Clause 44
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
1:30 pm
Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
As we are dealing with a new part of the Bill and a clause on trading schemes, I want to ask the Minister a question about the philosophy and principle underlying the creation of trading schemes. To what extent do the Government think that sectoral schemes are a good idea over and above what one might loosely call aggregate schemes? By analogy with the argument that has been used elsewhere in our deliberations, one could say that carbon is carbon is carbon. In that case all we need to do is set overall caps. If we create sectoral schemes within those caps, or alongside them, we may create a new bureaucracy and a new infrastructure, but not add a great deal.
On the other hand, just as we have argued that a tonne of carbon saved in the UK has a different meaning and value to that saved elsewhere because of the leadership role, one might argue that a sectoral trading scheme has value quite apart from the aggregate effect, because we want to create innovation in transport or in industry. As clause 44 is about the activities to which trading schemes may apply, what are the principles that will guide the Government in deciding when it is appropriate to establish a sectoral scheme and when it is appropriate to let the carbon price, the ETS or some aggregate scheme that is not sector specific be the dominant approach?