Examination of Witness (Questions 40-57)
RT HON
DAVID MILIBAND
MP
4 JUNE 2007
Q40 Colin Challen: Carries on, but
in the light of those technological difficulties, and perhaps
the financial complexities of introducing such a scheme, are you
moving towards a position where you think that the benefits of
such a scheme would outweigh those difficulties?
David Miliband: I have always
been clear that if you can make it work the benefits are large.
44% of emissions are household emissions. You have got to make
sure it is workable and equitable, and that is what we are trying
to look at at the moment. The fact that organisations are actually
piloting it is a good thing.
Q41 Colin Challen: It is certainly
true that the RSA are doing a lot of work and Tyndall have done
a lot of work. Perhaps it is time that the Government itself thought
about introducing a pilot scheme which perhaps would carry a lot
more weight and could be more extensive in its scope so that we
have a far sounder evidence base on which to make a judgment about
our policy.
David Miliband: Because of our
unblemished record of introducing complicated technological solutions
to tricky policy problems!
Q42 Colin Challen: Absolutely.
David Miliband: The schemes that
are being run at the moment are going to reveal quite a lot. I
am not sure that there is a particular need for government to
duplicate that, they seem to me to be covering quite a wide range
of issues.
Q43 Colin Challen: But they can be
kept at arm's length, perhaps, and maybe this idea does need a
greater push for it to be properly examined and, given the urgency
of the problem, that should be a feature of the way that we do
think of developing it.
David Miliband: I had not actually
thought of that. We could think about it. No one has said to me
that the pilot schemes that are going on at the moment are not
covering the issues in a serious way. If you found that the pilot
schemes that were being run were not covering the right things
then I suppose you could make a stronger argument for government
doing it.
Q44 Colin Challen: Being involved
in one of them quite closely, I would nevertheless say that a
government scheme perhaps just looking at the introduction of
personal carbon allowances in a more limited sense—
David Miliband: What, geographically
or limited—
Q45 Colin Challen: Possibly that
way or just looking at domestic emissions rather than across the
whole field, including transport, you could actually get a lot
more information when no policy of this sort has ever been attempted
before, so it does require perhaps more than just the resources,
no matter how good they are, of the RSA and the Tyndall Centre
to examine it.
David Miliband: Let me think about
that. That has not been raised as an issue before so let me think
about that.
Q46 Colin Challen: Would you be surprised
if the idea emerged in any of the main party manifestos in time
for the next General Election in any shape or form?
David Miliband: What do you mean,
"Would I be surprised"? Do you mean do I think it would
be shocking?
Q47 Colin Challen: I am just asking
you, would you be surprised to see the idea in a party manifesto?
It might be in the Green Party manifesto but since nobody pays
any attention to them very much—
David Miliband: Oh, dear.
Q48 Colin Challen: I am asking whether
or not you would be surprised if one of the main parties put that
in their manifesto.
David Miliband: I think it is
something that all the main parties will think about, yes.
Q49 Colin Challen: Okay. I hope that
is a recommendation.
David Miliband: I only have an
input into one of the main parties' manifestos; it is for others
to decide what they do.
Q50 Colin Challen: It will be interesting
to see what others do, particularly in this field. The policy
itself has been criticised on many grounds, of course, some on
civil liberties grounds, if you introduce this universal carbon
card, but also it would affect people living in remote areas or
people who live in large, leaky, non-draught proofed houses. Do
you think that the kind of work we are doing at the moment examining
the idea is really going to eke out the question of equitable
distribution?
David Miliband: I think it can
make quite a big contribution to it. My view on this is that if
you are in government and you have been in government for 10 years
and you are unwilling to look at ideas that, to quote you, "have
not been tried before" then you are asking for trouble, you
are asking for political trouble, because you are basically saying,
"We are so stale and so stuck in a rut that we are going
to discount all this and we are not the home of radical thinking".
Actually, the fact that we have been in government for 10 years
and we are the Government and the party that is carrying forward
an idea that was described by you—I do not think you will
mind me saying this—when at one meeting you asked whether
or not we were taking it too fast, that suggests to me we are
asking the right questions. My approach to this is that as a party
of Government that has been in 10 years it is right that we are
looking for bold solutions. We have got to test them out, we have
got to make sure they are sensible, we have to make sure that
they are in tune with our values and the considerations of equity
are paramount in that for my party, but it is right that we look
at it. I do not think we should make any excuses about saying
we have not decided but we think it is worth working through.
Q51 Colin Challen: What do you think
it would take to help the idea gain public acceptability? A lot
of people might say that this is simply rationing by the back
door or some other evil which they would not want to contemplate
in a very consumerist society. What actually would convince people
that this was worth it?
David Miliband: I think a workable
plan would help, that has got to be the starting point. It is
one thing to have a thought experiment, it is another thing to
have pilot projects that are ongoing but, as you say, are still
working through. Let us see where we can take it. The other thing
is there are a lot of other things that need to be done in any
case, and certainly as a prelude. While you have not got proper
information for people, either from real-time electricity displays
or from proper labelling on food items, then it is legitimate
for them to say, "Well, hang on, if I don't know how much
damage I'm doing how can you start charging me for it". I
think that is a legitimate point and that is why it is right that
we press ahead on the real-time displays, it is right that we
press ahead on the carbon labelling and it is right that we press
ahead on the public subsidy for some of the basic ideas like cavity
wall insulation and loft insulation, et cetera, for poorer families.
Those are the things we have got to do anyway but they also seem
to me to be the foundation of any scheme that could really work
and because it is a very large enterprise you would want to be
absolutely sure you knew what you were doing before you went into
it.
Q52 Colin Challen: All that is true.
How long do you think it might take before this idea could be
accepted in Government or rejected as being perhaps impractical
or whatever else?
David Miliband: The answer to
that has got to be it depends; it depends what we learn from the
projects that are going on. The RSA project has been going for
maybe just six months. It depends what we find out. If we find
big technical problems then it is obviously going to take longer
than if we do not.
Q53 Mr Hurd: I just want to get this
in the right frame. Is it fair to think of it as a mechanism that
we may well need in the future if the evidence moves to the point
where we are in crisis and carbon rationing is the only way forward
in this and because of the scale of the imminent crisis people
accept it and, therefore, we have to think it through, work it
through and have it ready as a mechanism, or are you saying it
is a sort of ultimate fallback Plan B or is it something that
you see could be coming to the fore as a Plan A?
David Miliband: I do not see it
as a crisis response but, to describe it as Plan A, I am not sure
I would put it like that. It is a mechanism that could be a way
of helping individuals maximise their contribution to the carbon
reduction targets, the emission reduction targets that we have
set in the Climate Change Bill. I do not think it is just a matter
of verbal dancing to say that it is odd to think about it in terms
of rationing because you ration goods, not bads. The point about
pollution is it is a bad.
Q54 Mr Hurd: This is rationing, it
is a cap.
David Miliband: I do not think
it is just a verbal thing because we are trying to establish a
basis on which we minimise the damage that we do to ourselves,
and to future generations admittedly, and that seems to me to
put it into a slightly different camp, or a different place. At
the moment we are all setting out—there is cross-party support
to establish binding emission reduction targets, although there
might be discussion about whether it should be five years, 15
years, et cetera—on that path for the country as a whole
and we have then got to find a way for different sectors, the
economy and a different balance of government and business individuals,
to make their contribution within that overall camp. That is slightly
in brackets, but I am not sure I would describe it as a rationing
mechanism.
Q55 Mr Hurd: I am just trying to
get a sense of the urgency with which Defra is pursuing this.
Is this something that a few bright people are throwing around
in a top room in Defra or is this something where you are saying,
"I need answers on this by X?"
David Miliband: We get to 26%
reduction by 2020 if we implement all the policies that we have
got at the moment, so that is the base on which we are building.
Obviously we want to go further and this is one idea that is worth
thinking through. It is an idea that has greater complexity attached
to it than some of the other ideas that are around. The 26% reduction
that we are on track to achieve, I think I am right in saying,
does not include the zero carbon homes, for example. That is something
that we are definitely going to do and we are putting in a huge
effort jointly between us and the DCLG to get it done. This is
an idea that would dramatise the individual's contribution to
it.
Q56 Chairman: One final topic. Did
you think that the speech by President Bush last week proposing
what appeared to be a sort of separate parallel initiative of
discussions with countries that are large emitters was helpful
just before the G8 and EU Summits which are going to be very concerned
with how we take forward the Kyoto process?
David Miliband: I think that it
is not helpful for anything that muddies the waters about the
primacy of the UN process, but I do not think that is what the
President said in his speech. I read the speech and saw him say
three important things. One, for the first time he committed the
United States to a stabilisation goal. He did not say what it
should be but, nonetheless, the first step to having a stabilisation
goal that is a specific number or figure is you have got to accept
that there should be one and for the first time he has said that
there should be one. Secondly, he said that there should be national
interim targets. He did not say whether they should be sectoral
or for all greenhouse emissions but, nonetheless, he said there
should be interim targets. Thirdly, the speech actually did refer
twice to the UN process, so I think one of the things that is
going to be discussed at the G8 is the relationship between various
ad hoc groupings, which we ourselves have sponsored. Remember
the Gleneagles dialogue, which most people would say has been
a productive process, that has been an ad hoc grouping feeding
into the UN which is ultimately the only body that can establish
legally binding limits. I would describe the President's speech
as an important step forward but one which requires further urgent
and detailed discussion. I am going to the States later today
and I will be trying to say there that America has a huge amount
to contribute to this global battle against climate change, that
it will not be won without the United States. It is obvious that
since it is a global problem no one country can solve it, but
I would confidently say that without the participation of the
United States it will not be solved. Thirdly, the US has a huge
amount to gain from putting itself at the head of this, and increasingly
that is recognised by US states, US cities and US business, and
I hope to learn more about how evangelical groups, politicians,
states, all of whom I am meeting, see that. Obviously the discussion
that needs to go on with the President is the extent to which
he wants to be specific now, for example, about the stabilisation
goals. I think it is important that we see the speech as an important
step forward but one that now needs to be followed by further
steps forward.
Q57 Chairman: We promised to only
keep you an hour, so thank you very much for coming in. There
has been a lot of useful discussion there and I am sure we will
have another chance to pursue this issue with you again in the
future.
David Miliband: Thank you very
much.
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