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David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): Does my hon. Friend not agree that set as we may undershoot our CO 2 emission reduction targets by about 25 per cent., as reported by the Environmental Audit Committee, to pass up what the White Paper called the cheapest, cleanest and safest way to reduce carbon emissions—energy efficiency—seems perverse, to put it mildly?
Brian White: My hon. Friend makes the key point. Energy efficiency is the best and most effective way to achieve our goals. Whether we are talking about tackling climate change, reducing carbon emissions or taking people out of fuel poverty, energy efficiency is a key policy instrument that the Government must use. By embracing the Lords amendment, the Government would be going with the flow, rather than trying to find a justification for resisting it, when everyone interested in the issue knows that the White Paper provided the right aspiration and the right policy.
In May, during the debates on the Energy Bill in Committee, the Minister said that the energy commitment would be reviewed in 2007—he has repeated that today—but he also thought that the non-statutory commitment would lead to a substantial stepping up of activity. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. If I am right and the increase has not been sufficient, not holding the review until 2007, with implementation in 2008, leaves very little time to achieve our goals.
The Minister also said that dialogue with the industry was needed to ensure that the serious disappointment that has been expressed until now does not recur, but that disappointment has been reinforced by the resistance to this very sensible Lords amendment. We have been down this route before with combined heat and power, when we made similar statements with consequences for the CHP industry. We are in danger of doing the same with energy efficiency.
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I have often quoted Bryan Carsberg saying that regulators think that if something is not in the statute, it does not exist. What is true for regulators is also true for officials. Such a proposal has been around for a long time. Indeed, it was part of my original Sustainable Energy Bill. When a ministerial reshuffle took place during the consideration of that Bill, officials said that they would oppose it, although it had been agreed before, and their words are etched on my brain:
That is the nub of the problem, and those words struck home. If officials do not see something in statute and do not agree with it, it will not happen. There must be a statutory requirement to allow officials to act. That is why the performance and innovation unit's report was so important and why the energy White Paper was so insistent on the 20 per cent. target.
Everyone agrees that the era of low energy prices, which helped to lift millions out of fuel poverty, is over. We are in a different global environment, so we must consider how to take more people out of fuel poverty. At a recent energy company's annual general meeting, someone said:
"The consequences for companies that do not act responsibly and take steps to assess and mitigate risks posed by climate change will be just as devastating as the recent corporate scandals."
What is true for companies is also true for Governments.
Next summer, the UK will hold the presidencies of the G8 and the EU, and the Prime Minister has rightly made tackling climate change a key objective. Never has the old adage "Think global, act local" been so true. If we do not take on board the Lords amendment, we will negate all the words we use and cause problems at home and abroad. It will give our opponents—whether political opponents at home or countries that oppose the Kyoto protocol—the excuse not to take the action that is desperately needed if we are to take climate change seriously.
The Prime Minister is right to focus on the international context next year, but we do not need to erect unnecessary barriers, which we will do if we do not accept the Lords amendment. We can hardly criticise the United State if we seem to run away from a sensible amendment. This ought to be a no-brainer, given the list of people who support the target, which includes the energy industry, energy efficiency companies, campaigners from various non-governmental organisation, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Women's Institute, Shelter and tenants' organisations.
All the political parties signed up to the proposal—all their green wings have endorsed it—and some 340 MPs from all parties signed up to the aspiration. The wording of the early-day motion was carefully discussed with Ministers and officials, and the figures were checked with officials several times. All of them suggested a figure of 20 per cent, not 16 per cent. The 20 per cent. figure was reaffirmed on 24 occasions, 15 of which were ministerial statements. It was confirmed only a few days before the actual target was announced.
The Minister says that there is only a small difference between targets of 16 and 20 per cent., so why is it a problem to accept the Lords amendment as a basis on
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which we can move forward? There is a mechanism by which we can go above the target, but we need a statutory floor. Whatever words the Government use, they will send a clear message by disagreeing with the Lords amendment: the matter is not a priority, and the market need not deliver because slippage is okay. That message would be totally wrong. It would go against everything that the Government are trying to do and all the good things that Departments have done.
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend accept that the all-party warm homes group has taken evidence showing that industry wants to invest in products that would lead to greater energy efficiency? That would create jobs, so there would be a win-win situation all round: we would not only reduce CO 2 emissions and the utility bills of people in fuel poverty, but increase jobs in industry.
Brian White: As I say, this should be a no-brainer. I ask the Minister to rethink his position and accept the Lords amendment. I do not understand why he wants to turn the win-win situation that my hon. Friend described into a no win situation in which we would be accused of reneging on commitments. The story that we have to tell is good, and we have made excellent achievements, so we need to seize the opportunity of achieving a long-held Labour aspiration. We should not give our political opponents a stick with which to beat us, or erect unnecessary barriers that would hinder next year's G8 negotiations.
Matthew Green (Ludlow) (LD): The Minister described the figures as a shifting, moving picture. The shifting and moving has been on the Government's part, because they have moved from their stated target of 5 megatonnes of carbon down to 4.2 megatonnes. He says that that would result in a 19 per cent. target on carbon rather than a 20 per cent. one, and asks what everyone is getting so worked up about. I suspect that the figure is closer to 18 per cent. than 19 per cent.—
Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) (Lab): It is 16 per cent.
Matthew Green: Well, the reduction would be 16 per cent., but the Minister said that the overall effect would be equivalent to a 19 per cent. target. However, if the difference between the targets is so small, why will the Government not agree to the 20 per cent. target? Why is a target of 19 per cent. more achievable than one of 20 per cent.? The Government must know something that the rest of us do not. There must be a reason why a 19 per cent. target can be achieved easily, but 20 per cent. is out of reach. I am struggling to understand what that is, so when the Minister winds up the debate, I hope that he will set out why the Government are confident that they will meet the 19 per cent. target, yet fail to meet 20 per cent. The projections that his officials are making must be really tight to enable him to reach that conclusion.
By my count, at least 150 Labour Members signed the early-day motion—[Hon. Members: "Over 200."] I am being told that the figure is more than 200. [Interruption.] Well, the bigger the number gets, the
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more uncomfortable the Minister looks. I hope that the Labour Members who signed the early-day motion will back that up with their votes.
There is a lot of good in the Bill—[Interruption.] There are some bad things as well. However, as there is a lot of good in it, we do not want to descend into a process of ping-pong between the Lords and the Commons. The easiest way for us to avoid that would be to accept the Lords amendment. If Labour Members were to stick to their guns, we would not have to send the Bill back to the Lords because we could pass it now. That would get the Minister out of a bind, because it would make the Whips happy if we did not get into ping-pong. The Minister used to be a Whip, so he knows all about that.
Hon. Members have posed good questions already, yet the Minister made great play of the fact that the target in the amendment is only just above the Government's proposal, but if there is such a small difference, the higher target must be achievable, unless he knows something that the rest of us do not. It is very strange for the Government to say that we should resist the amendment because we will get awfully close to the target in it anyway, but that is essentially the position that they have adopted.
I hope that the Minister will make the difference between the targets clear and explain why there is so much at stake that he will resist the amendment. Energy efficiency has been described as one of the Government's key objectives, and proposals have been made by the Cabinet Office performance and innovation unit, so there is clearly support for it high up in Government. The Government's Sustainable Development Commission has used the 20 per cent. figure, and we have heard that it has been cited in letters even recently. I do not understand why the Minister is resisting the amendment. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) described the decision as a no-brainer, so the Minister must come clean and tell us what is at stake if we change the target from 19 to 20 per cent.
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