New Clause 10
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
7:45 pm
Gregory Barker (Shadow Minister, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is intended to formalise a policy that already exists informally in government. The requirement to assist the carbon impact of any policy is to be adopted across the Administration. The Prime Minister said in a speech last November that every new policy would be examined for its impact on carbon emissions—not just those that reduce emissions, but those that increase them. When emissions rise in one sector, we will have to achieve corresponding falls in another. That does not just mean every new Act of Parliament. It means that all policies, proposals and spending commitments right across Government must be assessed in that way. That was an ambitious statement from the Prime Minster, and we welcomed it then and we welcome it now. However, we would like to see that policy enshrined in law and linked to the duty on the Secretary of State to report on the proposals and policies for meeting the carbon budget as required under clause 13 of the Bill. If it is not, how can the public be confident that the de facto requirement is being followed? How can they be confident that successive Governments, between 2010 and 2050, will take seriously the word of a weak Prime Minister in 2007?
One only need to have listened to our previous debate on the enormous yet unaccounted carbon pollution from the Export Credit Guarantee Department to see that while an unwritten requirement might exist in the Government to assess the carbon impact of any new policy, that does not stop different Departments from carrying on regardless. DBERR’s support for a new and unabated coal-burning power plant at Kingsnorth also suggests that the writ of the Prime Minister’s words of last December does not currently extend to every reach of his Government, so we must do better. That is why our new clause would require the Secretary of State to order a formal assessment of how any new measure, proposal or policy across any Government Department would affect our carbon budgets and the 2050 targets.
Moreover, if the assessment showed that the new policy would increase UK emissions, the report would have to set out the measures necessary to ensure that the 2050 target was nevertheless achieved. The impact assessment must be published at the same time as the proposed policy to which it relates. That will prevent a situation in which the Government can say that while the impact assessments concludes, the emission levels will increase as a result of the policy. The process has already progressed too far to stop it.
Lord Rooker said in the other place:
“legislation is often made toward the end of policy development, so a test applied only at that stage would not, in itself, achieve much.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 February 2008; Vol. 699, c. 487.]
We believe that our new clause would prevent that situation from arising by requiring the assessment to be published at the same time as the policy proposal to which it relates. It is about enhancing the joined-up nature of government, and the adequacy of our political response to the challenge that we face. Do we want to continue with business as usual, allowing the opening of new airport runways and the building of new coal-powered plants, all without questioning the contributing effect that such decisions will have on our carbon reduction targets; or do we want truly to change the way in which we do government so that we can respond effectively to the climate change agenda, rather than progressing with a patchwork of non-joined-up and all too often contradictory policies?
I conclude by quoting Abraham Lincoln. He said:
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present...we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves”.
That is what the new clause challenges us to do: to think anew, and to conduct government in a way that is commensurate with the challenge that we face from dangerous, man-made climate change. It demands a new, joined-up, big-picture approach from Government. If we are to succeed, that is what we need.