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The Minister has a clear idea of the sort of thing that he believes might be important. The whole purpose of the provision is to ensure that future Secretaries of State have a certain amount of clout across Whitehall. I do not wish to embarrass the Minister by referring to something where he and I have a common interest: public procurement policy as it concerns British agricultural policy. We know how difficult it has been to get that accepted across Whitehall departments. I suspect that there may well be departments in Whitehall that will drag their feet over this Bill, and this is one way of making sure that they do not. That is why we are very much in favour of it.
I am delighted to hear what the Minister has to say. Bearing in mind what he says, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 [Consultation on order amending 2050 target or baseline year]:
The Duke of Montrose moved Amendment No. 18:
“( ) The Secretary of State must publish the advice of the Committee on Climate Change not later than one calendar month after receiving it.”
The noble Duke said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 42, 45, 98, 104 and 113.
The Committee on Climate Change is intended to be the principal advisory body guiding the Government through a situation that is increasingly seen as critical to the survival of both the environment and mankind. It is quite reasonable that national authorities will require some time to consider that advice. It is, however, also quite reasonable that the Secretary of State should publish the advice given on aspects pivotal to the overall strategy. Publication means that both parties will present their cases aware that the work they do is open to inspection by all. This is particularly important in circumstances where other national authorities fail to make representations within the time limit set.
The wording of the clause implies that the Government have some idea that other national authorities may not respond in time. Will the Minister explain why, in a matter so important as the alteration of either the baseline year or the 2050 target, a national authority might not make representations even if only to give its approval with reasons? Given that there may be a national authority that does not respond in time, the affirmative resolution procedure surely demands that Members of both Houses are as fully briefed as possible. We do not believe that this will be accomplished if the advice of the committee remains a matter solely for the Secretary of State and the other national authorities.
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Amendment No. 42 concerns setting or amending target percentages. Section 3 relates to amending the baseline year or the 2050 targets. The words used there, with the exception of specific section references, are repeated here. It is our opinion that amending the baseline or the end object is slightly more important than the intermediate targets. In both cases, however, we feel that the advice given by the Committee on Climate Change should be made public.
Orders under Clauses 5 or 6 will be subject to affirmative procedure. For that to be effective the Members of both Houses should be in possession of as much information as possible. In order to enrich the debate they should also be in possession of the data, experience and opinion given by the many experts who take such care, in any field of endeavour, to inform their parliamentary representatives of all related matters.
In the case of carbon targets the advice of the Committee on Climate Change will doubtless summarise scientific knowledge and practical experience in many related fields. That distillation must be available to us and to the public in general and it must be made available formally in order to avoid the distasteful business of leaks. This is serious business we are about and we must ensure that it is conducted carefully, with dignity and in a manner that generates confidence rather than ridicule.
The other amendments in this group cover similar aspects of the Bill: that is, Clause 9 on consultation on carbon budgets; Clause 18 on alteration of budgetary periods; Clause 19 on targeted greenhouse gases; and Clause 23 on the procedure for regulations. I beg to move.
Baroness Byford: I support my noble friend’s amendments, particularly Amendment No. 18. Clearly, when taking Bills through previously, one of the problems has always been the delay between information being gathered and going into the public domain. I hope that the Minister will respond to that. Even if the Government cannot accept one calendar month, perhaps they will look at it in a practical way and, if a month is too short, which I hope it is not, come up with an alternative timing. It is very important to have it defined in the Bill that the Government have a responsibility to publish the advice given to the committee within a reasonable time.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: I, too, support the amendments, particularly Amendment No. 18. Perhaps the Minister will clarify one point. Would it be in order for the committee to decide to publish its advice at the time that it gives it or submits it to the Government? I notice that Schedule 1, on page 34, states:
“The Committee must publish the minutes of its meetings in such a manner as it considers appropriate”.
Presumably, it would therefore be perfectly okay for the committee to decide that it would publish its minutes and the advice that it gave to the Government with its minutes.
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Taking that point a little further, would the committee be in order if it decided, as was the case with the Food Standards Agency when it was first set up, to hold its meetings and to have its hearings in public, which did a huge amount to encourage and establish its independence and authority?
9.30 pm
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My noble friend commented at the end of the debate on the previous group of amendments that there had been three in a row—I am not sure he was right, because I think this might make number four. We are interested in considering the issues raised by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, in his opening remarks. He made a key point that this is a serious business, and we do not want to be in a position where there are leaks. It is essential that the committee operates in a transparent and timely fashion.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, asked whether it would be in order for the committee to make a decision to publish its own advice. As I understand it, that will be the case. The committee will be able to decide to publish its advice. My noble friend Lord Rooker reminded me that he was very much involved with the enabling powers of the Food Standards Agency to meet in public. He has an interest in ensuring that we learn the lessons from the experience of that agency.
I will quickly pick up on a few points. The Committee on Climate Change and the devolved Administrations will be subject to the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information Regulations. The public will be able to request information under those existing legislative provisions, although I understand that noble Lords are not driving at that point. The only exception would be where the information or data were commercially confidential or subject to exemptions, such as to allow for ongoing policy development. In such circumstances, it would be right not to publish the information until the risks of so doing had reduced to an acceptable level. In any case, I do not foresee the committee withholding its analysis where there was not a good reason for doing so.
I fully appreciate the points about the timeliness of information being available, particularly with the devolved Administrations. We will give that further consideration and, bearing in mind the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, we will think carefully about how. We do not want to create an enormous burden on the Committee on Climate Change in sharing absolutely every piece of data and information, for everything it does will be about generating advice. However, we understand the need for transparency and for timeliness, so that the benefits of the enormous expertise and the vital work that the committee will undertake can be shared and made widely available to all those who care about the issues and could benefit further from that work. With those comments, I hope that the noble Duke will consider withdrawing the amendment.
The Duke of Montrose: I thank the two noble Lords who contributed to the debate and the noble Baroness for her reply. It was reassuring to hear that the committee would have powers to publish its
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Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Teverson moved Amendment No. 20:
The noble Lord said: I also speak to Amendments Nos. 21, 28, 147 and 148. I hope that this will be an opportunity for the Minister to have five pieces of good news in a row but we shall see. This is a very serious point and an important one. The length of budget periods is important to everybody in terms of business and planning. It is important to Government, Parliament and all the stakeholders in the climate change issue. We on these Benches believe that five years is too long. Why is it too long? Nearly all Administrations last four years or less; certainly they do not extend beyond five years. This means that we will not know whether any commitment entered into by a Government has been met until the next Administration or the next Parliament. We do not feel that that is healthy. It is not the right incentive and it will not be seen from the outside as being able to bring accountability.
Much of this Bill concentrates on accountability and it is an area which a number of noble Lords want to strengthen. We believe that this is an area where there is a gap between intention and accountability. Also, psychologically—I mentioned this at Second Reading so I will not go into it at any great length—five years for anybody is a long, long way off; certainly it is for us as individual human beings. I notice that that is not true for all noble Lords but at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, talked about hyperbolic discounting in terms of the future being discounted by individuals at a higher rate than the normal financial rate. We take decisions based on the short term. That is true for organisational planning. In the first year we think five years is a long way off and we normally do not get around to taking it seriously until at least year three. That is very dangerous because, as the Minister has reminded us several times this evening, the earlier and the quicker we take action, the less painful that action is. A five-year time horizon is too far away to concentrate minds and get action that will help carbon emissions and reduce future global warming. We feel that three years is much more suitable. There are other arguments—such as the fact that spending reviews are around that period of time as well—but if there are not interim targets or there are not interim milestones, a three-year period is even more important. Lastly, this is all about the business sector and others believing that there is real intent behind
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I suppose that, after Saturday and Arsenal’s unbroken run, this is another occasion on which runs must be broken. I am afraid that we cannot support the amendment. I doubt whether it will find favour with the Minister, although I cannot be certain. Trying to foreshorten the period unnecessarily complicates the effective implementation of the Bill. We see no group of people who support this idea, and we simply do not think that it is a good idea to have too short a period.
These emissions vary from year to year, and five years is a sufficiently long period in which to get the feel of things without it being too short a period to be blown off track by seasonal variations that may occur. It is no way to set up an alibi for failing to meet commitments. Having a shorter timeframe, while keeping it within one Government’s term in office, might have a negative effect. If there were a boost in the shorter term of three years because of warmer weather, airline strikes or a power station closing, there could be a risk of thinking that improvements were being made when actually nothing was being done to tackle climate change. There is a mathematical reason why a short period can give much more unreliable data than a longer one. We therefore want five-year targets, which provide an opportunity to see success, combined with annual milestones, which we will discuss shortly, to track shorter-term progress.
In practice, Ministers will soon start to recognise the variations throughout a budget period, which will be contained in one Government’s time in office. It could therefore be dangerous if one allowed a shorter period. It is much more to our advantage to maintain the present five-year period, so I am afraid that we cannot support the amendment.
The Earl of Selborne: I do not suppose that the Minister needs any further urging to resist the amendment, but I would encourage him to do so, because the science of climate change is difficult and imprecise and is always subject to short-term fixes. Experts are always saying, “Goodness, the evidence shows that we suddenly have anomalies”, and a three-year database will quite clearly create further uncertainty. I therefore believe that my noble friend is right to say on this occasion that a five-year period is reasonable. It also, incidentally, chimes quite well with international agreements. The Kyoto agreement is on a five-year budget, and so for that matter is the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, so a five-year period makes perfect sense.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I, too, support what my noble friends Lord Taylor and Lord Selborne have said, for the slightly different reason that it is fundamental to
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9.45 pm
Lord Woolmer of Leeds: May I agree with many of the recent comments of Members of the Committee and add one or two reasons? First, for many businesses, the idea that five years is a long time and three is appropriate is far from the truth. The overall targets that the committee will introduce will, I assume, be the result of building up a number of sectoral targets. In some sectors, to break down targets into three-year as opposed to five-year periods would be impossible. In the power-generating industry, to break down into a succession of three-year periods what will happen over 15 years is pie in the sky. The result would be that the committee would become discredited. The committee would set not only the overall target but a number of sectoral proposals. They are as important as the overall target because what does the target mean for different sectors and consumers—the people who actually buy the product? If time and again the three-year figure is not remotely met, very quickly, the series of three-year targets would be discredited. If when the committee is established it is asked whether it would prefer three five-year periods or five three-year periods, I have no doubt what the answer would be. The noble Lord should consider that point.
I note from many of the remarks that the CBI briefing has been effectively referred to. We have to take industry and business with us and the advice of industry and business is in no doubt about this. I hope that, on this occasion, we can agree this on an all-party basis.
Finally, on the question of three-year or five-year periods of the political cycle, the objective is to have all-party agreement and consensus. To build an argument around suggesting that if a Government change everything might change or that someone will apportion blame is not helpful. In any case, even with three-year periods and four-year Governments—that has tended to be the case—it is perfectly possible that a new Government could come in and inherit a three-year cycle at the end of its first year and then, blow me, set another one in its second year and be out of office before the period ends. It is not a simple
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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: I have a couple of brief points. I can see the importance of the budgetary periods, but it is hard to talk about this in terms of figures and numbers when it is so clear visually. When you look at the trajectory on a graph or a diagram, it is the pattern that the trajectory follows that is so interesting, not how long the period is. The provision will obviously have to be in the Bill, but we should not lose sight of what we are trying to realise in those budgetary periods and what line that trajectory is following.
While I completely buy into the reason for having an independent committee on climate change, beyond the independence of the advice we should not get too carried away with this independence myth. It will be one political party or another that has to put into place the policies that achieved this. The decisions they make will be highly political and there will be some very hard choices to make. This happy land your Lordships sometimes talk about, where everything is independent and non-political, simply is not going to happen. That is a reality we have to face and the sooner we face it, the better.
Lord Redesdale: Although it seems that the three-year targets would be onerous on business, it is not as if the clock is reset every time you go back to the start of the budgetary period. In the sectorial targets that were mentioned you would be building on those things that have come before, especially in the energy industry. It would have to meet this. We should not underestimate the job that the Government are setting out. The task ahead is to make a 2 per cent cut, year on year, for the next 40 years, which is not a small amount to propose. My problem with a five-year period is the very real opportunity to put back the difficult decisions to the end of the period, especially for any Government who had just come in and were making up the policies.
We have a major issue here. If we are to keep within the graph, we have the issue that there might be a particularly warm winter. We might have the same situation as last winter, when the spot price on gas meant that coal-fired power stations were pulled back on-line. There is nothing to say that, although we have had this great dash to gas, in a few years’ time, with the nuclear stations coming off-line and gas prices going up because of external factors, coal-fired power stations will not be brought on-line to meet that need, and we would go into reverse on these targets. Therefore, to look at a five-year graph might be a problem. If we are talking about 40 years, in five years we are talking only about meeting eight targets. If we are talking about three years, there are 12 targets to meet, which can be met on an incremental basis.
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