Martin
Horwood: I am delighted to have the hon.
Gentleman’s support. Is he aware that the Environmental Audit
Committee also supports, and indeed recommended, this
change?
Gregory
Barker: Indeed. That helped to inform our thinking. I
congratulate the hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the EAC, on taking
up its recommendation and tabling it in an amendment. I do not want to
rehearse all the arguments about sustainability, except to say that the
hon. Gentleman is right that it should be included in the Bill. It is
vital that sustainability criteria are included in the planning for
mitigation and adaptation policies. Thus it makes eminently good sense
to include persons with expertise in sustainable development on the
ASC. I support the Liberal Democrat amendment and Government amendments
Nos. 11 to 18. Linking the ASC to the reporting requirements on climate
change impacts and adaptation in clauses 36, 40 and 41 seems eminently
sensible, and it is a necessary joining up of related appropriate
powers in the Bill.
Joan
Ruddock: The hon. Member for Cheltenham has said that we
are removing specific competencies. As I said in my opening remarks,
however, adaptation is a wide subject. If we were to include all the
competencies that might be desirable, the list would be extraordinarily
long and in no way adequate, even if we were to accept his amendment
and leave the other items on the list in place. Including expertise in
international development
on the list, for example, would not be appropriate in terms of the ASC,
which deals with adaptation in the UK. Furthermore, considering public
health, for instance, we could argue that wider public welfare includes
much more than public health. There are criticisms of the list as it
stands, let alone with the addition of the hon. Gentleman’s
amendment.
Martin
Horwood: I am astonished by the Minister’s comments
about international development. Clearly, the most enormous impacts in
terms of adaptation and climate change will affect the poorest
countries in the world, which has profound implications for British
Government policy through the Department for International Development
and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Surely, this area of expertise
links to the climate science and many other areas on the list, which
are
vital.
Joan
Ruddock: The hon. Gentleman’s argument about
impacts is, of course, correct. Through the Department for
International Development, the Government are extremely active in
supporting developing countries in tackling their adaptation needs.
That is quite different from the needs of the membership of the ASC,
which deals with adaptation in the UK itself.
My hon.
Friend the Minister for the Environment and I have been at pains in
Committee to indicate the way in which sustainable development is
embedded across Government and to point out that all Departments have
duties in that respect. Any bodies that are set up, such as the
adaptation sub-committee, will, of course, be bound by those
principles. We have defined exactly what sustainable development means
for the Committee, how the Government understands it and where it has
been defined. There are sustainable action plans right across
Government.
We are clear
that although sustainable development is an incredibly important topic,
it imbues everything that we do, and it is therefore unnecessary to
place it in the list. Even if we have the most extensive list, we are
only going to appoint a small number of people at the end of the day.
There is therefore no way in which the individuals concerned can be
people with a particular expertise in all those things. They need to be
able to cover all the topics, and, because science and practice are
developing, we will need to consult the person appointed as the
sub-chair of the committee regarding the appointment of further
members. There is no doubt that we need to proceed in a way other than
that proposed by the hon. Gentleman in his amendment.
The hon.
Member for Bexhill and Battle rightly said that we cannot choose
between adaptation and mitigation. We agree wholeheartedly on that
point, which is why we have constructed the sub-committee in a way in
which ensures that it is part of the full committee and that the
linkage is there. That is the way in which we expect to proceed, and we
think that it is the right
way. The
hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle has asked why national authorities
should appoint the sub-committee chair. That is because we need to work
with the devolved Administrations. It is important that the
consultation on these appointments is done in conjunction with the
devolved Administrations, which is why the decision will involve them.
He discussed and welcomed our other amendments, and I am grateful for
his support.
Martin
Horwood: I am not hugely impressed by the
Government’s response to amendment No. 80 and to their own
amendments. The Minister has said that the list of competencies for an
adaptation sub-committee would be enormously long—well, it would
be exactly as long as the list in front of us in the Bill. I do not
think their lordships plucked that list out of thin air, and we are
seeking only to add one
competence.
Martin
Horwood: I will not give way because I am drawing my
remarks to a close. I accept that we will have difficulty persuading
the Government on this
point. Amendment
agreed
to. Amendment
made: No. 11, in schedule 1, page 48, line 24, at
end insert— ‘( ) section
[Advice of Committee on Climate Change on impact report] (advice on
report on impact of climate change),
or ( ) section [Reporting on
progress in connection with adaptation] (reporting on progress in
connection with adaptation).’.—[Joan
Ruddock.] Schedule
1, as amended, agreed
to.
Clause
33Advice
on level of 2050
target Steve
Webb (Northavon) (LD): I beg to move amendment No. 102, in
clause 33, page 17, line 10, leave
out ‘December’ and insert
‘November’. This
apparently innocuous amendment is designed to have a profound impact on
the process of the
Bill. Joan
Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North) (Lab): One month to save
the world.
Steve
Webb: One month to save the world is precisely
right.
What
difference does it make if the month is December or November? During
the Bill’s progress through the House, changes have been made to
the version seen in the Lords. When this House has completed its
deliberations, the Bill will go back to another place and, I speculate,
it will return to us. It therefore seems inevitable that the
proceedings will not be completed until October or November. Clause 33
currently requires the Committee on Climate Change to report on 1
December, so we could still be debating the Bill, and the target, in
early November. The long title says that this Bill is “to set a
target”—that is the first thing that it seeks to
do.
We have had
lengthy debates in Committee about what that target should be and on
what basis and, during the course of the debate, it struck me that the
comments made by the hon. Member for Bury, North were
characteristically profound. If we could arrange to have the benefit of
the Committee on Climate Change’s assessment while the Bill is
still live, we could address the official Opposition’s
legitimate concern that that committee’s standing should not be
undermined by our second-guessing it. If the committee had to report by
1 November, while the Bill is still live, we would know what it thought
and could decide whether to put the number that it suggests in the
Bill.
Suppose that,
on 1 November, the Committee on Climate Change comes up with a
number—80 per cent., for example, although it could be anything.
The official Opposition, who have said that they will abide by the
committee’s advice, would be happy to put that figure in the
Bill. We would be happy to do so, as we have already indicated, and the
position of Government Members who signed the amendment on 80 per cent.
that we considered earlier in our proceedings would be strengthened, as
they would be able to see the latest scientific assessment agreed by
the independent committee. The question is whether the Government will
accept the number suggested by the committee. Rather than passing the
Bill and taking it on trust that the Government will implement that
number, amendment No. 102 would allow us to know the number. In that
case, the Government would make a choice, and the House would decide
what it thought about that
choice. Clearly,
bringing forward this important work by one month is a significant ask
for the Climate Change Committee. It is right and proper that, before
speaking to the amendment, I spoke to Lord Turner. I did so at the
weekend, partly as a courtesy—if we are going to give him a
harder task, it is only right to let him know—and partly to see
what he thought. We spoke at some length. He was understandably keen
not be associated with the views of any political party on such issues,
and the views that I express are my own, informed by what he said but
not attributable to him.
Suppose that
the Committee had to produce a report on 1 December. As we know, in
such cases minds are not made up on 30 November. People begin to work
out what they think during the work, and they start to get an overall
picture. Although the last two, three or four weeks of the
committee’s work might be taken up with pretty bar charts,
checking scientific references and so on, it is not unreasonable to
suppose that by 1 November the committee would be in a position to
advise the Government in summary about the direction of travel. On that
date, it probably could not meet the requirement in clause 34, which
includes a 1 December deadline, to provide detailed advice on carbon
budgets, which is the nitty-gritty, because some work might still be
outstanding, which is why I have not tabled an amendment to clause 34.
However, the committee might be able to perform the single task set out
in clause 33, which is to advise on the 2050
target. 9.30
am I
fully accept that these are interconnected issues. It would be
naïve to say that the committee could advise on the 2050 target
without reaching a decision on international effort, aviation and
shipping, or greenhouse gas lists. That is a fair point to make.
However, it does not seem unreasonable that the committee might be
asked to bring its recommendation forward a month. Then, when we
finalise our considerations in the House, all of us will know what the
committee thinks, and rather than us amateurs—speaking for
myself, I am an amateur on the subject—plucking a number from
the air, we will have expert opinion. That will be so much more
powerful when we finalise the
Bill. There
is one small practical problem with that suggestion. If the committee
has to report by 1 November, as the amendment suggests, and the Bill
does not come into law until later in November, technically it is not
binding
on the committee to produce the report by 1 November, because there is
no law to say that it must do so. There is a slight problem of logic
there. Let us
suspend the fiction that the committee on climate change does not
exist. The committee is already out there. It does exist. I rang the
man on Saturday. I spoke to the chairman of the committee. The
committee is doing its work. There are people beavering away. What
questions are they answering? The questions in the Bill. The Bill says
what the committee has to do.
In a way,
therefore, what I am calling for in the amendment is a dirty great
hint, let us say, so that the shadow committee on climate change
understands that the will of the House is that it reports by 1
November. If the Secretary of State or the Minister wanted to write to
the committee to reinforce the dirty great hint that we wanted its
opinion by 1 November, I would welcome that. Indeed, if the
Minister’s reply was, “Well, forget the Bill, I’ll
write to them and tell them to do it anyway”, I would welcome
that too.
I will not
labour this point, as it is clear what I am trying to do. We all want
to make the decision on the basis of the best evidence, and if we can
have the best evidence a few weeks earlier, albeit in summary form,
that would be good. I note that clause 33(5)
states: “As
soon as is reasonably practicable after giving its advice...the
Committee must publish that
advice”. In
other words, the committee can say what it thinks the number is,
perhaps with a paragraph or two of
explanation. “As
soon as is reasonably
practicable”, it
can do the full monty, as it were, in parliamentary terms. That seems
to be the best balance that we can achieve.
I shall make
one final observation, which comes back to the question, “Why
specify 80 per cent. or 60 per cent. in the Bill?” I have spoken
to the Minister and to the Secretary of State about the issue and I
found myself in a slightly awkward position, because I realised that
what I was saying to the Secretary of State sounded as though I was
saying, “I don’t trust you”. I thought,
“That’s not what I’m saying.” I was trying
to work out what I wanted to say, because it is slightly awkward to say
to someone, “I don’t trust you to do what the committee
says. I don’t trust you to change the Bill.” The reason I
realised that that was not what I meant to say was that I thought,
“I do trust the DEFRA Ministers to want to do this, but I
don’t trust the rest of Government to go along with it.”
That is the important point.
So I do trust
that the Minister wants the right number in the Bill, but once the
climate change committee publishes its report after the passage of the
Bill, if it does so, DEFRA may say, “Yes, we want 80 per cent.,
because it says 80 per cent. in the Bill”, and the Treasury, the
Department for Transport, the Ministry responsible for housing or
whoever it is may say, “Ah, but...”. That is what we
are trying to deal with here.
The amendment
will strengthen the hand of DEFRA, which I sincerely believe wants the
right number in the Bill. It would give DEFRA a stick to beat the rest
of Government with, because it will know on 1 November that the figure
is 80 per cent. or whatever it is, and it will say to the rest of
Government, “There is no way now that we can stop now.
Parliament clearly wants either the advice of the committee or 80 per
cent.”, which may coincide—Parliament may want both those
things. There
will be an overwhelming desire for that to happen.
So, if the Minister can give us the date 1 November, or a letter to
Adair Turner saying that he wants 1 November, we can achieve what I
think the vast majority of us want. Joan
Walley: I support the amendment in principle. I take it to
be a probing amendment. Along with many colleagues in this place, I
supports the move towards at least 80 per cent. In the debate so far,
we have heard many contributions about the role of the Environmental
Audit Committee and its many inquiries into climate change, in respect
of the recommendation of 80 per
cent. With
reference to the date and whether we could have an earlier resolution
of these matters, it may be helpful to tell the Committee that in the
course of its deliberations the Environmental Audit Committee is keen
to have a private hearing with Adair Turner, to discuss those very
issues. Select Committees have an important role in trying to find a
way through difficult decisions on timing and so on. I hope that such
initiatives will be helpful in taking the legislation
forward.
Tony
Baldry (Banbury) (Con): It is in everyone’s
interest that we have the greatest possible consensus on the Bill
because it will run for many years under Governments of all
persuasions. It must be in the interest of the Government and of
business managers for the advice of the Climate Change Committee to be
made available before Report and Third Reading, otherwise the remaining
stages of the Bill will be incredibly frustrating.
If we are not
careful, the Minister’s line to take on Report and Third Reading
will be the same as in Committee, and the headline out there, in the
The Guardian and other newspapers, will be “Government
betray 80 per cent. target”. Every single person who has taken
the time and trouble to get in touch with us, to write to us, to send
us postcards, such as those involved in “The Big Ask”
campaign, will feel betrayed. As an Opposition MP, I will be quite
happy if large numbers of people think they are being betrayed by the
Government, as that will add to the increasing army of people who are
frustrated with this Government’s performance. In practical
terms, however, it would be good news if we could carry that
constituency with us, thinking that Parliament has achieved
something.
It is a
matter of the Minister trying to work out with his officials a line to
take. It would not be difficult for the Government to say that so far
as is possible, they will try to ensure that Report and Third Reading
of the Bill take place after the Climate Change Committee has given
advice to Ministers. That advice could then be reflected by what the
Government say on Report and Third Reading, not least by what they say
to the House about how much attention they will pay to the advice of
the Climate Change Committee. In that way, we would know what the
Climate Change Committee has to say and how much regard the Government
will pay to that advice. Otherwise, we will have a frustrating Report
and Third Reading and the likely victims of that frustration will be
not the Opposition, but the Government and the Government’s
supporters.
| 
