New
Clause
12The
civil estate ‘(1) The
Secretary of State must ensure that the annual emissions of carbon
dioxide from each individual government department in 2011 are at least
15.2 per cent. lower than the equivalent emissions of carbon dioxide in
the 1990 baseline.
(2) The Secretary of State must ensure that the
average energy efficiency per square metre of all property owned by
each individual government department in 2010 is at least 15 per cent.
higher than the equivalent amount measured as in
1990. (3) Any property in the
control of the QinetiQ Group plc shall not be counted under this
section. (4) The Secretary of
State must as soon as reasonably practicable ensure that a reduction is
made in the funding of each government department for energy and
utilities costs which is in line with the existing Government
Sustainable Operations Targets for carbon emissions, waste arisings and
water consumption.’.—[Gregory
Barker.] Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Gregory
Barker: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time. The
new clause would place an obligation on the Government to meet targets
for carbon reduction and improving energy efficiency in their own
estate, within their own Government buildings. The Conservative party
has long argued that the Government must be seen to be taking the lead
on decarbonising the UK. Politicians cannot ask the public to make the
effort without doing the same themselves. Sadly, do as I say, not do as
I do, seems to be commonplace these days.
It is
paramount that the Government are proactive in their approach to
reducing carbon emissions and that they take the lead on tackling
carbon emissions in the civil estate. They must also lead the field in
promoting energy efficiency and strive for higher levels of energy
efficiency on their own patch before pressing others to do the
same.
Government
figures estimate that if the civil estate reached carbon neutrality,
that would save approximately 800,000 tonnes of carbon a year. That
figure is the equivalent of filling the Royal Albert hall with carbon
dioxide more than 20 times a day.
What is being
done to try to move the civil estate towards carbon neutrality? Tony
Blair launched “Sustainable Operations on the Government
estate” in June 2006, which included a wide variety of targets,
such as reversing the upward trend in carbon emissions on the civil
estate by April 2007, reducing carbon emissions from offices by 12.5
per cent. by 2010-11 and by 30 per cent. by 2020, and being
carbon-neutral by 2012. The Government then established the Sustainable
Development Commission to monitor the progress towards these
goals.
Progress
towards the targets is monitored by the independent SDC. In March, it
published its report on the Government’s performance thus far,
which was called “Sustainable Development in Government
2007”. I am afraid, however, that that report does not make
encouraging reading. It concluded that radical and urgent action was
required if the Government were to get anywhere near reaching their
targets. It found
that “nearly
two-thirds of departments are not on track to meet their own 12.5 per
cent. reduction target by
2010/11.” Furthermore,
15 Departments reported poor progress, or no progress at all.
The report
also found that the poor quality of data often provided by Departments
made it difficult to arrive at a true and accurate picture. Only one
Government Department scored above 90 per cent. of the target points
and some Departments did not even submit the data that were
required.
The report
also noted that there was a dodgy-dossier aspect to the Government
figures. It said:
“Pan-government
performance...is distorted by the fact that MOD still include data
from...QinetiQ”, a
defence contractor that has been privatised. The report
states: “The
SDC understands that over a third of MOD’s office carbon
reductions can be attributed to the privatisation of QinetiQ. If we
exclude QinetiQ from MOD’s baseline data the emissions
reductions made by MOD between 1999 and 2007 are lower than reported,
and as a result carbon emissions from offices across the government
estate have only reduced by 0.7 per
cent.” The
report also
says: “If
we exclude MOD, carbon emissions from the rest of government actually
increased by 22 per
cent.” That
is a whopping
increase. Jonathon
Porritt, the chairman of the SDC, was so disappointed by these findings
that he wrote on his blog:
“I
find all this so depressing that I now hate having to comment on it. In
fact, this year, I opted out of all media work around our
report.” How
depressing indeed.
It is time
that we challenged the Government on this litany of missed targets and
questionable figures. As the Bill is committing this country to future
carbon reduction targets, it is only right that the Government are held
accountable to the carbon reduction targets that they have set
themselves.
In our
discussion on indicative annual ranges, we all agreed that it was not
acceptable to have one Government passing their unachieved targets on
to the next Administration and blaming the new incumbents for not
meeting target budgets that they have had little time or opportunity to
influence. Neither should we allow the Government to perform as badly
on their sustainable operation targets as the SDC has reported that
they have, thus allowing them to pass those failed targets on to what I
hope will be a new Government in
2010. 9.45
pm New
clause 12 would put a requirement on the Secretary of State to ensure
that the annual emissions of carbon dioxide from each Department in
2011 are at least 15.2 per cent. lower than the equivalent
emissions of carbon dioxide in the 1990 baseline—15.2 per cent.
below 1990 levels was the rather arbitrary climate change programme
review target set by the Government in 2006. If we are going to ask the
nation to meet one target, I suggest that we ask the civil estate to do
the same, rather than the existing target of 12.5 per cent. below
1999-2000 levels. Will the Minister please explain where that
12.5 per cent. came
from? New
clause 12 also puts a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that the
average energy efficiency per square metre of all property owned by
each Department in 2010 is at least 15 per cent. higher than the
equivalent amount as measured in 1990. That will improve the
Government’s sustainable operations target by putting the
baseline to 1990, rather than the existing Government baseline of
1999-2000, which will hopefully prevent a recurrence of the current
situation. At least seven Departments worsened their energy efficiency
against the baseline during 2007, including, I am sorry to say,
DEFRA—DEFRA increased its energy use by 32 per
cent. per square metre. After the revelation in the Sustainable
Development Commission report about the misuse of data from the MOD, I
do not need to explain to the Committee why I feel that any property in
control of QinetiQ should not be counted towards meeting those
targets. Finally,
new clause 12 legislates for the savings made by improved efficiency,
resulting in savings in public expenditure. Surely one of the real
benefits of becoming more efficient in our use of resources is not only
that it is better for the environment, but that it delivers real cost
savings, too. Such cost savings to the public purse should result in
better value for money for the taxpayer. It is only right and proper
that the public see that those efficiency gains result in better use of
their tax money and that going green means saving on money as well as
waste. In announcing aims for the Government estate in 2006, the then
Secretary of State for DEFRA, the right hon. Member for South Shields
(David Miliband),
stated: “We
need to ensure that we show that big improvements are possible and we
must deliver real value for money for the public
purse.” The
sentiment seems to be there from the Government. Unfortunately, all the
evidence shows that the performance is not. New clause 12 will assist
the Government in turning such words into
practice.
Martin
Horwood: There are a few problems with the new clause, but
it addresses an important issue. Let us take the example of QinetiQ and
that part of the defence estate—although I am not sure how that
comes under the heading of “Civil estate”. The hon.
Member for Ruislip-Northwood will also recall that the Environmental
Audit Committee has questioned the Government over that anomaly within
the figures. I think that the Government have already conceded that
they will not do that in future and that current counting of carbon
emissions does not include
QinetiQ. That
highlights the dangers of the new clause—it is rather
prescriptive and detailed. Therefore, on such issues, it is likely to
become inappropriate rather quickly. The Conservative Front Benchers
have spent so long trying to emulate new Labour that they have gone a
little native and think that legislating is the answer to everything.
In fact, there are important ways to tackle such issues that do not
really require legislation. The Minister previously referred to the
carbon reduction commitment, which will apply to Departments. However,
interestingly, some of the better performance statistics from
Departments on sustainability concern sourcing renewable energy. That
returns us to the carbon reduction commitment, which the Committee has
already discussed. There is also the role of good old-fashioned
leadership and management, which involves giving clear objectives to
Ministers to reduce the carbon footprint and other environmental
impacts of their Departments, expecting them to meet those objectives
and holding them to account if they do not.
The new
clause is welcome in the sense that it raises an important issue. The
hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle is quite right to praise the
Sustainable Development Commission and its chair—no more than I
would expect from a constituent of mine. Some of the other statistics
in the SDC report are truly frightening. Carbon emissions from vehicles
increased by 1.5 per cent. against the baseline year. That shows no
progress towards achieving
the target of a 15 per cent. reduction by 2010-11 and is an area of
serious concern. Energy efficiency per square metre improved by 21.7
per cent. against the 1999-2000 baseline. That sounds good, but once
again the anomaly with the MOD has played a part in that. Without the
improvements made by the MOD, energy efficiency across the rest of the
Government estate worsened by 3.3 per cent. The report said that some
limited progress was made towards the target for reducing water
consumption, but that was rather generous because the actual result was
-0.1 per cent. As the report says, that
is “not
enough to be on track to meet the target of a 25 per cent. reduction by
2020.” There
is more in the report on recycling, which, as the Minister mentioned
earlier, is an important component of trying to tackle climate change.
We have some alarming statistics—so alarming that one almost
cannot believe that they are true. If the figures supplied by the
Departments are right, the Treasury’s percentage of waste
recycled in 2005-06 was 46 per cent., and within one year that dropped
to 17.5 per cent., which seems to undermine the credibility of the
figures.
The National
Audit Office also produced a report last year, containing similarly
alarming trends. Its headline finding
was “Performance
against the key target for reducing carbon emissions by 12.5 per cent.
by 2010-11 is
poor.” Its
detailed findings looked across the Government estate and found
that
“Only
five out of 21 civil departments have met, or are making progress
against, the carbon reduction target—though four of these five
have done so only because of significant reductions in their estate
area. The remaining 16 civil departments, including all the largest,
have recorded increases in
emissions.”
Mr.
Gummer: The hon. Gentleman must agree that if a private
company had figures like that, which it had to reveal in its corporate
responsibility report, it would find itself so embarrassed that it
would have to do something about them. Therefore, although it may be
overtaken in the future, there is something to be said for forcing the
Government to take those figures seriously. The figures are there, yet
they do not seem to have made a difference to how the Government
act.
Martin
Horwood: The right hon. Gentleman has made two important
points. First, the fact that we have these statistics and are able to
discuss them is an important lesson for the private sector. How good it
would be if the Government had accepted the need for this kind of
transparency in the private sector. Secondly, he is right that if these
were the published results of a private-sector company, investors would
be asking questions. As Business in the Community always stresses, the
meeting of targets like these is a good indicator of good management,
leadership and achievement against strategic objectives. Clearly, the
Government are not succeeding on that. The activities of the Government
are an important proportion of the economy and send an enormously
important message to businesses and individuals to do not just as we in
the political class say, but as we aspire to do. In that sense, the new
clause is welcome, at least in terms of raising important issues for
debate.
Mr.
Woolas: The subject we are debating is important, not
least because of the exemplar role that the Government take and the
leadership role that all hon. Members accept. My problem with the
proposal is that it goes in a
different direction to the overall architecture of the Bill and the
changes that it is making. The Sustainable Development Commission
report, and the embarrassment that it caused us, have served to improve
decision making across Whitehall. Indeed, without giving too many
secrets away, its timing had an impact on the force of the carbon
reduction commitment in this Bill. I do not wish to duck the
responsibility, so let me explain our policy in that
regard. The
Bill itself puts a framework in place which supports the most
cost-effective approach to reducing emissions. That is an important
point from the whole philosophy that the Stern report and others have
outlined, both in reducing emissions and adapting to the impacts of
climate change. New clause 12 would introduce several targets for the
Government to put in the Bill, which would cherry-pick the
Bill’s overall framework as the hon. Member for Cheltenham
described in his opening remarks. I accept that several of the targets
set out in the new clause are similar to some of the
Government’s existing, non-binding targets. However, that is not
my central argument.
The central
point is that the Bill sets overall targets for carbon emissions across
the UK economy. We will need action by business consumers and the
Government to meet our budgets. We have all sorts of targets in all
sorts of fields in government. Indeed, we are often criticised for
that. They undoubtedly play an important part in helping to meet the
targets set under the Bill. Making certain targets legally binding, by
enshrining them in the Bill as the new clause does, would raise the
question why we did not choose other targets. That could lead to a
proliferation of targets.
If we take
the Ministry of Defence as an example of the activity of
Government, the estate—the headquarters—is important but
so are the activities of the defence forces. By concentrating on the
estate, we may be cutting off our nose to spite our face. The hon.
Member for Cheltenham made a point about the MOD’s figures. The
way the figures were skewed because of the way in which they were
reported has now been taken into account—I accept that point,
which shows the value of the exercise. The right hon. Member for
Suffolk, Coastal talked about disclosure of figures. That is another
example, and I do not disagree with him. As I explained in the previous
debate, we have a different way of getting to
that. There
is a particular problem with the new clause which is this point about
using the matrix of energy use per square metre. That needs to be
explored, because Departments rationalise their use of space so as to
address the research that indicates that on average Government offices
are occupied about 25 per cent. less efficiently than the private
sector. If the same number of people are put in a smaller area, using
that measurement produces a perverse incentive. That point was
highlighted in the Sustainable Development Commission report, which
recommended a review of the sustainable operations on the Government
estate energy efficiency
target “as
it causes a conflict between office rationalisation and the reduction
of energy consumption.”
So we can cut off our
nose to spite our
face. As
with the previous new clauses, my argument is not to duck the
responsibility of this and future Governments. The right approach is to
maintain the framework in the legislation, taking full account of
sector-specific issues when setting the budgets. For example, the
advice of the
Committee on Climate Change in connection with the budget under clause
34 must include consideration of the sectors of the economy in which
there are particular opportunities for meeting the carbon
budget. In its
reports on proposals for meeting the budget under clause 14, the
Government must specify how the proposals will affect particular
sectors of the economy, including them. The carbon reduction commitment
and the carbon budget includes the Government estate and the wider
public sector estate. For example, that includes not only the
headquarters of the Department of Health, but hospitals and health
clinics. We therefore believe that we will meet the point that the hon.
Gentleman is striving to make with the new
clause. 10
pm
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