Mr.
Gummer: May I say on behalf of Opposition Members that we
want the Government to get on as quickly as possible with all these
measures? We are not in the business that the hon. Lady suggests. It is
a tough enough time, and we are wholly supportive of the Government if
they are prepared to do what they say. To suggest otherwise is not only
untrue, but not in the Labour’s party political interest. Please
will she not say that to the
Committee?
Joan
Walley: I am heartened to hear that, and I take note of
what the right hon. Gentleman says. He has a long-standing record on
the environment.
My perspective
is that we need the strongest possible targets in the Bill. The Stern
report makes clear the difference between a 2o C temperature
rise and an even higher rise. If we do not get our targets right at the
start of the Bill, we could experience all sorts of unwanted
consequences that we could have prevented simply by having the
strongest possible targets at this
stage. Later
this week, I shall chair a meeting on public health to consider the
international threat of malaria and other public health issues. All
such public health problems will be exacerbated if we do not set the
right target.
My hon. Friend
the Minister takes a close interest in the work of the Environmental
Audit Committee. In the past couple of years, we have concentrated our
work on the issue of climate change. In an earlier report, the
Committee highlighted the incoherence of the 2° C aim and the 60
per cent. target. We feel that there is a real gap between the
two.
For the
record, may I remind the Committee of the previous recommendations of
the Environmental Audit Committee? The majority of evidence that we
considered suggested strongly that the 60 per cent. target was
inadequate. The target was based on a recommendation made by the Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollution in 2000. The royal
commission’s overarching aim in making the recommendation was
that global warming
should be limited to a rise of no more than 2° C, according to
the science at the time. That was adjudged to require stabilisation of
the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at 550 parts per
million by
mid-century. All
the evidence that we have received points to the fact that, on
scientific evidence alone, we now know—in June
2008—irrespective of what the Committee on Climate Change may
come up with later, that our starting point should be at least 80 per
cent. rather than the more conservative 60 per cent that we have in
front of us
today. In
Victorian times, a colliery in my constituency was the first to produce
more than 1 million tonnes of coal a year. We have a huge debt of
honour to deal with that legacy of carbon that our industrialised
nation has produced. We cannot waste any more time in starting off with
80 per cent. I know that the Minister cannot say to the Committee today
that that is what he will now accept, but many of my colleagues
genuinely believe that, in signing this amendment, they wish the
Government to get the best possible credit for the best possible
target.
With regard to
business and the business community, it is important that we establish
from the outset the certainty with which we expect industry to meet our
objectives. The sooner that we have included in the Bill targets that
are consistent with scientific knowledge but realistic enough for us to
meet, the sooner we will be able to make progress towards getting to
where we want to be. That will mean that all of us—not just us
in the UK but over the planet as a whole—will not feel the worst
effects of failure that were outlined in the Stern report. I ask that
the Minister take into account the genuine desire and the responses
that many of my colleagues have given to the non-governmental bodies
that have fought so strongly on this campaign. We do not want to
achieve the impossible, but we want to ensure that what we do is right.
If at least 80 per cent. is right, we should be working towards that
now.
Steve
Webb: We have heard two well-informed, thoughtful and
persuasive contributions. The debate has been unusual in that we have
the hon. Members for Bury, North and for Stoke-on-Trent, North arguing
against the Government’s position and the Conservative party
supporting it. I slightly wonder which way I am leaning. It is striking
that, printed on the amendment paper today, we have the names of more
than 80 Labour Members who have endorsed the 80 per cent.
cut.
As you will be
well aware, Mr. Cook, the parliamentary arithmetic is such
that, with 80 Labour Members, every single Liberal Democrat MP and all
the nationalists, who I believe support the 80 per cent.
target—I do not know what the Democratic Unionists
think—that coalition alone, plus the Conservative Party, would
guarantee 80 per cent., so the only thing that stands between this
country having a scientifically up-to-date 80 per cent. target is the
Conservative Party. That is a statement of fact. [Interruption.]
I say that because the Government’s reluctance to endorse the 80
per cent. target would not matter if the Conservatives were to back it,
because there are enough on their own side to carry it anyway. It is
therefore the position of the Conservatives that is pivotal, so, in a
moment, I want to focus on the logic, to the extent that there is any,
of the arguments used by the Conservatives.
The starting
point must be science and the 60 per cent. figure was not a political
number but a scientific one. It is just an old scientific number and
the people who came up with the old number now think that using the
same sequence of logic that gave us a figure of 60 per cent.
would now give us a figure of 80 per
cent. As
the hon. Member for Angus points out, the Bill still gives the
Government the power to vary the figure up or down, so the figure is
not definitive but indicative. That is the point. There is a perfectly
legitimate argument for saying, “Let’s not have a number
in the Bill at all.” The Government could have introduced a Bill
to create a committee that was given a remit and told to come back with
a number that would then be considered, but that was not the avenue
that the Government went down.
I refer again
to the infamous long title of the Bill. The first handful of words
are:
“A Bill
to Set a target”.
Tempting though it is to
argue that another strategy could have been adopted, given that the
wording of the Bill starts
with: “A
Bill to Set a target”,
we cannot fail to have a
target.
The next
question is, do we have what seems to us the right target, or a number
that we all think is the wrong target? I find it incredible that the
one person who has spoken for retaining the wrong number himself
accepts that it is the wrong number. I fully accept that we do not know
definitively that 80 per cent. is the right number, but the latest
scientific evidence is that, indicatively, 80 per cent. is
closer to the right number than 60 per
cent.
Gregory
Barker: I was not arguing against the number. All I was
saying, with the greatest respect, is that the international experts on
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would have rather more
locus on public opinion than even the hon.
Gentleman.
Steve
Webb: Okay, we have started. However, what about 60 per
cent.? We have all just accepted that 60 per cent. has an origin. The
hon. Gentleman is backing 60 per cent., I suppose in small
‘c’ conservative fashion, because, like Everest, it is
there. However, 60 per cent. had a logical basis and that logical basis
now lends itself to a different number but he is not prepared to follow
through the logic of how the 60 per cent. figure came
about.
Mr.
Gummer: Surely it is perfectly reasonable to say that the
Government produced the Bill at a time when the 60 per cent. figure was
sensible. When it became clear that there was a real reason for
change—I am committed to 80-plus, I make no argument about
that—the Government took two steps that seem perfectly
reasonable. I am loth to fall out with the Government when I do not
need to. There were two steps: one was to say “at least”,
which made sure that we knew in which direction the target was going;
the second was to turn to the committee of experts that the Government
were setting up to say, “What should the figure be?” It
seems to me that that is a perfectly reasonable way to proceed. One
could go down a way that says, “We will put it up to 80”,
but having asked the committee of experts to come up with
a figure, to choose another one would be to undermine the committee
itself. Therefore, although the hon. Gentleman can say that it is a
pity that we do not all agree, it is not reasonable to say that those
who take the view that the committee of experts should fix the figure
are somehow
unreasonable.
Steve
Webb: The right hon. Gentleman makes a number of points,
none of which I agree with, but I will address them in
turn. The
right hon. Gentleman raises the issue of the standing of the committee
of experts and that is clearly important. The first thing to say is
that that committee has got a socking great amount of work to do. It is
not just advising on the 80 per cent. Figure, but has a long list of
things that it has to do and on which its opinions are vital. Aviation
and shipping is one, but there are many others. It has got a huge
programme of work on which its views will be taken incredibly
seriously.
5.45
pm Even
if we were not asking the committee to look at the 80 per
cent.——in fact, we are still asking it to look at the 80
per cent., that is the important point—it would have a huge
amount of work to do. I understand that it has a part-time chairman,
which I find worrying, but we will come back to that point. The
committee has a critical role to play, a very short time in which to do
its work and I do not see anything in what we are saying that would
undermine its standing. Everyone knows that it has a very important
part to play, but we are still asking it to look at the question of
having an 80 or 60 per cent. 2050 target.
Nobody is
suggesting that we tell the committee that we have made its mind up for
it. We are simply saying that when it is asked to think of a number,
there will be a number in the Bill. The question is whether the number
in the Bill should be our best guess, based on what we know, which is
where the 60 per cent. came from. That is the only question on these
amendments. The committee will still be asked for its advice, and so,
for example, if it comes back with 83 or 77 per cent., I would expect
the Government to take that seriously. There is nothing, in arguing for
moving from 60 to 80 per cent. that undermines the standing,
status or validity of the
committee. There
is, however, a reason for putting 80 in the Bill——one of
timing. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, who is no longer in his
place, said, “It’s only a few weeks, what is a few weeks
among friends? The Bill comes back in October, gets ping-ponged, Royal
Assent in November, four weeks later, they say 80, Bob’s your
uncle, we have got 80 per cent.” We have not though, because, as
the hon. Member for Banbury says, the Government have not said they
will accept 80—or anything—if the committee comes up with
it. If the Minister were to tell us that if the committee says 80, the
Government will accept it, that would take much the steam out of this,
because it would then be a matter of weeks.
Quite
honestly, and with no disrespect, when I intervened on the Minister on
Second Reading, I expected a lot more wriggling and we did not get it.
It was absolutely clear that the Government do not guarantee up front
to commit to 80 per cent., even if that is what the committee
says. A general election could be two years away. If we allow 60 to
remain, even if the committee, which I respect, came up with 80, the
Government are not bound to accept it, so 60 could run for another two
years. We are talking about 2050, but the interim targets are also
critical and losing two years is a huge risk. It matters enormously
what number goes in the Bill. This is not a matter of weeks or of
gestural whatever, but of fundamental
importance. The
right hon. Gentleman said that the insertion of the words “at
least” is progress. It would be progress if the Bill prohibited
downward revisions, but as I read it, it does not. It can be “at
least 60”, but the 60 can be changed to a lower number. As far
as I can see, there is nothing to prevent the Government from changing
it to “at least 50”, or “at least 40”.
There is nothing in the “at least” that binds them to go
upwards, so the words “at least”, rather as the words
“better not”, do not reassure me at
all. Why
is this so important? The latest evidence that DEFRA itself has been
given is that to achieve the 450 ppm that is being talked
about, 80 per cent. is not fine but actually the bottom end of the
range. The range given by the Ecofis report to DEFRA in May 2007, just
a year ago, is 80 to 95. There are many who think, and I am one of
them, that 80 per cent. is not enough. I would love to be proved wrong
on that, but my reading of the science is that 80 per cent. is probably
not enough either. If we are going to have a number in the Bill, it
needs to be our best estimate of the right number, especially as that
number might hold for two
years. The
key question is how do we convince the Conservative Opposition to back
80 per cent., since that is what it will take to get this number
through. I am not sure whether feeling their pain and saying that we
understand that it is all very difficult is the best way of doing it or
whether it would better to slag them off and say “You say, vote
blue and get green, but actually that is not so.” I would quite
like to take any old Conservative Member outside for a quiet drink and
get them to explain Conservative thinking to me. My working assumption
is that the reason the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle does not
support 80 is because his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey
(Mr. Ainsworth), who speaks for the Conservatives on these
matters, wrote to all his colleagues saying, “We think the Bill
is tough enough. Do not worry, do not frighten the horses, do not
frighten business. We will not beef it
up.” This
is important, because we are talking about targets that will have to be
implemented by Governments of all parties. The hon. Member for Bexhill
and Battle said that he would take very seriously what the committee
said, but I do not think he pledged himself to implement what it said.
[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Suffolk,
Coastal says that he did, but the hon. Gentleman is not in his place to
confirm either
way.
Mr.
Gummer: The hon. Gentleman will see that my hon. Friend
said that a future Conservative Government would accept the figure as
proposed by the committee. The question is, will this Government accept
it? The argument is not—could not—be that the
Conservative party is in some way resiling from this. It is a question
of whether one thinks it more likely to gain the support of the public
if presented by a committee made up of experts or if presented by
politicians who are not at the top of the tree of popularity at this
moment.
Steve
Webb: Again, the right hon. Gentleman makes a distinction
that is not there. Even if we amend the Bill to say 80 per cent., that
would not stop us asking the committee, as we should, for a number and
taking very seriously what it says. He is creating a false antithesis
between making the Bill as accurate as we can and asking the committee
for advice. We can do both. There is no problem with doing both. That
would be the point. I am happy to accept his assurance that the hon.
Member for Bexhill and Battle said that the Conservatives would
implement 80 per cent. I thought he said that they attach the highest
importance to it. Perhaps that is my misunderstanding. I am very
pleased to hear that they would do so.
To return to
the evidence, we heard that the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution argued for 60 per cent. eight years ago but that
the key figures on that commission, then and now, have argued that 80
per cent. is the up-to-date best figure. There are two avenues. There
is an argument that says there should be no targets and we should let
the committee do it, but the Government have chosen not to go down that
route, so that avenue is closed. We have a Bill that sets a target. I
cannot see why we should want to have a target that we all agreed was
the wrong number. We ought to have our best estimate, recognising that
we are politicians who read what scientists say, not scientists.
Surely, we ought to take, for example, what the Royal Commission on
Environmental Pollution said, what advice to DEFRA said, what the IPCC
has said. That is enough to be going on with to give us the right
ballpark figure. Surely, we want the right one not the wrong
one. Linda
Gilroy (Plymouth, Sutton) (Lab/Co-op): It is a pleasure to
serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook, and to have been
selected to serve on the Committee.
It is already
evident that everyone is motivated to make this Bill workable. I want
to explain why I have not signed the early-day motion that this
amendment reflects. As I understand it, there is a more stringent
baseline target which is the subject of the amendment. It would demand
more aggressive policies. These policies need a great deal
more technical detail to know whether they are deliverable. The body of
fact on science, which is important, is not yet matched by the
body of technical detail necessary to ensure that the more stringent
budget that this amendment seeks is achievable.
It is vital
that we do not set ourselves up to fail in the early years in the first
carbon budget cycle that is set. That would be the worst, most
irresponsible thing that we could do and would undermine the
credibility of the framework that this legislation seeks to set
up. It would be very bad for the work that the
Minister for the Environment will have to do in
international negotiations to bring others around to using a
similar framework.
It is for
those reasons that I have not signed the early-day motion and stood
firm in explaining that position to my constituents, some of whom are
members of my climate change panel and many of whom are among the 1,600
students who study marine and environmental science at Plymouth
University and the 450 marine scientists who are very knowledgeable
about climate change and keep me on my toes in the position that I have
been taking and will continue to
take.
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