Clause 1 - Purposes
Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill
2:30 pm
Malcolm Wicks (Minister for energy, Department of Trade and Industry; Croydon North, Labour)
I welcome you to the Chair of our proceedings, Mr. Benton, which might last for a sitting or two. Hopefully, in the interest of energy efficiency, they will not last much longer, although that will be for the Committee to determine.
Before I speak to the amendment, I should like to express sincere thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) for his continued hard work on this important Bill, which the Government support in principle, although we seek to amend it in a number of ways. We have held constructive discussions since Second Reading on 11 November last year. My Department and I have enjoyed working with my hon. Friend to get the Bill, we hope, on to the statute book. I am especially grateful for the way in which he has worked closely with several Departments to devise amendments addressing the Government’s concerns about the Bill in its current form.
The purposes of the Bill, as outlined in clause 1, are fully in line with existing Government objectives. The Prime Minister has described climate change as
“the world’s greatest environmental challenge”.
Although politicians often wax lyrical on their chosen subject, calling it the greatest challenge facing the earth, for once the proposition is not an exaggeration. The Government have made significant strides in achieving the ambitious goals of our energy policy. We are on track to meet the Kyoto targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The renewables obligation and the climate change levy exemption will result in support to renewables of £1 billion a year by 2010. As a result of the renewables obligation, last year saw the largest amount of renewable generation ever installed in the United Kingdom.
During the past 18 months, interest in microgeneration, the subject of the Bill, has grown. Before the Energy Act 2004 took effect, microgeneration was a concept understood by only a few specialists. Now it is almost a household term. Perhaps, by way of declaring an interest not in a parliamentary but a more general sense, I should declare that my family is investigating the possibility of having a micro-wind turbine at our dwelling. I shall bring you up to date, Mr. Benton, as events transpire. Even The Times, I am told—I do not read the tabloids myself—is running stories claiming that domestic wind turbines are the new iPod, although at the moment I lack any interest in having one of those.
Last summer, we held a wide-ranging consultation to gather views on what the Government needed to do to promote microgeneration more effectively. Some time before April this year, we shall publish our microgeneration strategy, which will aim to remove the barriers currently preventing the development of a sustainable market in those new technologies.
We are not complacent. On Monday, I launched the consultation phase of our energy review, which will consider what measures are needed by 2020 and beyond to tackle climate change and ensure secure and affordable energy supplies in the UK. No one could argue with the primary purpose behind tackling climate change, nor with the secondary purposes of alleviating fuel poverty and ensuring diverse and viable long-term energy supplies.
On Government amendments Nos. 1 to 9, as I said on Second Reading in November, the Government have led from the front, domestically and internationally, on climate change. We are happy to report to Parliament on the UK’s progress towards its domestic and international greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
If the amendments are agreed to, the Secretary of State will report annually on the steps taken by UK Government Departments during the previous calendar year to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and on the UK’s emissions figures for the same period. That particular period has been selected as it aligns with the UK’s reporting commitments to both the European Union and the United Nations framework convention on climate change.
I accept that some believe that as head of the Government, the Prime Minister should deliver the report. However, I feel that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who leads for the UK on this issue, should give the report. I assure the Committee that all relevant central UK Government Departments, including my own, will work with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the production of the report, as they do with the other reports that the UK has to prepare to meet its international reporting obligations.
The amendments also clarify what measures need to be included in the report. By amending the reference to “government”, which becomes “government departments”, amendment No. 3 confirms that clause 2(1)(a) refers only to the steps taken by this Government, and not to those of the devolved Administrations, non-departmental agencies or local councils. That amendment does not affect clause 2(1)(b), which relates to the levels of greenhouse gas emissions; those will still be reported for the UK as a whole.
Amendment No. 8 would delete clauses 2(1)(2) and 2(1)(3), which would require a motion for resolution for approval of the report in both Houses. Both Houses have many opportunities to discuss climate change during the normal course of business, without requiring a specific motion in relation to this report.
Amendment No. 17 removes the Prime Minister from the list of relevant bodies to which the Bill applies. In light of the amendments just discussed, which remove references to the Prime Minister, there is no requirement to mention him in this clause. That sounds a bit rude, but I think that Committee members have the drift of my argument.