Tensions exposed between levelling up and climate fight

Teesside will have felt well and truly love-bombed by Rishi Sunak earlier this month as the Chancellor of the Exchequer unveiled his Spring Budget.

The repeated mentions of the area, where the Conservative metro mayor faces the voters this May for the first time since winning the erstwhile Labour stronghold by a knife-edge majority four years ago, offered a powerful reminder of how keen the Tories are to entrench their 2019 general election gains across the north of England.

However, last week’s volte face by the government over controversial plans for a coal mine in Cumbria have exposed tensions between two of the government’s key stated objectives: tackling climate change and “levelling up” depressed parts of the country in the north and midlands.

The move follows weeks of mounting pressure on the government following its announcement earlier this year that it did not intend to call in the planning application for the mine. Ministers have been at pains to stress that the coal to be dug at the proposed mine is not intended to be burnt in power stations but used in steel plants instead.

Champions of the mine claim that the steel industry would need to import the coking coal otherwise so it makes sense to mine it in the UK.

But the distinction is lost on environmental critics, who hit back that the coal burnt will still add to the stock of harmful greenhouse gas emissions, whatever reason it is being mined for, adding that new methods are being developed to replace coal in the steel-making process.

In addition, they argue, pressing ahead with the plans undermines efforts by the UK government to persuade its counterparts from across the world to cut emissions when they turn up at the COP26 summit later this year. John Kerry, US president Joe Biden’s recently appointed climate change envoy, added himself to that list of critics when he visited the UK government in London last week to discuss COP.  A successful climate change summit in Glasgow is a key element in the government’s broader post-Brexit ‘global Britain’ strategy.

Backbench Tory MPs have though been up in arms about the government’s move. Many of the MPs who signed a recent letter urging Cumbria county council not to reconsider its initial approval for the controversial plan, represent seats in the north of England that were only won by the Conservatives in 2019. The signatories include several members of the recently established Northern Recovery Group, who form an increasingly influential caucus within the Conservative Parliamentary party. Boris Johnson’s own parliamentary private secretary is Whitehaven MP Trudy Harrison, who is a passionate supporter of the mine project.

Similar concerns around levelling up prompted the government’s announcement last week that it is looking to axe air passenger duty for domestic flights. The move would provide a fillip for regional airports, which have been on their knees since the pandemic struck last spring but hardly provides travellers with a disincentive to fly.

Combined with the continuing freeze on fuel duty announced in the Budget, this has fuelled an impression that the government’s stated commitment to curbing emissions is only skin deep.

Some see the problem as a lack of grip at the heart of government, stemming from Johnson’s well attested lack of interest in detailed policy making.

That and a desire by the prime minister to keep his backbench MPs sweet results in mixed messages from No 10 about where the government’s real priorities lie. is hard to imagine the New Labour government of Tony Blair showing a similar lack of discipline about a key government message.

And the government can tell a good story about how investment in energy and other green industries, such as offshore wind and carbon capture, which are likely to be concentrated in the north of England, can help to deliver its levelling up objectives. The news, recently reported in Utility Week, that the BEIS department’s new net zero and industry director-general will be based in Manchester shows how it is moving to yoke these two agendas together.

However, a 30-year programme like the transition to net zero could very easily be capsized by short-term trimming to mollify special pleading by interest groups.

Once critics have secured one concession it makes it harder for ministers to refuse others, which is why last week’s mine move is significant, marking as it does a rare move by a government to prioritise the environment over the economy.

And there will be much bigger and electorally riskier decisions to be made, which will dwarf the fate of the 500 deeply welcome jobs that the proposed mine in west Cumbria. Some of these will have to be made soon, like the timetable for phasing out gas boilers, which is due to be considered in the government’s heat and building strategy.

Holding a public inquiry into the coal mine plans safely pushes the issue into the long grass. The planning inspector’s report on the Cumbrian mine is unlikely to be delivered to ministers by the time the COP26 delegates are gathering in Glasgow.

Johnson is famously keen on having his cake and eating it, which this manouvre delivers.

And when COP is over and the global spotlight is off the UK, the concern is that more grassroots political pressures will tempt the government to fudge on the climate change issue.