should ensure that industry continues to abide by it, and so will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for her Amendment 124 on the prohibition of flaring and venting oil and gas installations, on which we had an Oral Question recently. The Government recognise that eliminating emissions from routine flaring and venting of gas by companies operating in the North Sea is a priority. We already have ambitious plans to do that. We have committed to the World Bank’s zero routine flaring by 2030 initiative, and we are working with regulators towards eliminating the practice as soon as possible. In the North Sea transition deal, industry has committed to driving down flaring and venting ahead of 2030. However, retrofitting older facilities to stop routine flaring and venting brings complex technical and economic challenges. Industry has shown that it is committed to cleaner operations and has made substantial investment to minimise the practice. The North Sea Transition Authority’s proactive approach and industry effort are reaping rewards. Based on its latest data, North Sea flaring is down 50% since 2018, after a 13% drop last year. I welcome this progress and hope that the noble Baroness does too.
I thank all noble Lords for their amendments and hope, perhaps without too much optimism, that with these reassurances they feel able not to press their amendments.