Melanie Onn interview

Will Barber-Taylor: Welcome. We are talking about the environment with former Labour MP Melanie Onn. Climate change is one of the largest issues the world faces after the coronavirus pandemic. We have the enormous task of rebuilding our economy whilst fighting climate change. The government has set a target of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Today, we will look at how we can reach this target or even surpass it. We will also talk about what kind of energy sources we should use, what role taxes can play in promoting environmentally friendly products and lots more in this episode.

You are the Deputy Chief Executive of the trade association RenewableUK. Have you seen a change in demand for these kinds of industries in the past year, thanks to COVID-19? Do you think that this has made people perhaps think more about the use of energy and want to work more with renewable energies than perhaps they might not have done before the start of the pandemic?

Melanie Onn: I think that there have been some record-breaking moments, certainly in the last couple of years, just in terms of the amount of renewably sourced electricity that we have been using. We have had completely coal-free days, which is the first time that we have ever been able to manage that. What we are looking for is having continuous coal-free days over extended periods. We have seen wind in particular increasing the amount of clean energy that it is providing, and from a consumer perspective, the availability of companies that are providing the option to have your electricity provided from entirely clean sources is growing all the time. Companies like OVO Energy or Octopus Energy, for example, you can go and switch to them, and you will be guaranteed that the electricity that you are using for your home is coming entirely from renewable sources, which is fantastic for people who want to make that choice. The way that the new companies are operating, because they are not restricted by the way the old energy companies were structured, they can make sure that they continuously move you to the cheapest tariff as well. They can make sure that you know when everything is going to be cheapest, meaning your bills are better managed. There are lots of options and opportunities.

The pandemic has made people realise exactly how much energy they use when they are at home. We have seen across the whole country that there was a dip in electricity usage just because people were not travelling as much. They were not going to work. Offices were not open, but we have seen much more domestic use. That means that people are a bit more conscious of what it is that they are doing in their everyday lives and perhaps what they might like to see their future look like. While people have had fewer cars on the road, they have been going out and appreciating their immediate environment. With things quieter, how do they continue to have cleaner air and less polluted immediate environments? Are there alternative ways of working that might appeal to them that might also have the consequence of using less of the traditional fossil fuels?

That has changed the way that people think about their daily lives and how they plan to carry on over the next few years. I hope that it is not just a short-lived thing. I hope that it is something that embeds itself into the long-term of how we work. I think people’s work-life balance has been adjusted quite significantly, where there have been extended travel restrictions, for example.

Will Barber-Taylor: To what extent do you think the ability of companies to work in ways that are better for the environment is in some way focused and forced upon them to a certain extent by where the companies are located? You mentioned Siemens earlier, and of course, that has a massive presence on the Humber coast. Do you think that where companies are based in particular parts of the country will focus them in a particular direction in terms of what types of renewable energy they will be using?

Melanie Onn: Absolutely. The location of companies and their proximity to their biggest customers absolutely play a part. We have seen situations in the past where factories, for example, have been established, but they have been in the wrong place, and we have not been able to see them sustained. They have not been able to provide the level of service that their developer customers have needed. Ultimately, that has led to them not being able to be competitive.

The location is incredibly important, and we can see along the East Coast, all the way from Aberdeen down, the Tyne and Tees Coast, Humberside, East Anglia and the Kent Coast. It is the East Coast that has been really very successful so far at harnessing the opportunities, not only for providing services to the offshore wind developments that are taking place, but also having the operations and maintenance bases in those key areas, so that they are able to easily access their developments. We see a little bit more of that on the West Coast, particularly around Cumbria, Liverpool, North Wales, but it is mainly concentrated along the East Coast. That is because that is where the natural resources are, that is where we have got easily accessible, very windy spots.

Will Barber-Taylor: Tax-based regulations are something that the Centre Think Tank has campaigned for a long time. It means products that have taxes placed on them, if they are particularly damaging to the environment, and the money can be used for research to give money to low earners or to subsidise environmentally friendly alternatives. Would this be something you would support? Are there better ways to move businesses towards environmentally friendly alternatives?

Melanie Onn: Taxing is certainly a route to changing behaviour. If you look at the plastic bag tax, you can see there, although I am not the best advert for the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, since I am drinking a fizzy drink. But it will not be taxed because it is sugar-free. No sugar, nothing in it. It can change behaviour. I think that increasingly, the government will look to apply carbon-based taxes to reduce transportation, to reduce the risk of companies offshoring some of their responsibilities.

It seems completely ridiculous that we would set incredibly high recycling targets, and then allow the recycling to be sent to another country and go into their landfill, rather than us taking responsibility for our rubbish. There is a route by which that can certainly have an impact, and that it is quite a rapid impact as well. If we are looking at the target for reaching net zero by 2050, that is not a great deal of time. Sitting and waiting for companies to come to the realisation that they need to take more rapid action in the way that they conduct themselves and how they review their kind of carbon emissions, just from their business, whatever it is that they are producing or doing, we could be waiting quite a long time, but I do think that there have been moves in the right direction, particularly from those high-emitting organisations looking at what they can do to reduce their carbon emissions in line with that 2050 target. This year, particularly, companies will see themselves under much greater scrutiny for a variety of reasons. Public consciousness, there is much more awareness of the planet and people’s concern about climate change and the impact that that will have on them, future generations, wildlife and the broader environment. There has been pressure from the government that says you cannot continue to run your business in the way that you have done because it is not going to be sustainable for us. We have made these international agreements to hit these targets, and we need everybody to play a part. It does rely on the government pulling everybody together, getting them heading in the right direction and providing support where it is necessary.

I am sitting in the Humber, as it is one of the most polluting industrial areas around the country. We have got oil refineries, we have got logistics, and we have got high-intensity food processing, which requires a lot of refrigeration. That means that it is problematic. We have got a steelworks just down the road as well, and an active shipping industry. All of those have got pretty big consequences on the environment. Where you have got big companies, you can see that they would invest, for example, Phillips 66 is now in partnership with Ørsted and the University of Sheffield to undertake the Gigastack project, which is about reducing their emissions and cleaning up their role in the environment. For small and medium-sized enterprises, changing what they do, particularly if they are in some form of manufacturing, which tends to have a higher carbon emission percentage, how do they do it? Where do they start? What do they do? How can they get financing? How quickly are we expecting them to change?

That requires quite a lot of conversation and quite a lot of discussion. We are being quite slow to engage some of those companies and say it is not just the responsibility of government, or it is not the responsibility of one kind of business or one kind of industry, it is all of our responsibilities. How do we help you to do that? Just taxing those people, taxing those companies, seems a pretty punitive way to behave.

Will Barber-Taylor: Do you think that there is a balance to strike between government passing certain things into law that make it much more difficult for particular companies to emit dangerous fumes, and so on, and encouraging them not to do those kinds of things, to shift to renewable energy? Or do you think that there is no need for a balance, that it has to be one way or the other, more government intervention or more freedom for businesses to convince one another that they need to use more renewable energy?

Melanie Onn: I think that legislation incentivises companies, and that in that market environment, they do tend to get quite competitive. The race to be the greenest company continues to improve as doing those things improves their standing in terms of their public relations and how they are viewed. Hopefully, if they are seen as being a responsible company for their customer base, it means that they will be more successful. The legislation is good leverage. The question really is, is the legislation going far enough? Does it put enough pressure? Does it have enough checkpoints within it to ensure that companies are absolutely focused?

Working in the renewable sector, we see some of the big oil and petrol companies are now moving into renewables. They certainly do recognise that there is a need to shift their behaviour and that, within the UK, the use of their product is going to decline. Why would they keep investing in something that is not going to be needed? Better for them to invest in something where there is interest, and that is in the renewable sector. The question is more broadly, how do we influence that mentality internationally so that we can ensure that, yes, we are playing our part as the UK, but for those companies, it is great that you are doing it with us. How can we encourage you to do more internationally as well, particularly, there are big companies, they have got a very, very wide reach, and there are a lot of countries that are not in the same position that we are in, in the UK, to be able to rapidly develop and shift into renewable sources. The companies hopefully will learn some lessons as they move into their transition in the UK and apply those internationally.

Will Barber-Taylor: In terms of the way to influence international opinion on climate change, what do you hope will come out of COP26, which, for those who do not know, is the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will occur in Glasgow at the start of this year?

Melanie Onn: It is really exciting. We have got two big international events in the UK this year. We have got G7, so looking at the international economy, which will be particularly relevant post-COVID-19 and also then COP26. The two link together because COP is going to largely be a discussion about how green industries and tackling climate change can be the next phase, so a new kind of industrial revolution internationally. That means that we need to take every single country along with us, that we need to look at the situation in each country post pandemic and see what kind of situation they find themselves in and where green industries can help them to rebuild their economies so that they do not continue to be so reliant on fossil fuels and can start to make the steps that are needed towards a much greener economy base.

That all sounds laudable and welcome. I do not imagine by any stretch that it will be easy or that it will be straightforward. We have a very particular position of privilege because we are financially very secure in this country. I know it does not feel like that for everybody, but as a nation, we are quite resilient. It means that we have already made quite substantial progress in terms of utilising green energies, which is our biggest contribution to climate change in this country, as well as transportation.

What I would like to see is the UK being very sensitive to not just saying, “This is what we do, aren’t we fantastic?” We must also trying to learn the lessons of other countries and what they are doing, because we still have quite a limited range of technologies that we are fully engaging in and fully utilising. And I think we did have a bit of a policy hiatus in the early 2010s around renewables.

We need to acknowledge that that might not have been the best thing. We could have been much further forward, acknowledged our failings, whilst being able to demonstrate how things have improved. They have improved in terms of the policy positions and how they are therefore contributing to improving regional economies as well because the fact that we have got so many wind farms, particularly on the offshore side, that are regenerating port areas along the East Coast that have not had industrial financing and support for a long time and suddenly is seeing that makes a strong case for saying it is possible to rebuild economies and where people might fear a loss of jobs, whether it is in mining or whether it is in oil and gas, that we can say there might not be the same volume of jobs, but there are still jobs. Actually, across the breadth of the renewable sector outside of wind, hydro and tidal, if you are looking at solar, if you are looking at infrastructure for increasing electrification, if you are looking at homes and how we make homes much more environmentally friendly, there are a great number of jobs in the green economy that all flow from that. It cannot just be a reliance on saying it is a like-for-like from those industries, but the range of jobs is certainly available and helps those different regions around the country.

Will Barber-Taylor: One of the most controversial topics when it comes to energy production is nuclear energy. Centre Think Tank has been supporting a phased reduction of nuclear power. The Green Party wants to stop any new reactors from being built, and some Conservatives support new reactors. What do you think is the best course of action on the issue of nuclear power?

Melanie Onn: It is not an area we tend to focus on; we tend to look at what we do well, and we tend to focus on our members’ activities. There is a point that says, at the moment where we are, we do not have sufficient wind or solar, tidal, or wave power to provide all of the energy that is needed in this country. Therefore, there has to be a mix. In the future, what I would like to see speaking on behalf of my members is that it is all run on wholly green energy. However, the policy for providing energy in a country where there is a high energy need and high energy consumption is more challenging than that. Probably, a recognition that that nuance exists is not very political because if you are a political campaigner, then of course, you want to take a very clear perspective. You want to take a very clear view, and it is a valid view.

At the moment I feel much more comfortable saying very happy to champion the use of more renewables, and our members are operating in wind, tidal, and increasingly hydrogen. That might be the route that the other sectors take and start to look to move into as well.

Will Barber-Taylor: Just to turn to something that has a certain impact on green energy. During the EU referendum, you supported remaining in the EU, but afterwards, you opposed a second referendum. You also voted for a Common Market 2.0 during the indicative votes. Do you see EFTA membership as a possibility in the future for the UK?

Melanie Onn: Things seem to be so chaotic still in UK politics. I thought that after Brexit, things might settle down. The pandemic has not proven that, has it? The world works in very mysterious ways. There are certainly things that have come out of the agreement that was struck after the 2019 general election, the oven-ready deal, whatever it was, that have not panned out in the way that people who supported Leave from the outset expected to see, and for those who were Remainers would never have hoped to have come to pass.

The violence in Northern Ireland at the moment is a direct consequence of the border issues and holds a future that is fraught with potential problems for the future of the UK. In terms of what relationship should we have with the EU in the future, if this agreement is seen to have too many holes and too many problems, I think that Brexit zealots will probably say, “No, you just need to let it bed in.” They are just teething problems. Everything will be okay. However, there will increasingly need to be substantial modifications that are made that will then put us in a position where we are lining up for some other agreement that is broader than what we have at the moment that will not constitute full EU membership because I think that even, talking about something like that at the moment, I do not think it is very helpful for anybody who is very pro-European to start talking about it because I think it sets their argument back. There was a very clear outcome; it was not very clear, was it, but there was an outcome. It caused such disruption and such upset. The idea of going back into that whole debate all over again does not seem to me to be something that would be particularly helpful for the country at the moment. In a world where anything is possible, yes, potentially, EFTA is a route.

It is funny, though. You look back and think, there were lots of conversations about. Is it going to be Canada Plus? Is it going to be Norway Plus? Is it going to be Common Market 2.0? Should we have something like EFTA, which is a Norway kind of agreement, and then we start talking about Australian-style point systems? The British public got incredibly confused and incredibly fatigued. Europe is probably always going to be one of those issues that comes back. Principally at the moment, the focus should be on preserving the unity of the United Kingdom, which is by no means a certainty right now.

Will Barber-Taylor: Finally, as a Member of Parliament, you pushed for victims’ sexual history not to be heard during sexual assault cases. What else do you think we can do to prevent and tackle sexual assault?

Melanie Onn: I did do that. I am surprised that that is one of the things that has come up, because the thing that tends to come up more is the fact that I did start the campaign for misogyny to be included as a hate crime, which is where quite a lot of the wider conversations that I participated in as a parliamentarian around rape, the appalling number of rape convictions, the lack of investigatory resources available to police, the lack of confidence that victims have in the structures and systems that we have in place as a country to achieve any kind of justice. That is where it all stemmed from.

There is still room, and I know that the campaign has recently been moved forward and incorporated into legislation, which I am pleased about. I would like to see more done around that because I just think that there is something about the basic treatment of other people and misuse and abuse of power that is happening across the piece that seems to be trying to silence people from even saying that they are unhappy with what is happening.

When it comes to conviction rates and when it comes to protection of victims, that there is more that could be done in terms of victims of all crime, actually, not just sexually based violence, but victims generally who very often feel forgotten in a process and do not feel that they necessarily have their voices heard and do not always get the justice that they think that they are going to get.

It makes me think about all of the issues around the resourcing of our criminal justice system and the difficulties around that kind of conversation. We have got a reduction in access to courts, we have got fewer judges, we have a move away from juries, and the times that courts can sit are being reduced. There are lots and lots of issues around all of that. There is very little sympathy at the moment for those conversations, which is really difficult because we seem to have forgotten that our justice system is a fundamental part of our democracy. It is only when you come to rely on it, I feel it is a bit like the welfare system, it is only when you need it that you find that there are many problems with it. From the outside, when you are not using it or when you are not in contact with it, it is just kind of ethereal, set to the side, and you do not give it much of a second thought. Any idea about spending more money on it, you think, “Oh, well, it is all going for criminals being able to appeal when they should not be able to”, or “Judges’ pensions” or something like that. This really undermines a lot of the argument around the fact that these things do need to be properly funded for them to work properly. It is for them to work properly for us, for all of us, and for us to have a strong state. And every time we kind of eke away at that, then the state gets weakened.

Will Barber-Taylor: Melanie Onn, thank you for coming on.

Melanie Onn: Thank you. It has been fun.

Note: This interview has been edited for grammar, clarity, and flow. The original recording is the final and definitive version.