Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to
ensure the effectiveness of their Net Zero Strategy in meeting
the goals under the Climate Change Act 2008.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Energy
Security and Net Zero () (Con)
My Lords, the path outlined in the net zero strategy is the right
one and we are delivering against it; for example, by announcing
an unprecedented £20 billion investment in the early development
of CCUS. The net zero growth plan reinforces this and the details
set out in the carbon budget delivery plan sets out the package
of proposals and policies that will enable us to meet those
carbon budgets.
(GP)
I thank the noble Lord for his Answer, which does not quite match
the picture generally, I am afraid. I had intended to find one
area where I thought I could suggest improvements, but actually
the whole gamut of policies we have are failing. The Government
are failing on energy, on housing, on transport—everything. So
will the Minister please explain to his department just how bad
it is at doing what it is meant to be doing? Perhaps it could
bring in people such as the UK Climate Change Committee, or even
our House of Lords Climate Change Committee, and actually take
their advice. Failing that, will the Government please look at
the Green Party manifesto, which has superb, sensible policies?
They could really use them.
(Con)
Of course, as always, I am immensely grateful to the noble
Baroness for her constructive advice, but I am afraid that, yet
again, she is wrong. We are on track to meet our budgets; the
evidence is there. We met the second and third carbon budgets; in
fact, we exceeded our targets. We are on track to meet carbon
budgets 4 and 5 and we recently announced our plans to meet
carbon budget 6, which goes through to 2037—so all the policies
are in train. I know the noble Baroness always wants to go
further, and she is right to keep pressing us, but we are making
progress. It is a long transition, but we are making faster
progress than any other country in the G7. Our decarbonisation
since 1990 is almost 50%, which is far in excess of every other
G7 country, including the likes of Germany—where, of course, the
Greens are in government.
(Con)
Does my noble friend accept that the chances of reaching global
net zero are almost nil as long as the Chinese and Indians go on
building coal-fired power stations?
(Con)
I understand the point my noble friend is making. Of course, we
continue to engage with China and India about the folly of
building new coal-fired power stations. Incidentally, picking up
my last example, because the German Government accepted the
advice of the Greens and phased out their nuclear power
programme, last year 30% of German electricity was met by
coal-fired generation. In the UK, it was less than 2% and next
year it will be zero.
(LD)
My Lords, here is an area for improvement: I was very
disappointed that there have been no further announcements on
support for tidal and wave power, even though the predictability
of this technology could provide baseload and save on the cost of
battery storage and hydrogen storage. So far, only 40 megawatts
of this technology has been supported by the Government,
equivalent to a medium-sized onshore wind farm. The Government’s
contracts for difference mean that they have the opportunity to
provide more support for this cutting-edge technology, which
really needs support in order for it to scale up and make its
contribution to renewable energy. So why are the Government
leaving the profits to other countries? This is an opportunity
for energy security and for British industry.
(Con)
Again, I am afraid I do not agree with the noble Baroness. There
are some exciting prospects and we are supporting early-stage
tidal projects. It depends whether she means wave-powered
projects or the various barrage schemes, which are extremely
expensive and have a lot of environmental implications. The
approach that we take through the CfD system is to pick the most
effective, cheapest means of decarbonisation, because of course
it all feeds back into consumer bills. If we adopted the approach
she is suggesting, these technologies are relatively unproven and
would add to consumer bills.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister claims that we are making more progress
than other European countries, but is it not because we started
at such a low point? Let me give an example: we have the
worst-insulated homes in Europe. Is it not the case that it is a
very low level of improvement?
(Con)
No, it is not. The figures I quoted started from a baseline of
1990, so it actually includes some of the progress made under
previous Labour Governments. There is no question that of course
we have a challenge: we have the oldest housing stock in Europe,
a consequence of the Industrial Revolution. Six million homes
were built before the First World War, so it is a challenge, but
the figures still stand: we are making faster progress than any
other G7 country.
(Con)
My Lords, have the Government really taken on board, in pursuing
this admirable goal of NZ, the absolutely colossal increase in
electricity from renewable sources—presumably wind and nuclear
are the main ones—which will be required to get anywhere near
replacing all the other energy we use in the economy, which is,
of course, full of fossil fuels? This is a vast task, requiring
immense investment and enormous planning and, although I am
encouraged by what my noble friend says, have we really begun on
making the 10-times expansion of wind in the North Sea and the
six new nuclear power stations if they are big, or the 30 or 40
if they are small? These are vast tasks; we do not yet hear
enough about how we are going to meet them.
(Con)
My noble friend makes an important point. I know he has a lot of
experience in this area and he is right to point out the scale of
the task. It is an immense challenge to be done over many years;
none of this happens overnight. Some of the wind farms that are
coming on stream this year were planned a decade ago; it all
takes time to do, but over the next 20 or 30 years we need to
make progress towards those goals. They are legally binding, so
we need to meet them and we are on track to do so.
(Lab)
My Lords, following the Minister’s answer to the noble Baroness,
Lady Jones, the Government are currently way off track to meet
their sixth carbon budget for 2033 to 2037. This is a crucial
period once the low-hanging fruit has all been picked. What
additional measures are the Government considering to ensure that
the harder to abate sectors deliver the necessary reductions in
large-scale emissions in order to ensure we meet our net-zero
targets?
(Con)
The sixth carbon budget goes through to 2038. We have set out
policies to meet— I think—about 97% of the targets under that and
we have a number of other policies that are so far unquantified.
In essence, the noble Lord is right, of course. As we make faster
progress—and we are making very swift progress—the targets become
more difficult to meet: but I am confident that we can do so.
(PC)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that, in order to get the maximum
benefit at the right time from wind power and other power
supplies that come at inappropriate times, there is a real case
for additional pumped-storage capacity? Will he do what he can to
speed up the establishment of a clear financial base? At present
that is holding back some very valuable projects.
(Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point. As we have more and more
intermittent renewables coming on to the grid, we will need to
balance that out with increased storage capacity, which may be
pumped storage: of course, there is an excellent example in Wales
in the Dinorwig plant, but there are examples in Scotland as
well. As well as storage mechanisms such as pumped storage and
battery storage, the potential of long-term hydrogen storage in
salt caverns is extremely exciting.
The Lord
My Lords, as I understand it, one of the barriers to installing
new low-carbon technology is the shortage of skilled labour to
carry out this work. Can the Minister tell us what plans there
are to invest in and expand training and skills programmes for
the installation of low-carbon technology such as heat pumps, EV
chargers and solar panels?
(Con)
Indeed, that will be a vital component. We need to train people
for the new technologies. Many of them are already coming on
stream. Of course, we work very closely with the Department for
Education to expand our skills programme in the green jobs area,
but we also have a number of directly funded schemes from the
department which are funding tens of thousands of new training
places.
(CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. In
order to achieve the ambitious programme the Minister has set
out, Ofgem, the regulator, will need to play an important role.
This House voted to give Ofgem a net-zero duty, in line with the
recommendations of numerous bodies, most recently the BEIS
Committee in another place. Will the Government rethink their
opposition to this sensible, much-supported measure when the Bill
goes to the other place?
(Con)
Of course, we will continue to keep these matters under review. I
am not going to predict what might happen to the Bill in the
House of Commons, but we will certainly reflect on what the House
voted for.
(Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend resist the blandishments from the
Green Party about planning and organisation, given the shambles
it has created in Scotland for the coalition there on the bottle
return scheme?
(Con)
Of course, I accept my noble friend’s advice about Green
policies. I pointed out the example of Germany. The Green Party’s
opposition to an electric railway line—HS2—is another example of
a hypocritical policy, but there are many others that we could
choose from.
