House of Lords written question – answered at on 18 March 2013.
Lord St John of Bletso
Crossbench
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to revive the compliance and voluntary carbon credit market.
Baroness Verma
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
The Government are supporting top-down regulatory steps to strengthen the EU Emissions Trading Scheme by addressing the surplus and low allowance price in the system. The UK supports the European Commission's proposal to "back-load", or delay, the auctioning of allowances, if linked to longer-term structural reform of the system.
Yes1 person thinks so
No1 person thinks not
Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.
The house of Lords is the upper chamber of the Houses of Parliament. It is filled with Lords (I.E. Lords, Dukes, Baron/esses, Earls, Marquis/esses, Viscounts, Count/esses, etc.) The Lords consider proposals from the EU or from the commons. They can then reject a bill, accept it, or make amendments. If a bill is rejected, the commons can send it back to the lords for re-discussion. The Lords cannot stop a bill for longer than one parliamentary session. If a bill is accepted, it is forwarded to the Queen, who will then sign it and make it law. If a bill is amended, the amended bill is sent back to the House of Commons for discussion.
The Lords are not elected; they are appointed. Lords can take a "whip", that is to say, they can choose a party to represent. Currently, most Peers are Conservative.
The European Commission is the politically independent institution that represents and upholds the interests of the EU as a whole. It is the driving force within the EU’s institutional system: it proposes legislation, policies and programmes of action and it is responsible for implementing the decisions of Parliament and the Council.
Like the Parliament and Council, the European Commission was set up in the 1950s under the EU’s founding treaties.
