Clause 33
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
9:15 am
Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
One month to save the world is precisely right.
What difference does it make if the month is December or November? During the Bill’s progress through the House, changes have been made to the version seen in the Lords. When this House has completed its deliberations, the Bill will go back to another place and, I speculate, it will return to us. It therefore seems inevitable that the proceedings will not be completed until October or November. Clause 33 currently requires the Committee on Climate Change to report on 1 December, so we could still be debating the Bill, and the target, in early November. The long title says that this Bill is “to set a target”—that is the first thing that it seeks to do.
We have had lengthy debates in Committee about what that target should be and on what basis and, during the course of the debate, it struck me that the comments made by the hon. Member for Bury, North were characteristically profound. If we could arrange to have the benefit of the Committee on Climate Change’s assessment while the Bill is still live, we could address the official Opposition’s legitimate concern that that committee’s standing should not be undermined by our second-guessing it. If the committee had to report by 1 November, while the Bill is still live, we would know what it thought and could decide whether to put the number that it suggests in the Bill.
Suppose that, on 1 November, the Committee on Climate Change comes up with a number—80 per cent., for example, although it could be anything. The official Opposition, who have said that they will abide by the committee’s advice, would be happy to put that figure in the Bill. We would be happy to do so, as we have already indicated, and the position of Government Members who signed the amendment on 80 per cent. that we considered earlier in our proceedings would be strengthened, as they would be able to see the latest scientific assessment agreed by the independent committee. The question is whether the Government will accept the number suggested by the committee. Rather than passing the Bill and taking it on trust that the Government will implement that number, amendment No. 102 would allow us to know the number. In that case, the Government would make a choice, and the House would decide what it thought about that choice.
Clearly, bringing forward this important work by one month is a significant ask for the Climate Change Committee. It is right and proper that, before speaking to the amendment, I spoke to Lord Turner. I did so at the weekend, partly as a courtesy—if we are going to give him a harder task, it is only right to let him know—and partly to see what he thought. We spoke at some length. He was understandably keen not be associated with the views of any political party on such issues, and the views that I express are my own, informed by what he said but not attributable to him.
Suppose that the Committee had to produce a report on 1 December. As we know, in such cases minds are not made up on 30 November. People begin to work out what they think during the work, and they start to get an overall picture. Although the last two, three or four weeks of the committee’s work might be taken up with pretty bar charts, checking scientific references and so on, it is not unreasonable to suppose that by 1 November the committee would be in a position to advise the Government in summary about the direction of travel. On that date, it probably could not meet the requirement in clause 34, which includes a 1 December deadline, to provide detailed advice on carbon budgets, which is the nitty-gritty, because some work might still be outstanding, which is why I have not tabled an amendment to clause 34. However, the committee might be able to perform the single task set out in clause 33, which is to advise on the 2050 target.
I fully accept that these are interconnected issues. It would be naïve to say that the committee could advise on the 2050 target without reaching a decision on international effort, aviation and shipping, or greenhouse gas lists. That is a fair point to make. However, it does not seem unreasonable that the committee might be asked to bring its recommendation forward a month. Then, when we finalise our considerations in the House, all of us will know what the committee thinks, and rather than us amateurs—speaking for myself, I am an amateur on the subject—plucking a number from the air, we will have expert opinion. That will be so much more powerful when we finalise the Bill.
There is one small practical problem with that suggestion. If the committee has to report by 1 November, as the amendment suggests, and the Bill does not come into law until later in November, technically it is not binding on the committee to produce the report by 1 November, because there is no law to say that it must do so. There is a slight problem of logic there.
Let us suspend the fiction that the committee on climate change does not exist. The committee is already out there. It does exist. I rang the man on Saturday. I spoke to the chairman of the committee. The committee is doing its work. There are people beavering away. What questions are they answering? The questions in the Bill. The Bill says what the committee has to do.
In a way, therefore, what I am calling for in the amendment is a dirty great hint, let us say, so that the shadow committee on climate change understands that the will of the House is that it reports by 1 November. If the Secretary of State or the Minister wanted to write to the committee to reinforce the dirty great hint that we wanted its opinion by 1 November, I would welcome that. Indeed, if the Minister’s reply was, “Well, forget the Bill, I’ll write to them and tell them to do it anyway”, I would welcome that too.
I will not labour this point, as it is clear what I am trying to do. We all want to make the decision on the basis of the best evidence, and if we can have the best evidence a few weeks earlier, albeit in summary form, that would be good. I note that clause 33(5) states:
“As soon as is reasonably practicable after giving its advice...the Committee must publish that advice”.
In other words, the committee can say what it thinks the number is, perhaps with a paragraph or two of explanation.
“As soon as is reasonably practicable”,
it can do the full monty, as it were, in parliamentary terms. That seems to be the best balance that we can achieve.
I shall make one final observation, which comes back to the question, “Why specify 80 per cent. or 60 per cent. in the Bill?” I have spoken to the Minister and to the Secretary of State about the issue and I found myself in a slightly awkward position, because I realised that what I was saying to the Secretary of State sounded as though I was saying, “I don’t trust you”. I thought, “That’s not what I’m saying.” I was trying to work out what I wanted to say, because it is slightly awkward to say to someone, “I don’t trust you to do what the committee says. I don’t trust you to change the Bill.” The reason I realised that that was not what I meant to say was that I thought, “I do trust the DEFRA Ministers to want to do this, but I don’t trust the rest of Government to go along with it.” That is the important point.
So I do trust that the Minister wants the right number in the Bill, but once the climate change committee publishes its report after the passage of the Bill, if it does so, DEFRA may say, “Yes, we want 80 per cent., because it says 80 per cent. in the Bill”, and the Treasury, the Department for Transport, the Ministry responsible for housing or whoever it is may say, “Ah, but...”. That is what we are trying to deal with here.
The amendment will strengthen the hand of DEFRA, which I sincerely believe wants the right number in the Bill. It would give DEFRA a stick to beat the rest of Government with, because it will know on 1 November that the figure is 80 per cent. or whatever it is, and it will say to the rest of Government, “There is no way now that we can stop now. Parliament clearly wants either the advice of the committee or 80 per cent.”, which may coincide—Parliament may want both those things. There will be an overwhelming desire for that to happen. So, if the Minister can give us the date 1 November, or a letter to Adair Turner saying that he wants 1 November, we can achieve what I think the vast majority of us want.