My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on his appointment as Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. We have the utmost respect for his abilities and integrity, and I wish him well in his duties. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, on her appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Her depth of knowledge and commitment to this area of government are clear. Indeed, I wish the whole of His Majesty’s Government great success for the benefit of our country.
Before I begin, I would like to declare my relevant interests. I have a dairy farm, a solar farm and forestry, and I am a residential and agricultural landlord. I own land targeting development for new forestry planting, carbon sequestration, wind energy and residential housing. I am a director of a wind energy development company. I am an investor in companies developing technology for natural capital and carbon sequestration as well as global companies providing oilfield services and growing agricultural products.
Government investment decision-making does not have a good track record. Indeed, it is private capital that has driven the rollout of renewables and infrastructure in our country, and it appears that Great British Energy will be targeting investments that private capital alone will not finance. That does not fill our Benches with confidence that these investments will necessarily be judicious. Please can the Minister assure the House that GB Energy will report on the performance of its investments regularly and in detail and that the Government will be held accountable in this House for the performance of those investments?
The Government have committed to substantially increase the rate of renewables development. This would build on our track record of increasing renewable energy from 7% of our electricity supply in 2010 to around 50% today, versus 14% globally. However, these objectives clash with others in the Government’s manifesto. How do we increase our food security while tripling solar capacity, which is often placed on some of our most fertile land in southern England? How do we restore and protect our natural environment if we
are installing gigawatts of wind turbines in the fragile and beautiful environments where the wind blows most consistently? How will these conflicting objectives be reconciled within the planning system while also protecting the interests of those who live and work in these areas?
There are two further challenges for renewables development. First, grid capacity and the ability of distribution network operators to process applications from developers remain significant constraints. I would like to understand how and when the Government plan to free these up. Secondly, cost inflation has significantly increased the levelised cost of electricity from new renewable developments, making it harder to compete with the marginal cost of electricity from gas turbines. How will the Government ensure that the incentives are effective for developers without penalising the consumer?
The Government have summarily ceased issuing new licences for exploration and production of oil and gas in the North Sea. This weakens our energy independence and threatens the 90,000 people employed directly by the oil and gas sector, often in local economies that rely on those jobs. At least another 100,000 jobs are reliant on this industry. Under our previous Government, with continued development, we expected oil and gas production to fall by 7% per annum, faster than the average global decline needed to align with the IPCC’s 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway. Without new licensing, this will fall at an accelerating rate, increasing our reliance on imported oil and gas. The UK still depends on fossil fuels for meeting around 75% of our total energy demand, and that cannot be changed overnight. A Robert Gordon University study found that a faster decline in our oil and gas could halve this workforce by 2030 and would be a
“significant loss of skills for the future energy sector”.
I would like the Minister to reassure this House and the 200,000 men and women dependent on this industry that they will find equally highly skilled and well-paid jobs and that we will not be held to ransom by foreign powers in future.
There is universal acceptance that the water industry can and must do better. The challenges are unchanged: the water and wastewater infrastructure was designed and built by our Victorian ancestors 150 years ago. The standards and capacity it was built to are obsolete. How will increasing the powers of the regulator change those facts? I remind the House that the previous Government had a fully funded plan to address the issues. In a few weeks, the Thames Tideway tunnel will be put to use after investment of more than £4 billion, despite much opposition in this House, significantly improving the quality of water in the Thames.
The Government’s intention to develop a land use framework, which was not mentioned today but was stated in previous commitments, is in line with our plan, which was recently confirmed by my noble friend Lord Douglas-Miller at the Dispatch Box. It can and should allow for streamlining management and planning decisions. However, I would like the Minister to reassure the House that this will enable, rather than force, private landowners to pursue developments that the Government find desirable.
Families dependent on farming were disappointed with the lack of clarity or ambition around this Government’s intentions towards farming, without any mention of it in His Majesty’s gracious Speech. We had promised £1 billion of extra funding to farmers to support increased productivity while improving animal welfare and environmental standards. The year 2024 has been stressful for farmers due to extreme rainfall. What concrete reassurance can the Minister give that helping them remains a priority?
I sincerely hope that the Government can use the world-leading environment, agriculture and fisheries Acts to continue to drive the country to fulfil its legal commitment to reverse the declines in nature by 2030. Ministers in the last Government pushed Defra to act as enablers rather than regulators. Success requires land managers and farmers to be weaponised, in the words of my noble friend Lord Benyon. They are the ones who will sequester carbon, increase biodiversity and produce food more sustainably, not the Government.
This is about leveraging Defra resources to stimulate private sector green finance. I urge the Minister to continue to partner with the British Standards Institution on standards and excellent organisations such as the Green Finance Institute to see the UK as developing high-integrity accessible markets for land managers and investors. It is also important that our Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code should be certified with the excellent Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market’s core carbon principles while also being admitted to the UK Emissions Trading Scheme.
We should not overlook the massive international role that we have played in managing the environment under the previous Government. Defra’s international biodiversity responsibilities were key to fulfilling what was agreed at COP 26 in Glasgow and at CBD COP 15 in Montreal—for example, our £500 million Blue Planet Fund, helping smaller countries to manage their coastal areas and oceans. Please could the Minister confirm that she will continue to work closely with colleagues at DESNZ and the FCDO to continue this leadership?
The Government described the badger cull as ineffective in their manifesto, but the reality is quite different, with a reduction of 51% in bovine TB in three regions of Cheshire between 2016 and 2023. My own dairy farm has gone from TB infections at least once every other year to three years TB-free since the badger cull. I am pleased that His Majesty’s Government plan to continue working with farmers and scientists to eradicate bovine TB. A candidate vaccine, CattleBCG, has been identified, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency has developed a companion candidate test. Significant progress is being made, but I urge the Government not to abandon a proven strategy until there is complete confidence that a better solution is available.
I hope I have given sufficient evidence that the last Government were the greenest ever, leading the world in so many areas. We applaud the new Government’s ambition to build and expand on that work while bolstering our food and energy security. We will support His Majesty’s Government when they do good things, perhaps chiding them to do better and holding them to account when they fail.
I am very much looking forward to my noble friend Lord Fuller’s maiden speech, no doubt the first of many meaningful contributions to this House.
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