Barry Gardiner
MP for Brent West · Labour · United Kingdom
“Sir Desmond, imagine that the top brains in the country’s security and intelligence community produced a report that told you how to save the world. You would want to see it, right? Well, the report we are discussing is not about how to save the world; it is about what happens if we do not.”
“The nuclear threat will rise as clashes between nuclear powers become more frequent. Those are the cold assessments of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Government were right to think that those assessments might scare people—they scare me—but they were wrong to think that they could hide them from the public.”
“The Minister will know that the grant structure on which UKRI is based gives out grants for a maximum of three to five years. Very few are for five years—most are for three years or under—yet the sort of long-term scientific development that my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is making a superb case for the importance of funding for her deep earth facility. I had the privilege of going to the National Oceanography Centre’s deep oceans facility, and the innovative science there on carbon sequestration is superb.”
“The Prime Minister has spoken powerfully about the devolution of power and giving back control. Will he therefore ensure that the proposals for commonhold and leasehold reform, for which 5 million leaseholders in this country are waiting with bated breath, do give that power and control back to those people, through the right to enfranchi…”
“We know how much land there is in the UK, and we know the extent of our inland waters and seas, so we can know how much we have to do to protect them, as we are required to do by target 3 of the global biodiversity framework.”
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“I might have missed it in the Minister’s remarks about the various chemicals, but the briefings that I have read refer to deposits of submerged massive sulphides—the hon. Member for Bury North talked about the ISA, but this is SMS. Will the Minister say what category SMS falls into? My understanding is that a different treatment might apply in their mining.”
“The Minister has drawn a parallel that will have ramifications for the environmental agenda. He will know that the mentality of the Klondike and the frontier, and the rush for the extraction of minerals on land, resulted in some of the worst environmental degradation. Will he accept that the Opposition are simply trying to ensure that the Bill contains proper safeguards and environmental protections relating to the new frontier that he is describing, so that a similar laying waste of the environment that happened as a result of the extraction of natural resources on land does not happen on the sea bed?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for trying to respond fully to my concerns. I appreciate that. However, it is not sufficient to say that there is no cause for concern simply because only two licences have been issued to date and because there have been no problems with the way in which section 5 of that 32-year-old Act of Parliament is being implemented. He knows very well that section 5 states that “the Secretary of State shall have regard to the need to protect” the marine environment. The words “have regard to” do not provide for a strong protection. All we are asking is that that wording should be upgraded in the Bill.”
“Just to correct the impression that may have been given to the House by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), the treaty of Windsor in 1386 was of course a treaty between Portugal and England, and as so often with the hon. Gentleman, the key is, who is the—”
“The Secretary of State does, however, still need to explain why he came to this House in March and said the programme was proceeding according to plan when, in fact, he knew at that point that a month previously he had had to rip up those plans and reset the whole programme. Why did he do that? Why did he not give a more candid account to Parliament in March?”
“May we have a debate on sound science and the implementation of Government policy? Many scientists in the environmental community have been concerned to find out that the badgers that are culled will not be examined to find out whether they had tuberculosis in the first place. Equally, they are concerned about the Government’s proposals to relieve local authorities of the obligation to monitor air quality at a time when we are facing severe and escalated infraction proceedings in the EU because we have failed to meet air quality standards. It looks as though the Government are not properly monitoring the implementation of their own policies.”
“In response to the previous intervention, would my right hon. Friend simply care to draw the House’s attention to the fact that the previous Labour Government had to reform the market not once, but twice, through NETA and BETTA—the new electricity trading arrangements and the British electricity trading and transmission arrangements? They did so to ensure that, in what had been a dysfunctional market, something better and more competitive was created. That created the big six, which now, through the change in circumstances, have reached a different stage in their genesis and need reform as well. The idea that the Labour Government inherited a well-functioning market is nonsense, and Government Members know it.”
“The Secretary of State knows full well that what he is saying is disingenuous. When Labour created the new electricity trading arrangements, we were moving from two major companies to six. When it created the British electricity trading and transmission arrangements, it expanded the transmission arrangements as well. When it introduced Ofgem, it was introducing a regulator into a competitive situation. He knows full well that in 2007 and 2008, when the Leader of the Opposition was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, energy prices were going down. It is in the last few years that they have rocketed by 41%. All the accusations that he has just made are phoney and he knows the reality.”
“Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that any indirect action will not be undertaken by the Government also unless there is a further mandate from this House?”
“We were indeed at the meeting together. It is a very constructive suggestion that there should be a round table with all the major banks, which can then work with Treasury to resolve the problem. It is unfair to load everything on to just one bank, which happens to be the last in line. The Treasury needs to address this issue very seriously. Mr Bayley, let me also apologise for coming late to the debate, owing to another commitment.”
“Without wishing to betray any confidence that Barclays relayed at the meeting with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), it is clear that it has decided not to continue to do business with certain remittance companies, and, despite what the Minister has said about the assurances he received from the chief executive, that was made very clear to us in the meeting. The matter is much more urgent that the Minister is acknowledging.”
“Surely the best way to meet future energy demand is to reduce it, yet unfortunately the Government have focused on the supply side, not on energy efficiency measures. It will not be possible to meet future energy demand without real energy efficiency and reductions in demand.”
“Yesterday the Committee on Climate Change published a report on adaption, which said that by the 2020s the gap between water demand and water supply could be 120 billion litres—the amount that our farmers extract each year. This is an incredible strain on our resources and farmers. May we have a debate on water extraction and the potential effect on the irrigation of crops?”
“Of course, the largest area on the planet’s surface given over to the protection of endangered species is the Chagos marine protected area, which we established when we were last in government. The Pitcairn governing Council and the Bermudan Government are now asking the UK to designate marine protected areas in the south Pacific and the Sargasso sea. What technical assistance will the Minister’s Department give to ensure that those excellent proposals become a reality?”
“Q8. We now know from the latest Office for National Statistics figures that borrowing did rise last year, and the Prime Minister will recall that the Chancellor of the Exchequer two years ago said, “We have asked the British people for all that is needed, there is no need to ask for more.” Today, why is he asking for more?”
“Because 67% of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s budget is ring-fenced for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the Chancellor’s 8% cut actually equates to a 35% cut when the Department has to deliver an infrastructure plan which, at £200 billion, is the largest this country has ever seen. How is it going to be able to do that?”
“The Minister is absolutely right to place the emphasis on pillar two. The figure for voluntary modulation to which he referred was 15%, but can he confirm that the figure for voluntary modulation has previously been as high as 19%? Can he also expand on what the 15% figure is going to mean for farmers, and on the implications for the Treasury in this regard?”
“This is not a zero-sum game, but if we put the money into the schemes that hon. Members would ideally like—the greening schemes that will improve our environment—we will, to an extent, disadvantage our farmers, because they compete against their counterparts in Europe with less subsidy. It is as simple as that. We might all believe that that subsidy is wrong and should not exist—subsidies should not exist to prop up failing industries—but it exists none the less, which is a disadvantage to our farmers.”
“Many of them have a vested interest in having subsidies prop up their ineffective farming industries. The key issues are on the use of funds. The right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) was right to correct what I said earlier—10% modulation was compulsory and 9% was voluntary in the past. That meant a total of 19% modulation as opposed to the 15% voluntary modulation that the Government propose. The difficulty is that the 15% is 15% of less, and the 19% was 19% of more. The will have a dramatic impact on advancing the environmental stewardship schemes and the green elements of our budget will be dramatic. I take on board the points made by the Chair of the Committee and the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire about how the proposal will impact on farming businesses in the UK.”
“The real objection is that money is being used for subsidies around Europe instead of being used to encourage farmers to improve their practices and run better businesses. That is the tragedy of the CAP’s current structure. The CAP budget is €57.7 billion, which is around 40% of the EU budget. It is staggering that the money is being used predominantly to reward productivity and to increase product, and not to incentivise better businesses and improve the wider environment. I compliment the Minister—I do not always do so—for the way in which he has handled the debate. He not only took a lot of questions, but sought to engage the House. There is broad consensus in the House on the position that the UK Government would like to get to in Europe. The tragedy is that the 27 different countries have very different farming industries.”
“I am delighted to speak after the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. Food security delivered by a viable farming industry and the sustainable management of our natural resources must be compatible. It would appear that the CAP does its best to ensure that they are not. Greening is a lie. The proposals are not greening proposals. Modifications that are being made in the proposals to pillar one can be said to be greening in nature, but the proposals do not constitute the greening of the CAP as a whole. Only 13% of the funding under pillar one goes to specific greening measures. In many cases, good farmers are doing those things anyway.”
“I do not have time, I am afraid. The Chair of the Committee was absolutely right to put the central question: what is the Treasury going to do? Will it allow enough funds to DEFRA to ensure that we can put the money that is needed into the environmental schemes to support the natural environment White Paper it produced last year and to support our farmers, or will DEFRA budgets be cut in such a way that our farmers and the environment suffer? That is the question.”
“It is the institutions that are heavily involved in high value, high frequency derivative trading that would feel the biggest impact of the FTT, and whose riskier activities the rest of society has a vested interest in reining in. That is precisely the point that my hon. Friend the shadow Minister made. The public want to see these activities curtailed to reasonable levels such that they reflect the genuine risks of economic growth. It was Avinash Persaud, the former J.P. Morgan and UBS executive, who in the Financial Times recently commented: “this small tax on churning would limit some of these activities and help to refocus the financial system on to its purpose of the safe financing of real economic activity.” That is a good thing and we should be open to the idea of exploring it with our colleagues across the water.”
“GDP is a measure of productivity, but it is not a measure of wealth, and it is not a measure of growth in the real economy. Derivative volumes have ballooned out of all proportion to the growth of the real economy. Some would say that that says much more about rent extraction by the financial services sector than a real world story of genuine and proportionate insurance. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, many banks were weakened precisely by their exposure to derivatives. In fact, Warren Buffett has described them as financial weapons of mass destruction. They have traded those derivatives at ever-increasing speeds.”
“That fund will have to raise $100 billion each year by 2020—that is the minimum that the UK and our European negotiating partners think will be necessary to help developing countries increase their own economies, reduce poverty and offset the impact of dangerous climate change. The FTT would be an extraordinarily adept mechanism for raising those funds, which are vital to real growth in our economy. If we look at the UK economy, we will find that only 6% relates to the green economy, yet that 6% provided 30% of our economic growth in 2011. I would like to see the funds from the FTT predicated to use in the green climate fund.”
“Pension funds are obviously vital to our economy, and they buy derivatives to insure against the risk of poor performance by their portfolio, but those funds are much more likely to hold their derivatives until they reach maturity, which means that they would have to pay only a tiny amount under an FTT because their trades are far fewer—the very opposite of the type of short-term, superfast trading that grew in the run-up to the crisis. Most of the burden of paying the FTT would fall on superfast traders and speculative exchanges, which are very far removed from the real economy. I want to introduce another note into the debate before sitting down. Our Government, along with many other participants in the United Nations framework convention on climate change, have stated that there will be a green climate fund.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The public want politicians to get back to focusing on the real productive economy. They are bewildered, frankly, by the spin-off of derivatives. I was on the floor of the New York stock exchange when it all went belly up on 24 September 2008, and I remember discussing what all the turmoil was about with members of the Senate Banking Committee in Washington a couple of days later. When I returned to the UK, it was clear that people could not understand how things had become so far divorced from reality. The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who is unfortunately no longer in her place, made the point that an FTT on derivatives might hit pensioners. I do not think that is a convincing argument.”
“As my hon. Friend knows, Northwick Park is just in my constituency and we share that border. Does he agree that whatever the future configuration of hospitals in north-west London, it is absolutely essential that the A and E unit at Northwick Park is expanded to cope and that that should happen before any reconfiguration?”
“Just 10 days ago, the UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change produced its report on the electricity market reform. The report compared and analysed the relative benefits of investing in a portfolio of low-carbon technologies through the 2020s rather than investing in gas-fired generation. The report finds that investment in low carbon would save consumers between £25 billion and £45 billion. If, however, one uses the higher-end estimates of gas and carbon prices, the Climate Change Committee’s estimate then rises to £100 billion.”
“I understand that he refers to this agreement as “the grand bargain”. Hardly: it is more of a Faustian pact. The Secretary of State was right to negotiate £7.6 billion under the levy control framework to support renewables up until 2020—but a bargain this was not. Old coal will be allowed to provide base load beyond 2023; gas will be incentivised to provide base load right the way up until 2045. All pretence of meeting our carbon budgets and emissions targets will be abandoned, and the jobs and growth that leadership in low-carbon industries would generate will be lost. The combined value to the UK economy of all this is worth many times more than the paltry £7.6 billion that the Secretary of State has negotiated up to 2020. A grand bargain? Not since Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage has a worse deal been struck.”
“I am pleased to join the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo) in supporting amendment 11 and voting for it later today. The Secretary of State is in a bind. His party believes in a 2030 decarbonisation target—it is Lib Dem party policy, after all. His party put the issue in its manifesto. Many of his MPs went further and actually signed a separate pledge in support of a decarbonisation target. Have they not learned the Lady Bracknell rule of politics: to break one pledge may be regarded as a misfortune; to break two looks like contempt for the electorate? The Secretary of State is, however, a decent fellow and he has told me from that Dispatch Box that he favours a 2030 decarbonisation target and would be happy to implement one were it not for the fact that he struck an agreement with the Chancellor.”
“Of course. The hon. Gentleman must be forgiven for not having a memory retention of more than 10 seconds. I did, in fact, say that the lower-end figures were £25 billion to £45 billion, and that the higher end of the spectrum led to the estimate of £100 billion. There we have it. If we compare the £7.6 billion that the Secretary of State has negotiated with the lower-end range of £25 billion to £45 billion, we see what the Climate Change Committee has said the gas strategy might cost us in comparison with a low-carbon investment strategy. Critically, the Climate Change Committee says: “Only if the world abandons attempts to limit risks of dangerous climate change would a strategy of investment in gas-fired generation through the 2020s offer significant savings.””
“Moreover, delay in setting the target will allow current uncertainties to be perpetuated, with adverse consequences for supply chain investment and project development”. The committee concludes: “We therefore continue to recommend to the Government and to Parliament that a carbon-intensity target aimed at reducing emissions to around 50 gCO2/kWh should be set as a matter of urgency.””
“However, it is not necessary to wait for the setting of the fifth carbon budget to take a decision on the 2030 carbon intensity target, given clear evidence to show that investment in a portfolio of low-carbon technologies is a robust strategy with low regrets and significant potential benefits across a wide range of scenarios. Neither is it necessary to wait for the fourth carbon budget review in 2014 to set a carbon-intensity target. Although the Government has linked its approach to EMR implementation with the review of the fourth carbon budget, it will remain economically desirable to invest in a portfolio of low-carbon technologies whatever the outcome of the review, given the 2050 target in the Climate Change Act.”
“In fact, it has repeatedly disagreed with it. In its recent report on electricity market reform, it is quite explicit in saying: “We recommended to the Government in summer 2012 that a carbon-intensity target aimed at reducing 2030 emissions to around 50 gCO2 /kWh should be set under the Energy Bill, which is currently progressing through Parliament. In response, the Government has taken a power in the draft Bill which would allow it to do this in 2016. It has argued that setting a target any earlier would be premature, given that the fifth carbon budget covering the period 2028-2032—and setting the economy-wide emissions limit for 2030—will not be legislated until 2016.”
“Well, that is not strictly accurate. The Secretary of State did not need to give himself the power to set a decarbonisation target in the Bill, because he already had that power under the Climate Change Act 2008. What the Government actually do in the Bill is make it illegal for him to set a 2030 decarbonisation target before 2016. There is no compulsion for him to set it even after that date; there is only a permission and an acknowledgement that he may do so. The Government specifically claim that the enforced delay makes sense, because by that time the Committee on Climate Change will have published its fifth carbon budget, which covers the year 2030. They say that it is best to consider the committee’s budget recommendation along with any decarbonisation target. Interestingly, the committee itself does not agree with that view.”
“Let me repeat those words: “the success of the Bill”. We are not trying to wreck the Bill, for it is too important to play politics with. Ministers should distinguish between those who bring a spade to bury their endeavours and those who, like the hon. Member for South Suffolk and me, bring a spade to shore them up. I am conscious that the Government Whips have been given a good deal of extra work by the amendments, and I will happily buy a refreshment for any of them who feel aggrieved by having to argue with their colleagues against both common sense and principle. So far, we have identified a number of arguments that have been adduced in the Government’s defence. Front Benchers have been keen to tell their troops not to worry, because they have introduced a provision to set a decarbonisation target in 2016.”
“To disagree with the Committee without such evidence would be wilfully to embrace higher energy prices than are necessary to our emissions objectives, and to accept lower economic growth and the likelihood that this policy will fail. Amendments 11 to 20, which we will press to a vote this afternoon, require the Secretary of State to set a 2030 decarbonisation target for the electricity sector by 1 April 2014, at a level that “must not exceed the level deemed consistent with a low-carbon trajectory as advised by the Committee on Climate Change”. I am most grateful to the 43 Members on both sides of the House who have chosen to add their names to the amendments. They, like the hon. Member for South Suffolk and me, believe that a 2030 decarbonisation target is essential to the success of the Bill.”
“It is the advice of the independent committee that we established and expressly charged with the task of advising Parliament on the most cost-effective measures that can be taken in order to deliver on the UK’s legally binding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050. What that committee is telling the Secretary of State is that the £7.6 billion that he has negotiated needs to be set against at least £25 billion to £45 billion of increased costs to the UK public. The House should not wilfully choose to disregard the advice of the Committee on Climate Change unless it hears very specific evidence from Ministers that refutes its conclusions.”
“Failing to do so is the mistake he made in his intervention. So here we have the United Kingdom Government, who proclaim themselves to be a leader in the international climate negotiations in the run-up to the United Nations framework convention on climate change agreement in 2015, adopting a national strategy that their own independent expert advisers have told them will make economic sense only if the world abandons its attempt to avoid dangerous climate change. If it were on “Mock the Week”, we should all be in hysterics. This is not the advice of some partisan body funded by industry.”
“Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the climate has been changing over billions of years. If, however, he cared to read the report from the Met Office and from meteorologists around the world, he would find that the fluctuation over the past 10 years, to which he referred, relates to the context and background diminishing rather than the effect of emissions reducing. Again, if he bothered to read the report, he would find that it says that once the background comes back to normal or back to the average, the effect of the increased emissions would then produce a correspondingly sharp rise in climate change. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there have always been changes in the climate and there are risks that we must factor in, but when we do so, we must take full account of the scientific data.”
“Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), has previously quoted comments made by Mr Buglass in an Energy Bill Committee sitting, observing that Mr Buglass stated that a 2030 target “is absolutely critical from the conversations I have with potential supply-chain investors because they quite rightly point out that it is very difficult for them to take investment to their board if they really only have visibility on three or four years-worth of work.” –– [ Official Report, Energy Public Bill Committee, 15 January 2013; c. 51, Q154.] We must put that target in place if we are to incentivise potential investors and achieve the investment in low-carbon industry that we need.”
“Andrew Buglass from the Royal Bank of Scotland told the Energy Bill Committee that there is a cliff edge and that cliff edge is making it very difficult for supply chain investors to invest in the UK. Overcoming the insecurity created by the 2020 cliff edge does not require more public money or even the promise of more money. It requires coherence in the form of a 2030 target that proves to industry that the demand for low-carbon energy will continue to rise beyond 2020. The shadow Minister, my hon.”
“It is also why the EMR report of the Committee on Climate Change calls on the Government to extend to 2030 funding allocated to support the development of less mature technologies under the framework, to present “options to support mobilisation of new sources of finance, including roles for the Green Investment Bank and Infrastructure UK”, and to publish in the EMR delivery plan “the amount of capacity that the Government intends to contract” over the next period. The final argument that we have heard from Ministers is that they do not wish to sacrifice jobs and growth for the sake of the environment. That is the most fallacious argument of all. It was dealt with very well in some of the pre-Committee hearings.”
“The other argument that the Government Whips have deployed against the amendments is that sector-specific targets without road maps are meaningless. That is, to a degree, relevant to the point made by the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride). This is not only about the targets; it is also about the road maps relating to the implementation of those targets, and that, of course, is precisely why we have a levy control framework.”
“I agree that it is important to address the question of what the costs to British industry and British consumers will be. As the hon. Gentleman will accept, the independent Committee on Climate Change has already addressed that question, and, indeed, its remarks and recommendations were based precisely on its assessment of the likely costs and benefits and the signals that currently exist in the market; but he has made a fair point. We certainly need to ask what signals exist, and what effect either costs or benefits are likely to have on our national well-being. It is heartening to know that the Government want to hear what the Committee on Climate Change wants to say in three years’ time. Perhaps they will now extend that courtesy further by not just hearing but listening to what the committee is saying today.”
“Potential investors in the UK have a policy risk concern; they are concerned about what the future shape of our energy policy might be. Siemens told us if we wait until 2016 to set a decarbonisation target for 2030, it and many of its competitors are likely to delay or cancel planned investment in the UK. The Energy Secretary is shaking his head. I know he is not shaking his head to indicate he disagrees that that is what Siemens said, as he has read the Hansard Committee reports and he knows that is precisely what it said. He may disagree with those comments, but that is what industry is telling us, and we ignore what it is saying at our peril.”
“Unfortunately, last night the Government did not accept the amendments on carbon capture and storage, but we must understand that the growth of CCS as a new technology in this country will impact not only on our own energy policy here in the UK, but much more widely in terms of the exports and the impact we can make on climate change across the globe and in countries such as China and India, which will be using coal for the next 30 or 40 years. That is the true prize. Our own energy consumption and our own emissions are small compared with those of the rest of the world, but the impact that our industrial policy can make is enormous. That is why we have to integrate energy and business, as my hon. Friend says.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great mistakes this Government have made on energy policy is to confine it simply to energy itself, and not to consider it in the wider context of British industry. That is why I am delighted that the new Minister for Energy, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), has a spanning brief over the two Departments. I hope he will be able to bring that to bear, because we must see how our energy policy is related to our exports.”
“The Netherlands has many parallels to Germany in that legacy circumstances are responsible for a wave of new coal-fired power stations, but that these conditions are highly unlikely to repeated.” It then goes on to talk about Spain. The hon. Gentleman knows that the decision on nuclear in Germany was taken at a time when highly political conditions were in play. Those conditions are not going to be replicated in the future, and, importantly, the business sectors in these countries have seen that this is not a credible future pathway.”