If she will make a statement on progress towards meeting climate change targets.

The UK expects to exceed its Kyoto commitment by about 8 percentage points. The UK is committed to moving beyond our Kyoto protocol target and towards our national goal to reduce UK carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2010.

Everybody will be pleased at the progress made over recent days in Montreal, but from the written answer that the Minister gave my hon. Friend Norman Baker on 29 November at column 312 on greenhouse gases, it looks as though we will not have met our targets over the past two years. To make sure that we can all have confidence that we are going in the right direction, will the Minister agree to annual targets from now on, independently assessed and adjudicated? That way, we would know that there was no spin and no dishonesty.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it was a tremendous outcome at the Montreal talks. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State deserves a great deal of credit and she was much admired for the way that she led the whole EU delegation. Let me make it clear that there are two targets. First, there is our Kyoto target, which is legally binding and which we are well on track to meet and, as I said, to exceed. Then there is our domestic voluntary target of 20 per cent., which we are not on track to meet, but we are having the climate change review in order to ensure that we do so. As regards independent monitoring, the inventory is already independently monitored by the National Environmental Technology Centre, the United Nations framework convention on climate change and the National Audit Office. On individual targets, reductions in CO ₂ have been up and down in different years, but we are willing to consider any suggestions that the hon. Gentleman may have.

It was indeed a considerable achievement to obtain a Montreal agreement, which I notice Friends of the Earth described as an "historic agreement" that would "strengthen global resolve". The Secretary of State deserves slightly more enthusiastic praise than we heard from the Liberal Democrat Benches. In the spirit of consensus that affects us all nowadays, will my hon. Friend give us an idea of how he intends to build upon the agreement at Montreal, which was a major step forward but will clearly require a great deal of work, at European level in particular, to take it forward?

My hon. Friend is right, and there will be further opportunities to discuss the Montreal outcome. It gives us effective rules for implementing the Kyoto protocol, agreement on new targets and frameworks post-2012 and a global approach based on the convention, incorporating all signatories to the convention including non-Kyoto signatories—among them the US and Australia.

I hope that one day I will have the opportunity to answer the questions, but on this occasion I shall just ask a question. The Sustainable Development Commission's report, conveniently enough for the Government, is due out tomorrow, but we understand that of all the targets in the report, three are set at red, the rest at amber, and as regards green lights, the Government achieved zero. We know that since 1999 carbon has not reduced at all in the UK; indeed, it has gone up by 9 per cent. Whatever the Government are doing, it is not working. Is it not time that they got together with the Conservative Opposition and perhaps even the Liberal Democrats to find some kind of cross-party consensus to tackle the greatest threat facing the globe for generations ahead?

The hon. Gentleman is incorrect—CO ₂ has gone up 3 per cent. since 1997. It went up 3 per cent. in 1996—in one year alone—and subsequently fell back. It would have gone up 5 per cent. if not for measures introduced in the 2000 climate change review. There is no room for complacency. We are committed to getting our domestic target of 20 per cent. on track. We will introduce the climate change review and, as our amendment made clear in the recent debate on climate change, we are more than willing to consider ideas from the Opposition. So far, none has been submitted.

I add my congratulations to the plaudits already given to the Secretary of State for the agreement reached in Montreal. I note that Paula Dobrianski, the US Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs who was present in Montreal, said that the United States would not welcome formal discussions geared towards a one-size-fits-all approach, which perhaps ties in with the Byrd-Hegel resolution of the US Senate. May I therefore suggest that contraction and convergence are the way forward? That is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and I hope that the Government will provide time for a Bill on that point, which has its Second Reading on 14 July.

Whose Bill is it?

It is my Bill.

The principle of contraction and convergence undoubtedly has some attractive elements, and I am interested in the concept. Given the talks in Montreal, the principle does not appear to command a great deal of international support at the moment.

You may share my sense of déjà vu, Mr. Speaker: I am here again; you are there; the Minister is in his place; and the Secretary of State is not here—so not much has changed. I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not here because I want to place on the record my congratulations on her personal contribution to the limited success of the Montreal discussions. However, it will need more than an agreement to talk to reduce the risk of a catastrophic slide into climate change. Will the Minister reconsider his answer to my hon. Friend Mr. Gray? Just as it is vital to have international agreements to tackle climate change, is it not vital to have a cross-party approach to tackling those issues in order to set a framework in which to deliver climate change emission reductions?

I welcome the hon. Gentleman back to the Front Bench, although given his chairmanship of the Environmental Audit Committee and the number of times that I have appeared before it, he does not appear to have been away. I welcome his recognition of the crucial role played by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at Montreal, but he will find that non-governmental organisations and the international community think that the agreement was much more significant than his assessment. I welcome an approach based on consensus, and a consensus exists within this House on the principles, which is helpful in tackling the real environmental threat. On exploring that consensus, however, we need to know where the Opposition stand, and I repeat my invitation to them to spell out their position and ideas on climate change, because we cannot wait for 18 months while the matter is referred to a working group.

We will spell out our considered recommendations in due course, and I look forward to working with the Minister on them. Does he accept that normal politics are not working when it comes to climate change, because the problems are too long term and too great? May I press him again on the concept of an independent body that transcends individual Parliaments, individual Governments and individual changes in party leadership, in order to monitor progress, set targets and achieve progress against those targets? The Government are trying to provide leadership internationally on that vital issue, but that should not be undermined by failure to make progress at home.

I do not disagree with those general points, but Conservative Members have not done enough homework on the procedures by which our progress is audited. Our targets and the inventory are calculated by an independent organisation, the National Environmental Technology Centre, by the United Nations framework convention on climate change and by the National Audit Office. Those are respectable bodies that provide independent assessment, but if the hon. Gentleman does not think that they are adequate, I would be willing to consider his points.

Will my hon. Friend report to the House on progress on building an all-party consensus on the measures that are needed to meet our climate change targets? Has there been any indication thus far that the main Opposition party intends to drop its opposition to the climate change levy?

No. I know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pressed the Leader of the Opposition on that, but as far as I understand it, the position of the Conservatives is that they are against the climate change levy, which has made a significant contribution in reducing CO ₂ . If they have changed their position, I will be willing to hear about where they stand now.

I add my congratulations to the Secretary of State for her efforts in Montreal. She has done a very good job. I look forward to her perhaps taking over the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Department for Transport as well.

The Minister will agree that in order to deal with climate change it is important to get renewable technology up and running. Can he therefore explain or justify the fact that £210 million of the £270 million raised so far under the non-fossil fuel obligation fund has been siphoned off by the Treasury under the cloak of the Civil List Act 1952? Does he agree with that new Treasury stealth tax?

I do not agree that it is a stealth tax. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the overall accounts in relation to the Treasury books, he will find that, yes, some of that money goes into the Treasury, but the Treasury pays out a great deal more in terms of overall support to renewables. The money is not simply siphoned off.