Memorandum submitted by William Wilson
(CCB 39)
BACKGROUND
I am very grateful to the Efra Committee for
this opportunity to discuss the draft Climate Change Bill. I have
specialised in environmental law for 17 years. For nearly 10 years
I worked on environmental laws at the Solicitors Office of the
DoE/DETR/Defra, for example as the legal manager of the Environment
Act 1995 and the Water Industry Act 1993, undertook negotiations
on the Water Framework Directive and gave advice on air quality,
radioactive substances, water, waste, environmental regulation
and other aspects of environmental law.
Since 2001 I have worked as a Barrister at the
Environmental Law Unit at Burges Salmon LLP, Solicitors in Bristol
on environmental and energy law; and have also been a Director
of the environmental policy consultancy Cambrensis Ltd. At Cambrensis
we advise companies and governments on issues of environmental
policy and regulation, and have also held a series of workshops
and seminars over the last four years on emerging environmental
issues, for a mixed audience of representatives of industry, science,
academia and government, including, in December 2006 one on "Communicating
Climate Change".
In 1996-97 I spent a year on secondment as a
Harkness Fellow based in Portland, Oregon and visiting 25 US States
while writing "Making Environmental Laws Work : Law and
Policy in the UK and USA", in which I tried to compare
approaches which made environmental laws effective or ineffective,
with examples from the UK, USA and EU.
Amongst my main conclusions were that building
long-term public support for environmental legislation—by
participation, explanation and response to real public concerns—was
essential, and law making processes that got too far away from
that idea (including the way that EU Directives were negotiated)
risked the laws being not understood or defended by the public
when they were challenged. I also admired the way in which those
involved in making environmental laws in Oregon had to go out
to discuss and explain them in town meetings across the State—something
I never had to do when working on either UK or EU legislation.
I would like to see the officials responsible for this Bill taking
it out to public meetings in the regions across the UK.
Members of the Efra Committee will best know
how much their constituents know about this Bill and the machinery
that it will introduce, and will have their own ideas about how
to ensure that the public understand and support the Bill's objectives,
rather than regarding it as something imposed upon them.
COMMENTS ON
THE DRAFT
CLIMATE CHANGE
BILL
I have the following short comments on this
Bill, which I generally welcome as an unusual and determined attempt
to address an extremely important issue-
|
Efra Committee
Terms of Reference
| Topic | Comments
|
|
| 5 | Accountability and enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance with targets, and sanctions in cases of non-compliance.
| There are some circumstances in which a court might intervene in a judicial review challenge; for example if the Secretary of State was acting wholly inconsistently with the targets and budgets, or (if there was a requirement written into the Bill for a more detailed action plan), by failing to take specific steps. But the real accountability and sanctions involved here are the risks of adverse public opinion, a bad press and Parliamentary pressure.
|
| 9 | Reporting procedure and Parliamentary accountability
| I suggest that the reporting procedure should, if possible, be more timely (rather than two years late), and should deliver much more up to date information on the EU and international aspects and negotiations, which will affect all the budgets and targets. It is artificial to describe national policy as if it was unaffected by what the Secretary of State may negotiate at the EU or international level, for example on the inclusion in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme of aviation and shipping emissions or different greenhouse gases.
|
| 11, 12 | Committee on Climate Change
| I think the range of factors that this Committee is asked to take into account—see Clause 5(2), and Schedule 1 para 1(3)—is much too wide, and the risk is that it will get bogged down, or say that it needs a much bigger budget and many more staff. I suggest that what is needed is a really authoritative scientific advisory committee, focussing on the best available advice on the issue of climate change in the UK, in the EU and internationally, and on what can be done to address it. It should be for government to make the choices about competing priorities, rather than requiring them to be reconciled in the scientific advice.
|
| 16 | Enabling powers | These are very wide, but maybe a more effective form of Parliamentary accountability and transparency would be achieved by a requirement for Parliament to be informed and consulted, for example on new proposals to make new emissions trading schemes, rather than to have the affirmative resolution procedure, and a "Yes or No" vote without the opportunity to make constructive amendments.
|
|
William Wilson
Director, Cambrensis Ltd
Barrister, Environmental Law Unit, Burges Salmon LLP, Bristol
May 2007
|
|
