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4.15 pm
Lord Rooker: Obviously, as the noble Earl says, the amendments in the group concern the scope of the regulations on the carbon accounting part of the Bill. I note his initial term. I am sure that parliamentary counsel would have a far more elegant response than I have to his description of unparliamentary language, but there is a practical reason for it.
On Amendment No. 108, Clause 21(2) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations for carbon accounting and, as set out in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill, the intention is to establish an accounting system broadly similar to that which is used to keep track of the United Kingdom’s assigned amount units and other units issued under the Kyoto Protocol. Under that system, carbon units can be moved between accounts. They are tracked through a registry which is similar to an online banking system. Each account holder has an account where their allowances are stored, transferred to or received from other accounts. The registry also tracks which allowances have been used for compliance purposes and we intend to adopt a similar approach under the Bill. However, Amendment No. 108 would essentially prevent this by removing the Secretary of State’s ability to keep track of carbon units and there would be no way of knowing whether or not the Secretary of State held the carbon units he claimed to hold. The amendment would therefore undermine the transparency of the Bill.
As I said, we have a well established system for tracking carbon units under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. It has an excellent record and has so far been licensed to 16 countries in addition to the United Kingdom. It is a well tried and tested system and therefore the use of the language “to register or keep track of” probably conforms to legally accepted practice.
Turning to Amendment No. 109, it is possible that the accounting regulations under Clause 21 may involve duties being placed on the Secretary of State and, as a matter of legal drafting, it is not usual to talk about these duties being “conferred” on the Secretary of State. The duties could be related to the need to register and keep track of carbon units—for instance, the carbon accounting regulations will need to reflect any decisions to bank or borrow under Clause 13—or to the establishment of a body to administer the carbon accounting scheme, which we will discuss when we come to Schedule 1. The establishment of such a body could involve a number of functions being imposed on the Secretary of State such as the appointment of members and other related matters.
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On Amendment No. 112, the carbon accounting regulations are likely to be very technical and detailed and to require frequent updating. Clause 23, to which the amendment refers, takes a proportionate approach to the requirements for parliamentary scrutiny which is in line with the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee as to what constitutes an adequate level of parliamentary control. The body appointed as the scheme administrator is only one aspect of the way in which we will manage our carbon accounts and there is no obvious reason why this aspect should be given a greater priority. However, I understand the importance of the issue. In addition, the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee will scrutinise any orders made to transfer administrative responsibilities and would be able to report on any order which it considered to be of interest to the House—or, indeed, an order that it thought was inappropriate. That kind of scrutiny removes the possibility that any order made using this power could go unnoticed.
It is a complicated Bill and many orders will flow from it, both from the Government and from the recommendations of the committee. It is important, if I can use the word, that we keep track of them all and that none of them slips through. But we have got sufficient procedures in place to make sure that nothing goes by unnoticed and, as I say, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee accepted what was in the Bill.
The Earl of Onslow: Instead of using the words “keeping track of”, would it not be easier to use “tracking”? It would save two words.
Earl Cathcart: I thank the Minister for his explanations on Amendments Nos. 108 and 109. I was slightly disappointed by his response to Amendment No. 112, because the authority of Parliament is part of the triangle and we wanted to see Parliament being much more part of the decision-making process. However, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 109 not moved.]
Clause 22 [Net UK carbon account]:
The Duke of Montrose moved Amendment No. 110:
The noble Duke said: Amendment No. 114, which is grouped with this amendment, has already been addressed, so I shall concentrate on Amendment No. 110. It would change Clause 22 so that it explicitly stated that the target for greenhouse gases included in a budgetary period would be expressed in carbon units, which is current practice under the Kyoto agreement. I suspect that that is what the Government had in mind. It is international practice under Kyoto to express the impact of gases other than carbon in carbon equivalents. Our amendment would embed this idea in the clause, and, in doing so, would make it more
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Lord Teverson: Clause 22 is crucial, because it relates back to Clause 1, around which the Bill revolves, and defines the UK carbon account. The lack of the required definition makes the Bill obscure, suggesting that it is our intention to reduce not greenhouse gases in the UK but a net UK carbon account. The definition could perhaps be set out earlier in the Bill, so that it would be easier for the general public to understand it.
I do not understand why—I am sure that there is a good reason—Clause 22(1) states:
Why does it refer to “net UK emissions”? It should be the UK’s emissions, plus what we buy in and minus what we take out—perhaps I have got that the wrong way around. I do not understand why the clause refers to,
because “net emissions” does not have an understandable definition. The Bill should refer just to “emissions”.
The Earl of Selborne: Before the Minister responds to that, perhaps I may add my pennyworth. Clause 12(2)(a) states,
We are therefore talking about “net” after “UK removals”, which raises the question how one measures UK removals. We had a spirited discussion about how one measures emissions, and recognised that one reduces that eventually back to carbon. “UK removals” or any removals will become a much more critical issue as we take into account the brave decisions taken at Bali, which cover deforestation—that is greatly needed. However, if ever there was a need for the science to catch up with the aspiration, here it is. We all recognise that we have very little idea of UK removal rates. We are talking about carbon sequestration, mainly, and the ability of different forest systems and soils to sequestrate, according to different land management systems. Eventually, if we are to bring deforestation into carbon accounting, which in a global sense we would certainly hope would be the case, we will simply have to be able to measure much more precisely than we can at the moment what we mean by removals.
I do not expect the Minister to answer or to give us a masterclass on this, but I draw attention to the fact that most of us do not understand how we will measure precisely UK removals.
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Lord Teverson: I thank the noble Lord for his excellent explanation of my question. I am now fully satisfied that it has been answered.
Lord Rooker: I was going to be much more mundane in answering the noble Lord’s question by saying that he needs to read Clause 22(1)(a) and (b). I do not know why it is done this way round; only parliamentary counsel could answer that. It has been drafted so as to say that,
will be “reduced by the amount”, and “increased by the amount”. One would normally think that you would get the net after you had done the additions and reductions, but the Parliamentary Counsel Office has drafted it that way and I am sure that, knowing the expertise of that office, it has done so for a good reason. If I am wrong, I shall write to the noble Lord.
Amendments Nos. 110 and 114 relate to how the emissions will be calculated. That will be complicated; it is certainly not the easiest thing to explain across the Dispatch Box. We appreciate the sentiment behind Amendment No. 110, but it would not bring clarity to the issue. Clause 22(1) defines the net UK carbon account as the total net emissions of greenhouse gases in the UK, taking into account carbon units that are to be credited to or debited from the net UK carbon account. The general convention under the United Nations framework, within the EU and in domestic practice, is for greenhouse gases to be measured in terms of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. This is set out in more detail in Clause 65.
Amendment No. 110 would define targeted greenhouse gases in terms of carbon units. However, carbon units are defined in Clause 21(1) in terms of greenhouse gases, and we believe that this is the best way in which to approach the issue. Ultimately, the problem we are seeking to tackle is caused by greenhouse gases, not by carbon units.
While that is being digested, I turn to Amendment No. 114. Clause 24 defines the terms “UK emissions”, “UK removals”, and “net UK emissions” of greenhouse gases. These are to be determined consistently with international carbon reporting practice, which is defined in Clause 66 as,
- “accepted practice in relation to reporting for the purposes of the protocols to the United Nations Framework ... or such other agreements or arrangements at European or international level as the Secretary of State may specify by order”.
We touched on that matter briefly yesterday. This is a tribute to the British Civil Service, because I have an update to a note on a debate that we had last night, in which we discussed the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. We discussed the clause yesterday in the context of her amendments, but that has been looked at again overnight and I reassure the noble Baroness that there will be very clear separation throughout between the emissions that take place within the UK and the carbon units which represent activity and which took place outside the UK. If the noble Baroness would find it useful, officials would be more than happy to discuss the point further with her.
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Again on Amendment No. 114, I reassure noble Lords that UK emissions and removals of greenhouse gases will be determined in accordance with international practice—for instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change greenhouse gas inventory guidelines, which the UK is required to follow under the United Nations framework convention on climate change. This is not something that the Government have invented on the back of an envelope.
The UK already produces an annual emissions inventory, which is produced to a high standard in line with international reporting practice. I explained last night how that was done. The amendment would mean that UK emissions could be determined only in accordance with international agreements. It is not clear that that would always allow us to keep up with international best practice as it develops over time. For example, best practice could continue to evolve between formal international agreements, because this is obviously a continuing issue that is being debated around the planet. I hope that that explanation is sufficient for the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
4.30 pm
The Earl of Onslow: The Minister is being as helpful as he possibly can, but I noticed when he was explaining that even his brow was furrowed with concentration to grasp the extreme complexity of this system of measurement. If we are going to make it clear to the public, we must, if we can, have the correct language in the Bill, more as a tribute to the late Lords Brightman and Renton who used to go on about clarity in legislation. When you see clever people such as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and other clever people in this Committee really struggling with the meaning, how on earth will people outside the House, who are not trained in law, get their heads around this incredibly complicated and very important issue?
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Before the Minister answers that question, may I add a supplementary? My noble friend has just said that it is important that people understand this. What it all adds up to is that it must be clear to individual members of the public at the end of the day because they will suffer low emission light bulbs and so forth. They will feel this on their skin and want to know exactly what is being done. Amendment No. 110 quite simply says that the net UK carbon account should be expressed in terms of carbon units. It does not make sense for an account not to be expressed in terms of the units that it is worked out in. Could the Minister not try to amend the wording so that, at the end of the day, people can see we aim to arrive at a net total of carbon units expressed in carbon units? That makes sense; then we need not have these elaborate explanations which we all find so difficult to follow.
Lord Rooker: I know that we are legislating for and on behalf of the public, but the idea that a copy of the Bill will go through every letterbox is palpable nonsense. What needs to go through every letterbox—
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The reasons for that are well known. The courts are out there and through the structures that we are setting up we are requiring business and individuals to change their behaviour in due course, and that must be done in a fair way. The legislative process does that. How the legislation is translated to inform the public is, I say with respect, another matter altogether. We need an overhead projector and a chart so that we can understand what we are doing as we legislate, but we cannot include the way we operate in legislation. I am sorry: I am defending the status quo, which I never thought I would do, because it needs modernising, which is why we have the legislative programme. I understand that we must do things in this way, but how it gets translated to the public, business, industry and other organisations is another matter altogether. Better brains than we have on this Bill must be used to translate that information to make it meaningful and understandable to the public. Otherwise, we are wasting our time.
The Earl of Onslow: What we are all trying to do is to bring the letterbox issue as near to the statute as possible because otherwise the only people who really benefit are my learned friends, and they are quite well enough paid already.
The Duke of Montrose: I thank the Minister for defining the basis on which we are looking at the matter when he spoke about the IPCC and the Kyoto agreement. I almost feel that we ought to have that in the Bill to explain that that is what we relate this whole to. It is difficult to get the public to understand this because we are talking about generating carbon which has not been emitted. You cannot say, “I have captured that carbon and there it is, you can weigh it”. We are not even giving people bits of paper but credits on an international database. There is a worry about whether these things are properly verified at source or whether somebody in the depths of a jungle somewhere is churning them out and feeding them into the database.
The Minister needs to explain in a little more detail—perhaps not tonight but some other time—why the net UK carbon account referred to in Clause 22 does not mean that in future somebody might think that it applies only to carbon. We have tabled this amendment because we want to make sure that these other gases can be included in the net UK carbon account at the levels at which they are internationally recognised as having a carbon equivalent. At the moment there is a slight danger that the Bill’s wording does not allow for that.
Lord Rooker: I shall take that away and look at it but I believe that I said yesterday that some 85 per cent of our emissions comprised carbon dioxide.
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The Duke of Montrose: I thank the Minister and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 111 and 111A not moved.]
Clause 23 [Consultation and parliamentary procedure for regulations]:
[Amendments Nos. 112 and 113 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 113A not moved.]
Clause 24 [UK emissions and removals of greenhouse gases]:
[Amendment No. 114 not moved.]
Clause 25 [Emissions from international aviation or international shipping]:
Lord Teverson moved Amendment No. 115:
The noble Lord said: This matter is of great importance to the outside world and is a key part of the Bill; namely, whether we should include in the Bill from the beginning, or put off to some unknown date, emissions from international shipping and aviation. Under the Kyoto process, emissions from international shipping and aviation are not allocated to individual nation states. Due to the welcome strength of the international economy and globalisation, international shipping has experienced a major increase in activity, and therefore carbon emissions, in recent years. That is also particularly true of the international airline industry for similar reasons of increasing growth and affluence and the propensity of human beings, as no doubt we do, to travel the world.
Although those two areas have not in the past been very significant in terms of carbon emission, they are increasingly so, and it is important that there are ways in which they become accountable to individual nation states. The European Council has recently agreed that in principle international airline emissions should be included within European monitoring and should become part of the EU ETS. I think that the European Parliament wanted it to be 2011, and it has now been agreed by the Council of Ministers that it should be 2012, so we are starting to have movement on this principle.
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