Clause 2
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
6:15 pm
John Gummer (Suffolk Coastal, Conservative)
No. Being frank with the hon. Gentleman, I am keen to make sure that our commitments are clear, because we will have to carry them through. To be blunt, it is all right for the hon. Gentleman, because he will not have to carry them through, but we will. We are committed to carry through what the Climate Change Committee asks of us, and we have made that absolutely clear. Therefore, it is of considerable importance that we put the Government in the same position. It does not matter, frankly, what the Liberal Democrats or other people think about it. What matters is whether the succession of Governments commit themselves to do what the body that they have set up asks, or are we going to treat it as a kind of advisory council? If the Government mean that the committee is not the one that we all fought for, that goes way beyond the goal of 80 per cent. and to the very heart of the Bill. That is the real issue for all of us.
If the Climate Change Committee is merely an advisory committee with no other strengths, the Bill is not the one that I fought for, that Friends of the Earth drew up and that the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and other parties stood behind. The Minister is putting forward a solution that ought to be a joint solution—a solution of the consensus. Frankly, if he were to say that the Government agree to implement the committee’s decision at once, some of his hon. Friends would not be too unhappy, even though they would like to change the wording in the Bill, and the Minister would find that any revolt would at least be reduced. However, if he repeats that he is not prepared to implement a committee decision, it seems to me that it is extremely difficult—not for the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats or the Labour party, but for the Bill—because that would mean that the committee we believe in would not be the committee that the Government think that they are setting up.
I know that the Minister thinks that we are buttering him up in the hope that we will get a bit more out of him, but that is not the case. He has shown himself to be one of the good Ministers. When people ask who the good Ministers in government are, we put his name on the list. I know that that is embarrassing for him, and it will probably stop any possible promotion, but there is no doubt that that is what we say. We say it because he has always been as good as his word. That is what worries me, because his word in this case is pretty frightening. I am not keen on this at all. It seems to me that he has given us reason to doubt something that is much more fundamental than the 70, 80 or 90 per cent. What we are doubting here is that the Government have the same view of the Committee on Climate Change as the rest of us. We therefore need a reply from the Minister not only to this debate, but to that deep concern.
Even those Labour Members who want to vote with the Minister—the case was beautifully presented by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton, who is just returning to her place—will ask themselves, “What has happened to the Climate Change Committee?” When the hon. Lady talks to all those students, they will say, “This Government are not going to listen to the Climate Change Committee.”
The Government have now said that the committee is merely advisory. If that is the case, the members of the committee will wonder why they are members. Why do we have such a good committee? Like us, its members thought that the committee was going to be, in a real sense, the setter of the course for this country to give a lead in the world on how to deal with climate change. That does not mean to say that the Government would have to sign up to every jot and tittle, but they would have to sign up to the target. If the committee cannot even set the target, what is the Bill about?
The Opposition parties, along with Friends of the Earth and others, agreed that we needed to set a target when we compiled the “Quality of Life” report, which I had the honour to chair—my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood was a member of the central committee, if that is not too socialist a phrase. We saw the target as the driving force in our battle against climate change.
I came to this Committee believing that the Government had the right answer. I was willing to support the Government, because I believed that they were offering us the right way forward. I hoped that this Committee would provide another example of the consensus that I am trying to build. However, I am afraid that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury has caused the trouble. His accurate memory of what the Minister said means that the Minister has either got to change what he said and re-establish our belief in his belief in the primacy of the Committee on Climate Change, or we will have to consider very carefully not only this part of the Bill but every other part. Unless the Government are bound into the consensus that caused the Bill to be created, we are in a really difficult position.