Greater London Authority Bill

My Lords, this Bill takes me back to when I first entered your Lordships’ House. Coming here fresh from local government when the first GLA Bill was passed, I learnt all about the procedures of this House. I learnt a vast amount from my noble friend Lady Hamwee about understanding what the legislation was getting at. It was eye-opening to see how the legislation that we enacted here was passed down to local government. So this is the second time round for me, and I welcome it. I shall focus on climate change. As the Minister rightly said, the climate change Bill that the Government will shortly introduce will be a first not just for this country but for the world. The few clauses that address climate change in this Bill are a precursor in some ways to the climate change Bill. It is therefore crucial to get the definitions and the terminology right and to set precedents that will make life easier not more difficult for the climate change Bill. Some of our debates in Committee will be critical in ensuring that the balance is right between empowering the mayor to develop a strategy, and the communities and boroughs that may have to take action on it, and individuals who may need and want to take action themselves. Those processes should be clearly linked. The strategy may need to be wider in consideration than the Government have taken account of. We debated during the passage of the Energy Bill, for example, the need for information centres. The Carbon Trust, though making strides in this area, still is a long way off from an easy walk-in high street advice centre, which, many of us felt, individuals needed to get a grip on the sort of action that they could take. There are other practical things. There is a general shortage of plumbers, particularly those who can install solar water-heating panels. While on the one hand we may be encouraging people to take all sorts of action on climate-change mitigation, many factors, including training in appropriate skills, may be prohibiting that happening. Clause 40, which deals with the mayor’s mitigation and energy strategy, gives the Secretary of State a limited power to direct the mayor on that strategy. My noble friend Lord Newby raised the interesting question of adaptation, and he showed up some of the weaknesses in the Bill. It is strange that in the adaptation clause, the Secretary of State has virtually unlimited powers to direct the mayor. One of the areas that I will probe in Committee will be why there is such variation. Is it because the Government are nervous that the mayor will need to create that second Thames barrier near Gravesend? We will particularly want to explore that area in Committee. We will also want to consider terminology. Clause 40 talks about minimising carbon dioxide emissions from transport and from other energy uses. Carbon dioxide forms the bulk of our greenhouse gas emissions, but I suspect the clause is limited to CO2 because the EU Emissions Trading Scheme covers only CO2 emissions. It might be limited because it is a shorthand way of saying ““climate change””. Other important greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide are important components to consider. Although the consultation on the draft climate change Bill explicitly asks whether it ought to cover all greenhouse gases, we will need to consider that before the draft Bill comes before your Lordships’ House. There are a number of matters that it will be important to get right. As someone who lives in London for four nights a week, I find it extraordinary that in my block of flats we still cannot recycle at all. It really pains me to put my rubbish out in one single collection bag. I would not underestimate the difficulties that there are, in my case as a county councillor, in devising a waste strategy between five districts and a county council, but I have done it and it works extremely well. I know that it is possible. The Bill is a little unambitious in that regard. The mayor is to devise a waste strategy, but why are the Government not thinking of a zero-waste strategy? We know that that is achievable; it is something to aim for. It would give the role a meaning beyond taking on another strategy layer. Finally, there is one strategy that I envy London: the food strategy. The south-west has a food strategy, but it is aimed at producers from an economic point of view. The London food strategy is aimed far more at consumers. I doubt whether we shall debate it on the Bill, but it is one thing that London has got more right than other regions. Those of us from the regions have something to learn from London.