Clause 23 - ''Scheme year'' and ''target year''
Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Mr Norman Baker (Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
I think that the motivation of my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford and myself in tabling amendments Nos. 90, 91 and 92 is not dissimilar from that of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. We all seek clarity.
The Minister said that one reason why he would resist amendments Nos. 84 to 87 was that he had to stick rigidly to EU legislation and the EU directive. That leads me to look with gentle surprise at clause 23, which allows the Secretary of State to change quite a lot of the framework by regulation. It refers to him adding different scheme years,
''changing the target years or any of them''
and
''adding or omitting one or more target years.''
That gives him a wide degree of flexibility, which appears to be inconsistent—I put it no more strongly than that—with article 5 of the directive. I do not know why the Minister wants that flexibility. If he says, ''Well, that flexibility is there because European legislation may be amended and we want to be able to deal with it without the need for primary legislation,'' that argument is the opposite to the one that he deployed earlier, on amendment No. 84. I suggested that the flexibility that we proposed was necessary, but the Minister said that he would resist the amendment because of the EU directive. The Government cannot on one hand argue that they have to stick to the EU directive when it comes to Opposition amendments and on the other give the Bill the flexibility to change matters when it suits their purposes.