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Thursday, 19 June 2008.
The House met at eleven o'clock: the LORD SPEAKER on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.
Royal Assent
11.05 am
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
European Union (Amendment) Act,
Climate Change
Lord Sheldon asked Her Majesty’s Government:
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): My Lords, an assessment of future climate change comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report. The global average temperature will rise between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius above 1990 levels by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated. Warming will be accompanied by rising sea levels, changes in rainfall patterns and more extreme whether. The UK Climate Impacts Programme scenarios project warmer, wetter winters and hotter, dryer summers with more extreme weather events and rising sea levels.
Lord Sheldon: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Does he agree that the case for long-term climate change is really not yet settled? In particular, is it not nonsense to predict the situation at the end of the century, as has been done? At the beginning of the 20th century, it was forecast that running out of coal would result in a cold climate for centuries to come. Should my noble friend accept that, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, in the argument for global warming there is,
Lord Rooker: My Lords, as my noble friend knows, he asked the same Question on 16 October 2006; I think that his supplementary is very similar as well. My Answer was slightly different. The temperature ranges are slightly different, because the previous Answer was based on the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. This matter is being watched all the while.
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With due respect to everybody else, there is considerable confidence around the world that the climate models provide reliable estimates of future climate change. This comes from the fact that the models use fundamental chemistry and physics, and not people’s hunches. For example, the first report of the IPCC in 1990 correctly projected the observed warming up to the present. The confidence in the model estimates is higher for some climate variables, such as temperature, but less so for others, such as precipitation.
The long-term warming trend due to greenhouse gases is there. That is mixed up with short-term variability that happens with our weather patterns in any event.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, for his wholly unsolicited testimonial to my book. I also ask the Lords Minister of the year—I warmly congratulate him on that well deserved award—
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, is the Minister not being a little over the top? I am sure that he is aware that the impact assessment of his own department, Defra, for the Climate Change Bill suggests that the cost to the British economy of the Bill’s absurd proposals for a 60 per cent decarbonisation—more may well be recommended—is £200 billion by 2050; many independent economists have put it much higher. The benefits—highly conjectural and dependent on a global agreement which is unlikely to arise in the form sought—are, at best, about half that. A different approach based on adaptation, should there be a problem—despite these models predicting increasing warming this century, there has been no further warming so far—
Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, should this not really go back to the drawing board?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s initial comments and for the kind words he said about me last night, which I shall try to reciprocate now. The long-term warming trend is there. However, as regards the short term, figures show that there could have been a decrease in the past couple of years due to La Nina occurring in the Pacific Ocean—which the scientists say has finished this week—which is the cold aspect of it. That can have an effect on world water and land temperatures. However, the consensus of scientists is that the long-term trend of increased temperatures results from man-made emissions.
I am reluctant to say anything about the Climate Change Bill, which has started its Committee stage in the other place, and will come back to this House. I should not prejudge what the other place will do. However, according to the Stern report—which still remains the bible, whatever people may say about it—if we do not act, we will lose something like 5 per cent of global GDP each year now and for ever.
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Lord Teverson: My Lords, we on these Benches agree with the Minister’s comments on the problem. However, when the Government came to power in 1997, they set themselves a target of a 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide by 2010. Yet over the past three years there has been no reduction whatever at 557 million tonnes. The figure is now higher than in 1997. When will carbon dioxide reductions start in the United Kingdom?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I take the noble Lord’s point about emissions. The United Kingdom can set a lead on this but we cannot solve the problem ourselves. That is the whole point of the exercise. We can preach to others if we are doing something ourselves. We are only a small player in this. The noble Lord is right: the EU’s target was to limit global average temperatures to no more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. That would require CO2 concentrations to be stabilised at or below 500 parts per million. The concentration is already about 430 parts per million and the models used by the Henley Centre warn that an even lower level is required. We are on course to meet our Kyoto commitments along with most other member states of the European Union. However, overall, we have to do more in terms of adaptation and mitigation. That will not be pleasant, but it has to be planned so that we can take the population along with us.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, has my noble friend heard about or seen the reports published today which indicate that within the next decade there will be no ice in the Arctic in summer despite the fact that the winter seasons have been colder of late? Does he agree that the environmental impacts and the impacts on people’s lives of that trend are not yet fully understood and are things that we need to consider very seriously when thinking about climate change in the future?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I have not seen the reports that my noble friend mentioned. However, it is reported that there could be catastrophic tipping points in the world’s climate, whether caused by thermal changes in the Atlantic or what is happening in the Arctic and the loss of the ice. On the other hand, none of these tipping points may occur. If they occurred, it would be catastrophic. In my original Answer I gave a range of temperatures, and if the upper range was reached none of us would probably be here. My noble friend is right to say that this is a serious business. The reason the Pacific’s temperatures are changing, and why we have just had La Nina as opposed to El Nino, is the flow of colder water from the depths and from the ice packs. I understand that that has been switched off, as it were, by nature this week. That will probably start to change the pattern and lead to slightly warmer temperatures. However, the change to which my noble friend referred is happening and we have to deal with it.
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Aviation: Sustainable Development Commission Report
11.15 am
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall asked Her Majesty’s Government:
What further consideration they will give to the report of the Sustainable Development Commission, Breaking the holding pattern: A new approach to aviation policy making in the UK.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we participated in and supported an open dialogue process managed by the Sustainable Development Commission, during which a huge range of stakeholder views were expressed. As such, the Government do not believe that the dialogue delivered any consensus to support the recommendations in the SDC’s report. The Government’s aviation policy is evidence-based, and we do not therefore intend to carry out a fundamental review as the report recommends.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer, although I do not find it very encouraging. Is he aware that, in its critique of the 2003 air transport White Paper, which it published in 2004, the Sustainable Development Commission said:
“It is now becoming urgent that [Governments] begin the challenging task of building public awareness of the fact that air traffic cannot be allowed to grow at its present pace, and that policy must be reoriented towards restraining rather than encouraging growth in air traffic”?
Does my noble friend not agree that the current situation shows that it was right then and that it is right now? There has been a dramatic increase in oil prices, which is one of the assumptions on which the 2003 policy was based, and climate change science has moved on. Is he further aware that there is evidence that passenger numbers are beginning to fall off? Stansted airport recently reported a 4.4 per cent decline in passenger numbers between January and May this year.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, is it not now time for a confident Government to review the circumstances and look at their air transport policy again?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we keep our air transport policy under review at all times. I am aware of the points that the noble Baroness has made, but we also have to take carefully into consideration the profoundly beneficial impact that the aviation sector has on our national economy. We should look at these things over the longer term rather than the shorter term.
Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, in her Question. The Government really must look at this again. There is
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Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, frankly, I find the position of the noble Lord’s party on the aviation industry quite astonishing. The aviation industry brings net benefits to the United Kingdom. All of the projections over the longer term show that there will be continued growth. I wonder where the party opposite’s incoherent policy on aviation in the south-east is going to lead. Will it lead eventually to the meltdown of the aviation sector if at some point in the future his party comes into government?
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, the report to which the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, referred is a very poorly aimed kick for the long grass. It is a recipe for doing nothing. Does the noble Lord agree that there is much more to be done in improving access by rail to London from the north of England, and from the Channel Tunnel through to everywhere, so that there is much less need to travel?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, again, I find the position of the noble Lord and his party on travel somewhat astounding. Yes, of course we believe that much more should be done, and we have been doing a great deal to encourage rail transportation. There has been a 40 per cent increase in passenger numbers over the past 10 years, which I think is a hallmark of a successful strategy for the rail network, and we anticipate further growth. The noble Lord has argued for the further growth of rail travel.
However, there is a limit to the amount of rail-for-air substitution that can be achieved. We have achieved great things on the Manchester to London corridor, with a reversal of the balance between rail and air modes of travel over the past four years. We can make more progress with train journeys out of London to Birmingham; but that does not negate the fact that there will continue to be a growth in aviation and the aviation sector and people desiring to travel by air.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, notwithstanding what has been said by other contributors, the UK is desperately short of airport capacity in London and the south-east? After 11 years in government, we have still not reached the hard decisions which must be taken on a strategic approach to London and the south-east. Would the Minister confirm that there is no country in the world which is unilaterally restricting the growth of its aviation industry, and that that is the policy of this Government?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we do not seek unilaterally to restrain the growth of the aviation sector, but we balance our concerns and considerations about growing the aviation sector with environmental
19 Jun 2008 : Column 1134
Lord Lyell of Markyate: My Lords, this is a question from an ignoramus. Why do we heavily tax fuel on trains and motor vehicles, but not on aeroplanes?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we have introduced the air passenger duty, which is, of course, an environmental tax.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, does the Minister agree that advancing the environmental cause is not incompatible with sensible and existing airport strategy? Is it not clear that our airports—particularly Heathrow—play a vital role in linking the UK to other parts of the world? They thereby significantly help to boost the competitiveness that we demand.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, my noble friend is right. If we were to freeze all development at Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick, aviation sector activity—indeed, the aviation industry—would simply displace to other major European airports. That would be very damaging to the United Kingdom economy.
Railways: Network Rail
11.22 am
Lord Dubs asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Network Rail is a private sector company, limited by guarantee. Decisions on bonuses are a matter for Network Rail’s independent remuneration committee, not the Government. The level of bonuses is determined by the degree of achievement of key performance-indicator targets, under Network Rail’s incentive plans, produced in accordance with a licence requirement of the independent Office of Rail Regulation.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that Network Rail is funded largely out of public money, that it was recently fined £34 million for incompetence, and that its directors have received bonuses of hundreds of thousands of pounds? Does he not agree that there is something wrong with that system? Certainly, many people are puzzled as to why we go on paying large bonuses for inefficiency.
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