Government: Draft Legislative Programme

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Shutt, I welcome the draft legislative programme. This is one way in which the Government and Parliament can move towards the real world. Rather than having surprises sprung on us from the Throne every November in these important areas, we will be able logically and in advance to look at the legislative programme for the country. That seems an obvious way in which to do things and I thoroughly welcome it. Assuming that this process continues, we could also perhaps have in future years an indication of the White Papers and Green Papers that are likely to come along. In my younger days, the Budget was all surprises and secrecy until Budget day, but the change in that process has stuck and has enabled not just citizens but businesses to look ahead; the lack of surprise has allowed the country to be more successful. I will mention a couple of the Bills that are proposed in the programme and a couple that are not. I have a particular interest in the Climate Change Bill and have had the privilege to be on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee. Our report is still to be published, so I will not say much about that. However, the Government will have to consider further a couple of areas that were included in the draft Bill, especially as the science has moved forward considerably even since the draft Bill’s publication. They must ensure that the Bill, which they see as pacesetting in the global community, is not just a trophy measure that is all about being seen to be first. Before the Bill is introduced into the legislative process in both Houses and we can see the details, the Government will need to catch up with the science, in particular on realistic targets for the required reduction in greenhouse gases. They will also need to ensure that the climate change committee that the draft Bill proposes has the strength, intellectual power and budget to deliver what they really want it to. I am also interested in the Energy Bill that the legislative programme proposes. It follows on from two energy White Papers and is very much tied up with climate change. However, if you read through the bullet points in the programme, you see that the proposed Bill leaves out key areas that the Government identified in their White Papers as being of extreme importance. Energy savings are not mentioned in the list of areas to be covered by the Bill, which we expect in the autumn. Although that is one of the less interesting and publicity-attracting areas of energy and climate change, we know that it is one of the most important. We could get major savings in carbon emissions and energy usage with what is called negative expenditure—there could be a positive repayment to business, homes or government—but there is no reference to that at all. I was rather sceptical about what the White Paper said about turning energy suppliers into energy management companies. That seemed one of the biggest challenges that the Government had set themselves; they wanted people who quite legitimately make money out of supplying energy suddenly to convince their shareholders that one of their big aims was to allow their consumers to save energy. In our debate on the White Paper, I asked how this miraculous turnaround would happen. I did not get a reply at the time and I see that there is no reference to it, or to energy savings, in the proposed Bill. The other side of the issue is nuclear energy. I understand that the Government are still out to consultation on that, but I was interested by one sentence in the programme, which says: "““If we decide it is in the public interest to allow private sector investment in new nuclear power stations, the bill will create a framework that will help protect the taxpayer””." I was never under the impression that energy companies were not now allowed by the Government to invest in nuclear power; in fact, the market is completely open to them to do that, so there is no change there. As that sentence highlights, the big question is about nuclear power, once established, not being a burden on the taxpayer in any way. I still do not understand how that is going to happen; as far as I can see, it is the only barrier at the moment. I wait with interest to hear about that. As my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer said, the big missing area on the environmental side is a marine Bill. In many ways, I congratulate the Government on the publication and content of their White Paper on marine issues earlier this year. This country has some 12,000 miles of coastline. The marine area includes fishing, natural resources, energy—in particular renewable energy, with the increasing importance of wave energy, tidal energy and offshore wind power—transport and trade through shipping, exploration and, not least, marine ecology. The Government make a very strong case for the Bill in their White Paper. The Minister also said something about the marine area in his introduction to the debate, so I would be very interested to hear more assurance that something will come through very soon. The White Paper said in paragraph 1.20 on page 8: "““We want to implement each of our proposals swiftly””." I suggest that if that urgency is real, it would be terribly useful to have a Bill that we could pass first. I very much welcome the fact that we have a legislative programme for the year, and I very much hope that this will quickly become a tradition and one that we in Parliament can rely on.