Mr.
Gummer: I want to bring the Minister back to a possible
way through. He has said that there is nothing here with which he
disagrees in principle, but I commend to him a discussion that I had
with lawyers in the Department of the Environment when I arrived there.
I brought them in and said that while I was Secretary of State I did
not expect them to find reasons why I could not do what I wanted to do;
their job was to find out how I could do what I wanted to do, but do it
legally. Will he undertake to ask the lawyers, “In this Bill,
how can I express it so that in removing clause 1 I do not give any
quarter to those who would suggest that I am in some way undermining
the Bill?”? If he were prepared to do so, I for one would be
happy to support him, because I know he would do it honestly, and the
Committee would be perfectly happy with that—even those who do
not feel too unhappy about leaving out clause
1.
Mr.
Woolas: The right hon. Gentleman has made a fair point. My
considerations are partly domestic, in that I need to show the
Opposition, Labour Members and other interests that the
Government’s opposition to clause 1 is not in any way based on
an opposition to its objective. As the right hon. Members for Suffolk,
Coastal and for Penrith and The Border know, it is very important that
as our deliberations are followed in the international forum we do not
signal a lack of commitment to that objective. I will come on to what I
intend to do about that in a
moment. Miss
Anne McIntosh (Vale of York) (Con): The Minister has said
that the Government are committed to not more than 2° C above
pre-industrial levels. What benchmark are they going to use to ensure
that they and the rest of Europe do not go above it? That is the
purpose of clause 1—we are not at cross purposes; we are all on
the same side. The Minister is trying to make out that the two targets
are mutually exclusive, but I believe that they are
not.
Mr.
Woolas: The answer is the point that my hon. Friend the
Member for Bury, North made: the Government’s target concerns
carbon emissions in the UK, which is commensurate with our contribution
to an international effort to cap at 2° C—or to hope to
cap at 2° C. There is agreement about that, but my point is that
it is within the power of the Secretary of State—I should say
“Secretaries of State”, collectively, because that is the
legal meaning of “Secretary of State”—to do what,
within our carbon account, we have the power to do. My only difficulty
with clause 1, as I have said three times, concerns subsection (2),
which states:
“The
functions under this Act must be exercised with the objective of
achieving the principal aim of this
Act.” I
am trying to avoid a problem for a future Government not for the
existing Government, as I hope I have explained. If I can finish my
argument, I shall be able to satisfy the hon.
Lady. Mr.
Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP): Will the Minister indulge a
slightly cynical lawyer? He has discussed the 60 per cent. reduction
target being sufficient, but clause 3 gives Ministers the
power to amend it up or down. It may be amended upwards, but it could
be amended downwards, and the impact assessment mentions changes, such
as significant increases
“in the price of
gas on international markets, or the pace of development in a new
technology”, so
there are ways in which Ministers will be able amend the target. Is
there not an argument for maintaining clause 1 because it provides for
the principal aim of the 2° C reduction, irrespective of what
happens to the target?
Mr.
Woolas: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on an ingenious
argument, but the answer is the same—in my view, it would be
folly for the British legislature to pretend that it can legislate on
something that it cannot control. That is my simple point. The
proponents of the clause say that the Bill does not do that, but the
advice that I have received indicates that it does. I cannot envisage
circumstances in which the emissions target would be reduced, but the
point of clause 2 is to set the carbon budgets to provide a target and
trajectories, which we will come on to.
The hon.
Member for Cheltenham asked about the contraction and convergence
policy. I was interested to note that the hon. Member for Vale of York,
on behalf of the Opposition, accepted it as their policy. In Delhi and
Beijing, they will be very interested to read that. To be fair, there
is a different interpretation of contraction and convergence. It is
normally taken to mean the coming together of per capita emissions, and
in Delhi the Prime Minister made it clear that in international
negotiations, the Government would be open to arguments that lead to
such a policy. However, it would be pre-emptive to accept it now. The
hon. Member for Cheltenham is right in the sense that we accept the
historical responsibility of industrialised countries such as our own.
The hon. Gentleman also discussed the cumulative impact, on which he
was absolutely right. It is important that we understand and explain to
the public that the most important factor is not the end target but the
trajectory to get there. He also asked about the amendments on carrier
bags, and they will be available tomorrow. I am sorry that they will
not have been available before.
I am trying to
draw my arguments to a conclusion, because time is running on and my
hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden is frowning at me. The
simple point is that there is a difference between UK emissions being
the responsibility of the United Kingdom and the temperature in the UK
being the responsibility of not just the United Kingdom. That is the
main
point. Martin
Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): I will try not to labour the
point yet again but the action mandated in clause 1 is still a
reduction in UK emissions, and not in
global temperatures, which would clearly be implausible. Will the
Minister not take up the invitation of the right hon. Member for
Suffolk, Coastal and return to the lawyers to see whether there is a
way through this problem, especially as we seem to be more or less
united in what we are trying to express? In particular, we should
consider whether the principle of convergence should be reflected in
clause 1, because that seems to be a get-out in the sense that we can
only converge if other people are doing likewise, which means that we
would not be unilaterally bound to international
targets.
Mr.
Woolas: Given the stage that we are at, and in answer to
the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, I undertake—I have
already started—to find a way to achieve what we all want to
achieve, which is to make the 2° target our
target.
Mr.
Hurd: On that point, I wonder whether the Minister and his
advisers will turn to clause 33 and the Committee on Climate Change for
a possible way in which to make the link with 2°, the importance
of which everyone agrees on. The Committee will be required to advise
the Government on the adequacy of the target in December. I do not know
whether the terms of reference are public, but I assume that they will
be. The Committee on Climate Change could be required to make some form
of judgment on the compatibility of the target with the 2° goal,
which could be made explicit in clause
33.
Mr.
Woolas: The hon. Gentleman has made a very interesting
point. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test made the
suggestion, which was backed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury,
North, that we could include the 2° in the long title of the
Bill, but other hon. Members have urged another solution. My answer to
the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal is that I undertake to try
to find a way to meet the objective for reasons not only of domestic
politics but of helping the UK’s standing in international
negotiations. As I understand it, the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood
has suggested placing a cap on the remit of the independent Committee
on Climate Change.
Mr.
Hurd: My understanding is that the Committee on Climate
Change will be required to give some form of judgment or advice on the
adequacy of the targets and the carbon budgets. All I am suggesting is
that part of its terms of reference for that public advice should be a
judgment on the compatibility of the target and the budget with the
2°
goal.
Mr.
Woolas: I am more than happy—the hon. Gentleman
knows me well enough to understand that when I say that I mean
it—to consider a way in which we can satisfy the demands of my
hon. Friends and the Opposition to achieve the point about the
2°. I repeat my simple point that clause 2 enshrines 2°
but does not express it. I know that people both domestically and
internationally will be looking for that.
As ever, our
policy is based on science. That is why I wish to achieve a
satisfactory way forward. The hon. Member for Vale of York asked about
the policy of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory
Reform, but I do not accept her point. The Department has looked at how
we can make the targets real, and I believe that we have shown good
leadership on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, to whom
I owe a great debt for my education in life and politics—he was
my tutor in geography and other matters, and I have listened to him
ever since—is absolutely right on this point and has made a very
powerful argument. 4.30
pm Indeed,
I was worried that my hon. Friend would not support my point of view,
because if he had not supported it, he would have destroyed my
arguments, so I was very grateful that he accepted my point. He said,
and he is right, that we cannot legislate on the temperature. We can
pass a law to control emissions, but we cannot pass a law to control
the temperature—I wish that we could. He made the point that the
Bill legally obliges the Government to act towards meeting a target on
emissions that is commensurate with the 2° C policy that hon.
Members have asked for.
My hon. Friend
also pointed out that we could not pass a law that obliged us to
protect polar bears, and he is right. Let me use an analogy—I
see that the hon. Member for Cheltenham is scratching his head; I had
to listen to him, so he has to listen to me now. We could pass a law
that said that we must protect polar bears. However, it is possible
that in the future the Governments of the United States of America, of
Canada and of Russia could decide to kill polar bears, perhaps on the
grounds of protecting other species or for another reason that we
cannot predict. Because the Bill places a legal obligation on the
Government and on future Governments to act in accordance with the
target in clause 2, under any circumstances it would be illegal for the
Government of the day not to act in protection of polar bears.
Therefore, if the United States of America, Russia and Canada were to
decide to cull all polar bears, the legal obligation on the Government
of the day would be to declare war on Russia, Canada and the United
States of America.
David
Maclean (Penrith and The Border) (Con): Hear,
hear.
Mr.
Woolas: The analogy is sound. The right hon. Gentleman
teases me, and I know that my analogy is extreme, but I think that
statutorily my point is
valid.
Mr.
Woolas: Scotland is about to join in the
action.
Mr.
Weir: Will the Minister accept that his analogy is not
only extreme but wrong? The obligation would be to look after the
interests of polar bears within the UK, in other words within zoos and
breeding programmes, and not in the wild, just as this obligation to
look after 2° C relates to the UK and not the
world.
Mr.
Woolas: That is my point. Clearly, we could not do so. I
will stop the analogy there, Mr. Cook, because you are
getting fed up. However, my point is that the implication of clause 1,
which is unintended but nevertheless real, is that it would do exactly
what I said it would do.
Miss
McIntosh: The Minister has said that he does not believe
that the Government can legislate against temperature rising. However,
this experiment with laptops in Committee might contribute to rising
temperature, and the Government could change people’s behaviour
by legislating to stop such experiments, if we were to reach that
conclusion. So there are mechanisms that the Government can use to
achieve the Minister’s aim of a temperature rise no higher than
2° C, and I am not convinced by the Minister’s
argument.
Mr.
Woolas: I will not be drawn into laptops, Mr.
Cook, because you will not let me. I have been advised that the total
carbon footprint of UK personal computers is greater than the total UK
carbon footprint of aviation—I just note that for a later
debate. Let
me put on the record an argument based on an understanding of the law
and what clause 1 is trying to do. I urge hon. Members to look at
clause 1(2), which concerns “functions under this
Act”: “The
functions under this Act must be exercised with the objective of
achieving the principal aim of this
Act.” That
aim is expressed in clause 1(1). That means in law that all functions
of the Act must be subservient to that principal purpose. For instance,
because of part 5 of the Bill, a local authority would need to consider
the impact on global temperatures when deciding to introduce a waste
scheme. More
importantly, let me look at the role of the Secretary of State and
their decisions on carbon budgets. Under part 5 of the Bill, in 2016
the Secretary of State will need to set the carbon budget for 2028 to
2032. Let us suppose that in eight years’ time, between now and
2016, the UK has made good progress in reducing our emissions by
setting and meeting ambitious carbon budgets. However, suppose that
over the same eight years emissions in the rest of the world have
increased significantly. Let us suppose for the sake of
argument—I believe that this is a realistic
assessment—that the science has got more pessimistic, which my
hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test has referred to. In such a
situation, because of the point eloquently made by the right hon.
Member for Suffolk, Coastal that this is an epoch-making piece of
legislation that sets a new paradigm, we would be responsible for the
future. Even with the addition of the amendments, which were tabled
with the good intent of trying to meet some of the points, clause 1
would still require us to set that 2028 to 2032 carbon budget with the
aim of achieving a 2° C cap, because—this is the crucial
point—it is an ongoing
duty. That
duty must be met every time a function is exercised under the Bill, no
matter what the rest of the world has done, which is a fundamental
point. Either one has a target for the Bill that is within one’s
control—an emissions reduction based on a 2° C
objective—or one has a target that is dependent on others in the
world and on science.
I hope that I
have convinced the Committee that clause 1 is an intention that we
wholeheartedly support—indeed, the UK’s investment in the
international community and the European Union is based on
it. The European Union itself has a policy based on that, but not a
policy that is enshrined in EU law for the same reasons.
I accept the
invitation from hon. Members to find a way to enshrine 2° C
within the Bill, if I can. Suggestions have been made, and I am
grateful for the positive way in which they have been put. My argument
is that clause 1, as Lord Rooker said in the other place, would serve
to undermine that intent in practice, because it would create
difficulty for future Governments—I am talking about some time
in the future—in meeting the exact point that people are trying
to
reach.
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