Clause 2 - Non-target years
Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is teasing me to display my intimate understanding of those matters in an even fuller form than I had intended. He is right that changing the word will have a material effect on the whole of clause 3; it might be that if we change the word to ''must'', the formula will become redundant. Committee members will have read it and worked it through—I did a few thumbnail sketches on it last night and found that if one presents the formula graphically it is a straight-line graph. I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that. It will certainly be of less significance if the Minister accepts the amendment. Other hon. Members might like to comment on the matter in the course of their perorations.
However, the essence of the amendment is that if we are to meet the target that the Minister has rightly identified—if we are to press ahead with the speed and vigour that we all desire, without giving the Minister overweening powers—''must'' is a more appropriate word. On that basis, I probe the Minister to discover how he sees his role in relation to meeting the targets in the non-target years and whether he feels that it will be helpful for the Bill to give him greater authority so to do. I shall be interested to hear his response. Perhaps, in the course of it, we can have a full mathematical analysis of the formula with some worked examples.