Greater London Authority Bill

moved Amendment No. 105: 105: Clause 38, page 40, line 21, leave out ““, so far as relating to Greater London”” The noble Baroness said: With Clause 38, we move to the part of the Bill that deals with climate change and energy. As I mentioned at Second Reading, and as the Minister acknowledged fully, the precedent laid in the Bill for the way in which climate change is looked at and climate change strategies are considered will be very important. We have not yet got any further than the draft of the Government’s Climate Change Bill, and I am honoured to be on the committee that is dealing with that draft Bill. It certainly raises many complex questions. Although we have had only two meetings of the committee, my mind is already coloured by some of the discussions that we have been having. Those discussions have been useful when it comes to looking at this Bill and testing some of the things in this Bill against what is practical. It is important that at the very least the wording in the Bill is complementary to what will come after it. The draft Climate Change Bill has been acknowledged as a world leader, but the truth is that some of the issues are being aired here first, so we really need to get it right. Amendments Nos. 105 and 106 are concerned with the fact that when the authority exercises its powers regarding climate change to promote mitigation or adaptation, it should do so only relating to greater London. The Minister may argue that this perhaps could make sense in the case of adaptation, which is inherently a local consideration, but that is already taken into account in the definition of adaptation in Section 361A(6), which refers to, "““any consequences of climate change appearing to the Mayor to affect Greater London””." In the wider context of climate change, though, it makes no sense to limit the consideration to London. The whole point about climate change is that emissions anywhere in the world have the same effect on the atmosphere. That is why we need an international effort, and that is why the London strategy cannot consider London in isolation. I have often heard the Minister quote that although the UK population is much less than 2 per cent of the world’s population, we emit 2 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases. If one was to take London by itself, the percentage emitted is very important in international terms. The authority needs to be aware of the global consequences of all its emissions and decisions. The Minister may say that it is in the nature of the section to limit the viewpoint to London. In the section of the GLA Act 1999 of which this will become part, there already is a wider view. For instance, Section 30(4)(b) refers to, "““sustainable development in the United Kingdom””." The precedent has been set that the Mayor can make decisions that go far wider than London. The amendment recognises the wider implications of actions in London for sustainable development in the whole country. For example, London happens to be the host for the Olympic Games for the whole of the United Kingdom, although obviously other places are involved, such as Weymouth and Portland for sailing. The way in which the authority chooses to exercise its powers, develops the Olympic site and makes an example of exactly what sustainable development is, will play a tremendously international role as host and, I hope, exemplar. These amendments test whether the Government will be consistent with the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and recognise that this issue bears far more widely at least on the UK and internationally. I beg to move.