Baroness McIntosh of Pickering:

Moved by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering

104: After Clause 244, insert the following new Clause—“Marine habitats: reducing effects of offshore wind developments(1) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, prohibit offshore wind developments in marine protected areas.(2) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, prevent consent being granted for an offshore wind development if the mitigation hierarchy has not been followed.(3) “Mitigation hierarchy” means a framework for developers to address harms to biodiversity and ecosystems caused by developments, based on the sequential and iterative application of actions to avoid, mitigate, and then compensate for, such harms.(4) Subsections (1) and (2) apply to—(a) an offshore installation used for or in connection with wind energy generation;(b) offshore infrastructure, including cables and pipelines, connected to such an installation;(c) infrastructure connected to such an installation that is being decommissioned, has been decommissioned, or has been abandoned.(5) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative procedure.”Member’s explanatory statement This new Clause would strengthen protection for marine protected areas from damage related to energy infrastructure and ensure the mitigation hierarchy is followed.

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to speak to Amendment 104. I look forward to hearing from other noble Lords with amendments in this group, notably the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, looking at the prohibition of coal mines in Amendment 131. Amendment 124, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, looks at the prevention of flaring and venting, which causes great concern. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, also has an amendment looking at the

“Prohibition … of new oil and gas fields and issuing of exploration licences, and of new coal mines”.

I will restrict my remarks to the mitigation hierarchy. I start by saying that I welcome the government amendments to the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill—Amendments 373A through to 373F—which I understand will add the mitigation hierarchy to that Bill. I thank my noble friend the Minister and his colleagues in DLUHC for listening to the concerns expressed by myself and other noble Lords at earlier stages of proceedings.

However, I will press my noble friend to confirm the extent to which this commitment applies only to new environmental outcome reports. For greater clarity, will this matter relate to all environmental outcome reports or just the new ones that will take effect at that time? Further to that, for my better understanding and to assist the House in considering Amendment 104, to what extent will tests be included within these environmental outcome reports? What will those tests cover? Will my noble friend go as far as to say that the tests will cover the site assessments involved in offshore wind planning?

The purpose of Amendment 104, which I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to today, is to strengthen the protection for marine protected areas from damage related to energy infrastructure, and to ensure that the mitigation hierarchy is followed. I was delighted to serve on the EU Environment Sub-Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for a short period. We took compelling evidence on the serious disruption caused by both the construction and operation phases of wind farms. So I put to my noble friend the Minister that ample academic and other evidence proves that this damage to sea mammals, seabirds and other creatures—indeed, to all marine life—is substantial.

This is a probing amendment and I do not intend to press it to a vote, but I would be interested to learn to what extent the addition of the mitigation hierarchy, in the amendments that the Government have tabled to the levelling-up Bill, will cover these points—namely, that this will apply to all environmental outcome reports and that this will cover site assessments involved in offshore wind planning. Earlier, I argued that there should potentially be a moratorium—I am sure the Government would not welcome that—on new applications for offshore wind developments, until we understand that the mitigation hierarchy will be followed. With those few remarks, I beg to move Amendment 104.

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 124 in my name, but, before I do so, I will take some time to support my noble friend Lord Teverson’s Amendment 131—I will not say much else until he has had a chance to speak to it. I also support the amendment in this group in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which would stop the issuing of new licences for fossil-fuel exploration and exploitation in the North Sea.

Amendment 124, on “flaring and venting”, follows on quite neatly from the two amendments in the previous group on energy conservation in the home. I am delighted by, and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on, her decisive win on that issue. The Government ought to have grasped that low-hanging fruit with both hands already, and flaring and venting in the North Sea is more low-hanging fruit that the Government have failed to grasp. It too could use energy that we already generate in a much more effective and efficient manner. A ban on oil and gas flaring and venting in the North Sea is the single most effective action that the Government could take to dramatically reduce methane emissions from that sector.

That is quite a sweeping statement, but it has the support of the Environmental Audit Committee and the much-quoted Mission Zero independent review conducted by Chris Skidmore MP at the Government’s behest. So the Government’s own report has come to the conclusion, together with the EAC, that a moratorium on flaring and venting in the North Sea is long overdue and should take place by 2025. It is eminently doable. The tools to do it are in place, and the IEA is absolutely adamant on that score, so all we really need is leadership and political will.

This is important because the waste is quite shocking. The amount of methane gas we just set a match to in the North Sea amounts to 760,000 UK homes that could be heated. Not only do we waste the energy but we waste the monetary value inherent in it, because we could capture the gas and sell it. Why is methane so important? It accounts for a full 30% of global warming, and the levels of methane in the atmosphere are surging. Methane emission really matters; it is a large factor in the huge climate catastrophe we are facing at the moment. We should consider that it is 80 times more effective and potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The only advantage, if there is any, of methane emissions and curbing them is that it is short lived. It has a lifespan of 20 years in the atmosphere, so if we were able to take action to curb methane emissions, it would have an immediate impact in the timeframe in which we are looking to meet the Government’s own net-zero targets.

The Government fully realise this. At COP 26, we were one of the leading nations in signing the global methane pledge to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030, so the Government already recognise how important this is. It is within their grasp, it will not cost them anything, and it will save ordinary households lots of money. It is a no-brainer, so I hope that the Minister will be able to give me some positive reassurance that this is an issue that the Government are taking extremely seriously and that they realise how important it is that we are shown to be leading on this globally, because our leadership matters globally.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and to offer the strongest possible Green support for her Amendment 124, which would prohibit the flaring and venting of hydrocarbons other than in an emergency. The case has already been very powerfully made, but I will add that this has been a recommendation of the Commons Environmental Audit Committee and what is known as the Skidmore report—the Mission Zero independent review. It is something that other nations are well in advance of us on—a point that forms something of a theme for my remarks.

I also support for Amendment 131, which we have not heard fully set out yet, on no new coal mines. It has broad cross-party and non-party support, and it is obvious that we cannot have new coal.

I shall speak chiefly to my Amendment 138B, which goes further. Very simply, it would prohibit new oil, gas and coal extraction. I tabled a similar amendment in Committee and will not go over the same ground, but I want to briefly make three points. First, in May 2021, the International Energy Agency—not known as a group of radial greenies—called clearly for no new oil, gas or coal. Therefore, my amendment would deliver what the International Energy Agency said had to be done in 2021. We are now in 2023.

Since we were in Committee, we have seen increasing momentum behind the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, one element of which is no new oil, gas or coal. Six Pacific nations have issued a joint call to the world to say that this has to happen. The Prime Minister of Vanuatu said that polluting industries would not break from their “business as usual” behaviour without being forced. He said that we had to “explicitly stop the expansion” of production.

We often hear about the Government’s desire to be world-leading. It is actually this week, on 19 April, that the state of California is considering a resolution to formally endorse the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, which would deliver no new oil, gas or coal. It is going to have a Senate hearing on 19 April, introduced by the Senate Majority Whip, Senator Lena Gonzalez, and co-sponsored by the Indigenous Environmental Network. If the Government really want to be world-leading, they are going to have to catch up.

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for emphasising the mitigation hierarchy in her amendment and for her speech. It is something that is really important to take notice of offshore. I was pleased to add my name to the amendment of my noble friend Lady Sheehan, and I have great sympathy with the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. However, I will speak primarily to Amendment 131.

I guess that if this Bill had come before this House three years ago, I would not have even contemplated putting an amendment down about no more coal, because it would have been totally and absolutely obvious that it would be a really stupid thing for any nation—let alone the United Kingdom—to do. However, we are in the situation where we have the Government saying that a coalmine in Cumbria should actually go ahead. I put this amendment down because I now wonder, if we have one, what else could happen. It is not specifically about Cumbria, but Cumbria is important.

Let us look at Cumbria for a moment. First, the issue does not revolve just around the production of coking coal for steel. That is estimated to be only 15% of production. The other 85% is expected to be exported. Of course, once that coal leaves our shores, we have absolutely no control over it; it is a commercial decision. We have no control over what that coal is used for, and almost certainly it is going to be used for energy and power generation. Even if we take that 15%, which is supposedly for coking coal, we have a situation where the UK steel industry is actually moving away from carbon-intensive methods into green steel. At the moment, we are some way behind our friends and colleagues in the European Union, in that they have some 38 green steel plants under plan and 10 operating at the moment, all mainly green hydrogen produced by electrolysis. The one proposed in the UK is blue hydrogen with carbon capture and storage, but that is the future. The future is not steel produced by coking coal.

So, in a way, the Cumbria mine project should be unacceptable to us, yet Michael Gove, who I had huge respect for when he was Defra Secretary of State and who introduced a huge number of important environmental improvements and plans that are still echoing beyond his tenure in that role, in December last year—only five months ago—approved the plan for that coal mine. Rather cynically, he approved it up to 2049, one year before we have to have net zero in the United Kingdom.

One of the main reasons I have tabled this amendment, apart from the fact that I would not have thought it even possible that the United Kingdom would contemplate opening a new coal mine, is our international reputation. Of course, as Members will remember, we were the president of COP 26. We had a very successful conference in Glasgow and most of us—all of us, probably—congratulated Alok Sharma on the work he did as president of COP 26. During that conference, the UK Government put out a press release about their own success. This was in November 2021, only some 18 months ago, and it heralds:

“The end of coal—the single biggest contributor to climate change—is in sight thanks to the UK securing a 190-strong coalition of countries and organisations at COP26, with countries such as Indonesia, South Korea, Poland, Vietnam, and Chile announcing clear commitments to phase out coal power”.

The end of coal; that is the message.

The BEIS Minister at the time, someone called Kwasi Kwarteng—noble Lords may have heard of him—said:

“Today marks a milestone moment in our global effort to tackle climate change as nations from all corners of the world unite in Glasgow to declare that coal has no part to play in our future power generation. Spearheaded by the UK’s COP26 Presidency, today’s ambitious commitments made by our international partners demonstrate that the end of coal is in sight. The world is moving in the right direction, standing ready to seal coal’s fate and embrace the environmental and economic benefits of building a future that is powered by clean energy”.

I applaud that statement. It is strong, determined and absolutely to the point. Yet we are about to have a coal mine that will produce coal not just for an outdated steel technology but to be used for power generation.

I am very proud of Britain’s reputation on climate change. On my Benches and others we have criticised many aspects, but we have shown, over coalition Governments, Labour Governments and even the present Conservative Government, that we have moved forward—further, in many ways, than our fellow G7 countries. That is why it is absolutely wrong that we should trash that reputation by one decision to open a new UK coal mine. Who knows? If that happens once, it can happen again. That is why this amendment is so important.

My Lords, first, I have to say to the last speaker that I did not like that word “even”; this Government have introduced the highest targets of any country in the world. They have led the world in the most remarkable way and we should thank them for it—but that makes the argument against coal mines even stronger.

The Climate Change Committee is very careful not to overstep its mark. Its job is to advise on alternative methods and on the aims that we need to set the targets. Very rarely does it say that a particular measure is unacceptable. Indeed, in dealing with the question of new oil and gas, we have been very clear that the Government have to take into account the geopolitical position: you cannot just talk about the whole issue of the environment, because we are at war in Ukraine. We have a country determined to squeeze freedom out of Europe. We are concerned in all sorts of areas and we have to make very difficult decisions, so I hope my noble friend will remember how careful the Climate Change Committee has been in looking at these issues.

When we came to the coal mine, we were very clear: it is totally unacceptable. I will just remind the House of the facts. The company West Cumbria Mining has its headquarters in Sussex. It is owned by a company that appears to have very close relations with what many people would consider rather unusual tax places. It is not a company that has done much actual development of coal mines; it tends to get planning permission for coal mines. So, first, we have to recognise that this is not a British company based in west Cumbria; it is a company backed by Australian, Singapore and other interests.

We then move on to what the company has said. It has said that this mine is for coking coal. That may be true for 15%, maybe even up to 18%, of its production. All the rest cannot be used in the United Kingdom, even if the British steel industry did not move to a greener future. Therefore, the argument that by producing it here we somehow stop it being produced in the United States and exported here is just not true. What happens to the 80% or 85%? As the noble Lord said, we have no control over that at all—but we know that it will not be sold for coking coal anywhere in Europe, because the rest of Europe is not going to use coking coal. The only thing it can be sold for is precisely what the Government have said it will not be used for. Defending their decision, the Government have talked constantly as if it will be 100% coking coal, therefore proving that they do not believe in having new mines for coal used for generation. The Government have been quite clear about that: no new coal for generation. Therefore, to allow a mine that will produce 82% to 85% for generation is wholly against the Government’s policy.

The one thing I thought unfair in the noble Lord’s explanation of his amendment was that he did not go back to the fundamental problem. This is, of course, Mr Gove’s fundamental problem, which is that nothing in our present system of planning permission insists that planning decisions must be made in the context of our statutory commitment for the removal of all our emissions into a net-zero situation by 2050. There is nothing that includes the Government’s statutory obligations for 2030 or 2035, which is why the Climate Change Committee has said that one of the first priorities for the Government is to amend the planning Acts so that this becomes a necessary precursor to decisions.

It is arguable that the Cumbrian county council would have made a different decision if it had the support of the Acts. It is certainly arguable that Mr Gove might have made a different decision were it not for the fact that, because we do not have it in the Act, we would be in a long series of legal arguments with the people who claim that there is no planning reason for him to have turned down what the independent inspector put forward. There is a lot of argument about the independence of the inspector, and I think the Government have to look very carefully at when people feel that they should excuse themselves from making decisions of this kind—but that is for another place.

I say to the Government simply this: you cannot ask the Indians and the Chinese to move away from coal if you are providing the means for an extension of coal; you cannot say that that is what they missed out. Let us remember Mr Alok Sharma in tears when, at the very last moment, they removed from the last words of the Glasgow agreement the particularity about reducing fossil fuels. As chairman of their independent advisory body, I say to the Government that there is no doubt whatever that allowing this coal mine undermines our international ability to lead the world to a solution which alone will stop the existential threat of climate change. The reason I rise to speak now is to say to my noble friend—again, I hope he will accept that this is a genuine matter to be answered in that way—that this is the most serious issue that he will have to look at, and in it is held the Government’s credibility.

Just as I began by complimenting the Government on their leadership, the standards they set and the targets they have put forward, I have to say that if they want to uphold that, they cannot allow any new coal mines, and they must find a way to stop mining which will increase the emissions from the most damaging means of generation. We do not have time to wait while this all works its way through. This is an emergency. When you deal with an emergency, you do not light an ancillary fire. You do not do something which manifestly runs wholly against everything else you have said, and against everything the Minister has said in defending the Government’s policy throughout the passage of the Energy Bill.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their very important contributions on the amendments in this group. It is an enormous privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Deben, with his experience and expertise in the subject matter before us today. I want to keep my comments brief as we have had a lot of opportunity in different discussions and debates, particularly during the passage of this Bill, to try to get across just how strong the feelings are around the House on these matters.

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for her amendment on the burning of methane and other hydrocarbons produced during oil extraction. As we have heard, very distinguished bodies have come out against this. In particular, there is a real concern that not taking notice of the need to address this issue undermines the UK’s commitments made at COP 26 and COP 27 under the global methane pledge. We need to take this seriously. We have heard how important the contribution of methane is towards the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions. Just to add to the statistics around this, during the last decade the UK has wasted £2.6 billion in lost gas sales due to flaring and venting, and released 45 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When you put that into the context—as the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, did—of what could have been done with that fuel, it is a lesson that needs to be learned.

I concentrate my comments this afternoon on Amendment 131 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Sheehan and Lady Boycott, and my noble friend Lord Lennie. As we have heard, this amendment is specifically to prevent the opening of new coal mines in England and is a response to the proposed opening of a new coal mine in Cumbria. I have said before that I am really concerned about the message this coal mine sends out. It undermines totally our claim to be an international leader on climate. One only had to look at the press reports from around the world after the announcement was made to understand just how damaging this is.

I fully support the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, on the planning system. I hope that we can move forward on this, so that local authorities and anyone who has a role in making decisions through the planning system have the necessary tools to stand up and not be concerned about the extortionate costs that would come their way if, after having turned down an application, it was turned over on appeal.

The other area that we have not emphasised enough is this: we cannot even claim that the coal mine in Cumbria would provide secure, long-term jobs. That just is not part of the equation here. As we have heard, it will not benefit British Steel. We are already seeing a significant decline in the coal used by the UK steel industry, including a 19% drop in demand for coking coal to run UK blast furnaces. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, the future is not coking coal.

I am not sure if anyone has mentioned the rather fanciful claim that this mine would be the first carbon-neutral operation of its kind. How can we stand here and say this seriously and honestly, and with particular regard to the fact that, as we have heard, a high percentage of the coal would be exported and so we would have no control over its use.

I am very disappointed that part of the debate around opposing the mine has ignored the far greater opportunities of investing in new green technologies for the local area. It is a perfect area for so many of the possibilities that are coming our way with real, sustainable jobs.

I repeat that Alok Sharma, a former president of COP, said last December that opening

“a new coalmine would send completely the wrong message and be an own goal”.

Surely we should be doubling onshore wind capacity, tripling solar capacity and quadrupling offshore wind capacity. I hope I have made it clear that on our Benches we support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

I thank all noble Lords for their amendments and contributions.

I will just make an observation first, having listened with great interest to the noble Baroness, Lady Blake. I was actually hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, would reply to this debate, as a fellow politician from the north-east of England. He will know very well that, in virtually every election that I fought in the region, the Labour Party campaigned against the closing of coal mines. I will be gracious and accept that time moves on, but it was only fairly recently that some of their parliamentary colleagues in the other place were campaigning for the opening of new coal mines and against the closing of old ones. Time moves on in politics but, had you said to me 10 or 15 years ago that I would be standing up in the House of Lords opposite a Labour Party telling me it does not want to see the opening of any coal mines, I would not have believed you.

Turning to the substance of the amendments, I will start with Amendment 131 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Lennie, and the noble Baronesses. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, for her contribution; I do not know what the Labour Party in Yorkshire did, but I suspect that it had a similar position. Both this amendment and Amendment 138B would prohibit the opening of new coal mines in Great Britain, while Amendment 138B would also prevent the licensing or development of new oil and gas fields.

Let me reiterate the Government’s policy. As we have said many times before, we are committed to phasing coal out of our electricity production by 2024. In 2021, coal formed less than 2% of our electricity generation. This permits me another observation; let us look at other equivalent economies. Germany is a particularly good example. Yesterday, it announced the end of its nuclear production—no doubt something cheered by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the Greens—forgetting the slightly inconvenient point that, last year, Germany generated 31% of its electricity production from coal, compared with our 1.8%. It is also in the process, as we speak, of opening new mines for lignite, the dirtiest and most polluting form of coal; of course, it has no alternative because it has got rid of the other forms of generation. I am sure that the Greens in government there are proud of their successful record.

As I said, we are committed to phasing coal out. It will form less than 2% of our electricity generation next year. It will no longer be part of our electricity system. Of course, there may still be some domestic demand for coal in industries such as steel and cement, as well as a small usage in sectors such as heritage railway. This can be met from domestic resources under existing licensing arrangements, rather than imported coal, which can have higher supply chain emissions from transportation.

In taking the decision on the Cumbria mine, the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities carefully considered all those demands for coal, the impact on climate change and, importantly, the impact on the local economy. Although coking coal will be required for steel production for some time to come, the UK is working to support the decarbonisation of the steel industry and other industries that still rely on coking coal and, I remind noble Lords, employ many tens of thousands of people. We are supporting the end of its use through the £315 million industrial energy transformation fund. In our view, the phasing out of coal-fired power plants, to which the Government have committed since 2015, is a more proportionate response than an outright prohibition on coal mining.

On oil and gas, we are working to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels as we work towards net zero, but we will need some of them for some time to come. By taking an idealistic position and preventing both the development of new oil and gas fields and the issuing of exploration licences, this amendment would cause a faster decline in UK oil and gas production. This would have considerable ramifications; critical among them is the potential severe weakening of our security of supply.

Further, a faster decline in UK production would have the proportionate effect of forcing us to increase our imports of liquefied natural gas. North Sea Transition Authority research shows that the production and import of LNG results in more than double the emissions released when compared with the production of natural gas from our own continental shelf; of course, that disregards all the tax revenues and all the jobs of the people employed in those areas. It would be the ultimate self-defeating policy. Imposing a blanket ban on new oil and gas fields would be a completely disproportionate step and would limit the UK’s ability to respond to changes in the global energy system in future.

Moving on to Amendment 104 from my noble friend Lady McIntosh, I welcome her ongoing interest in our marine protected areas network. The Government recently committed to designating three new highly protected marine areas, which will have the highest level of protection. If designed appropriately, offshore wind developments can avoid damage to marine protected areas, so we see no need to prohibit offshore wind development in them.

The existing requirement to work through the so-called mitigation hierarchy—that is, to first consider avoidance, then mitigation, of environmental impacts—is already an established principle of environmental and planning law. Under the Planning Act 2008, the Secretary of State must decide a project’s application in accordance with the energy national policy statements and the UK marine policy statement. The Government are consulting on the updated energy national policy statements, which clearly state that applicants should follow the hierarchy to avoid, as far as possible, the need for compensatory measures. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh mentioned, this position is being further strengthened through the inclusion of the mitigation hierarchy in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which will apply to environmental outcome reports.

The Government therefore consider this to be a much more effective approach that will apply to all industries, rather than solely to offshore wind development. The expectation to follow the mitigation hierarchy is also inherent in various marine and coastal statutory provisions which, as per Clause 243(6), the Bill cannot disapply. This will ensure that applicants continue to avoid impacts as much as possible by following the mitigation hierarchy. Therefore, with these reassurances, I hope that my noble friend can see that the Government are committed to the mitigation hierarchy through a range of legislative and non-legislative mechanisms, which should ensure that industry continues to abide by it, and so will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, for her Amendment 124 on the prohibition of flaring and venting oil and gas installations, on which we had an Oral Question recently. The Government recognise that eliminating emissions from routine flaring and venting of gas by companies operating in the North Sea is a priority. We already have ambitious plans to do that. We have committed to the World Bank’s zero routine flaring by 2030 initiative, and we are working with regulators towards eliminating the practice as soon as possible. In the North Sea transition deal, industry has committed to driving down flaring and venting ahead of 2030. However, retrofitting older facilities to stop routine flaring and venting brings complex technical and economic challenges. Industry has shown that it is committed to cleaner operations and has made substantial investment to minimise the practice. The North Sea Transition Authority’s proactive approach and industry effort are reaping rewards. Based on its latest data, North Sea flaring is down 50% since 2018, after a 13% drop last year. I welcome this progress and hope that the noble Baroness does too.

I thank all noble Lords for their amendments and hope, perhaps without too much optimism, that with these reassurances they feel able not to press their amendments.

Flaring and venting is something that I am keen on eliminating, and I will use every opportunity in the House to progress the issue further. Therefore, would it be sensible for the Minister to agree to meet with me and other noble Lords who have expressed an interest in this issue, so that we can talk sensibly about it, going forwards?

I did organise a recent meeting with officials to discuss the issue, at the request of the noble Baroness’s Front-Bench colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The noble Baroness had the opportunity to attend if she had wished to.

My Lords, I am grateful for the discussion that we have had on the various amendments in this group, and that my noble friend the Minister referred to the use of coal on heritage railways. I am delighted to say that I am president of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and hope that we can continue to enjoy the spectacular scenery and days out that heritage railways offer.

I am disappointed that my noble friend missed an opportunity to explain to the House specifically which areas the amendments to the levelling up Bill will cover. Rather than detain the House further at this stage, I will pursue that through Written Questions, where I will have to get an Answer. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 104 withdrawn.

Clause 246: Arrangements for responding to marine oil pollution