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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“That point is often made; it is often said that Germany is getting rid of its low-carbon nuclear and is embracing coal as the fuel for the future. The hon. Gentleman is diligent on these matters, and I am therefore sure that he has examined the Pöyry report commissioned by his Government—by DECC—which was published in April 2013 and which made it clear that this is not a sustainable pathway for Germany. It concludes: “It is our opinion that there will be no major new unabated coal or lignite projects in Germany for the foreseeable future beyond those currently under construction. Our view appears to be endorsed by the German companies: three majors have very publicly announced that they have no intention of building additional coal-fired power stations in Germany until at least the end of the decade.”
“I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) first, and then to the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), if he wants to intervene again.”
“Supply chain investment decisions depend on reasonable assurance for manufacturers that a production facility to be constructed during this decade, costing hundreds of millions of pounds, will have an adequate market for its products well into the 2020s. Postponing the 2030 target decision until 2016 creates entirely avoidable political risk. This will slow growth in the low carbon sector, handicap the UK supply chain, reduce UK R&D and produce fewer new jobs.” The Government must reconsider.”
“If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not, as I have tried to give way as much as possible and I wish to respect Mr Speaker’s advice. I am conscious that I have spoken at great length, so I will now conclude my remarks. Earlier this year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer received a letter from many of the companies referred to by the hon. Member for South Suffolk, in which they make the situation very clear: “Projects can take 4-6 years from investment decision to construction and operation. We are already close to the point where lack of a post-2020 market driver will seriously undermine project pipelines.”
“Had the hon. Gentleman paid attention, he would have noticed that I mentioned the basis on which the Committee on Climate Change made its assessment. The Committee concluded that we could assume that the price of carbon will not continue to rise only if the rest of the world gives up its aspiration to avoid dangerous climate change. Only in that scenario could it make economic sense for the Government to pursue the strategy he suggests.”
“The hon. Gentleman has made an important point, so I want to respond to it. He will, I trust, have read the Committee on Climate Change report on EMR, in which it states: “This conclusion”— the conclusion that he has just rubbished— “is robust when possible impacts of shale gas on the gas price are accounted for. Shale gas could play a role in the gas mix that helps to balance intermittent power generation, and meet demand for heat, provided appropriate environmental safeguarding regulations are put in place.””
“I am grateful to the Minister, who has been extremely generous in engaging in debate. Will he clarify one point? My understanding was that the definition that had been proposed was already incorporated in primary legislation, in an earlier Act of Parliament, and that the objection that he seems to have to it would therefore not apply.”
“Allowing them to avoid the EPS cannot therefore be justified, and I dispute what the Minister said about the importance of not accepting the amendment in order to allow new coal to recoup its costs.”
“Amendment 148 would ensure that where substantial pollution abatement equipment properly dealing with the oxides of sulphur, nitrogen, heavy metals or particles is fitted to the generating station in such a way that makes it compliant with the EU IED while still emitting above 450 grams per kWh, the plant would then be brought under the EPS framework. Without the amendment, many plants will succeed in circumventing the EPS, which would undermine the EMR, the UK’s carbon budgets, the incentive to invest in CCS and the coalition agreement, which committed the Department of Energy and Climate Change to introducing an EPS as a backstop to unabated coal. Remember, these old coal plants have already recouped their capital costs.”
“I rise to speak to amendments 148 and 150 in my name, and to amendment 179 in the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends. Under the large combustion plant directive, 8 GW of old coal has to close by 2015. Of that, 6 GW has already gone, with the remaining 2 GW being considered for conversion to biomass. That leaves 20 GW of old coal set to stay on the system. Of that, approximately 15 GW is being considered for all options, which means that it could be opted into the integrated emissions directive, investing in air filters for NOx and SOx in order to comply. This plant would then not have to close in 2023, and would naturally seek to maximise its return on that capital cost by continuing to provide base load generation capacity unconstrained by the EPS.”
“The amendment would apply the EPS to CCS projects only once an agreed and clearly defined commissioning and proving window had passed. That approach would remove an unnecessary regulatory burden for project developers and lower the cost for consumers, as the EPS risk would not need to be factored into the CFD strike price, and would achieve the Government’s aim—”
“The inclusion of a 2030 decarbonisation target should reduce that risk significantly, but it would remain a risk, and one for which the EPS would have to account. Amendment 150 proposes a 15-year window up to 2029 providing an adequate commercial time frame and aligning itself with the 2030 power sector decarbonisation trajectory. It would provide increased investor confidence by being more credible than the current 2045, and by setting a shorter grandfathering period, new gas plant would be incentivised to begin operation sooner, assisting efforts to address energy security concerns in this decade. Amendment 179 would remedy the problem of the Energy Bill’s requiring CCS projects to operate under the EPS regime from day one.”
“This is not plausible in a carbon-constrained world in which international commitments to reduce carbon are more likely to increase than otherwise. More to the point, grandfathering to 2045 reduces the policy levers available to government, and is likely to reduce the demand for CCS for coal and seriously undermine the credibility of CCS for gas. The EPS is the backstop; it is a very different policy lever from the decarbonisation target. As such, it should retain flexibility to account for policy failure. I have not sought, therefore, to amend the level of the EPS, because in a situation of extreme policy failure, we might need to continue to use some of the unabated gas into the late 2020s.”
“I am in 100% agreement with my hon. Friend. I am happy to put on the record that coal is the energy of the future for the next 40 years; not necessarily in this country, but around the world. Unless we develop CCS and export it to such countries as China and India, which are going to be using coal, the future will be bleak for all of us. It is imperative to incentivise CCS, which is why amendment 179, in conjunction with amendments 148 and 150, is so important. The central purpose of the grandfathering provision in the EPS is to enable investors in newly consented plant to recover their costs prior to being forced to fit CCS and/or limit their running hours. The grandfathering date in the Bill as it stands is simply not credible. The EPS currently allows unabated gas to operate as base load until 2045.”
“I have listened carefully to the debate. Is there not in my hon. Friend’s mind, as there is in mine, a concern that we are putting on companies a financial penalty that will ultimately be borne by consumers? Should we not instead address the real problem, which is directors’ liability? It was noticeable in the recent SSE case that no criminal prosecution for fraud was brought, even though the maximum penalty was imposed. Would it not be better to impose a strict liability on the directors of the companies, so that it is not the consumer who ends up paying the fines?”
“13. What redress is available to tenants whose landlords seek to evict them on the grounds that they are housing benefit recipients subject to the benefits cap.”
“The Secretary of State is precisely avoiding the point. He knows very well that landlords are using as an excuse for getting rid of tenants, and as a reason to evict them, the fact that they are on the benefits cap. He said that the benefits cap would be a way of bringing rents down, but it is not; it is a way of evicting tenants who are living on benefits. That is appalling, and he needs to do something about it.”
“In January, the OFT did not find no evidence; it found evidence of price fixing, albeit limited evidence. At that time, did the Secretary of State ask what the evidence was? If so, what consideration did he give it, and what actions did he recommend as result?”
“It is ensuring that our industry, and the jobs and growth dependent on it, is not being invested in at the moment. There are many others who wish to participate in the debate and for that reason I will conclude my remarks. It would have been of great benefit to see a food strategy Bill. It would also be nice to think that the throwaway line at the end of the Queen’s Speech, which said that climate change would be on the agenda of the G8 summit after all, had some substance, but we will have to wait and see.”
“Energy is the blood supply that keeps an economy working, but they should look at it like a general practitioner would, by looking that the health of the whole organism. The Government have singularly failed to do that. It is essential that we see our energy policy as part of our economic policy and industrial strategy. That is why the Government have failed to introduce proposals for the second phase of carbon capture and storage. That is why their legislation to ensure that no decarbonisation target for 2030 can be brought into law before at least 2016, and maybe not after that, is a catastrophic failure. It fails to ensure that the relevant investment in low-carbon generation is incentivised. That is locking us, as the Chancellor would have it, into high carbon, fossil fuel growth well into the future.”
“By the end of the Committee stage we were told that they would come later still. I hope that they will appear later, on Report. I fear that they will appear later in the House of Lords, and that Members will have no opportunity to scrutinise the key, essential bedrock of any energy policy for the next 40 years—energy efficiency. It is an absolute travesty that the Government are seeking to use a carry-over Bill to deny Members the opportunity to conduct proper legislative scrutiny in this Chamber. The Government have made a classic mistake when it comes to energy policy. They have looked at energy policy in the way that a phlebotomist looks at an organism, concerned only with the blood supply.”
“I want to honour your commitment to letting us move on, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will stop talking about immigration and move on to the final aspect of the Queen’s Speech that it would be remiss of me not to address: the parts of the speech that were not there. There was talk of the Energy Bill, a carry-over Bill that needs to be finished off. The reference to infrastructure in the Queen’s Speech is clearly part of that. The draft Bill was published and we complained that it contained no energy efficiency measures. We were told they would be in the Bill. The Bill was published. It contained no energy efficiency measures and we were told that they would be introduced in Committee. In Committee, there were still no energy efficiency measures. We were told that they would be introduced later in Committee.”
“During this period of 10 years, she can work but not claim any of the following public funds: income-based jobseeker’s allowance, attendance allowance, severe disablement allowance, carer’s allowance, disability living allowance, income support, child tax credit, working tax credit, social fund payment, child benefit, housing benefit, council tax benefit or state pension credit. I thank the Government for supporting the family in the way that they do—a woman subject to domestic violence whose child is a British citizen, and they propose to toughen the immigration rules! One could hardly do so.”
“Members do not understand that this will lead to discrimination in the provision of services, they are making the cardinal political mistake of believing their own political propaganda. Let me turn to support for family life, something on which the Government say they pride themselves. A constituent of mine, with a young baby who is a British citizen, is estranged from her violent partner and has been granted limited leave to remain for 30 months on a 120-month pathway to settlement. This single parent who has been subject to domestic violence will have to renew her application every 36 months and pay a fresh, exorbitant fee that, if she is looking after her child, she cannot work to afford to pay.”
“In one legacy case last year, we were given repeated assurances over a period of several years that the case would be concluded within deadline after deadline, all of which were not met. Finally, I had a personal commitment from Mark McEvoy to resolve the case by a certain date. When he did not do so I requested a meeting with him. Before that could be arranged, however, I was advised that he had been moved on to other responsibilities. The idea that one could put a prospective tenant’s name and their Home Office reference number into a computer and get a response by return from the Home Office so that one could say, “That’s fine, you can take the flat next week,” is ridiculous. If hon.”
“However, I had to laugh when he said, “It would be fine if an employer or landlord simply put details into a computer and got an answer.” Let me tell him what the MPs’ inquiry line and the regional account managers are like. Regional account managers do not always meet their response target of 10 working days. Responses are often holding responses even when they come through. Sometimes, no response at all is received. Rarest of all is a conclusion to a case. I raised that problem with the MPs’ inquiry office. I was advised that Helen McIntosh, who was formerly in charge of that service, had been moved to other work. At that point, a rota of staff managed the service. It is a constant problem that staff are rotated and moved to other duties, leaving half-finished cases to be picked up again only when the MP chases up the inquiry.”
“In that case, the Home Office had already accepted that somebody would be granted leave to remain, subject to security checks being acceptable, but getting those checks has been impossible for Mr S. During that time—more than a year—he could have been functioning properly, employed in his community and earning, and getting on with his life, but he was absolutely unable to do so because of the incompetence of the Home Office. If we are to have a system in which enforcement is properly carried out and we get rid of people subject to security checks, let us at least ensure that those checks are conducted efficiently. I have great respect for much of what the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) says in the Chamber.”
“I was advised in December 2011 that Mr S would be granted leave to remain, subject to security checks. I wrote: “A further fifteen months has now passed however and” Mr S “has still not received a final decision on his case. In your response of September 2012 you acknowledged that due to the delay in concluding” Mr S’s “case, the original security checks were no longer valid and a new set had been requested. You also advised that they are only valid for a period of three months.” I asked: “Please confirm that this second set of security checks has not now also expired and that you now need to apply for a third set. This would be completely unacceptable; however six months has now passed since your letter in September advising that the second set of security checks had been requested”, so that might be the case.”
“I cannot help but wonder how a Bill to reduce the burden of excessive regulation on business will sit with the immigration Bill, which appears to be the flagship Bill of the Queen’s Speech. The immigration Bill will mean that businesses and landlords will be fined and turned into enforcement agencies of the UK Border Agency and the Home Office. The Government have proudly preached the one in, one out principle, but, notably, the Home Secretary has so far failed to identify any corresponding regulations for that regulatory burden. The Home Secretary spoke of how she would dispose of immigrants with criminal records. Criminal checks are a vexed issue in the Home Office. In March, I wrote a letter on behalf of a constituent—I will call him Mr S.”
“The Queen’s speech should not have been written on vellum; it is so thin that it should have been written on onion skin. Being slim and having little content might not be bad things in themselves. When Governments are confused and conflicted, it is sometimes better to do nothing rather than frame incoherent legislation. Unfortunately, the legislation framed in the Queen’s Speech does not meet that test—much of it is incoherent. One cannot help asking how easily the Government’s commitment to supporting people who have saved for their retirement sits with a record of quantitative easing that has eroded savings income through reduced interest rates and reduced annuity rates.”
“Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether the deep shade of red he turned when asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) whether he had been consulted on the appointment of Tanni Grey-Thompson was actually in place of the answer “Yes”?”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the way he has steered the Committee in producing the two reports and for his remarks so far. Does he agree that what has happened with the carbon price and the announcement in the Finance Bill about raising the carbon floor price will act as a direct subsidy to nuclear production companies in this country, such as EDF, in a way that will distort the market? Like him, I support nuclear, but we must recognise that the market will be distorted by giving nuclear a substantial subsidy at the very time when the Government are attempting the difficult process of negotiating a strike price with EDF over the future of energy costs in this country.”
“That point is important. Many national delegations include legislators who are not bearers of ministerial office or part of the Executive. I believe that civil society representatives from the UK were given delegate status at Doha. The Government have, in principle, recognised the importance of reaching out and of there being other avenues and channels of communication at the COP. Certainly from the point of view of GLOBE—”
“We are living in the midst of that, and sometimes when living in the midst of things it is difficult to see the wood for the trees; but that is what is going on. The rate of extinctions that we are experiencing is really quite remarkable.”
“It is certainly the most complex and intractable question of justice that the world has ever seen, in that it is not simply about justice between peoples separated by geography and wealth, but about justice between peoples separated in time, across the generations. It has proved a singularly intractable problem to reconcile those competing interests. Why does a change in climate matter? In and of itself it should not, were it not for the fact that species—biodiversity—find it difficult to keep pace with the rate of climate change. What we have seen is a change in the rate of extinctions in the modern era that has gathered pace to such an extent that we now have, in comparison with the fossil record, a 1,000% increase in the rate of extinctions. That is higher than in any other period in the whole of the fossil record.”
“But while we have many fossil fuel resources left in the world that we are able to mine and access, and which countries are seeking ever more to discover the resources to dig or pump up and use, none the less there will be a time, I think, when we realise that the effects of doing so are such that we have to desist. I will focus my remarks more clearly on the UNFCCC itself and the process of the UNFCCC. I begin by outlining why a change in climate should matter at all. The UNFCCC is the United Nations framework convention on climate change and the world has occupied itself with this problem of climate change for a very long time now; why should we?”
“Mr Turner, it is a great pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairmanship. I should declare my interests, such as they are. They are non-pecuniary, but I am the chairman of the board of GLOBE International, which has already been referenced in this debate. There is one thing at least on which I agree with the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), and that is that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. I wonder whether he would agree with me on another epithet, or epigram: just as the stone age did not end because of a lack of stone, so the oil age will not end because of a shortage of oil.”
“No, I do not accept that at all—not at all—because if the right hon. Gentleman looks at marine life in the oceans, he will see what is happening in tropical coral reefs because of the changes in temperature in the oceans. Whole ecosystems are quite simply being destroyed by the changes in temperature in the oceans.”
“Unless we understand that this is genuinely a boat in which we all either sink or float, we will not arrive at a resolution that is fair and has any chance of success.”
“For example, in discussions that are often entered into about what is happening in China and India—we will debate China more specifically later—we often say, “These are the emerging economies and emerging powers and, of course, China is building so many more coal-fired power stations and its emissions are growing at a tremendous rate.” Yet somebody in India will say, “Yes, but let’s look at our population and let’s see what our emissions per capita are.” They will say that, in India, the emissions are approximately 2 tonnes per capita, whereas in this country they are well into double figures and in America they are probably 10 times what the average Indian would expend. We have all entered into the negotiations at the UNFCCC from a position of national self-interest.”
“Perhaps due to the collapse of the old Soviet economy, Russia has achieved that reduction, but it has not achieved it without substantial cost. That is just one example of the way in which the negotiations that we believe we are entering into in good faith may be perceived by the other side as negotiations that are not being conducted in good faith. Sometimes we have to look much more carefully at the principles of equity when we consider how one reaches a just settlement in this area.”
“I would challenge the Minister on some of the positions that our country has adopted in the negotiations. Let us consider the position that we have adopted with respect to Russia. We have been saying, “With all the hot air that they had after the demise of the Soviet Union, they have arrived in a much more fortunate position, and we want now to discount that.” But in that negotiation any Russian with common sense would say simply, “Look, our economy suffered an enormous transition—an enormous hit on our domestic economy. We’ve paid the price for being in the position that we are now in, with that hot air, with those emissions credits.” The original intention of Kyoto was simply that we should see the reduction below 1990 levels.”
“Let us consider the Durban platform for enhanced action that has been established, and let us look at the way in which, by 2015, we are to try and arrive at an agreement between countries as to what will happen in 2020 in respect of the commitments made there. Many hon. Members have talked of the difficulty in securing those commitments and the difficulty of some countries agreeing their programme of action without certainty and knowledge of what other countries are prepared to do. Russia, Canada and Japan have been mentioned as examples. These are extremely difficult negotiations because, as the Committee’s report acknowledges, every country will act in its own national interest. During the negotiations, we have been true to form and have very often acted in our national interest as well.”
“To do so is precisely to ignore what is going on. We have to understand that 50% of the GDP of the poorest people in the world is dependent on their immediate environment, and it is that immediate environment that is under such significant threat. In parts of Africa, we have seen whole habitats destroyed. I sometimes wonder why we spend millions of pounds protecting our vessels as they pass the coasts of Ethiopia and Somalia but never give a thought as to why the pirates that we are protecting them from are there in the first place. Of course, they are there in large part because of the desertification that has taken place in that part of Africa—because of the loss of agriculture and of economic opportunities there. Not to link what is happening with climate change to the sustainable development goals would be a serious error indeed.”
“I think that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden will not dispute the fact that we are living through the greatest period of extinctions that has been known in the fossil record; he has not disputed that. What he has sought to dispute is whether it is in any way linked to a change in climate, and therefore whether it is in any way linked to the rise in the use of fossil fuels. He should look at the way in which species are migrating—he talked about a loss of habitat, but the reason why there is a loss of habitat in many parts of the world is, of course, because of the change in climate, which has actually destroyed the habitat that used to be there. I do not think that he can separate out, in the way that he seeks to, the effects of climate change from the effects of habitat destruction.”
“The international negotiations must take on board the fact that although there are real downsides for some economies—indeed, small island states are in danger not just of their economy, but of their whole territory going down the pan—countries such as Canada and Russia may make substantial economic gains through this process. That is why we cannot simply go into the negotiations with the viewpoint that climate change is a universal disaster and we must stop it at all costs. We have to understand that some people expect to gain and some expect to lose. That makes these negotiations all the more intractable, and makes it more difficult to get a just resolution. I absolutely endorse the hon. Gentleman’s point.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I do point out that he has conceded that climate change is real, and that it will have a differential effect in different parts of the globe. It is difficult to predict what that differential effect will be, but one of the core predictions is that there is every expectation that parts of Russia that are now tundra and unfarmable will gradually be released as good agricultural land. Therefore, from the Russian point of view, climate change, if and when it happens, will not be a significant problem. However, the problem is that with the release of that land into farmable condition, a lot of methane will be released into the atmosphere, which will turbo-charge the process. But the hon. Gentleman is right to mention that.”
“I believe that the process is worth while, but I recognise that it is not simply the international negotiations process, in which thousands of people come together every year, that will resolve the matter; it is by detailed work at national level, open to scrutiny by national Parliaments and enacted through national legislation, that we shall build the trust in the international community that will enable the executives, through the UNFCCC, to arrive at a negotiated agreement, we hope, in 2015. [Mr Clive Betts in the Chair ]”
“We often find that, in countries that are major forested domains, property rights are very difficult to establish because there are different layers and levels of rights, such as customary use rights, that sometimes make it impossible to disentangle who has the right to operate, to log or to use a piece of land in a particular way. By teasing those out and codifying all the issues, REDD+ will be enabled, as part of the international negotiations, to reduce really effectively the emissions from that most important sector. Colleagues are keen to move on to the second part of our debate, so I will draw my remarks on the UNFCCC to a close.”
“Finally, since the Bali conference, REDD—reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation—and REDD+ have been one of the most important ways of advancing our aspirations for reducing emissions into the atmosphere. Emissions from deforestation and forest degradation amount to about 17% to 20% of emissions produced each year. I pay tribute to legislators in Brazil for the work that they have recently concluded on the forest code, and for reducing their own emissions so substantially over the past three years. I pay particular tribute to legislators in Mexico, who passed important REDD+ legislation to enable REDD funding to come through.”