That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.
My Lords, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, I thank Her Majesty for her gracious Speech. I am greatly honoured to be called on to open today’s debate on the Motion for an humble Address. I am delighted to be joined by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, who will deliver what I am sure will be an excellent summing-up. Given the wealth of experience represented on all sides of the House, both my noble friend and I look forward to a spirited and well-informed debate.
Today, I will outline the Government’s plans regarding communities, welfare, transport and the environment, which are at the heart of our agenda as we bounce back and build back from the pandemic. The Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic was focused on two things: protecting lives and protecting livelihoods. To protect lives, we have secured access to more than 400 million vaccine doses and established the largest testing infrastructure in Europe. The vaccine is now available to everyone over 38 years old. To protect livelihoods, the Government have provided an unprecedented level of financial support for businesses and individuals, protecting more than 9 million jobs with the furlough scheme, while helping millions of businesses to stay afloat. Today, we embark on the next phase of cautiously easing national lockdown restrictions, including overnight stays between households and the reopening of hotels, pubs and restaurants indoors.
Building back better from the pandemic means delivering decent, safe and well-designed homes for everyone in our country. That is why the gracious Speech includes a planning reform Bill. It will simplify and modernise the system, embracing digital tools to allow people to visualise and engage with local plans. It will provide a quicker, simpler planning process, speeding up the delivery of the homes that the country needs. It will give a new focus to environmental protections, streamlining environmental impact assessments. It will ask every local area to produce its own design code to reflect its unique identity. It will ensure that developers pay for their fair share of affordable housing and infrastructure, which is why we are exploring a simpler, faster and more transparent infrastructure levy.
We must also take measures to ensure that those homes are a safe and secure environment to live in. I have been horrified by the testimony at the Grenfell inquiry, which highlighted where corners were cut and lives unnecessarily put at risk. That is why the landmark building safety Bill will bring about once-in-a-generation improvements to building safety in this country. The House may recall my remarks to the construction sector last year, when I said that that my goal as building safety Minister was to make it raise its game and thus put myself out of a job. Those noble Lords who wish to see that day come to pass may wish to consider supporting this legislation. The Bill will establish the new building safety regulator, with clear duties and responsibilities for building owners and managers. It will improve accountability and responsibility, ensuring that residents are able to raise concerns and that building owners are held to account.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to today’s debate on the gracious Speech. I particularly welcome my noble friend Lord Coaker and the noble Lord, Lord Morse, and look forward to their maiden speeches today. I should begin by declaring a couple of interests: as chair of Rothamsted Enterprises, part of the Rothamsted agricultural research institute; and as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority, which has planning as part of its statutory remit.
Today’s debate takes place against a backdrop of two global environmental emergencies: the rise in global warming, already heading beyond the 2% irreversible ceiling; and the fall in biodiversity, which is declining faster than at any time in human history. Both require international leadership to achieve buy-in from the world’s economies and to save our planet from its own man-made destruction. We will have the opportunity later this year, at the Convention on Biological Diversity conference in China and then at the COP 26 event in Glasgow in November.
Already, President Biden is leading the way but we must play our part too. Sadly, as the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, acknowledged recently,
“to speak with authority internationally, the UK needs to get its own house in order.”
He then admitted:
“This is not the case at the moment.”—[Official Report, 13/4/21; col. 1149.]
This is true. A leaked report from Defra recently revealed that there is still no plan to deliver on the Government’s carbon emissions targets, while the recent Public Accounts Committee report concluded that Defra does not have
“the clout to lead the rest of government”
to deliver their environmental programme. Can the Minister set out what steps Defra is taking to raise its game and prepare government for the huge challenges in the year ahead?
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his opening speech, and I look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. As the Minister’s speech highlighted, today’s debate covers a cornucopia of issues. But hanging over all of them is the climate and ecological emergency which threatens every area of our lives and requires a response with every policy lever at the disposal of our Government.
Last week, in another context, the Minister for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, reminded us of Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi’s wise words when he warned that the future is decided by what you do today. That is both instructive and alarming because, while the Government are happy to promise the world tomorrow, in this Queen’s Speech today they propose to do nothing, in effect, to tackle the climate crisis.
In the year that we host what may turn out to be the most critical conference in the struggle to contain global warming, the Government’s legislative programme is silent as the grave on the subject. That matters, because every year we delay taking the required action ensures that the measures we will have to adopt in the future will be that much more difficult. The Government need to wake up to the fact that the one thing we do not have is the luxury of time.
Carbon Tracker, an NGO expert in this field, has calculated that, at the current burn rate, the world will exceed its carbon budget within 15 years and that, if we burn all the fossil fuels in known reserves, the world will have no prospect of keeping within its Paris targets. Yet still our financial institutions continue to finance exploration for new oil and gas reserves which, if exploited, can bring us only to catastrophe. However, in this Queen’s Speech the only legislative proposal relating to any aspect of the energy sector is the draft downstream oil resilience Bill, which seeks to provide resilience for the oil sector rather than the planet.
My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the register. I, too, enormously look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse.
I welcome many of the measures outlined in the gracious Speech, particularly the opportunity to consider the Environment Bill, which forms part of a trio of measures—including the Agriculture Act and the energy White Paper—moving from the environmentally damaging basic payment scheme to sustainable farming and the enhancement of the environment.
However, the Agriculture Act and the Environment Bill are enabling legislation and, therefore, lack sufficient detail to allow land managers the tools to plan a forward business strategy. Despite this regrettable deficiency, farmers and land managers are doing their best to prepare by carrying out capital audits, improving soil structure, mitigating methane, researching carbon offsetting opportunities and investing in forestry and trees.
However, without detail, much of this preliminary work, which is often done at considerable expense, is totally at their own risk. For instance, in the case of soil condition, methane measurement, carbon sequestration and wider natural capital audits, there appears to be no agreement on the recommended measuring tools and standards. Surely this is fundamental to the success of environmental legislation. We need to know more about regulatory standards and financial incentives as a matter of urgency.
In the Environment Bill, there are many areas that need further thought. For instance, the only reference to trees is in Clause 100, which covers tree felling and planting, except that there is no further information on tree planting. Surely this is the opportunity to place the new English tree strategy in the Bill. The planting and maintenance of woodland are central to policies on climate change and carbon capture, and much more, but further commercial realism is required for planting at scale in England to succeed, due to the likely devaluation of land and farm income by switching from farming to forestry. Although grants largely cover the cost of establishment and early maintenance, there is no current return to the grower. I therefore urge the Government to investigate the reintroducing of basic annual payments for up to 25 years that existed under the farm woodland scheme of the 1980s. That was successfully brought in to counter the huge loss of elm trees by incentivising the creation of new woodland.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and I look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. My entry in the register of interests tells of my family business in agriculture and horticulture. In Holbeach, we have an outlier of the University of Lincoln in the form of the National Centre for Food Manufacturing and a food enterprise zone.
I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Goldsmith is to sum up this debate. We are all looking forward to the Environment Bill; it will be interesting legislation which I think is seen by the whole House as important. I also welcome the secondary legislation following on from the Agriculture Act, which was taken forward with such great aplomb by my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble, who has now been promoted and who we look forward to seeing in his new role. I welcome my noble friend Lord Benyon on his return to Defra, where we served together as Ministers in the coalition.
I have a further interest, however, about which I wish to speak. I have become the chairman of the visitor economy group of the Midlands Engine APPG. This is a really interesting group; your Lordships will be hearing later from the co-chairman of the Midlands Engine APPG, the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. I want to raise the visitor economy because, although it is relevant to a whole range of government departments, it is essentially community based and, much to my surprise, is a key sector. It is in the top five sectors of significance as an employer and of value. It is, however, fragmented into many SMEs. The proposals for a national skills fund and lifelong training through the skills and post-16 education Bill will greatly assist this fragmented sector of our economy.
As I have said, the visitor economy is a significant area of employment. In the Midlands region as a whole, it accounts for nearly 10% of employment. In some districts, it is double that—in East Lindsey, Derbyshire Dales and Staffordshire Moorlands, it is 20%—while it is even higher in towns such as Skegness, Mablethorpe and Bakewell, where seasonality can be a real challenge. Last week, we as a group of parliamentarians met Nick de Bois of VisitEngland—some noble Lords will probably remember him as a Member of another place. Much is going on. English Tourism Week starts next weekend; Coventry began its year as our City of Culture this past weekend; and Birmingham is looking forward to the Commonwealth Games in the summer of next year. It is not just about the seaside or the open air; it is about cities and the attractions they have to offer. Of course, it is also about place—the need to be local—and about communities. In Lincolnshire, the destination management organisation works well with local authorities, including those with towns funding such as Skegness and Boston, and the Greater Lincolnshire enterprise partnership.
My Lords, I too look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse, but I want to start by congratulating the Minister on introducing the leasehold reform Bill.
Ending ground rents—or, as one person called it recently, the serfdom charge—in new developments is an important and positive reform, and I will welcome this opportunity to be mostly congruent with the Minister, after been being on opposing sides of the Fire Safety Bill. While this is a great victory for future leaseholders, existing leaseholders, particularly those in developments affected by the building and fire safety scandal, nervously await their fate.
During the previous parliamentary Session, those Members, including myself, who sought to amend the Fire Safety Bill to protect leaseholders were told that Her Majesty’s Government would address our concerns in the building safety Bill, which I was pleased to hear announced in the Queen’s Speech. There is an urgency to this crisis. Bills of debilitating proportion are already being handed to leaseholders, bankruptcies have occurred, and, tragically, so have related suicides. This is a financial and a mental health crisis that is growing worse every passing day that it is left unaddressed. I therefore urge Her Majesty’s Government to move with haste to bring forward their building safety Bill, so that we can finally provide leaseholders with peace of mind.
Having said that, I want to get this Bill right. The pre-legislative scrutiny committee for the building safety Bill crucially raised the absence of any measures in the Bill to pursue developers for inadequate historic works. While ACM cladding was legal prior to 2019, there are now numerous documented cases where this was fitted not to regulations, without requisite firebreaks or adequate compartmentalisation measures. During this injustice, the six-year limitation preventing legal action is conspiring to force leaseholders into bankruptcy, rather than what the Government have always claimed that they want to do: to get those responsible to pay for remediation. I was grateful for the Minister’s assurances during debate on the Fire Safety Bill that Her Majesty’s Government were
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate; I hope he will forgive me if I concentrate on other matters in the Queen’s Speech. Like other speakers, I welcome the prospect of the maiden speeches from my noble friend Lord Coaker and the noble Lord, Lord Morse.
I was interested at the way in which the Minister glibly waved aside the future of franchising in the railway industry. I have spent the last decade listening to Ministers at the Dispatch Box telling me how wonderful the system was, yet it is to be abolished in one sentence. What exactly is to replace it? The Williams report, which has been around for some time, is unique in that it will actually be published, unlike the 30-odd other reports into the future of the railway industry over the past few years, and I welcome that. The obvious question is when; I hope that the Minister can tell us when he comes to reply.
One thing lacking in the Queen’s Speech is any detail about the future of the eastern leg of HS2. I hope that the Minister will agree that, if we are to—in the phrase used in the Speech—“build back better” through our transport industries, HS2, particularly its eastern leg, will properly be built. However, I fear that what will happen is what we are seeing at present. The Treasury, which, I suspect, is not madly enthusiastic about the prospect of HS2, will tinker at the edges. We are seeing that tinkering at present—a platform less at Euston; rather than one Bill to take the eastern leg forward towards Leeds and beyond, two or three short Bills for short stretches of HS2. Do we never learn? When it is eventually built, as I hope it will be, it will therefore cost far more than building it in one swoop, which would be the intelligent way forward. We never seem to learn that lesson. Teams with experience in electrification and railway building are continually disbanded and reformed. We then wonder why, in the case of the Great Western electrification, the posts and masts cost more to install than previous electrification schemes in this country and certainly far more than such schemes in other parts of the world.
My Lords, I too look forward to the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse. I will speak to the three animal welfare Bills which were mentioned in Her Majesty’s most gracious Speech: the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, the kept animals Bill, and the animals abroad Bill. These three Bills hang under the Action Plan for Animal Welfare, also recently published, which has over 40 reforms across five different workstreams—a large undertaking, but I welcome it.
However, I am disappointed that the protection of children, both physically and mentally, will not receive such a strong commitment. Many will not benefit from the protections they require and deserve. It is a sad fact that 40% of children have viewed unsuitable images on the internet, yet the Government are dragging their feet on providing the necessary stringent protections for children.
I digress, so I will now return to my main purpose. The first of the five themes of the animal welfare action plan is “sentience and enforcement”. Not many weeks ago, we debated the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill, which increases the maximum prison sentence for cruelty to animals from six months to five years. This brings the UK into line with many countries with which we trade internationally and was long overdue. There have been many debates in this Chamber about animal sentience. Like many others, I signed a petition against the revolting practice of ear cropping, which has no useful purpose whatever and is purely cosmetic. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill is short, and solely about the setting up of a committee to look at the possible effects of government legislation on animals as sentient beings. Who sits on the committee, its remit, and the way it reports are solely the purview of the Secretary of State. I will have more to say on that at Second Reading.
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Our commitment to fairness in the housing market includes securing a fairer deal for future leaseholders. For too many, the dream of home ownership has been soured by leases imposing crippling ground rents, additional fees and onerous conditions. People’s homes should be theirs to live in and enjoy, not an income stream for third-party investors. That is why the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill will put an end to ground rents for new leasehold properties, as part of the most significant changes to property law in a generation.
Last Thursday, we launched the Commonhold Council, an advisory panel of leasehold groups and industry experts which I will chair, to inform the Government on the future of commonhold ownership. This follows recommendations made by the Law Commission to simplify and expand the commonhold system. It will pave the way for millions of homeowners in England to take greater control over their homes, with a greater say on their buildings’ management, shared facilities and related costs. Together, these reforms put us on a journey to give more security to millions of existing leaseholders across England, making home ownership fairer, simpler and cheaper.
The Government also want to deliver a better rental sector that works for tenants and landlords. We will bring forward a White Paper in the autumn detailing our broad package of reforms. This will include more detail on how we will reform tenancy law to abolish Section 21 no-fault evictions; measures to improve security for tenants in the private rented sector, empowering them to hold their landlord to account; and measures to strengthen the repossession grounds for landlords when it is fair and reasonable to do so. We will also outline proposals for a new lifetime deposit model, easing the burden on tenants when moving, and continue to deliver on the social housing White Paper proposals, including implementing the charter for social housing residents, and to legislate on social housing regulations as soon as practicable.
As we look towards our future, we know that people are worried—for themselves, for the people they love and for their communities. We have always been honest that we will not be able to protect every job and every business. Nevertheless, this Government have done everything we can to protect our communities through this difficult period. We provided over £7 billion of extra support through our welfare system in 2020-21. We increased local housing allowance rates for universal credit and housing benefit claimants, so that they covered the lowest 30% of local rents, and we will sustain this cash increase this year. We introduced the Covid Winter Grant Scheme, now the Covid local support grant, with almost £270 million to support vulnerable households with the costs of food and other essentials. In 2021-22, we are extending the temporary uplift to the universal credit standard allowance for a further six months, giving working tax credit claimants an equivalent one-off payment of £500, and we have maintained our commitment to older people through a generous basic state pension, now worth over £2,050 more in cash terms than in 2010, thanks to the triple lock.
The Government’s commitment to building back better after the pandemic also means building back greener, and 2021 will be a landmark year for environmental policy. In November, the UK will be hosting the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. With that global leadership position, alongside our new-found independence from EU environmental laws, now is the moment to put a spotlight on this critical work.
The Environment Bill we are bringing forward is a pivotal part of delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment to create the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on Earth. We will legislate to set long-term, legally binding targets to drive environmental improvements such as in air quality, resource efficiency and waste reduction. A new independent office for environmental protection will provide scrutiny and advice, investigate complaints and take legal action where necessary. The Environment Bill will also give new powers to local authorities to tackle air pollution in their areas and make it illegal for large UK companies to use key agricultural commodities cultivated on illegally deforested land.
Twenty twenty-one will also be a monumental year for animal rights, with our recently published Action Plan for Animal Welfare. The plan will set out our intention to recognise animals as sentient beings through the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill. We will strengthen existing enforcement against animal abuse and ban the import and export of endangered animal hunting trophies. We will make further improvements to farm animal welfare in transport and slaughter, and support farmers in sustainable food production. We will also take action to prohibit the unsuitable keeping of primates as pets, raise standards in zoos and conserve animals in the wild. Shortly, we will bring forward a kept animals Bill to tackle puppy smuggling and ban the keeping of primates as pets. Later in the Session, we will bring forward an animals abroad Bill to tackle issues outside the United Kingdom.
Improving our transport infrastructure is a key part of our agenda to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed. The Government intend our railways to be the backbone of a modern, affordable and green transport network. We will publish a White Paper with proposals to transform the railways and deliver for passengers, ending the complicated franchising model and creating a simpler, more effective system. We also intend to deliver better bus services for England through our national bus strategy, with more frequent, cheaper and reliable services, integrated services and ticketing, and 4,000 new zero-emission buses.
I believe that Her Majesty’s gracious Speech affirms this Government’s commitments to build back a better future for our country, levelling up opportunities across the United Kingdom; to make every part of our country a great place to live and to start a family, own a home and start a business; and to ensure that no community and no person is left without hope or opportunity. These are ambitions I am sure every part of this House shares. Over the course of today’s debate, my noble friend Lord Goldsmith and I look forward to hearing your Lordships’ valuable insights on the measures I have outlined, especially of course in the maiden speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Morse.
Of course, we welcome the arrival of the Environment Bill to the Lords—as they say, third time lucky. It has been described as a flagship Bill but its history is one of downgrade and delay, causing huge frustration among all of us who have been waiting for this robust new legislation to set environmental targets that are truly meaningful. But now we have the opportunity and we will want to work across the House to make this a landmark Bill of which we can all be proud.
In particular, we want to strengthen the environmental targets in the Bill to make them comprehensive, measurable and legally enforceable. We want to ensure that the office for environmental protection has the powers and independence it needs to hold the Government to account. We will be tabling a range of amendments to reverse the decline in biodiversity, clean up our rivers and oceans, restore peatlands and afforestation, and set WHO limits for air quality.
In the meantime, we welcome the Government’s new announcement on tackling the discharge of sewage into rivers—only weeks after they voted down a similar amendment we supported in the Commons. I hope the Minister will confirm that this spirit of listening and compromise will run through our consideration of the Bill.
We also welcome the announcement of the new animal welfare legislation. Again, this has been a long time coming and the proposals seem based largely on Labour’s recently published Animal Welfare Manifesto. As ever, the devil will be in the detail and we will scrutinise those Bills with great care, undoubtedly with the support of the many animal welfare charities which share our ambition to be a world leader on these issues.
If we are to deliver on climate change and biodiversity, concerted government action across departments will be required. Clearly, transport has a huge role to play in cutting our carbon emissions, which we need to achieve, as it represents 22% of the 2019 UK total. That is why we were so disappointed at the lack of ambition on transport in the Queen’s Speech.
In its sixth carbon budget, the Climate Change Committee made it clear that:
“A comprehensive … package will be needed to deliver the … commitment to phase out new sales of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030.”
It recommends that, in addition, diesel heavy goods vehicles should be phased out by 2040, with clear alternatives identified now. It identifies that a comprehensive recharging and refuelling infrastructure will be needed to support clean fuel for cars. It recognises the urgent need for aviation and shipping strategies to deliver net zero, and urges an essential rethink to “reduce travel demand” and focus on public rather than private transport—including, of course, a bold vision to reverse the millions of miles of bus routes lost across the country. Where is the legislation to deliver all of this?
The Government have flagged up that a transport decarbonisation plan is in preparation. But where is the urgency? The Government have signed up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035, which is only 14 years away. Where is the urgency that will drive this forward?
We support the extension of High Speed 2 from Crewe to Manchester but it is clear that lessons need to be learned from earlier mistakes. Can the Minister say what steps the Government will take to increase consultation as part of this project? Will the Government support new railway stations in the smaller towns around Crewe and Manchester? How will the Government ensure that the extension is developed with more sensitivity to its environmental impact, particularly on ancient and modern woodlands? Does the Minister accept that this project should be one small part of a government investment in rail capacity to address the climate change crisis and better connect our towns and cities?
Planning and housebuilding also have a crucial role to play in protecting biodiversity and delivering our net-zero obligations, so we will need to be reassured that the application of biodiversity net gain principles to new developments will trump the pressure to build on land at any cost.
Local people know what is best for the size and character of their community, but these proposals will prevent them from objecting to inappropriate developments in their own street or neighbourhood. Instead, their involvement will be limited to consultation on the area’s local plan every few years. As the Local Government Information Unit has said, the proposed changes
“leave local government with the political liability on planning whilst depriving them … of the powers to manage it effectively.”
We believe that these proposals are a developers’ charter: removing powers from local representatives and handing them to Whitehall-appointed boards of developers. It does not address the scandal of planning permission already having been granted for an estimated 1 million homes that are yet to be built. It does not require all new-build homes to meet the stringent energy and sustainability standards that are crucial to meeting our climate change obligations. It does nothing to address the growing housing crisis our country faces.
Young people have been hardest hit by the Government’s failure to build the homes we need, especially social and affordable homes. However, there is nothing in this Queen’s Speech that captures the scale and urgency of the housing challenge or which provides any consolation for young people priced out of the housing market.
So many young people cannot afford to buy their own home because they have been forced into insecure, low-paid jobs; and it is getting worse. The lesson from the pandemic is that 11 years of government failure have left our country ill prepared for a job and welfare crisis. A recent report from the Trussell Trust shows that 700,000 households now need to use a food bank, with a 49% increase in children being supported, and 95% of people referred to food banks are described as “very deprived” or “destitute”.
We have to end the insecurity and lack of opportunity in the economy by tackling the jobs crisis and replacing universal credit with a fair and compassionate system that offers security for all. But there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to address this. In fact, the Department for Work and Pensions is not mentioned once. Where are the plans to protect workers and create jobs for the future? What happened to the employment Bill, which would have protected workers from exploitation and created new jobs for the future? Why have the flaws in the Kickstart scheme not been addressed?
This Queen’s Speech fails to meet the key challenges of our generation. Coming out of the pandemic, we have the opportunity to build something better: a fairer and more equal society, with well-paid jobs, delivering a greener economy built on strong environmental principles. Sadly, we must conclude that this gracious Speech fails to address this ambition or meet the challenge.
It is astonishing. It would be easy—but, I suspect, unproductive—to spend the afternoon criticising the Government for their lack of action, so I will try to be a little more constructive instead and suggest some ideas for the Government to take up.
First, they could introduce the climate and ecological emergency Bill proposed by a civil society coalition with cross-party support, which asks the UK to take responsibility for its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions, actively restore biodiverse habitats in the UK and set and implement a strategy to tackle the climate and ecological emergency.
Secondly, the Government would be very welcome to take forward my green finance capital requirements Bill, which would properly price the macroprudential risk that further fossil fuel exploration and exploitation poses to the entire financial system, not to mention the planet as a whole.
Thirdly, they should bring forward a new energy Bill to set the framework for the smart and resilient generation and distribution systems that will be needed, as we place ever-increasing demand on the electricity sector. This framework will need to be capable of facilitating the expansion of decentralised and community power generation and providing the incentives to deliver the innovation to expand our energy storage capacity.
In 2013, when Ed Davey, as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, piloted the last Energy Act through Parliament, 40% of electricity was generated from coal and just 7% from wind. Last year, coal accounted for just 1.3% of power generation and renewables accounted for well over 40%. We need similar radical thinking today further to transform our energy sector and to allow zero-carbon fuels, such as green hydrogen, to play their full role in decarbonising industry and the heavy transport sector.
We also need significantly to reduce wasteful and unnecessary energy consumption in transport and buildings. On transport, we welcome plans to improve and decarbonise bus services, but we have concerns about how the money will be deployed, which my noble friend Lord Bradshaw will say more about. This Queen’s Speech should have gone much further and set out a clear route map for the wider decarbonisation of the transport system. It should have announced the restoration of differential vehicle excise duty, depending on vehicle emissions, and introduced steps to make electric vehicles affordable to those on middle and lower incomes, including measures to ensure that motorists are not fleeced by on-street charge point operators, where electricity costs can be up to six times higher than for those who can charge their vehicles from their domestic electricity supply. It should also have abandoned the consultation on reduced air passenger duty and instead introduced a ban on fossil-fuel-powered domestic flights between points where the train journey is less than two and a half hours. This would both reduce emissions from domestic flights and incentivise the development of non-fossil fuel aviation.
My noble friend Lord Stunell will speak in more detail about the Government’s failure to tackle emissions from buildings. I simply note that, despite all the hype about building back better and a manifesto commitment to invest £9.2 billion in the energy efficiency of homes, schools and hospitals, the Queen’s Speech and the Prime Minister’s accompanying letter had literally not one word to say on tackling greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, which represent 19% of total UK emissions.
We propose a green buildings Bill that would require all new buildings to be built to the zero-carbon standard, with the energy component rising to Passivhaus standard by 2025. All existing homes in the social sector would be required to reach at least energy performance certificate band B by 2025 and all other homes and non-domestic buildings to reach the same band by 2030.
An effective planning framework will also be critical in tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, but the proposals for the planning Bill have nothing to say on either issue, instead riding roughshod over local democratic decision-making. If the Government actually want to see more houses built, they need to recognise that it will not be achieved by stripping powers from local authorities. The facts are clear: we have never succeeded and will never succeed in delivering the 300,000 homes annually that the Government have set as a target without a significant municipal housing programme so, instead of curtailing local authority powers, as the Government propose, they should restore their ability to finance, build and maintain large-scale social housing programmes in their communities.
In line with the Government’s climate policy, the planning Bill should also have at its heart a requirement for all planning decisions to have regard to the 2050 net-zero objective. We will be happy to assist the Government with an amendment to this effect when the Bill comes before Parliament.
The Queen’s Speech should also have set out new commitments to protect and enhance biodiversity and improve land use to reduce climate impacts. While we look forward to the long-overdue Environment Bill coming to our House, there is no mention in the Queen’s Speech of biodiversity or the major shifts in land use that will be required to reduce the carbon footprint of agriculture, which is currently responsible for about 10% of our greenhouse gas emissions. There is no Bill to provide for the protection of peatland, and there is no clarity about whether the environmental land management scheme will be used to transform land-use practices to tackle climate change or whether they will simply sustain business largely as usual.
There is no doubt that the Government face many complex and challenging issues but, reading this Queen’s Speech, you would be hard put to believe that it represents the programme of a Government who have set themselves some of the most demanding climate objectives of any country on earth, so I have this nagging worry: do they really mean what they say? Do they really have the stomach for the difficult decisions that are required or are these climate commitments to be as fleeting as the 2019 manifesto pledge to
“proudly maintain our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GNI on development”?
Will these climate commitments evaporate as easily into the dark winter nights that follow COP 26, accompanied with the same sort of excuses: “The circumstances have changed” or “We are doing more, in any event, than others”? Will we squander our global leadership on this issue just as casually and with as little care for the consequences to others as we have done on overseas development aid? I hope that my cynicism is misplaced, but if the Government are to dispel such concerns, they will have to move rapidly from the realm of targets to the sphere of action.
This brings me back to Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi, who chose his words advisedly. He told us that the future is decided by what we do today, not by what we say today or the distant targets that we set today but by the actions that we take. By that standard, this Queen’s Speech falls tragically and woefully short.
On biodiversity net gain—BNG—which is central to the Bill, farmers and growers should be in prime position to provide developers with BNG. However, pressure on land use needs to be carefully considered, as environmental policies must recognise the importance of food security. Details of how the BNG market will work are scarce. The measurement—again—and financial benefits are very unclear, but the likely cost of implementation will undoubtedly be high. We await the updating of Defra metrics. Other issues, such as what happens at the end of the scheme, how tenant farmers can be involved and taxation, all need resolving before BNG can be effective.
The Bill needs also to address the issue of field drains, which impact on farm productivity, flooding and much more. In many instances, field drains benefit net zero and are very important in underwriting domestic food security. This issue should also be in the Bill, as it is not really something that should be dealt with under the Agriculture Act or the environmental land management schemes.
Finally, I believe that public education is key in just about every aspect of the Environment Bill and climate change in general. I urge the Government to review and update the national curriculum as required to achieve this, as use of knowledge and behavioural change are cheaper than remediation.
Put all this together and we see that the visitor economy can be fully part of the engine for bounce-back and building back better. That is why I look forward to this Session of Parliament and the measures in the Queen’s Speech, which have been so ably spoken to by others.
“committed to developing stronger avenues for redress”,—[Official Report, 28/4/21; col. 2369.]
and I hope to see this in the revised Bill. The £2 billion levy on developers is, frankly, derisory, particularly when they are essentially receiving £5 billion in subsidy to fix their own defective developments—a net taxpayer subsidy of £3 billion.
I would like to see some strong action from this Government. Now that we are out of the EU, perhaps they could look at excluding developers who fail to remediate their own buildings from applying for public contracts. The Government should also look seriously at extending the forced loan scheme to include other historic, non-cladding related, fire safety defects, given that they were estimated by the Institute of Residential Property Management at between £26,000 and £38,000 per lease. These bills alone still have the propensity to bankrupt leaseholders.
Finally, I turn to the proposed changes to planning laws. Too often, those with disabilities and their families struggle to find suitable homes and are forced into inaccessible and unsuitable homes. The latest figures from the housing association Habinteg found that, outside London, only 1.5% of homes planned over the next decade will be suitable for wheelchair users, despite the ageing demographic shift. Many leading housing associations have called for the mandatory baseline for all new homes to be raised to category 2—broadly the same as the lifetime home standard. I hope that the Government will move forward and publish their responses to the accessible homes consultation, so that parliamentarians know that they intend to make our housing stock more inclusive and prepare it for the challenges of the future.
I also look forward to seeing the Williams report’s findings on fares. I did a random exercise this morning. An elderly gentleman, with a senior citizen’s railcard, who is not used to travelling by rail, might decide to travel from Solihull to London Marylebone. This non-regular traveller would find 15 different tickets between the two stations. If he wanted a single ticket, he would have a choice of paying between £7.90 to £100.80. He would be unlikely to pay £100.80, but it is a listed single fare between Solihull and London. If he decided to come back, he would have 16 different fares, varying from £21.80 to £124.60. I think that is crackers and I suspect that most other people who look at the railway fare structure think so too.
If he decided to travel on different trains he would pay different fares, which is why there are so many. If he decided to come back in the rush hour it would cost him more, but if he came back before 4 pm he would get a cheaper fare. That is provided he stuck to Chiltern Railways, which is the operator between Solihull and London Marylebone. If he decided to use the west coast main line and came back on an Avanti train, which has the franchise for that line, he would find that the rush hour leaving Euston starts at 3 pm, although if he got the underground to London Marylebone it does not start until 4 pm. This sort of lunacy has gone on for far too long and the Government really ought to do something about it.
It is not just the fares and HS2. There are lots of other aspects of our railway industry that the Government ought to look at, such as the electrification of the Midland main line. Are we going to get the go-ahead from Corby? Good luck to the people in Corby; it is remarkable that we are going to provide a half-hourly electric train service to London from Corby, a town that did not have any railway at all 30 years ago, because it was closed down. Yet cities such as Sheffield, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby are to be served only by diesel or bi-mode trains. It is lunacy and I hope that the Government can do something about it.
While I welcome some aspects of the Queen’s Speech, there is a long way to go.
The second theme is “international trade and advocacy”. During the passages of the Agriculture Bill and the Trade Bill, many of your Lordships raised the issue of trade negotiations with countries whose animal welfare standards are inferior to our own. If we are to continue to be a global leader in this field, we must protect endangered animals abroad, including the elephant. Having spoken many times on the Ivory Act, I am frustrated in the extreme that it has not been implemented. Can the Minister give us a reason why this has not happened—apart from the antique ivory lobby—and a timetable for when the Act will be implemented?
The third theme is “farm animals”. Currently, some farm animals are exported for fattening and slaughter. This transportation is distressing for the animals, completely unnecessary and must be stopped as a priority. Similarly, the use of cages for laying hens and farrowing crates for pigs must be phased out as soon as possible. The meat from pigs raised in farrowing crates abroad should no longer be imported into the UK. Effective and clear food labelling is essential to ensure public confidence on animal welfare. The Government must also look at the length of journeys within the UK from farm to abattoir. Many of these journeys are extremely long and distressing. A network of effective abattoirs close to rural communities is essential.
The fourth theme is around “pets and sporting animals”. My colleagues and I have spoken many times about the smuggling of puppies. There has been an increase in the demand for dogs and puppies during the lockdowns and I fear that many new family pets are the result of puppy smuggling. These puppies have been separated from their mothers far too early and will go on to have problems in their adult lives. There are incidents of adult pets being stolen to order, with an increase of 170% in dog thefts in 2020. This can have a devasting effect on a family who have lost a beloved pet. I welcome a crackdown on such practices, with stiff sentences being passed on perpetrators by the courts.
Lastly, the welfare plan covers wild animals. This section seems to be somewhat limited to prohibiting keeping primates as pets and cracking down on illegal hare coursing. Will the Minister consider widening this section? Currently, hare coursing is rising at an alarming rate. with evidence of links to organised crime. Again, can the Minister give the House a timeline for when legislation will be implemented to effectively regulate hare coursing?
Many of the Government’s proposals are to be welcomed. However, as always, the devil will be in the detail. There is unfortunately little actual detail in these proposals and no detail at all on the Kept Animals Bill or Animals Abroad Bill; hopefully, they will be published shortly. We see warm words but little actual commitment.
In the meantime, I welcome the welfare plan and the three Bills and look forward to the Minister’s response to my questions and those of others.