Lord Krebs (CB)

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 114 in the name of my noble friend Lord Ravensdale, to which I have added my name. I thank my noble friend for his excellent introduction to the amendment and also for his hard work in the background with the Minister. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his amendment, which I support—it has a similar intent to Amendment 114—and I very much thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for his reminder that biodiversity is also important. I was a little surprised, in fact, because when we debated my Private Member’s Bill, which placed a climate and nature duty on all public authorities, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was not totally supportive. Perhaps in the meantime he has reflected and come to my side—I welcome him. I want to make one specific point, because I do not want to extend the debate beyond the limited time that we have. I will focus on an illustrative example to which the noble Earl, Lord Russell, has already alluded: the problem of overheating in buildings. We should all remember that the climate change agenda is not just about mitigation, but adaptation; so there are in fact multiple targets. The Government are committed to net zero by 2050 on the mitigation side, but they have also committed in a variety of ways to adapting us to the inevitable consequences of climate change, however good we are at mitigating it. One aspect of adaptation is to future-proof our buildings in the face of more extreme climate events. I make particular reference to overheating because, in Committee in September, I asked the Minister how many homes being built today are resilient in the face of overheating, which is highly likely to become increasingly important. The noble Baroness kindly wrote to me on 18 September to answer the question, and the short answer is that in 2025, roughly 50% of new homes are future-proofed in relation to heating. That means that half the people who have bought new homes will find them very hard to live in during the decade ahead. That is shocking. We should be really embarrassed about allowing people to spend their valuable money on homes that will be unsuitable in the decades to come. However, the Minister also pointed out that Part O of the building regulations introduced in 2021 requires new residential buildings to be built in a way that reduces the risk of overheating. The letter goes on to explain how that is done, and it includes making windows that can be opened when outside temperatures are cooler. When outside temperatures do not get cooler—when it is 25 degrees at night and 39 degrees in the day—opening windows will not help you: the ingress of heat must be prevented during the day. Therefore, although Part O of the building regulations alludes to making buildings resilient in the face of excess heat, it does not go far enough. The recent letter from the Adaptation Committee to Emma Hardy, the Environment Minister, written by my noble friend Lady Brown of Cambridge—my successor as chair of that committee—emphasises that the risks of overheating will double in the decades ahead. In the foreseeable future, there is an 80% chance of extreme heat in the summer in this country. It is unacceptable for us to allow builders to build houses, and indeed other public buildings such as hospitals and schools, that are not resilient in the face of excess heating. I hope that the Minister will go back and discuss with her officials how we can strengthen the building regulations, or the NPPF, to ensure absolutely that people do not move into new homes or new public buildings today that will be unhabitable in 20, 30 or 40 years’ time.