Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2022-05-16
Topic: Environment
Questions: 2050—I am just 100 years out. Even if we get to that, a lot of countries in the world will not. Two things follow from that. The first is that climate change will not be significantly improved. We in this country produce 1% of the world’s emissions, so if we have all the struggles and make the vast expenditures but other countries do not, we will not have achieved anything so far as climate change is concerned Secondly, if we have spent an enormous amount of money improving our electricity and getting it all done, our electricity will almost certainly be more expensive than it is in other countries. There is a danger we have to watch, as the heavy industrial users of electricity will build their factories in other countries, not in those that have spent all that money on this. We have the time to deal with this, but we have to be very careful that that is not the end result of what we do.
Rupert Bertram Mitford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as speaker number 49, I realise that we are now galloping into the last straight. As Graham Norton said on Eurovision, it is all about where you are placed. I very much hope that if I ask a couple of questions at this stage, the Minister might remember to answer them at the very end. Obviously, we were robbed by Ukraine, but that is another thing I was going to talk at great length about the Private Member’s Bill that I put in on ecology and climate. However, I have been lucky enough to secure eighth position so very much hope to regale the House at Second Reading—unless, of course, we have an election in the preceding time, which would derail that I will raise only two real points. The first is to ask the Government whether in this Session they will look at strengthening provisions to make sure that companies report on the streamlined energy and carbon reporting scheme, SECR. This was brought in by this Government to replace the carbon reduction commitment, CRC, and mandatory greenhouse gas reporting, and is the only measure that companies must take to report on their carbon. In their annual reports, companies must put down the scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, including gas, electricity and other fuels, principal energy efficiency measures and a metric to show whether their emissions are growing or shrinking. This measure, which is part of the law, is not being undertaken by many companies, just from a lack of knowledge. Companies understand ESOS, the energy savings opportunity scheme, which happens every four years, but many just do not understand that they should undertake SECR. This measure would help them understand not only the carbon they are producing but ways of limiting that and limiting their costs That leads me to the second point. I work with many companies understanding their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Scope 1 emissions under the GHG protocols are direct emissions such as burning gas. Scope 2 are indirect emissions such as electricity, and scope 3 are emissions from their supply chain. Unless we move forward and get companies to understand how to report on this and how to convey that information down the supply chain, it does not matter what targets we have for reducing carbon dioxide; they will not be achievable. The majority of carbon that most companies emit is through all the actions undertaken in their supply chain I very much hope that the Government can look, maybe in the energy Bill, at ways in which BEIS could increase the knowledge base around how companies should understand looking at their carbon footprint through their supply chain. One of the problems I face, with a number of companies I work for, is that you go and talk to their boards and for the first 10 minutes it is all smiling and happy because they can understand scopes 1 and 2, but then it becomes more serious and you spend an hour talking about scope 3, at which point the very size of the climate change problem we face becomes understandable and very complicated for many companies. Are there any plans to increase work on SECR? Secondly, will the Government consider working through BEIS to help industry understand its scope 3 emissions?