---

Consider the modern television set. The conventional set today uses half the energy of a set produced 30 years ago. That is fine. Consider modern flat-screen technology, which gives a better picture, better sound, greater convenience and television sets that are easier to put into a room. That technology has put the energy consumption back up to where it was. Of course, efficiency improvements will continue, but we should not rely on improved energy efficiency to get us through to the end of the need to reduce carbon emissions.

The development of alternative fuels will be more significant. The Minister has already mentioned the developments in agriculture, and for a moment I will speak as a farmer. It is a pleasure to feel a bit of spring sunshine in the industry; we have been in quite a long winter. We need to recognise what we are doing, because there are implications in what is happening that we need to be wide awake to. The United States of America, which has for a long time been a major part of the world’s breadbasket, is now moving its surplus grain, which it normally exports, into the biofuels market. At the same time, we have bad harvests in Australia and grain production down in Ukraine, with the effect that grain prices now are at least 30 per cent higher than they were 12 months ago. The millers are complaining. They did not complain when the farmers were having a tough time, but now they are having a tough time, and they are complaining and talking bread prices up.

The reality is that in moving grain into fuel we are not moving grain that is surplus to requirements into fuel. Unfortunately, annual grain production has been lower than annual grain consumption globally now for eight years. We are now consuming as energy the

16 Nov 2006 : Column 27

grain that previously was sold at low levels and that sustained much of the third world. That has serious implications, which we need to think about, although I would not begin to assume to dictate the solution. It may be that the higher prices will increase production; it is to be hoped that they do. But we cannot afford to increase the pressure on the natural environment. We cannot afford to lose more rainforest to soya bean and sugar cane production. We cannot afford to lose more savannah or temperate forest to arable agriculture in the conventional sense as we understand it in this country. We have a host of dilemmas, which forces us back into the need to produce alternative forms of energy production. Every time we move in that direction, we run into a different obstacle—the procedural obstacle that society does not like change. Even Governments sometimes resist change.

We know that there will be a planning Bill and, although we do not know what will be in it, we have heard that the Government are to simplify planning procedures. I hope that the Minister will assure us that it will cover such matters as the siting of power stations—even coal-fired power stations with carbon sequestration, the only power stations of that type that could be built now, would require planning permission. One could bet that, even with carbon sequestration, such an application would attract planning objections. We have to overcome such objections, because the time limit for dealing with these issues is rapidly running short. I hope that the Minister can tell us a little about what will be included in that Bill. Will either the planning Bill or the Climate Change Bill be introduced first in this House? That would be a major fillip for this House.

Although the Minister began to address the matter today, nothing has been said about carbon taxation, which will have to come if we are to get global warming under control. It would be better if we knew what was going on. I am in danger of speaking for too long, but I believe that the financial implications of what we are doing are serious.

I shall conclude on a problem between the Treasury and local government, with which the Minister might be able to assist us, in relation to the disposal of domestic waste. My county of Essex is to install two major anaerobic digestion plants to treat domestic waste. Such a plant is, in effect, an oil refinery fuelled by domestic waste, which produces a green form of energy and a stable fertiliser that is safe to use. The problem is that it is very expensive to introduce such a system. Treasury rules for the private finance initiative that will be needed to build such systems require a best-value approach—and a number of waste disposal authorities are caught in that trap. The Treasury’s best-value approach is incineration, which is unquestionably much cheaper. The trouble with incineration is that it converts solid waste into gaseous waste, which is then spewed out into the atmosphere, if I may use that phrase, and exacerbates global warming. Anything that the Minister can do in the department, for which he and I share, in different ways, a responsibility, to encourage a change in that attitude in the Treasury will be of enormous help.

16 Nov 2006 : Column 28

We face enormous problems. Our ancestors two centuries ago, when they were unencumbered by regulation, used their initiative and inventiveness to change the world. We are now experiencing the effects of that, because the world has changed. We have to keep the benefits, but we have to control the disadvantages. The big question is whether the Government will encourage that. If one considers our major energy industries and the investments that underlie them, one sees that there is huge inertia in the system. The solution may well lie in what is now called “disruptive innovation”. I learnt that phrase only recently from a report by the Cass Business School in London on the future of that field. It said that the hydrogen economy is considered to be a disruptive innovation.

I shall give two examples of disruptive innovation. One is the recent arrival of digital cameras, which completely destroyed the old photographic film industry, although every family photographer will recognise and rejoice in that development. Another is the compact disc—a wonderful way of storing information and, indeed, a wonderful thing to travel with, as it can hold music and everything else. It completely removed the old tape systems with which we were all familiar.

If we are to succeed, we shall have to move into the hydrogen economy, and we shall probably have to move into harvesting solar energy to a much greater extent than is presently envisaged. This change will be resisted by the inertia in the system brought about by the huge investments in the energy and transport industries as they currently exist. The real question that we must all face is: will the Government, who are going to have to initiate and encourage this change, do it with sufficient robustness to succeed? My current judgment is that they have failed to inspire. I hope that they will do better in the future.

11.36 am

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, I intend to concentrate my remarks on one element of the gracious Speech—namely, the proposals for reform to local government. As we have so recently seen the White Paper, we have a much better idea about how that legislation might be framed. The other Bills proposed in the gracious Speech will be covered by my noble friends during today’s debate.

The gracious Speech was silent on the question of housing, and on these Benches we see that as a glaring omission. A lack of affordable housing for rent is becoming an increasingly urgent issue. Recent reports of key worker housing for purchase lying empty suggest that the Government need to review as a matter of urgency their policy of investing in affordable housing for purchase at the expense of affordable housing to rent. Their current policy is leaving many thousands of families in overcrowded, unsuitable and poor-quality housing.

Independent academic studies have shown that we live in the most centralised state in Europe, with the exception of Malta. The past 30 years have seen a steady erosion of local powers and an increasingly centralised system of finance, controls and regulation.

16 Nov 2006 : Column 29

The result is that decisions are often made in order to conform to Whitehall imperatives and not those of local people, and so accountability has been lost. What follows from that is an increasingly disillusioned electorate.

The White Paper recognises some of that and draws attention to the fact that only 42 per cent of residents are satisfied with their local council. But it fails to see that a far higher percentage of people are satisfied with the services provided by their councils, such as parks, libraries, recycling and so on. There is something about “the council” that the public do not much like. That is the issue that needs to be addressed because not only is turnout declining but it is becoming harder to find council candidates.

In our view, the situation has been exacerbated by the voting system, which has allowed the development of one-party states, and often the same councillors are in place for many, many years. That can lead to councillors who are out of touch; worse, it can lead to decision-making that favours particular geographic areas; and, at the very worst, it can lead to poor standards of behaviour that tip over into corruption. But thankfully those situations are very rare, and there would be much less justification for heavy-handed interventions from the Standards Board in England if the ballot box were a more responsive mechanism. On that point, I hope that the legislation which is required to provide for more local determination of Standards Board cases will be brought forward very soon, as it is now long overdue.

We believe that a proportional voting system—doing away with single-party fiefdoms—would make local government councillors much more responsive to the communities they serve. It will prove very difficult for government to enforce a statutory duty to engage, devolve and consult with communities, because these are essentially cultural things. These are benefits that flow from having a culture of community involvement within a local authority, which the current voting system, alongside Whitehall dominance, can often stifle in a local area.

The White Paper makes some very useful suggestions about how to find new councillors and how to broaden the background from which they are drawn. But it misses the essential point that with the autonomy of local authorities severely curtailed by central control and with the power within councils becoming vested in fewer people as a result of the 2003 Act, the role of the back-bencher is simply no longer seen as worthwhile by many people. I fail to understand why the Government feel that councillors somehow have to scale down their decision-making involvement to concentrate on constituency work. It is entirely possible, and always has been, for local councillors to be committee chairmen or cabinet members and extremely good and effective advocates for their local communities. In another place, we do not hear the argument that Ministers should not be constituency MPs because they are Ministers. I fail to understand why one set of rules applies to local authorities and another to Members of the Commons.

16 Nov 2006 : Column 30

Back-bench councillors are now told that they have to concentrate on scrutiny. That worries me because scrutiny is essentially a backward-looking process. It very easily becomes an entirely negative process, looking at what has gone wrong with something. Would it not be better for the energy of councillors to be harnessed in the development of policies and in decision-making from the outset rather than having to look back? No wonder fewer people vote. Why on Earth should one bother to vote for a councillor whose main role in life is to scrutinise the decisions of a very few people in a council?

Localism has now become fashionable but it is not new to the Liberal Democrats. We have been implementing community politics for decades. The thrust of the White Paper is said to be devolutionary and, indeed, it proposes a statutory duty on local authorities to devolve to communities, but we do not see real, serious devolution from central to local government or from quango to local government in the White Paper. It seems to me that there should be a matching duty on central government to devolve to local government before local government can devolve much more.

On these Benches we have always been keen to see a written constitution which defines and protects the powers and the relationships between the various elements of our country's governance. Under the Local Government Act 2003, councils were forced to consider alternative arrangements to committee systems, even when the committee system had worked well for decades. The White Paper proposes going further down that path. It intends to vest all executive authority in one person and no referendum proposal is enshrined. We believe that to put all executive authority into one person is a highly dangerous move in that it removes all the checks and balances to abuse of that power. I fail to see how one can argue that it is essential to go down that route to provide good and speedy decision-making. All large private companies have boards of non-executive directors whose role is to provide a range of expertise and experience, to offer advice and, ultimately, to provide checks and balances on the way in which a company is run. Indeed, the Government have legislated to strengthen the role of non-executives in the private sector and has added to their responsibilities—quite rightly too. Why then are they moving in the opposite direction for local government and removing checks and balances?

There are also practical reasons for being concerned about that proposal. From where are the leaders and mayors of the future to get their experience if there is no committee or cabinet system through which they can work as preparation? How are colleagues to know whether someone is fitted for such a role if the person has not been tested in some other way? Have the Government considered the likelihood of a leader being elected from a single-issue pressure group which, at the time, campaigns on something that happens to be controversial in a local area? Such a person would end up having sole executive authority over an enormous budget and services essential to local people for a four-year period.

16 Nov 2006 : Column 31

The White Paper mentions having directly elected cabinets under some models. As far as I can tell, that would involve asking voters to elect their executive leader, cabinet and ward councillors. They would presumably be doing all that twice in two-tier areas. The Minister says that the aim of the Bill is to provide more transparency.

The White Paper has it about right on unitary status: it should be a matter for local determination. However, when the Bill comes forward, we will look closely at the proposed decision-making process: what the triggers will be, who will have a vote in any local referendum, how consensus will be judged to have been achieved and who, ultimately, will sign off a decision. The White Paper recognises that there are legitimate communities of interest as well as geography. We will support measures that allow their aspirations to be met. Our concern, however, will be to uphold the principle that there is always transparency and accountability where public money is being spent. We do not want to see local mini-quangos any more than their larger counterparts.

Much is already being done on community involvement. The White Paper contains many examples of best practice. We would prefer the Government to take the route of sharing best practice, rather than one-size-fits-all regulation. Local areas can adapt models, policies and practices which already exist and fit them to their needs. Much good work has already been done through the beacon council scheme, by the Local Government Association and by the Improvement and Development Agency. Certainly, within our own party, the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors has had an outstanding record of sharing best practice for several decades.

We on these Benches have always believed that the key to genuine local autonomy lies in the system of local government finance. Currently, 75 per cent of local finance is centrally raised—the biggest single controlling factor on local government. It is hard to see how genuine devolution can be achieved while this is the case. We would have preferred to see the White Paper published after the Lyons review of finance, so that interlinked powers, structures and finance could have been considered together.

We welcome the proposed reduction in performance indicators, and the lessening of the prescriptive best value regime. The tyranny of the target has led many local authorities to become overly focused on reporting up to Whitehall instead of out to their communities, and so needs urgent overhaul. In any event, local government has responded well to the challenge of the Gershon review, and has outperformed central government in its pursuit of efficiency gains. I suggest that local government has a lot to teach central government about that.

The White Paper contains much on the problems faced by local government about which we can agree. We soon part company in our analysis of the root cause. We believe that structural, financial and administrative freedoms for local councils should be there by right, not because they have met some

16 Nov 2006 : Column 32

arbitrary target set by Whitehall. Many of the issues which concern us most, whether anti-social behaviour or contributions to climate change, have a local dimension and will respond best to solutions determined and carried out locally.

11.48 am

The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, I welcome the announcement of a Climate Change Bill and sincerely hope that the suggested mechanism will deliver the reductions we must make as a nation.

I was also heartened to see, in Nairobi, the Minister from the other place, David Miliband, stressing the need for international agreements to combat what is now appropriately called “global heating” rather than “global warming”, and the need to ensure that those most affected by climate change have the help they need to adapt. The urgent response to the global crisis starts and finishes with international agreements. The whole human family must address this together: the stronger helping the weaker, those most responsible for the crisis accepting culpability and addressing their attitudes and behaviour for all our sakes.

The model of contraction and convergence, in which global emissions are reduced overall and the right to pollute is shared equally on a per capita basis across the world’s populations, is the framework that should be adopted in a post-Kyoto Protocol world. It is just, and it demands that we think of ourselves as one human family not just as a collection of self-interested nations.

As to our national responsibilities in this matter, it is sometimes thought that the United Kingdom has no real part to play in combating global heating. After all, we are a small group of islands, and our overall contribution to carbon dioxide emissions is relatively small. It is said that if we were to cease all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, China would soon fill the shortfall. So what difference can we realistically make? We may well be a small group of islands, but we are the fifth largest economy in the world, we have skills in design and technology and we have a strong civil society standing ready and united to take measures to reduce our impact on the climate. We should show leadership in this environmental crisis.

The House may be aware that a coalition of representatives of media, business, banking, faith groups and NGOs has been meeting the climate change unit at 10 Downing Street to consider how to channel efforts to change public perception and behaviour. That group’s unity is remarkable, although the cause is obvious when one thinks of the issue. Companies, media channels and banks that are direct competitors are standing shoulder to shoulder because this is an issue that affects every one of them and every one of their clients and customers. Similarly, faith communities are united in their concerns for God’s creation, to which humans have wittingly and unwittingly done so much damage.

The United Kingdom should show international leadership. Our political masters can do so,

16 Nov 2006 : Column 33

particularly as constituencies are working hard to ensure that the United Kingdom’s own house is in order. As we are all aware, moral authority comes with integrity. If the United Kingdom is to show international leadership, it has to ensure that its citizens are doing their bit. The Church of England soon realised that grand rhetoric from Bishops and Archbishops in this Chamber or elsewhere would be hypocritical and counterproductive if it was not accompanied by putting our own houses and churches in order. Therefore, we launched “Shrinking the Footprint” this year. Its aim is to deliver a measured reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over the next three years. From a global perspective, this is a very small gesture. After all, the energy use of the Church of England does not amount to very much, but noble Lords may be interested to know that our audit of current energy use turned up a number of churches that are still using candle power. We cannot speak with integrity if we do not do what we can. Environmental concern unites us all as a human family across the globe. The United Kingdom has a part to play, and we must not fail. The time is right, and civil society is ready. The Government must show strong leadership, and they may be astonished at the electorate’s willingness to fall in and accept the measures that are needed to address this crucial issue of our time.

11.53 am

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech today and welcome the commitment in the gracious Speech to measures that will strengthen our neighbourhoods and communities. In the spirit of being non-controversial, I hope they will be seen for what they are: common-sense measures around which the House can unite.

I thank the staff and noble Lords for the patience and good humour with which they have greeted my endless, and no doubt tiresome, questions about the practices and procedures which form the rich tapestry of life here. Since coming to this House, I have been frequently impressed, and occasionally awestruck, by the mixture of expertise and passion displayed by noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber. While I cannot possibly compete, I hope that in some small way I can draw from my experiences, perhaps less well represented in this House, and add a little of both.

My journey here took me from being a somewhat rebellious teenager in Whitchurch, south Wales, through being one of the early women trade union officials for NUPE to end up as the director of policy for UNISON and chair of the national Labour Party. It has given me a lifelong commitment to the hundreds of thousands of low-paid, mainly women, workers who are the backbone of our public services. These are the people who will build on the Government's significant financial investment to achieve the responsive, high-quality, locally driven services, which I hope the new local government legislation will deliver.

16 Nov 2006 : Column 34

---