Mangnall-factcheck

Fact check

Anthony Mangnall MP’s reply to Devon County Council – 6th Sept 2021

DCC wrote to Mr Mangnall requesting that he support the CEE Bill. Mr Mangnall said no, supplying a list of reasons which do not hold water. Our detailed fact check below.

From: Anthony Mangnall MP
Sent: 06 September 2021 11:27
To: Councillor Andrea Davis
Subject: (Case Ref: AM11665)

Dear Cllr Davis,

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Climate and Ecology Bill on behalf of Devon County Council (DCC). Please accept my apologies for the delay to my response.

I am aware that this Bill was introduced as a Presentation Bill to Parliament on 22nd June 2021. Presentation Bills can be introduced by any member so long as they give prior notice of their intention to do so. MPs formally introduce the title of the bill but do not speak in support of it. This is one of three ways backbench MPs can introduce a bill. Ballot Bills are the private members’ bills with the greatest chance of succeeding (applying mainly to the first seven bills as they are guaranteed a full day of parliamentary debate) as they take precedence over Presentation and Ten-Minute Rule bills. This leaves Presentation Bills little to no time for parliamentary debate and therefore little opportunity to advance; it is extremely rare for them to become law. Therefore, I am afraid that whether I support this Bill or not is irrelevant as it has no realistic path to becoming legislation.

If you and enough other Conservative colleagues support this bill, it can be adopted by the Government and then passed. You know that this is exactly how the current Climate Change Act of 2008 turned from a presentation bill into world-leading legislation? Isn’t this worth fighting for? Why not be positive and stand up for what you believe? Parliament is sovereign. If the Government decides to adopt the bill, of course it can become law.
I notice the Bill seeks to take into the UK’s ‘historical emissions’. I doubt what would be achieved by attributing blame for past development and industrialisation. Additionally, having spoken to many different climate scientists in an attempt to quantify this, I have received many different responses and remain heavily sceptical that an accurate measure of ‘historical emissions’ can be achieved. Instead, our focus should be on supporting nations currently in the process of industrialising to do so in an environmentally sustainable way.
That is not the intent of this clause, but thank you for raising this as we believe the clause is too open to misinterpretation. We have obtained clarification from Zero Hour, the campaign for the CEE Bill that the clause is included in the Bill simply to highlight the UK’s existing commitment under the UN Kyoto Agreement that developed nations will reduce emissions faster than poorer nations. Zero Hour have committed to look at altering the wording to clarify this.
I am therefore encouraged that the UK remains firmly committed to environmentally sustainable development as set out in the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals. In January 2021, the Prime Minister announced that the UK will spend at least £3 billion of international climate finance on nature and biodiversity over five years. The funding will deliver transformational change in protecting biodiversity-rich land and ocean, shifting to sustainable food production and supply, and supporting the livelihoods of the world’s poorest.
UK international aid is forecast to fall by £4.5 billion in 2021 alone. The £3 billion of Climate Finance you quote is over five years, working to £0.6 billion a year, and so dwarfed by the cuts. It is also not new money. You will know that this commitment by developed nations to help developing nations decarbonise was made right back in 2010 at COP16, so you should not present this as ‘new money’.
Regarding the impact of UK consumption on the rest of the world, CEE Bill would ensure that the UK takes responsibility for its full climate and ecological footprint along its supply chains. This approach is already used by good companies, so what is stopping the Government from operating to the same standards of responsibility? The initiatives you mention are unrelated to this, as we have explained before.
I am pleased that the UK Government is already taking the issue of climate change incredibly seriously and we have decarbonised our economy faster than any country in the G20 over the last two decades. In addition, ambitious targets such as a 68 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, and a 78 per cent reduction in emissions by 2035, also compared to 1990 levels have been enshrined in law, as recommended by the Climate Change Committee’s Sixth Carbon Budget. Additionally, this marks the first Carbon Budget which incorporates the UK’s share of international aviation and shipping emissions.
As we have explained before, the UK has only decarbonised faster on the very narrow measure of emissions on UK soil (territorial emissions). This is largely because we have moved so much of our manufacturing overseas. Have the emissions from our factory orders to China gone away? Of course not. And whilst the Government has committed to begin including emissions from international aviation and shipping, this won’t start until 2033 which is just not good enough.
When you add in imports, aviation and shipping, UK emissions have fallen by a measly 19% since 1990 – not 46% as so often claimed by the Government as explained in our short video. Huge sectors like transport and housing have seen virtually no reduction in emissions whatsoever since 1990.
The CEE Bill would require us to take responsibility for all our emissions, wherever they occur, the same approach used by forward-thinking companies and public bodies like the NHS under British Standard PAS 2050. It’s a sad situation when our nation does not even attempt to meet its own long-established British Standard. The good news is, that by making this change and taking responsibility for our imported emissions, it will encourage the Government to incentivise companies to produce more here in Britain, bringing back manufacturing and jobs.
I also welcome the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan which will allow the UK to forge ahead in eradicating the UK’s contribution to climate change. On energy, the UK will produce enough offshore wind to power every home, quadrupling how much we currently produce to 40GW by 2030, thereby supporting up to 60,000 jobs. The Government will work with industry and aim to generate 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030 for industry, transport, power and homes. In addition, the Government aims to develop the first town heated entirely by hydrogen by the end of the decade.
Targets without action are just not good enough. The Chair of the CCC, Lord Deben said ‘the prime minister’s Ten Point plan was an important statement of ambition that has yet to be backed with firm policies’. The The CEE Bill is the answer to this. It contains the self-correcting mechanism of annual reviews against targets to ensure we stay on track.
On hydrogen, the overwhelming scientific advice is that it will be far more expensive for transport and heating (with gas companies already asking for Government grants) will cause high levels of dangerous air pollution, and carries a risk of explosion. It is well recognised that fossil fuel companies are pushing hydrogen in order to justify fracking. They claim they will lock the CO2 from producing hydrogen from methane underground using carbon capture technology that simply does not exist at scale. The chair of the UK Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Association recently actually resigned in protest at these plans warning they will damage the nation’s ability to meet its climate targets, describing them as ‘an expensive distraction’. We do not have time for distractions, and it is certain that once the public becomes aware that you are implicitly supporting opening the door to fracking, they will not be happy. How can you continue to support this?
Other parts of the plan include a target to install 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028, £1 billion funding to make our schools, hospitals and homes more energy efficient, planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year, promoting and investing in zero-emission transport and £20 million to develop clean maritime technology. The plan also includes a pledge to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, while the sale of some hybrid cars and vans will continue until 2035.
600,000 heat pumps per year is just another empty target, and a totally inadequate one at that. At that rate, it would take 40 years to retrofit existing houses, perhaps even longer if you intend to include new houses in the 600,000 target. As you know, 40 years is far too long. There is also no plan to achieve this inadequate target. In fact, the reverse is true. The RHI incentive to fit heat pumps is being cancelled in March next year. Its replacement, the Clean Homes Grant will run for just two years, and offer much lower payments. This will make it impossible for most people to afford the transition, and, with the scheme having such a short lifespan, the retrofit market is in danger of collapsing. In other words you do have a plan, but one will ensure that you miss your own already inadequate target!
Are you aware that the UK is installing just 35,000 heat pumps a year, putting us joint last with Hungary in Europe? This is exactly what happens when targets are not backed up by policy and action.
The RHI grant which supports homeowners in switching to heat pumps is to be replaced next March by the Clean Homes Grant. But extraordinarily that will only run for 2 years, and be limited to just £0.1 billion. I’m sure you must agree that this is not how to build a supply chain.
We note you make no mention of insulation. Britain’s houses are amongst the costliest to heat in Europe due to lax building standards and poor insulation. The Green Homes Grant Scheme was designed to address this but it failed catastrophically this year. We are now in a vacuum, with no vision from Government for how this enormous, vital task will be achieved. Note that the Climate Change Committee has said that the Government must spend £3 to 4 billion every year to make our buildings more energy efficient.
Other measures include the Environment Bill which will place environmental ambition and accountability at the heart of Government. I am pleased that legislative measures will be introduced to address the biggest environmental priorities of our age, ensuring that we can deliver on the commitment to leave the natural world in a better condition than we found it. These will include meeting net zero by 2050, as well as wider long-term legally binding targets on biodiversity, air quality, water, and resource and waste efficiency which will be established under the Bill.
We are frankly shocked that you could mention meeting net zero by 2050 in the context of the Environment Bill which you know very well has absolutely nothing to do with reducing greenhouse gases. We have pointed this out before.
The Environment Bill is also not designed to address the biggest environmental priorities of our age. It is a post-Brexit tidying-up bill necessary now we have left the EU. It doesn’t deal with restoring nature at scale, as you must know. It doesn’t recognise the important interconnections in dealing with the twin crises in climate and nature – not least because the Environment Bill has nothing to do with the climate.
Further, the Government has amended the Bill in the Lords to include a new, historic, legally binding target on species abundance for 2030, aiming to halt the decline of nature. This is a pioneering measure that will be the net zero equivalent for nature, spurring action on the scale required to address the biodiversity crisis. A forthcoming Green Paper will also explore how ministers might deliver their world-leading domestic ambitions for nature, including how to improve the status of native species, such as the water vole and the red squirrel, and protect 30 per cent of our land by 2030.
As you state, this amendment simply ‘aims’ to halt the decline. That is simply not good enough. Shocking though it may be, England is rated the 7th worst country in the world at protecting biodiversity according to research from the Natural History Museum and RSPB. The CEE Bill will require that we not only halt the decline, but turn it around and achieve measurable improvements by 2030. How can you not support this?
The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), headquartered in Worcester, has now been set up in an interim, non-statutory form, providing independent oversight of the Government’s environmental progress and accelerating the foundation of the full body. The OEP will have the power to take public bodies to an upper tribunal if there are breaches of the law.
The OEP’s powers over public bodies will be limited. As you know, the process of applying for court action would be slow and cumbersome. We are in a climate emergency. A watchdog needs powers that it can reach for without delay.
I believe that it is important the OEP is independent and fully transparent in order to effectively hold the Government to account on its targets. I am therefore pleased by assurances from ministers that the OEP will be operationally independent from Government, including from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This means that ministers will not be able to set its programme of activity or influence its decision-making.
You say you are ‘pleased by assurances’ that the OEP will be ‘operationally independent’. But this is emblematic of the wider problem. If those assurances are really solid and enduring, why not really make it independent instead of its leaders being appointed by, and accountable to the Government? What are assurances worth when politicians change frequently?
Can you see that we need the firm guarantee of independent oversight that the CEE Bill would deliver?
While I welcome the increased awareness and debate this Bill brings, I do not believe that it is required as work is already underway. I nonetheless welcome the work DCC is doing at a local level to engage with residents and organisations here and eliminate Devon’s contribution to climate change.
It is extraordinary that you are prepared to state that ‘work is under way’ when the Government’s independent climate body, the CCC, has said precisely the opposite? Can we ask if you have read their vitally important Progress Report of June 2021? Here are some key quotes:

  • “policies in place so far will only cut – at most – a fifth of the emissions required to hit the sixth carbon budget in 2035”;
  • “if progress does not extend outside the power sector, the sixth carbon budget will be missed by a huge margin”
  • “UK emissions are ‘nearly 50%’ below 1990 levels, but the journey to Net Zero is far from half done”
  • “it is hard to discern any comprehensive strategy in the climate plans we have seen in the last 12 months”
  • “delivering the Sixth Carbon Budget will require an immediate scale-up in action across the economy” – to paraphrase, there has been very little action, very little delivery”
Thank you again for contacting me.

Kind regards
Anthony

Anthony Mangnall MP for Totnes and South Devon