Gregory
Barker: If the Government address the point that we are
struggling to make, it will be a triumph of hope over experience. They
have had 10 years to get to grips with efficiency, and they have had
three years to get to grips with the recommendations that I mentioned.
Their progress has been abysmal despite all of the mechanisms that the
Minister referred to effectively already being in
place. I
was therefore disappointed, but not surprised, that the Minister failed
to embrace an ambitious target that would have held his Administration
to account for their performance up to 2010. I was rather more
surprised than disappointed by the response from the Liberal Democrats,
who have had a nasty outbreak of not-invented-here syndrome. I was
surprised that they failed to support a practical measure that would
have added a more robust element to the Bill to help the Government
give the leadership that every citizen should rightly be asking for in
the drive towards energy
efficiency.
Martin
Horwood: I am sorry about the hon. Gentleman’s
disappointment. I simply think that the impact of the NAO and SDC
reports, which we are all quoting already, will inevitably be greater
than the impact of the new clause. It is so prescriptive that it is
unlikely to have the intended
results.
Gregory
Barker: I would love to share the hon. Gentleman’s
optimism that quoting reports in Committee late at night in a Corridor
in Westminster will make a jot of difference to the activities and
outcomes of Whitehall Departments. I think that, by and large, such
reports simply gather dust and act as rhetoric fodder for politicians
desperately trying to make speeches. We want action and leadership in
Departments and a complete change from the unambitious culture and the
failure that to get to grips with the efficiency agenda over the past
10 years. What lies behind the Government’s
resistance is a reluctance to embrace targets that they will be
expected to reach by the next general election. They know that they
would be setting themselves up to fail. With that, I beg to ask leave
to withdraw the
motion. Motion
and clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
New
Clause
13Modelling
used by government to forecast impact of policies on climate
change ‘(1) The Committee
shall provide the Secretary of State with advice on the modelling used
by Government to forecast future emissions and the impact of individual
policies on climate change.
(2) The Committee must, at the time it give its
advice under this section to the Secretary of State, send a copy to the
other national authorities. (3)
As soon as is reasonably practicable after giving its advice to the
Secretary of State, the Committee must publish that advice in such a
manner as it considers appropriate.’.—[Martin
Horwood.] Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Martin
Horwood: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss new
clause 14— Committee’s power to audit emissions
statistics— ‘(1) The
Committee shall comment on the accuracy of the Government’s
statistics on emissions and provide the Secretary of State with advice
on them. (2) The Committee
must, at the time it gives its advice under this section to the
Secretary of State, send a copy to the other national
authorities. (3) As soon as is
reasonably practicable after giving its advice to the Secretary of
State, the Committee must publish that advice in such a manner as it
considers
appropriate.’.
Martin
Horwood: We all know the hoary old saying, “Lies,
damn lies and statistics.” It is true that statistics can be
controversial. There is a website concerned with offsetting called
cheatneutral.com. It allows people to offset their cheating. Honest
people can log on to the site and buy credits for being honest and
cheats can offset their cheating. The website
claims: “This
neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear
conscience.” Rather
alarmingly, they have found only 9,000 people who are prepared to log
on and be honest, but 65,768 who are prepared to log on as cheats. I
think that it is aimed at people with partners who have indiscretions
rather than at the kind of Government statistics that those of us in
the political world might try to use and
abuse. My
point is that the website suggests a high level of public cynicism. I
am afraid that when it comes to Government statistics and the use of
statistics by politicians, the public’s threshold of cynicism is
very low. The intergovernmental panel on climate change took an
important step when it committed to having the broadest possible
consensus over its use of statistics, which was specifically intended
as a defence against mischievous opponents and those who are sceptical
about the statistics.
When the
Environmental Audit Committee considered the Climate Change Bill, it
had a similar idea in mind when it made recommendation No. 34 in its
report, with which I am sure the Ministers are completely
familiar: “One
particularly valuable aspect of the Committee’s work would be in
providing challenge to, and public reporting on, Government forecasting
and policy
analysis.” Policy
analysis is the subject of new clause 15, which I shall discuss
later.
The
Environmental Audit Committee also recommended that the
committee “should
be given a duty to audit the Government’s publication of
emissions statistics to ensure these are transparent, differentiating
between emissions reductions made in this country and those funded
abroad. It should also have a duty to comment annually
on the assumptions and modelling used by the Government to forecast
future emissions and estimate the impact of individual
policies.” The
issue of offsetting was uppermost in the Committee’s mind when
it made that recommendation, but there are other variations on the
statistics that can be used and abused. We only have to think about the
various trends in CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions that
Front Benchers have traded in Committee. If we look at the figures
since 1990, we will see that the Government can quote their oft-used
line that we are on track to meet our Kyoto commitments and are
reducing CO2 emissions, because with regard to millions of
tonnes of CO2, there has been a 5.6 per cent. drop since
1990.
Of course,
others would suggest that that is entirely down to the dash for gas and
that the statistics since 1995 actually show a 1.5 per cent. increase.
That would mean that there had also been a 1.5 per cent. increase since
2000, since the two figures between 1995 and 2000 are exactly the same.
Since 2003, there has still been an increase of the much smaller amount
of 0.2 per cent. That all depends on where the baselines are and how
one interprets the statistics.
In an earlier
Committee sitting, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle claimed that
the last Conservative Government’s record on greenhouse gas
emissions, particularly CO2, was rather better than that of
the current Government, but that was more to do with economic recession
than conscious policies to reduce carbon emissions. Were this country
one day lucky enough to have a Liberal Democrat Government, I am sure
that we might also be tempted to interpret the statistics to our
advantage.
In order to
remove the temptation of getting into that kind of party political
debate from any future Liberal Democrat Administration and to get the
statistics as much as possible out of the political arena and on to an
impartial footing, it is important that the Environmental Audit
Committee’s advice is followed and that the Committee on Climate
Change is given that explicit role with regard to the statistics,
assumptions and modelling used by the
Government.
Mr.
Gummer: As the hon. Gentleman thinks that is so important,
I wonder whether he would be prepared to have a parallel system for
Liberal Democrat by-election literature, which certainly needs that
kind of independence, as it is, without doubt, the least truthful stuff
anyone has ever
heard.
Martin
Horwood: I cannot think what the right hon. Gentleman is
talking about. Only the other week in Henley I was picking up some fine
magazines—
The
Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman should return to the
substance of new clause
13.
Martin
Horwood: I stand corrected—I should not rise to
these
things. It
is important, as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal has said,
to keep as much as possible out of the arena of party political
football and move such important statistics into an area where there
can be greater consensus
and an objective view. The Committee on Climate Change must be
constituted so as to provide that kind of authoritative and independent
advice and have the right resources at its
disposal. Miss
McIntosh: We are happy to support the new clause on the
grounds that it would enhance the authority of the Committee on Climate
Change, and improve the transparency of how the Government assess the
country’s future emissions, and how individual policies will
affect those emissions. One wonders how the hon. Gentleman found the
website to which he referred and whether one must admit to cheating to
find it, because other right hon. and hon. Members will perhaps be less
inclined to use
it. The
new clause is similar in many ways to new clause 10, to which my hon.
Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle spoke this evening. New clause
10 called for carbon impact assessments on all Government policies and
how they would affect our emissions reductions ambitions. It gives
pause for thought. There are some imponderables and unpredictables,
such as weather conditions and the ability to forecast. The Government
announced that the Met Office will be able to give more accurate
forecasting, which we shall obviously wait to
see. New
clause 14 would lend the Bill greater transparency, and enhance the
role of the committee as an independent auditor of the
Government’s work. It will come as no surprise to my hon.
Friends to hear that we are in favour of such an initiative. At this
late stage, however, it is not necessary to repeat what I said earlier.
I simply wish to record our support for the two new clauses and to say
that we look forward to the Minister’s response and seeing
whether he is familiar with the
website.
Mr.
Woolas: I confirm that I have never heard of the website.
I can only assume that the hon. Member for Cheltenham was logging on
while he wrote a by-election leaflet, but perhaps that is
unkind. As
for the general emissions picture, it is not fair to suggest that the
dash to gas is the only contribution. Energy efficiency and the work
that much of our industry has done in the past few years is a major
contributor towards the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. For the
record, the important point is that the United Kingdom has broken the
link between economic growth and the growth in emissions. Between 1997
and 2006, the economy grew by 47 per cent., while greenhouse gas
emissions fell by just under 7 per cent., but I suspect that I will not
be allowed to go any
further. I
turn to the specifics of the new clause. We want to avoid duplicating
at public expense work that has already been done in Departments. For
that reason, when formulating analysis, we already allow the Committee
on Climate Change free access to use Government modelling and
statistics. That is supplemented by further independent research as the
committee judges appropriate, which includes commissioning runs of
various Government models, including energy and transport, for
example. In
addition to giving access to the Government models, we fully expect
that the committee will wish to comment on them. In fact, in some
cases, the committee is already helping to develop and enhance some
models. Indeed, it is the intention that the committee’s
secretariat and the
Government’s analysts will have a dialogue to ensure that the
modelling is as robust and as accurate as it can be. For example, a
forum has already been set up through the Government’s
interdepartmental analyst group to ensure that that happens
effectively. New
clause 13 would place a duty on the committee to advise the Secretary
of State on the modelling used by the
Government “to
forecast future emissions and the impact of individual policies on
climate change.”
We are already
putting in place measures to ensure that the committee is encouraged to
provide feedback on the Government’s modelling, and vice versa.
It would not be helpful for that to be a duty. It is vitally important
that we ensure that the committee is resourced adequately to carry out
its task, and we concentrated on that earlier in our proceedings. On an
operational level, I believe that the new clause would distract the
committee from its key tasks, because it is disproportionate and could
overburden the
committee. 10.15
pm There
is, of course, considerable interest in the Government’s figures
on emissions, and I can reassure the hon. Member for Cheltenham. Those
statistics are produced by independent consultants on the
Government’s behalf, and they have to be produced in line with
United Nations guidance. We are part of a global effort, and that
auditing of emissions has to satisfy rigorous international
crosschecking, quality assurance and quality control procedures,
including verification of the figures and external peer review, before
the figures are finalised. The United Kingdom’s inventory has
never been adjusted by that process. Stepping back from the specifics
of the new clause, that global effort requires us to have that
independent auditing already. I do not wish to overburden the
committee, and neither do I wish to call into question—I am not
suggesting that the hon. Gentleman did—the independence of our
scientists, who are among the best in the
world.
Miss
McIntosh: When the Government and the scientists measure
the emissions, what instrument do they use? Do they use the greenhouse
gas
protocol?
Mr.
Woolas: Yes. That good question reinforces my point. Part
of our strategy is that the United Kingdom should be the home of the
auditing industry, so this is a tremendously important issue for all
the reasons that I have given. While I accept the intention of the new
clause, I hope that that important point about verification and the
need to avoid duplication is
accepted.
Martin
Horwood: I do not entirely buy everything that the
Minister said, since he is in some respects trying to have it both
ways. On the one hand he argues that the Government are doing much of
this anyway and will be consulting and exchanging information with the
committee, and on the other he argues that it will overburden the
committee and that it therefore cannot do such a thing. I still think
that this would be wise advice to take to make the process more robust.
That would discourage inadvertent cheating—let us call it
that—in the presentation of statistics. In the light of the
Government’s unwillingness to accept the Environmental Audit
Committee’s advice—
[Interruption.] I understand the Minister’s
points, and I welcome and appreciate many of the things that he said. I
beg to ask leave to withdraw the
motion. Motion
and clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
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