Peter Lilley

Credentials

According to his biography, Lilley was educated at Hayes County Primary School, Dulwich College and Clare College, Cambridge, where he studied natural science and economics.¹

Background

Lord Peter Lilley is a former British Conservative Party MP and until April 2020, sat on the Board of Trustee s of the UK climate science denying thinktank the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).² ³ He represented the Hitchin and Harpenden constituency from 1997 to 2017, previously holding the seat for St Albans from 1983.⁴

Lilley is a member of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG), a group of Conservative MPs arguing that the government’s net zero commitments are too ambitious and costly. The group is led by Craig Mackinlay and GWPF trustee Steve Baker.⁵ ⁶

He began his political career as Parliamentary Private Secretary to then Chancellor Nigel Lawson, founder of the GWPF. Lilley subsequently served as Financial Secretary and Economic Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, and Trade Secretary and Social Security Secretary under John Major. ⁷ ⁸

Lilley has a record of consistently voting against policy measures to tackle climate change, including in 2008 when he was one of only five MPs to vote against the UK’s Climate Change Act.⁹ ¹⁰

He is a former member of the Government’s Environmental Audit Committee and the UK Parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee, which examined the policies of the government’s now-defunct Department of Energy and Climate Change.¹¹ ¹²

According to parliamentary records, between 2006 and 2014 Lilley was a Non-Executive Director and Vice Chairman of Tethys Petroleum, a Cayman Islands-based oil and gas company with drilling operations in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.¹³ ¹⁴

In 2012, he earned £47,000 from the role and received share options worth at least $400,000, according to an article in the Guardian.¹⁵ ¹⁶ ¹⁷

A DeSmog investigation revealed in 2012 that Lilley was being paid $300 an hour to advise an Indian company building a coal-fired power station.¹⁸

In 2018, Lilley was revealed as one of a five-member “expert committee” set up in October 2017 by International Trade Secretary Liam Fox days before a crunch EU summit over a Brexit deal. A Department for International Trade spokesperson said the committee existed to advise officials on “matters related to trade and investment.”¹⁹

Stance on Climate Change

November 5, 2009

During a debate in the House of Commons, Lilly declared:²⁰

“The Government and the alarmists have to concoct a lot of feedbacks that so far have not manifested themselves to predict that in future we will see far higher rises in temperature from a given increase in CO2 than we have in the past. I am neither a denier of the science nor an alarmist. I am a lukewarmist, if one likes […] I am a global lukewarmist, and I take seriously[…]”

Lilley continued, contending there is no scientific consensus on climate change “at the alarmist end of the spectrum”:

“A lot of fairy stories are attached to and latched on to a genuine scientific concern. The first fairy tale, which the Government foster, is the idea that there is total consensus in science at the alarmist end of the spectrum. […] The simple fact is that the science is not resolved. A lot of serious scientists think that although there is a measure of impact—I agree with that—the alarmist views are not upheld by the science. A majority may well disagree with the scientists to whom I have referred.”

Key Quotes

March 11, 2022

In an op-ed for the Telegraph, Lilley wrote that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the UK’s concerns about energy security may mark a turning point in the government’s commitment to reach net zero. Lilley added that the ban on new oil and gas production was “virtue signalling” and should be reversed, writing: “It is sheer hypocrisy to curb domestic oil and gas production yet import fossil fuels instead. Worse than hypocritical, it is perverse – since importing LNG involves far higher emissions to liquefy, transport and regasify than using our own gas. So, it slows achieving Net Zero.”²¹

Lilley also claimed that the UK is “endowed with huge amounts” of methane gas and said that the choice to maintain the 2019 ban on fracking demonstrated that “our politicians appear to have succumbed to a campaign mounted by eco-extremists”.

February 8, 2022

Speaking to the Guardian about the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG), a group of Conservative MPs arguing that the government’s net zero commitments are too costly, Lilley said:²²

“Whenever the cost of decarbonising has become a political issue, the advocates – the opponents of imposing those costs on people’s budgets – have won. Look at the gilet jaunes in France, the Netherlands municipal elections, the Australian elections. People agree with tackling global warming in the abstract – but they aren’t prepared to pay for something that won’t have an impact perhaps for a century or more.”

June 12, 2019

In a debate in the House of Lords on a proposed “net zero emissions” target for the UK, Lilley said:²³

“My Lords, I draw your attention to my interest as a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The Government have embarked on a policy that will result in one of the most expensive programmes since the introduction of the welfare state, without first carrying out a cost-benefit analysis. Is that not extraordinary given that when the previous target was raised from 60% to 80%, in the Government’s estimates the cost more than doubled? Going from 80% to 100% will certainly more than double it again.

“The Chancellor believes that it will cost a trillion pounds, which could otherwise be spent on welfare programmes, health and education; the UN climate committee believes it will cost at least twice what the Treasury estimates; and the New Zealand Government have estimated that it will cost five times as much relative to their economy, as has been suggested. Given that, is it not irrational to enter this, as any, policy programme without first estimating the costs and calculating the benefits? Why are we doing it?”

December 17, 2009

Lilley wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion article entitled “Global Warming as Groupthink,” in which he declared:²⁴

“The tendency of those committed to the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming to unquestioningly adopt the assumptions, at every stage, that maximize the expectation of calamity should alert us that groupthink is driving the movement.”

November 23, 2009

Lilley appeared on RT to discuss the so-called “ClimateGate” affair, where he declared:²⁵

“[Scientists] try to change the facts rather than trying to change their theory. […]”

“I feel certain from reading a lot of the emails and the documents that they were adjusting the data, manipulating the data, concealing the doubts they had internally and continuing to express certainty externally. There’s even example of the computer codes that they’ve adjusted to cut off the evidence of the recent period of global cooling. For the last decade, the world hasn’t heated up as their theories suggest it should have done. Indeed, it has cooled slightly.

[…] And likewise they’ve altered the data in the past, or they’ve selected data from the past which has wiped out the evidence of the so-called medieval warming period when the world was probably warmer than it is now, because after all if it was warmer then without us all burning lots of hydrocarbons, it’s suggests that the hydrocarbons aren’t the only things that cause the temperature and the climate to change.”

“I personally—I’m a physicist by training, long ago—accept that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will produce a modest warming in the climate, but nothing like the alarmist fears which these scientists have been trying to generate or that lie behind the Copenhagen conference.”

November 19, 2008

Speaking about the Stern Report in a Commons debate, Lilley said:²⁶

“My overall position on global warming is that, as a physicist — I studied physics at Cambridge — I am not one of those who deny that carbon dioxide emissions heat the planet. They do have that effect, although there is less certainty about how much the complex feedback effects that climate models seek to replicate may amplify the comparatively modest effect of increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Nonetheless, in my view it is wise to take measures to prevent and to adapt to global warming, and it is sensible to try to assess the costs and benefits of action and inaction to ensure that we adopt the most cost-effective approach.”

“The simple fact is that, since the beginning of this century, the average global temperature has flatlined; indeed, over the past 18 months it has fallen back, and according to the satellite measurements of temperature, it is now basically back at the level it was in 1979, when such measurements started to be taken.”

November 5, 2009

In a Commons debate, Lilley declared:²⁷

“I hope that we will listen to those scientists, many of whom are in Government employ, who have warned against alarmist views, and that we will take a more consensual view of the basic minimum science that is agreed and open that up to debate and discussion, without trying to silence those who disagree by calling them “deniers” and equating them with holocaust deniers. As I said, I am not a denier-I am a lukewarmer-but even those who deny the existence of anthropological global warning deserve to be heard, just as the alarmists do, and it is sad that we have heard only one or two such views expressed in the House today.”

Key Actions

October 29, 2022

In an op-ed for The Telegraph, Lilley called the concerns of anti-fracking activists baseless and compared them to “anti-vaxxers.”²⁸

“Most people would discover that the anti-fracking lobby’s scare stories are as baseless as those of the anti-vaxxers,” he wrote.

“Despite the scaremongering, more than a million shale wells have been drilled in North America without a single report of a building being destroyed by subsequent micro-seismic tremors,” he claimed. “Nor has a single person been poisoned by contaminated aquifers.”

“The only hope of overcoming this problem would be for the Government to invite Labour in, to discuss issues such as national security concerns and how to assess local support – and ask shadow ministers to pledge to honour permits awarded before the election, if they win. It is just possible that Labour would consent, to display patriotism and distance themselves from militant eco-warriors. If not, they would stand condemned for sabotaging energy security, increasing emissions and overriding local decisions.”

He went on to warn the Conservative Government that if it takes sole blame for “stiffing shale-gas development, they may well lose a slice of voters to the Faragist parties at the next election.”³⁰

April 15, 2021

Lilley was one of 13 members appointed to the House of Lords’ Environment and Climate Change Committee, a panel examining the environmental impacts of government policy, The Independent reported. Referring to environmentalists who had criticised his appointment as “alarmists,” Lilley told The Independent that he “may ask inconvenient questions about what scientific evidence there is for alarmist claims.³¹

April 27, 2020

According to Companies House, Lilley’s role as a trustee and director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) was terminated. He did not respond to a request for comment from DeSmog.³²

May 16, 2019

Lilley took part in a House of Lords debate on the teaching of climate science, in which he said:³³

“…let children know that the impact of CO2 is well established by observations and can be measured, and that the direct effect of doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will be a one degree centigrade increase in the average temperature of the globe.”

A previous fact-check by Carbon Brief detailed numerous studies that predict a substantially higher temperature rise.³⁴

November 22, 2018

Lilley attended an event organised by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) in the House of Commons to mark the 10 year anniversary of the UK‘s Climate Change Act. Both the GWPF and Lilley have repeatedly opposed the Act, claiming it “burdened consumers with extraordinary costs.”³⁵

For the occasion, the GWPF launched a report which blames the Climate Change Act “and other anti-fossil-fuel policies” for “worsening” fuel poverty in the UK.³⁶

It claims that “rather than solving climate change, the only detectable effect of the Climate Change Act has been to sustain levels of energy poverty that politicians from all parties had promised to abolish.” The report was written by climate science denier Rupert Darwall.³⁷

Speaking at the event, Lilley said: “I decided to vote against the Climate Change Act when I read the impact assessment which showed that the potential cost was twice the prospective benefit. Ten years later the costs are coming home to roost and the benefits remain illusory.”³⁸

March 23, 2018

A DeSmog investigation revealed that Lilley was one of a five-member “expert committee” closely advising then International Trade Secretary Liam Fox on “matters related to trade and investment”. Other members included Ruth Lea, a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and Shanker Singham, Fellow of International Trade and Competition at the Institute of Economic Affairs.³⁹

January 2018

Lilley was involved in a Channel 4 sting over politicians being offered cash to advise on Brexit. Lilley denied the allegations and reported Channel 4 to Ofcom over the programme.⁴⁰ ⁴¹

April 2017

Ahead of the UK 2017 General Election Lilley stepped down as an MP for Hitchin and Harpenden after 34 years with the Conservative Party.⁴²

December 2016

Lilley wrote a report entitled “The Cost of the Climate Change Act” for the GWPF. In it he claims that climate policy will cost the nation £319 billion.⁴³

July 2015

Lilley joined the GWPF along with Labour MP Graham Stringer as members of the Board of Trustees.⁴⁴ ⁴⁵

July 2014

Lilley was one of two MPs to vote against the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s acceptance of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of global warming.⁴⁶

During this same month, Lilley attended a meeting in the House of Commons organised by climate science denier and Northern Ireland politician Sammy Wilson. The meeting was organised on behalf of “Repeal the Act,” a group that argues the “climate is always changing” and seeks to repeal the UK’s Climate Change Act.⁴⁷

October 30, 2012

Lilley wrote a letter to the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards complaining about the broadcaster’s “systemic bias” in its climate change reporting.⁴⁸

September 2012

Peter Lilley wrote a report for the GWPF entitled “What is Wrong with Stern: The Failings of the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change.” Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, described Lilley’s GWPF report as being based on “misrepresentations and bad economics.“⁴⁹ ⁵⁰

October 2008

Lilley was one of only three MPs who voted against the Climate Change Act. He claimed one reason for doing so was because it was snowing in October which he argued showed winters weren’t warming.⁵¹ ⁵²

Affiliations

@LilleyPeter on Twitter
Peter Lilley on LinkedIn: Profile 1, Profile 2

Publications

According to his bio, Lilley is the author of several publications including:⁶³

Do You Sincerely Want to Win? -Defeating Terrorism in Ulster, 1972
Lessons for Power, 1974
Delusions of Income Policy (co-written with Samuel Brittan), 1977
End of the Keynesian Era (contributor), 1980
Thatcherism, the Next Generation, 1989
The Mais Lecture Benefits and Costs: Securing the Future of the Social Security, 1993
Patient Power (published by Demos) 2000
Commonsense on Cannabis (Social Market Foundation) 2001
Taking Liberties (Adam Smith Institute) 2002
Save Our Pensions (Social Market Foundation) 2003
Identity Crisis – the case against ID Cards (Bow Group) 2005
Immigration – too much of a good thing? (Centre for Policy Studies) 2005