3rd reading in the Lords
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Lord CrickhowellConservative- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 1:
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The Earl of CaithnessConservative- Quote
- My Lords, I support my noble friend, having put my name to a variation of this amendment for the third time. As my noble friend has said, we worked on this at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. Although, I feel that we could have won a Division had I tested the opinion of the House on Report, it would have been wrong to do so in view of government Amendment No. 50, which I needed to consider. The Government’s only argument, which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has used on every occasion, is that this amendment would weaken the Bill. I dispute that. This amendment strengthens the Bill. It makes it a realistic proposition rather than a fanciful idea, which the original Clause 1 did by imposing a duty on the Secretary of State that could not be upheld in the courts. As has been said, we discussed this in the Joint Committee at great length. Without doubt, this is one of the key amendments now left to be agreed by the House in order to put this Bill into the right shape to send to another place. If we do not alter it in this way, there is little chance that the other place will have even the opportunity to consider such an important matter. For that reason, and everything I have said at previous stages, I support my noble friend Lord Crickhowell.
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Lord TurnbullCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, when an amendment to Clause 1 was debated on Report, the Minister was rather dismissive of it. He argued that it would weaken the Bill. We now have a new amendment, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I shall make another attempt to persuade the Minister of its merits. First, the amendment has the merit of elegance and clarity in its drafting. In relation to the targets, it brings together in one place at the beginning of the Bill the things that the Secretary of State has a duty to do from the original Clause 1 and the things that the Secretary of State must do under new Clauses 13 and 14. That will make the Bill’s purpose much clearer and the way it operates more logical. Secondly, the Minister argued on Report that the amendment would weaken the Bill. It could be said that the Government draft is stronger because it relates the duty directly to the final objective set for 2050, but in my view this is illusory. The link with the 2050 target is an indirect one, depending not only on what the Secretary of State does, but also on how society responds. As a result many legal experts, some of them in this House, have cast doubt on whether the Secretary of State could successfully be challenged in law. The amendment is superior, in the view of many, because it relates the duty to those things a Secretary of State actually does—developing policies and implementing them—and not to something that a Secretary of State does not actually do, which is emit CO2. The test then becomes one of whether the actions or omissions of the Secretary of State are reasonable in relation to the objective. That looks to me like a proposition that a court could handle. The Minister also argued that one of the purposes of the Bill is to require departments and their civil servants to look continuously at whether their actions could be challenged in law, thereby evoking the famous JOYS booklet, The Judge Over Your Shoulder, first published in 1987 and now in its fourth edition. Again, this would be more effective if it related to what civil servants actually do in terms of giving policy advice, enforcing regulations and so forth, as the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, explained. The purpose must be connected to the objectives of the department and those of individual civil servants. Thirdly, the new Clause 2 brings greater and more continuous pressure of enforcement. At present there are to be two channels, the first of which is political accountability. If any of the targets for the five-year carbon accounts are missed or look like being missed, the Government must report to Parliament on why and what they are going to do about them. The second channel is the threat of legal challenge for failure to meet the duty to deliver the objective for 2050. But this really begins to bite only when 2050 comes into sight and it becomes undeniable that the target will be missed. The advantage of the amendment is that the duty will apply to the quinquennial targets as well as to that for 2050, so bringing the political and legal enforcement processes into line. The defect in the Bill which this amendment addresses has not just come to light. It was identified last year by the Joint Committee on which many of your Lordships served, and while the introduction by the Government of what are now Clauses 13 and 14 go some way to rectifying the fault, in my view they do not go far enough. Therefore I hope very much that the Government will complete the process by agreeing to adopt this amendment and refining it if necessary during the Bill’s passage through the Commons.
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Lord TeversonLiberal Democrat- Quote
- My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on his tenacity in pursuing this important issue. Certainly one of the big messages from the Government has been that this Bill leads globally in the fight against climate change because there are statutory targets, yet there are two fundamental problems with the claim, one of which this amendment would begin to put right. The statutory targets do not apply strongly enough to the five-year budgets that frame the short-term areas of action and count rather more than the target for 2050. We also have a statutory obligation on Ministers which concerns the 2050 target, but in the Bill is set at 60 per cent. We are therefore in the strange position of having the Prime Minister expecting the climate change committee to come back with a reduction of around 80 per cent, but the target set out in primary legislation remaining at 60 per cent. The legal obligation in 2050 remains at 60 per cent rather than 80 per cent. The amendment goes a long way towards solving the interim issue. We on these Benches have a particular problem because we believe that it is absolutely wrong for the incorrect target to be on the face of the Bill that passes from this House. This matter was voted on and the opinion of these Benches was rejected. I do not agree with that but I accept the will of the House. We will fight for our target in the other place when the Bill goes there. Again I congratulate the noble Lord on this approach. The amendment would strengthen the Bill considerably. As the House has already expressed its will on the 60/80 argument, we on these Benches support this strengthening of government accountability.
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Lord PuttnamLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. In a sense, I have been involved in shuttle diplomacy on this subject for 10 months now, and two things have happened during that time. First, my journey has taken me from thinking that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, was on to something to becoming convinced that he is more than on to something and is absolutely correct. Secondly, during those 10 months I had an opportunity to talk to a great number of people with a great deal more expertise in this area than I will ever have, and 100 per cent of them have, in one form or another, confirmed that the amendment is correct. On the other hand, all I have heard from the Government is something I can only sum up as “not invented here”. I have not heard a single cogent argument offered in support of the position the Government are currently taking. Therefore, I unequivocally support the amendment.
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Lord Brooke of Sutton MandevilleConservative- Quote
- My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Crickhowell most warmly on the assiduousness with which he has pursued this issue over, I dare say, the 10 months to which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, referred a moment ago, but certainly through all the proceedings in the House. I am not a veteran of the pre-legislative scrutiny but, as I said on Report, I was the only parliamentarian from this Parliament who sat through the entire CPA conference on global warming which took place in the last week of November last year. In the context of the claim which the Government properly and reasonably make that we are setting an example and are the first Government to legislate—an issue to which my noble friend Lord Crickhowell referred—exactly that claim was made by the government spokesman early in the conference. Its global universality is one of the virtues of the Commonwealth and, after he had left, some of us smiled as a series of Ministers from what I will call the smaller island territories said that the situation was so threatening and so imminent for them that they had already carried through such legislation as was required, and at least 10 had full-scale plans at a much higher state of advancement than anything we can claim. It is therefore important that the example the Government set out to give should be as good as possible. If my noble friend’s amendment improves it still further, that is all to the good. I do not propose—I said I would not do it on Report and I shall not do it now—to go through the British Library experience to which I alluded in Committee. However, it still remains with me. The test of any Secretary of State during the 20 years that the British Library was being constructed was that he or she would be held responsible for the exact state of the business. However, in view of the fact that the Government’s insistence on the wording which is currently in the Bill prior to my noble friend’s amendment has so concentrated Whitehall’s mind, I will say—I did not say this in Committee—that when the construction had been going on for 15 years and book cases were being installed in the cellar of the British Library, the book cases developed a habit of ejecting the books and putting them on the floor, which in the concept of a flagship library is not a wholly satisfactory development. I was sent into battle armed with a happy Q & A: Question: “Secretary of State, why is it that the shelves are throwing the books on the floor?” Answer: “Shelves, being inanimate objects, cannot throw anything”. Anything that can be done to reinforce the Government’s position is good. I am a warm supporter of my noble friend’s amendment.
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Lord Woolmer of LeedsLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I support the amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, will know, he and I voted together in this direction during the Joint Committee pre-scrutiny process. I speak on this issue for the opposite reason from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The Bill enables the Secretary of State to amend the 60 per cent target to 80 per cent. It is a red herring to suggest that the target in the Bill is only 60 per cent. My concern would increase even more if the figure were set at 80 per cent; if the Secretary of State had a duty, as under the current Bill, to ensure that that target were met, I would be deeply concerned. The Government would find it difficult, if the climate change committee recommended 80 per cent, not to be seen to be setting challenging targets. It would be almost a game of chicken. If the Government say they have a duty to meet a target, they have to be pretty sure they can meet it; otherwise it is a pointless duty to set. The target can be amended. If a duty were placed on the Secretary of State to ensure that a figure was met, he or she simply could not guarantee to meet it. The other reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, gave on the process issues are equally strong and are another reason to accept the amendment. As in the Joint Committee, I find that on this occasion I agree with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell.
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Lord Taylor of HolbeachConservative- Quote
- My Lords, as has been made clear, the basic intentions and the philosophy behind the amendments have already been debated in your Lordships’ House. However, along with other noble Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Crickhowell for his persistence in tabling these amendments. In addition, the amendments in their present incarnation, as my noble friend has said, are an improvement based on the debates we have had, and he has indicated the joint effort that lies behind them. I am pleased to see this set of amendments tabled at this stage. We have heard from across the House noble Lords’ support for them. As has been said, the amendments seek to address some problems with the Bill’s most important duty: that of the Secretary of State to ensure emission reductions. We want to stress as ardently as possible that our intention is to strengthen that duty, not to weaken it. Despite first appearances, the amendments strengthen the Bill. The Minister claimed that the Bill, which places a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that emissions are reduced by 2050, is the stronger. However, the Government still have not adequately responded to the argument that the link between the Secretary of State and the final objective for 2050 is an indirect one. Yes, the Secretary of State should be at the helm of policy, the responsibility of reducing emissions should be driven across all departments and it is of vital importance that the targets are reached. Those issues are not under dispute. What is being debated is the best way of ensuring that those things happen. Yet the first duty placed on the Secretary of State has little to do with the way that they happen—it is merely to guarantee results. I understand that the Bill then breaks down the individual duties of the Secretary of State and outlines, to a degree, the path to be taken, with the aim of achieving the 2050 target. What, then, does a duty to ensure outcomes add to the Bill? Does it imply that after the Secretary of State has prepared proposals and policies to meet 2050 targets and has failed, he is further empowered to do anything necessary to meet that target? Or is it the intention to bring the Secretary of State to court in 2049, after four decades of Secretaries of State who have tried to reduce emissions, because the numbers are not adding up? Surely the point of this duty is to ensure that the effect of the Bill is felt across all departments. Having a duty that is tethered to a target 40 years away will make it more difficult to hold any Secretary of State to account. He could always claim that he is on track to reduce the emissions by 2050, though he knows that he might not even be around to see that date. The amendments tidy up the language of duties and obligate the Secretary of State to do his job in a way that will ensure results. It places a duty on the Secretary of State to do what Secretaries of State do: to make proposals and to implement policy. It would strengthen the duty placed on him because he would have to justify how each policy fitted into the overall framework of reducing emissions. If that is what is going to happen in practice as the Bill stands, why are the Government reluctant to accept it and put it in the Bill? Why are they willing to risk setting the threshold for compliance too high, thereby negating it? Do they think that the Secretary of State will do anything other than make proposals and policies under the Bill as it stands? Is this not the way in which he will go about ensuring a reduction? Essentially, we support the amendment because it scores a direct hit on something with which any legislator should be uncomfortable; namely, legislating for the result and not the process.
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Lord RookerLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I hesitate to rise because I am eight-to-one down. I thought that I might be nine-to-one down by way of repetition. Although I fear that my answers will be very much the same as previously, I take on board the points that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, made and I agree with many of his sentiments. I shall go through a little of the chronology of this part of the Bill, with which the amendments deal in isolation. It is as though nothing else is in the Bill. We have just heard that no legal requirement is placed on the Secretary of State other than the 2050 target but that is not true. The 2020 target is a legal duty; it is set out in Clause 5. All I ask is that noble Lords look at the facts of the Bill as it stands, rather than what it might have been or some of the early rhetoric of our debates. There is even a duty to publish a compliance action plan if one of the five-yearly budgets is missed. The idea that we have legislated for 2050 and ignored everything else is just not true. It is there in the Bill. If we are getting such inaccuracies the fourth time we debate the Bill following Second Reading, all I can say is that I am at a disadvantage. I have responded to the letter of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, but fully accept that one cannot always be sure where the post goes. A load of letters went into the internal system earlier today. However, part of my speech is based on the letter, and the letter is based on the speech. In other words, the message is exactly the same. The noble Lords’ amendment addresses the strength and enforceability of the Secretary of State’s existing duty in what is now Clause 2 and used to be Clause 1, and the need for that duty to place the Government under continuous pressure. In some ways we welcome that, as I hope I have made clear throughout the Bill’s passage. We welcome scrutiny in both Houses and from outside bodies. We want to be as transparent and accountable as possible. Clause 2 provides the Bill’s overarching purpose and requires a specific outcome, and that should be maintained in the Bill. If we removed that duty it would place the focus on the process rather than on a clear outcome. The amendment’s effect would be that the Government could fail to meet the 2050 target but still comply with their duty so long as they had developed what they thought at the time were the right policies. Without the clause, the Government would still be held to account on whether they had taken forward the right processes, but there would be no legally binding long-term target which placed pressure on the Secretary of State to achieve the final outcome as opposed to just going through the process. One has to separate those two functions. We genuinely believe that doing it that way would dilute the Bill rather than strengthen it.
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- Lord CrickhowellConservative
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- My Lords, one of the great advantages I have in responding to the Minister at this stage is that he has said absolutely nothing that he has not said in all the earlier debates. In almost every case those points have been addressed this afternoon by me or by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull. It is always rather bad luck on a Minister to be given all these helpful papers from his civil servants before the debate as he feels that he has to do justice to them. However, we are so fond of the Minister partly because of these wonderful revelatory moments when he gives away just a little of his own thinking. He did it this afternoon when he said, “I agree with the sentiments of much of it”. That gave us a clue about what had been going on in those conclaves with his colleagues at the other end of the House. I must challenge two of his observations. He said that I had removed the focus from the 2050 objective. That is a curious remark when the very opening sentence of my amendment sets the Secretary of State to, “prepare such proposals and policies … as the Secretary of State reasonably considers will—ensure”. If that does not direct the Secretary of State to focus on something, I do not know what does. The Minister also asserted that I had claimed that the Secretary of State had no power to influence. However, the whole of my argument was that, by the preparation of policies, the five-year budget process and so on, he does have the ability to influence. What he does not have is the ability to ensure. The Minister kept calling in aid Clause 5, which apparently is going to bail him out of the mess that his department has put him in. However, Clause 5 states: “It is the duty of the Secretary of State … to ensure”. We are back to that word “ensure”, which is exactly the word we are criticising in what is now Clause 2. We have gone over this many times. All I would like to do at this stage, before the crucial final words I should utter, is to thank all those who have supported my amendments at this and earlier stages, particularly those who helped to draft this amendment and who supported it today. As this is the last occasion on which I will speak on the Bill in this House until it is sent back to us from another place, as I suppose it will be, I thank the Ministers for the courteous way in which they dealt with all the points we made. As I say, I also thank the Minister for those wonderful revelatory moments with which he has endeared himself to the House. If only his colleagues at the other end of the House really understood how this House works and how to influence it, they would not get into the mess in which they have got themselves on this occasion. I ask the House to vote for the amendment. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
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Lord Davies of OldhamLabour- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 4:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 5:
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- Lord Taylor of HolbeachConservative
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- moved Amendment No. 6:
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- Lord TeversonLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor—I know the work that he has done on this—I still do not really understand why the amendment is necessary. Clause 25(1) refers to a figure of at least 70 per cent. Throughout our discussions on this subject, we have stated that this relates purely to the targets and does not affect any trading systems; nor does it affect the Government’s ability to purchase external credits under the clean development mechanism, the Kyoto mechanisms or the ETS, although the latter is primarily a commercial scheme. If they wish to do so, that is completely within their powers. The clause simply uses the words “at least” with an accounting target in the UK carbon account. It does not need to reflect any other actions by government or commercial companies. Therefore, from these Benches we would find it strange if the amendment were needed. The fact that Clause 25 is clear and simple is what commends it most. Having said that, I agree with the clarification, although I do not think it is necessary to put it in the Bill.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- My Lords, I fear that I shall disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, on the specific questions that he asked. We had good debates on this issue in Committee and on Report, but your Lordships’ House spoke clearly on the question. We now have Clause 25 in the Bill and we think it is right to leave it to the other place to consider it. Amendment No. 6 has come late in the day and there has been no time to consider it across government. Unlike in the other place, starred amendments in this place are debated the day after they are tabled. In the other place, this amendment would not even have been selected because it was tabled only on Friday for a debate on Monday. Therefore, I have been party to no discussions about the amendment. The discussions about how the Government will deal with the Bill in the other place have only just started and my colleagues there said to me, “We want to wait until you’ve finished with it because we don’t know what else will happen”. As noble Lords saw from the earlier debate, we came close to making another major change to the Bill. Therefore, positions have not been set and lines in the sand have not been drawn. Basically, as will be seen, we have confined the Government’s amendments at Third Reading to ones that conform to the rules of your Lordships’ House—that is, they are just tidying-up amendments. We would not have brought back a large, substantive amendment on this issue even if we had a fixed position on it, because that would have been outside the rules. Our initial analysis of the amendment is that it adds very little, if anything, to the framework of the Bill. Nothing in the Bill, including in Clause 25, prevents overachievement of the budget set out in Clause 5. That is what I said earlier and it is what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said. The key question for any Government in setting a budget under Clause 5 will be the costs and the benefits of any of the given budget levels. Any restriction on the use of overseas credits would be a relevant factor in that calculation, but this relates to the setting of budgets rather than meeting them or even going beyond them, if it is desired. This does not change our view that the issue should be considered in the other place and, therefore, I am in no position to bring a considered view on this to the House this afternoon.
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- Lord Taylor of HolbeachConservative
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- My Lords, obviously I am disappointed that the Minister is not able to respond as he would wish. If the amendment had been laid before, it may have been possible for the Government to consider it. None the less, I hope that the Minister will accept that in tabling this amendment we were seeking to be helpful and to clarify the position of what we think is an extremely important clause. Clause 25 places on the Secretary of State a particular responsibility to ensure that domestic reductions are at 70 per cent. We accept that that may well be a burdensome responsibility, but it is one that we believe is part and parcel of making a success of this Bill. Although I am disappointed that we are not able to put this amendment into the Bill for clarification of the text, I am grateful at least for the chance to discuss it. I hope that the Minister will be able to advocate the sentiments behind my amendment when he has discussions on the Bill as it moves to the other place. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 38 [General ancillary powers]:
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 7:
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- Lord Taylor of HolbeachConservative
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- My Lords, I rise briefly so that the annunciator does not have to be changed, as it has had me moving the amendment for the past couple of minutes. I support the amendments in this group. On Report, I called the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, which had a similar intention, the Frankenstein amendment and this seems to be Frankenstein night, missing perhaps that extra final charge from the electrical condenser, but, none of the less, bringing new life to the committee. We welcome these amendments. Empowering the committee to conduct and commission its own research is an important concession from the Government. It is a credit to noble Lords in the previous debate and a credit to the Government that they have taken note of that debate. The Committee on Climate Change needs to be armed with the potential to find out the information necessary to combat climate change without a direct order to do so from the Secretary of State. It is highly likely that the committee will notice areas that need further examination and that need to be brought to the Government’s attention. Thus, it is welcome that the committee will now be empowered to do so. I hope it puts these new powers to good use. It is pleasing to see the Government finally taking on board a Conservative position: that this committee needs to have a power that comes from its scientific authority.
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- Lord TeversonLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, as one who put his name to the original amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, I very much welcome the strong terms in which the Minister spoke to the amendments and described the ability of the climate change committee to take forward its own agenda in this area. Finally, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, on having pursued this strongly. He has achieved a good result.
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Lord DearingCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, Machiavelli, Frankenstein and the opposition Front Benches have done a great job. I am grateful to the Minister for what he has said, particularly on Clause 35. This pilgrim is now released from Doubting Castle. On Question, amendment agreed to.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 8:
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Baroness NorthoverLiberal Democrat- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 9:
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Lord WhittyLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. I am not sure whether the noble Baroness mentioned this, but in Committee I moved this amendment. It was rather later than my bedtime and that of most noble Lords, so it is reasonable that we come back to this issue. I do not want to say very much because I agree with pretty much everything that the noble Baroness said. The fact of the matter is that the targets in the Bill are not going to be delivered by legislation, by Governments, by and large, or, essentially, by individuals acting on their own through their own ethical considerations. They are going to be delivered by the main economic movers; namely, private companies acting to meet those targets within the framework that the legislation and the Government set. For those companies to change the way in which they behave in relation to carbon and carbon equivalents, they need to ensure that they have proper, verifiable measures of what the carbon and carbon equivalent is and that they are built into their central motivation for their management, their staff and their researchers so that the success of the company relates to a large degree to the way in which it minimises its carbon and carbon equivalent emissions. For that to happen, we need a proper system of accounting, supported by guidance and the accounting profession to ensure not simply that carbon is effectively traded on a verifiable and equitable basis but also to change the way in which companies behave, research is rewarded and managers receive promotion to highlight the company’s image and its public relations. Without that dramatic behavioural change in private enterprise, we will not achieve the targets set in the Bill. It will also have a knock-on effect, and I declare my interest as chair of the National Consumer Council. Unless those consumers who are driven by ethical and environmental considerations can see that a company is making serious efforts to drive down its carbon emissions, doing so better than competitor companies, making its contribution and changing the way it does business, there will not be a demand effect on companies to redouble their efforts so that the full leverage of competition begins to operate in a way that means that these carbon targets are most likely to be met. This amendment is therefore absolutely necessary. As the noble Baroness said, this amendment does not prescribe exactly what the Government should do but inserts an enabling clause to deliver legislation that is already on the statute book. However, it is an essential lever that we believe ought to be in the Bill. If he is not prepared to accept the amendment today, I hope that the Minister will take it back to his colleagues and will come back during the passage of the Bill with something that does deliver the whole of Whitehall because—if I can be indiscreet for a moment as I no longer hold the office that the Minister holds—there are recalcitrant elements in Whitehall and the noble Baroness pretty accurately identified them. However, with the overall political commitment to the Bill that has been set by the Prime Minister and the Government, that opposition within Whitehall has to be overcome, and this is one way of overcoming it with the support of British industry.
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The Lord Bishop of LondonCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I very strongly support the amendment. I remember sharing a platform in a very supplementary capacity with the previous Prime Minister when he launched the project Accounting for Sustainability. It is a research project that is currently under way under the leadership of KPMG that intends to do exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, which is to put into the DNA of companies the consideration of something that, because our existing accountancy rules are retrospective and look at historical costs, has not, until comparatively recently, been part of the picture of practical management. This amendment is entirely consonant with the way in which the general picture is developing. As has already been stated, it is permissive and shows direction of travel rather than being mandatory, so it does not tie the Government’s hands in an inappropriately specific way. My right reverend Brother the Bishop of Liverpool is a signatory to the amendment. He is characteristically abroad on his environmental crusade, but I want to sign up to this as well, particularly as I chair the Church of England’s Shrinking the Footprint campaign, which affects 18,000 of our churches and many other buildings. I know perfectly well that such measures as are described here are complex, but it is entirely possible to get compliance and make progress, even with an amazingly devolved and undisciplined organisation such as ours. This is an essential indication of whether the Bill will take advantage of an evolution in the general climate, particularly the climate that relates to how we account for our enterprises.
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- Lord PuttnamLabour
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- My Lords, I support this amendment. I shall add an additional reason. I would not have spoken had any other noble Lord mentioned it, but it is important. The Government have tripped over themselves, sometimes to the point of going to far, to be business friendly, but I get around and talk to businesses and the businesses I talk to tend to be those that are the most responsible and the most eager to be seen to be part of the UK community. They always say the same thing to me: “For God’s sake, why do the Government not legislate and create an even playing field between we who wish to be responsible and those many other businesses that choose not to be?”. If that is not the best possible reason for pushing this amendment through, I can think of no better. It is to ensure that the actions taken by the best companies are matched by those that are at present wishing to evade and avoid them.
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- Lord Taylor of HolbeachConservative
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- My Lords, I am pleased that we have had the opportunity of debating this subject at a reasonable hour, which has meant that the issue has been well aired. I shall speak to a particular aspect of the amendment, which is reporting on emissions. In the light of the National Audit Office report, that is a pressing issue. The NAO review of measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions pointed out that one of the potential pitfalls of the implementation of the Bill is how we will know what we are emitting. In its current form the Bill marries the measurement of reporting mechanisms to international reporting practice. That is right and proper and we see nothing wrong with that. It is indeed important to accord with international standards in the face of an international problem.
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Lord DubsLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I very much support the amendment and was delighted to put my name to it. I am aware that my noble friend has a very difficult case to answer—probably as difficult a case as any Minister has had to answer on any issue for a long, long time. Does he agree that if such reporting takes place, it would have a salutary effect on the way that companies behave? Is there any other way in which the same end could be achieved, other than that suggested in the amendment? If there is, we would all be happy to hear whether the Government will propose it. I believe that there is no better way to achieve this end; I cannot think of any other way to approach it. I therefore very much hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the arguments put forward. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said, if this were on the statute book and given effect, the culture of companies would inevitably change. In tackling climate change, we are seeking to alter the culture of individuals and of businesses and companies. This is one obvious way to make enormous progress on that. Of course it is a competitive world. This is a case where competition can only be a good thing. I would like to see reporting on Tesco, on Sainsbury, on Asda. Then we would begin to see what is actually happening. If we had reporting on the different airlines, would that not be interesting and salutary? It might influence our behaviour as between Tesco and Sainsbury and between airlines—I had better not say British Airways these days. That would enable us as consumers to make informed choices. If any of us were shareholders—I am not, except through an ISA, a PEP—we could exert pressure on companies. If companies had that pressure brought on them, I believe that they would respond, because that is the nature of the marketplace and of competition. While that information does not exist, companies are under no pressure. Even well meaning people within companies—trade unions, sympathetic directors and sympathetic workers—are in difficulty because they do not have the ammunition with which to make the argument. Goodness me, if I were working for a company and could see that down the road they had a much better record, I would want to know why they were doing it and we were not and what we could do to change our behaviour. I find the argument absolutely compelling. I look forward to my noble friend’s positive response.
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Baroness Young of Old SconeNon-affiliated- Quote
- My Lords, I also support the amendment. It is true that there have been moral homilies to companies to report and, under the Companies Act, some requirement to report for some time, but work done jointly between the Environment Agency and some City institutions shows that reporting is very inconsistent, very difficult to track between companies and very difficult to track over time. Recent research during the past three years has shown that you sometimes need to be a bit of a detective to find company reporting on environmental parameters generally and on climate change and carbon emissions in particular. Some of them tuck it away in corporate social responsibility reports separate from their annual reports and read, one assumes, only by sad human beings such as me and, perhaps the Minister. Others cite it in their annual reports but in ways that vary from year to year, so that one cannot even track the progress of the same company on a consistent basis year on year. The Companies Act talked about the responsibility being laid on companies for reporting according to their degree of risk and the assessment that the company would make about what were the significant risks. During the passage of the Bill, we have heard just how significant climate change is as a risk not only to companies but to us as a country, to our economy, to social considerations and, indeed, to the whole globe. It is instructive that most of the work that the Environment Agency has done on company reporting has been done jointly with the insurance industry and with the investment management community within the City, which is very interested in being able to track what it now realises is a key risk that will influence how it feels about insuring companies and advising on investment in companies. There is a big community out there, all coming at this from different angles, which would like consistent, comparable, clear reporting. It would be useful if that helped us to avoid too many fights in future about the basis on which we are going to keep the books on carbon emissions. This is a bit of a diversion, but I cannot resist it. I was tickled by the search of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, of the BERR website. If we are into BERR-bashing, I must confess that when BERR recently published its statement of purpose and objectives, I put a quick word search into it looking for the word “environment”. It came up three times and I thought, “Yippee! This is really good: BERR saying ‘environment’ three times”. Alas, on each of the three occasions, it was talking about the business environment and there was no other mention of environmental issues. Of course, I could not possibly comment in terms of the amendment on whether that is a reason. This is a very apt amendment because it is proportionate. It makes the point that the requirements to report must not be too onerous; they must reflect the size and impact of the business. It is not a one-size-fits-all amendment; it is therefore worthy of support.
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Lord RedesdaleNon-affiliated- Quote
- My Lords, I support my noble friend. We have just debated an amendment that deals with the 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide that we are considering. We should not forget that this is a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide not from electricity or big business but throughout the country. We have a slight problem in that there is no way of measuring that, as many noble Lords have pointed out. On Virgin Radio this morning, there was an advert from the Carbon Trust saying something like, “If you’re a business, we’d like to help you to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide you produce”. Perhaps that is the wrong way around. Business should have a moral obligation to do so if we are to push this forward. We risk producing a piece of legislation that does nothing more than be a piece of legislation, because there are other pieces of legislation. Local government has an obligation to try to reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 30 per cent but no means by which to do so. The first thing we must do is find out who the polluters are. The amendment would help to do that. I am not sure that business would see it as a bad thing. I was at a dinner with a lot of CSR representatives from companies. I think they would see it as a good thing. This is true especially of some of the big companies such as BT and Ikea, which have a good message to send. BT has just advertised that it has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent. That is a good message which they should put to their consumers. However, there is a problem here. DBERR—or is it BERR? I never know; it has changed its name three times. I still prefer DBRRE, or Debris, but that is just a personal thing. It rolls off the tongue better and does what it says on the tin—and Defra measure carbon differently. How is business meant to measure carbon? Is it meant to follow BERR’s measurement of carbon or Defra’s? That is just a brief point, but it is no bad thing because the real point of the amendment is to make directors of companies think about their carbon footprint. I am a director of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, the commercial arm of which has been pushing fleet training. We used to sell that very successfully on the basis that the more white van drivers you train, the fewer accidents they have. The training also pays for itself very quickly because fewer accidents mean a smaller insurance premium. We now have a much more persuasive argument for companies. People who have been trained in advanced driving, which is actually safe and sensible driving such as not putting your foot to the floor when you are coming up to a red light, produce 10 per cent fewer emissions from the tailpipe. This is a very effective argument, which companies have been taking on board in the past two years. The saving in carbon dioxide, as well as the saving in fuel, is now resonating with fleet managers, whom we never thought we would get through to on the environmental aspect. This is a good news issue, but one that must be thought about. We must appeal to company directors not only on main issues such as electricity but on every aspect from transport and procurement through to office management. This is an excellent amendment. If the Government do not accept it, little success will be built into the Bill in the next few years.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- My Lords, I have just counted up the votes. I think it is eight or nine to one: or perhaps nine to zero, to be honest. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said—I realise that the Annunciator was not quite right when we came to the debate—the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, referred to moving the amendment and to the unsatisfactory nature of the way our first two debates were held at almost 11 o’clock on the first night. The general consensus was that it was not known that we had to stop at a certain time. I think it was a Wednesday evening, and the House does not sit after 11 pm on a Wednesday because of the early start on Thursday. The debate on Report, too, was held late in the day. This debate has not suffered the fate of the daylight hours debate, which started late on both nights and has not come back today. I take what the noble Baroness said about bringing this back at Third Reading, but it is not for me to pronounce on the rules of this place. It is on the Order Paper and therefore up for debate. It gives me an opportunity to set out the Government’s position. First, as I have said before, we are not starting with a blank sheet. Many United Kingdom companies, such as the 1,000 companies in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, are already required to disclose their emissions.
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- Lord TeversonLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I thank the Minister. He said this on Report. Clearly companies have to report because the Government run the system that measures the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, but that does not have to appear anywhere in any public company report, so it in no way meets the requirements of the Bill.
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- My Lords, I have only just got going. I know that I have said that before. I am simply setting out the facts—and being very careful with my use of words—that those companies are required to disclose at present. Secondly, there are non-financial issues, which are relevant to the development of performance in a business. Environmental matters can be included, as noble Lords have already said. The good companies will include them, and for lots of reasons. At the end of the day, being good companies, they see that the bottom line improves as well as the customer base. The Companies Act business review requirements require that, and we expect that many companies will report on climate change issues in their business reviews. We will start to get a picture of that in the next few years, which will feed into the proposals. On the standards for reporting, I understand that debates, in which I was not involved, during the passage of the Companies Act 2006 concluded that, rather than mandatory standards for narrative reporting, we could encourage minimum compliance with guidance and a voluntary approach. That would ensure that directors gave proper consideration to reporting. A lot of work is being done to support voluntary reporting. I must point out again that UK companies are already global leaders—I may fall foul of this; I am not claiming that they are the best—in voluntary environmental reporting. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, asked about the National Audit Office report. As that report says, UK greenhouse gas reporting follows international reporting requirements and, as I think I said during the passage of this Bill, we follow the best practice guidelines and have been favourably reviewed by international experts from the United Nations climate change convention and the Kyoto Protocol. If that is not enough, Clause 29, which came across our radar earlier, requires that UK emissions, “must be determined consistently with international carbon reporting practice”. There are some issues relating to what Defra is doing. We are supporting the secretariat to the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, which was launched at the World Economic Forum in January 2007. David Miliband attended as the then Defra Secretary of State. The objective of the board member organisations is to align their core requests for information from companies to ensure that they report climate change-related information in a standardised format that facilitates easier comparative analysis by investors, managers and the public. I know that some people take the old-fashioned view that company reports are simply for the shareholders and that everyone else should mind their own business, but we have gone way beyond that. I am in a position where I can break the habit of a lifetime. We have just had a Division, which the Government won by two votes—I am incredibly grateful to the two Members—on an issue that would have been major. I am using my experience from this place and from the other place. I have to say that the postcards can be a real bore, especially when they come in separate letters from Members of Parliament and require individual replies, to which they are entitled. It is a brave Minister who spends large sums which have not been agreed with colleagues, but that is not an issue with these amendments. As I and others have already said, when the Bill goes to the other place, the Government’s collective view and individual views will determine how the Bill finally ends up and the lines that are taken. There are no lines in the sand in that respect. Every amendment that this place sends to the other place will be considered and either rejected or modified, as happens when the Government think again. Therefore, taking this completely sensible and cost-effective approach, I am going to suggest that the House accept the amendment.
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- Baroness NorthoverLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I am not sure what I am supposed to do now. I thank the Minister very much. When he said that it was eight or nine to one, it may have reflected how he really felt on this. I very much appreciate the participation of Members on all sides of the House, but especially the Minister’s agreement to the amendment. On Question, amendment agreed to. Schedule 1 [The Committee on Climate Change]:
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 10:
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The Duke of MontroseConservative- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 11:
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- My Lords, we discussed similar amendments on Report, and I thank the noble Duke for bringing these back. However, rather like the earlier group of amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, I do not have much more to add before the Bill goes to the other place. As I have made as clear as I can, and if we understand the intention of these amendments correctly, nothing in the Bill would exclude what the noble Duke seeks to provide for. The Bill provides a framework approach. There is nothing in Schedule 2 to prevent the development of a trading scheme allowing people to opt in or to do anything that this group of amendments seeks to ensure. Obviously, decisions on issues such as this would need to be taken in the context of individual schemes if and when they are established under the Bill. As I noted on Report, the Government set up the voluntary UK Emissions Trading Scheme, which ran for four years from 2002. That was a bottom-up scheme of the kind mentioned by the noble Duke. It involved large and small organisations such as Ford, Tesco, the Natural History Museum and, indeed, Kirklees Council. The scheme delivered carbon savings well in excess of those anticipated, and was a valuable learning experience. The example demonstrates that we are willing to look at the issues raised by the noble Duke. As I said, however, we are in no position at this stage in the Bill’s progress to come back with a demonstrable government acceptance. No doubt these issues will be discussed in the other place. I apologise because I have repeated what I said on the previous occasion. I cannot take the matter any further at this point in the Bill.
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- The Duke of MontroseConservative
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- My Lords, it is interesting to note that the Minister has indeed come back with the same arguments he made at the earlier stage. I think it is quite likely that the Government could decide that they will bring in a scheme of this nature, but it is very much a government decision in the first instance. I am seeking to ensure that the possibility exists in the Bill. However, in the light of what the Minister said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 12 to 14 not moved.] An amendment (privilege) made.
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- Lord RookerLabour
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- My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Rooker.)
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- Lord Taylor of HolbeachConservative
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- My Lords, I hope that it is proper at this stage for me to thank the Minister for the way in which he has conducted the passage of the Bill through this House. It has been a challenging Bill and many of us have learnt a lot about things of which we knew relatively little when we embarked on the process, but it has been conducted by the Minister in a most agreeable and pleasant fashion, and it must be to his liking that he has been able to accept amendments made at Third Reading in the way that he has today. I also appreciate the support given by the Bill team to making this a sounder piece of legislation than it was when it started. The Minister said that he knew it would leave this place in a very different form from that in which it arrived. I hope that it has been improved and that the work of your Lordships will be considered in another place. I thank noble Lords for all their contributions, and here I refer to the cadre of skill that has come from the Joint Committee of both Houses chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I hope that noble Lords have strengthened the Bill and thus ensured that its implementation is that much more likely to be successful.
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- Lord TeversonLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I should like to add to those words. I have not taken a Bill through the House from these Benches before but I have found this a positive process. Much of that is down to the Ministers involved, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. The Bill team has also been particularly helpful; they have been involved in many useful discussions and supplied amazingly comprehensive briefing papers. I tried to fire off a few myself but the salvos came back very quickly. I still think that mine were right and theirs were wrong, but there we are. I, too, would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I had the privilege of serving on the Joint Committee which scrutinised the draft Bill. I felt that it was a good exercise and the Government should be congratulated on it. That pre-legislative scrutiny has helped the passage of the Bill. As we all know, this is a framework Bill. It is now down to all of us—whether in opposition or in government, as citizens, and now businesses as well—to get on and implement its provisions in order to save the planet, or whatever the cliché is. But the work is still to be done.
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- Lord PuttnamLabour
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- My Lords, I have no desire to delay the House and I know better than most how the credit roll at the end of a movie can be exasperating, so I shall keep my contribution as short as possible. I want to say on behalf of the members of the Joint Committee how involved and engaged we were in the process, and we are hugely appreciative of the Minister for the way in which he has treated our recommendations. Interestingly, around 70 per cent of our recommendations have been accepted and incorporated in the Bill that will now go to the other end of the corridor. That is not a bad day’s work. I think we would all agree that the Climate Change Bill cannot succeed in a purely party political environment. We are in this together and we will succeed or fail together. As the Bill passes to the other place, and in every sense I wish it godspeed, I want to point out to the Government that the atmosphere out there in the world at large regarding these matters has changed in the 10 months since we started our consideration of the Bill. Just recently, articles by John Vidal, Andrew Rawnsley, Martin Kettle and Ian Sample have all essentially made the same point—that there is a developing informed scepticism about the commitment of this House and the Government in general to the intentions that lie behind the Bill. Like many noble Lords, I thoroughly enjoyed President Sarkozy’s extravagant flattery last week, but there is another voice out there. Some of your Lordships may have read an article recently published in the Guardian by the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, Professor Kishore Mahbubani. I am grateful to him for allowing me to précis his words: “While the West conducts a self-congratulatory conversation, the rest of the world sees an emperor with no moral clothing”. Professor Mahbubani describes three crucial flaws in the following terms: “The first is its [the West’s] inability to practise what it preaches. The second flaw is its refusal to recognise its track record of double standards … whenever a western country has to choose between promoting its values or defending its interests, interests always trump values. The third flaw in western discourse is that when presented with a choice between ‘doing good’ and ‘feeling good’, the West almost always chooses the latter—because it costs less”. The Bill is a fantastic opportunity for this country to prove that it will not remain guilty of those flaws, and in that sense I commend it and wish it well.
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- My Lords, I am most grateful for the kind remarks that have been made. The Bill was new ground for many of us. I fully expected to follow its passage through the other place while doing the farming job so that I would be up to speed by the time it finally arrived here. I was as surprised as anyone else to be told last November that it would start in your Lordships’ House because I have only taken one other major Bill through this House first, the Police Reform Bill when I was at the Home Office. The Bill has not been party politically contentious, and that is an important aspect of it. As my noble friend has just said, while it has been considered for around four months in this House, it also underwent the scrutiny of the Joint Committee. I know it will be a surprise to the other place where, like the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, it will be treated as though it has never been debated. Nevertheless, I think that we are sending it across in better shape, and I thank everyone for their help and co-operation. I thank in particular my two colleagues on the Front Bench for dipping in and out and for keeping me in order so that I have said the right thing at the right time on most occasions. I certainly thank the team in the Box and those who are not present today. I have not always followed the notes I have been given, but they were helpful in putting what I wanted to say into context. Sometimes you have to take the will of the House. The only way you can get that is to stand at the Dispatch Box and listen. Indeed, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that I did not have any choice. When we won by two votes I was not prepared to risk defeat on the amendment—it could easily have gone the other way—and soured the day’s work. I decided while listening to the debate that it would be a good idea, with all the caveats I put on to it, that we should accept the amendment. The House is grateful to the Joint Committee for its work because it will be shown to have been a real credit to the activities of committees of both Houses when the Bill is considered in the other place. We have had the odd late night on the Bill, which meant that staff were dislocated, and I am grateful for their efforts. I have had very good back-up. I have the best private office in Defra and in Whitehall, and I am extremely grateful for all the help I have had during the passage of the Bill. On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
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