Utility Week

8 | 20TH - 26TH SEPTEMBER 2019 | UTILITY WEEK Interview The problem now though is lack of time to deal with the issue because of the way that Brexit has crowded out other policy areas, he says: "They don't have detailed policies because they haven't got to that stage. I'm more wor- ried about people's appreciation of the speed with which they have to act." This focus on short-term pressure could be exem- plified by the one-year spending review presented by chancellor of the exchequer Sajid Javid a fortnight ago. There was widespread disappointment among envi- ronmentalists about the slim pickings on offer for efforts to mitigate climate change so soon a‚er June's adoption of the headline net zero target. "It was a series of promises to put large sums of money into areas where the public feels money has been starved but not much more detail because he [Javid] hasn't had the time because what he is really doing is thinking about Brexit," says Lord Deben. On the other hand though, the government's success in landing next year's high-profile COP26 climate change conference puts pressure on ministers to act, he says: "We are going to have to show what we have done." And there's a lot of work to be done, with Lord Deben identifying energy efficiency as the "biggest challenge" facing the government on climate change and "absolutely central" to tackling the issue. "Energy efficiency is always the poor relation, but it is the quickest and easiest way to reduce emissions," he says, adding that there is "no excuse" for new energy- inefficient homes to be built. "We are building crap housing we are going to have to adapt," he says, adding that he sees "no reason" for not insisting on raising the standards to the level of the Passivhaus voluntary building performance standard pioneered in Germany. He is particularly excited by a home-grown version of the virtually zero carbon standard, which is being launched by the UK housing association Hastoe this month. "If it's as good as I think it will be, there is no reason why it can't be adopted very urgently." And he wants to change the planning rules so that the building regulations that apply to a new property aren't those in place when consent was granted but when it is actually built. In practical terms, this would mean that the govern- ment's ban on fossil fuel heating in new homes from 2025, announced at the last Budget, would kick in from that date rather than potentially several years later. The big hurdle here though are the volume house- builders that dominate the UK new homes market, says Lord Deben, whose remit as environment secretary covered housing and planning. "You can build better houses without increasing prices because the house price isn't fixed by the cost of building, it's fixed by the level of price that the builder thinks he can get." In practice, any extra costs for meeting higher energy efficiency costs would come out of the value of the land, he says: "The real reason they [housebuilders] don't want to do it is that most of the major housebuilders have got large land banks for which they have paid money and not taken this into account. I'm afraid it's something they will have to absorb. "You can do that without having an increase in the price of housing." Lord Deben's former constituency in Suffolk covers EDF's nuclear plant at Sizewell, which the French company wants to replace. While insisting that he is not opposed to nuclear, which remains a "necessary part of the mix", he is scepti- cal about the government's proposals for applying the regulated asset base mechanism to help finance new pro- jects. "We have to have the same scepticism about costs because in the end the public are going to have to pay for this. "EDF are still quoting figures that are frankly not competitive in today's world and also figures that one isn't sure will be met. "Like HS2, there's no harm in having a very close look at the figures, there may be other ways of doing this." And he says nuclear is a "transitional" power source. "By the time you get to the need for the next nuclear power stations, there will be alternative ways of doing this. If we get better at balancing the grid and the amount of baseload energy, the need becomes smaller. "Nuclear isn't the best way of getting that base energy because you can't turn it on and off: you have to use it all the time. "If you are really concerned about what happens when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, you install in people's homes hybrid boilers that can run on electricity or gas." These hybrid boilers, which were championed in the CCC's report on heating at the end of last year, would run off electricity, apart from during periods of peak demand. "Whereas somebody would have required a boiler 100 per cent of the time, they would use it 3 per cent of the time but that 3 per cent would be when the nation needs it. You can have back-up with a million boilers rather than build two new nuclear power stations." In the short term, even though Westminster is in turmoil, Lord Deben is planning to meet every secre- tary of state to see what net zero will mean for their departments. This will in turn inform a report next year, which will put the whole of Whitehall under the climate change microscope for the first time. "For the first time, we will be saying what ought to have happened and what has happened for each depart- ment. You concentrate people's minds by making sure they know what they are supposed to be doing so it's not surprising they do it because the world will know." As an example, he points to the Department for Transport, whose target to ban internal combustion engine cars and vans by 2040 is insufficiently ambitious, according to the CCC. "The reality is the law is clear and they have to deliver: although they don't have to deliver to our pro- gramme, they have to deliver to our targets. If they can't do it with electric vehicles, they will have to come up with an alternative." And with that, Lord Deben makes his apologies and leaves to resume battle over Brexit in the House of Lords. "I can genuinely say it doesn't matter to our programme on climate change who is in government, which I'm not sure was always true"  Join the big debate: Lord Deben will be joining the New Deal for Utilities Debate panel this Wednesday, 25 September, in Westminster at RICS, Parliament Square. The panel will also feature Jonson Cox, chairman, Ofwat; Phil Jones, CEO, Northern Powergrid; Michael Lewis, CEO, Eon UK; and Kerry Scott, global practice leader for social inclusion at event sponsor Mott MacDonald. For more details about the event, from 5 to 7pm followed by a networking drinks reception, visit: https://utilityweek.co.uk/new-deal-utilities-debate

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