Clause 2
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
5:45 pm
John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)
That is all right as long as the hon. Lady agrees with me that the two things are separate and that we need to have an accredited body give us the figure at which we have to aim seriously—rather than aim with the thought that we might not get there—and which would deliver our real purpose. We already have such figures, and most of us think it will be something in the region of 90 per cent., though it might be more than that. Our real purpose, which we have had a long discussion about, and which we have agreed on, is to keep the temperature rise below 2° C. We recognise that the UK has to give more than its fair share, for all kinds of historic and moral reasons. The question is how we deliver that target. I am instinctively an enthusiast for getting down to it, pushing up the number and telling people exactly what we are going to do. That is the way I work.
I am very concerned, however, about the nature of this committee. If the Government had not done what they have done, I would have been wholly happy with putting in a new target. But they have put us in a very difficult position by saying that they think the committee ought to fix the target, showing that they recognise that the target is likely to require upward revision by putting these changes into the Bill, and giving the committee as its first task the need to review the target in the Bill.
The hon. Member for Northavon said clearly that, even if we were to agree with him, the Committee on Climate Change would still have to look at the target figures, so I do not think that any argument about the committee being very busy holds up. It will have to do that anyway. If I were chairing a committee of that sort, the very first thing I would want to do would be to review the terms under which we were working and see that we were on all fours. Otherwise, we might find that we were halfway through some serious discussion and discover fundamental flaws in the understanding of this very eminent committee as to where it started from and where it was aiming. I do not think we can avoid that discussion, and as we are all agreed that it is going to take place, we ought not to give the committee any more to do.
The problem for me is this: we know that the 60 per cent. figure is in the Bill because all those years back, when the Bill was first read, that was the most sensible figure to put in according to science. We could have given no figure at all. The hon. Member for Northavon is right about that. Most of us would have been unhappy with that, because it would have introduced a degree of vagueness. I would not have liked it much, but we could have done that. However, we did not.
The Bill has been discussed throughout with the figure of 60 per cent. in it. As the Minister said, it has gone through the full parliamentary procedure on that basis, and here we are now. The question is how we think the target should be revised in future, given that we all agree that revision upwards is necessary. We now have provision for a committee, which we did not two years ago when the Bill was first drafted. By some sleight of hand—I do not know what, and I shall not criticise it because I am very pleased about it—it appears that the chairman has already been selected, even though we have not got the Bill through yet. Nevertheless, that seems perfectly reasonable because we all agree that we want it.
We have the committee and it can get on with its job. As its first task, it could produce a clear figure for the target. There would be great advantages to that, and they were presented well by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle. Now that we have a committee, it is sensible for it to be the body that fixes the target. If we did not have a committee, we would have to do something else. In the past, because there was nobody else, politicians did their best. Now that we have a committee, I am happy with the Government’s proposal for it.
I am less happy—indeed, dismayed—that that there is not a natural, full part of that proposal that states, “When the committee that we have had the confidence to appoint decides what the target ought to be, we, the Government, guarantee that we will implement it.” That seems to me a clear distinction between the position that I hold and the Minister’s position. I want him to understand how serious the situation is. There are those who want to put the 80 per cent. target in the Bill, and many of us would normally be happy to do that. We are held back from feeling that way because the Government have instituted what could be a perfectly proper procedure that we would like to follow. This will be not be the only time when the figures need to be revised. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton, is right that we should have a system that people recognise as a proper one for such revisions.
The hon. Member for Angus pointed out the problem that, if the Government are to be able to make changes as we go along, it is conceivable, although unlikely, that they could make changes downwards, against the science. The best protection against that—on this point I disagree strongly with the hon. Member for Northavon—is to have a very clear process whereby the Government ask the committee to set the target and then agree to make the order for a target change to take place.