Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hesitate to rise because I am eight-to-one down. I thought that I might be nine-to-one down by way of repetition. Although I fear that my answers will be very much the same as previously, I take on board the points that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, made and I agree with many of his sentiments. I shall go through a little of the chronology of this part of the Bill, with which the amendments deal in isolation. It is as though nothing else is in the Bill. We have just heard that no legal requirement is placed on the Secretary of State other than the 2050 target but that is not true. The 2020 target is a legal duty; it is set out in Clause 5. All I ask is that noble Lords look at the facts of the Bill as it stands, rather than what it might have been or some of the early rhetoric of our debates. There is even a duty to publish a compliance action plan if one of the five-yearly budgets is missed. The idea that we have legislated for 2050 and ignored everything else is just not true. It is there in the Bill. If we are getting such inaccuracies the fourth time we debate the Bill following Second Reading, all I can say is that I am at a disadvantage. I have responded to the letter of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, but fully accept that one cannot always be sure where the post goes. A load of letters went into the internal system earlier today. However, part of my speech is based on the letter, and the letter is based on the speech. In other words, the message is exactly the same. The noble Lords’ amendment addresses the strength and enforceability of the Secretary of State’s existing duty in what is now Clause 2 and used to be Clause 1, and the need for that duty to place the Government under continuous pressure. In some ways we welcome that, as I hope I have made clear throughout the Bill’s passage. We welcome scrutiny in both Houses and from outside bodies. We want to be as transparent and accountable as possible. Clause 2 provides the Bill’s overarching purpose and requires a specific outcome, and that should be maintained in the Bill. If we removed that duty it would place the focus on the process rather than on a clear outcome. The amendment’s effect would be that the Government could fail to meet the 2050 target but still comply with their duty so long as they had developed what they thought at the time were the right policies. Without the clause, the Government would still be held to account on whether they had taken forward the right processes, but there would be no legally binding long-term target which placed pressure on the Secretary of State to achieve the final outcome as opposed to just going through the process. One has to separate those two functions. We genuinely believe that doing it that way would dilute the Bill rather than strengthen it. On the other hand, as I hope I made clear in several of our debates, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, about the importance of placing continuous pressure on Governments. Although we are debating amendments to this clause, it is worth putting the issue in the context of what happens in other parts of the Bill, including Clause 13. Clause 2 is only part of the picture outlined in Part 1. I have just referred to Clause 5, which places a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the 2050 target. It requires the Secretary of State to set the carbon budgets and, "““to ensure that the net UK carbon account for a budgetary period does not exceed the carbon budget””." Under Clause 18, the Secretary of State must publish a compliance plan if the budget is missed. Clause 9 requires that budgets be set with a view to meeting the 2050 target as well as the 2020 target and any post-2050 target. Clause 5—which I will come back to—also requires the Secretary of State to ensure that carbon budgets are met. The Bill therefore provides an ongoing duty on the Secretary of State to reduce the net UK carbon account. My point is that those are all in addition to Clause 2. Clause 13, which the Government added to the Bill after debate and scrutiny in this House, places a duty on the Secretary of State to, "““prepare such proposals and policies as the Secretary of State considers will enable the carbon budgets … to be met … The proposals and policies must be prepared with a view to meeting””," the 2050 target. The Bill’s existing structure already provides a series of complementary duties. There is a clear outcome-focused duty to meet the 2050 target complemented by duties to make emission reductions on an ongoing five-yearly basis, and there are ongoing duties to develop policies. Taken together, that is a strong package of duties which focuses on the process while maintaining the outcome in the Bill. The amendment would remove elements of the existing structure in Clause 2 and the outcome-focused duty that the clause currently provides. It does not add to the existing requirements. We do not see how that could be a desirable outcome in either legal or policy terms. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, originally made the point about the duty covering the 2050 target and not the intervening budgets, but it is not correct. The intervening budgets are just the same, as I set out on Clause 5. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said that the Secretary of State had no ability to influence the UK net carbon account, but we do not think that that is correct. The Secretary of State does not have direct control over emissions levels, in the sense that he does not have his finger on the switch, but he can employ many methods to reduce the UK's emissions through regulation, incentives, encouragement and persuasion. The Bill also allows the purchase of credits from overseas, a subject we have debated and will return to, including government purchases if necessary and for those to be counted towards meeting our targets. So in a sense the Government do have an ability directly to influence the UK's net carbon account—which is made up of both emissions and the credits purchased overseas. As I said, the ratio among noble Lords who have spoken is about eight to one, but that does not mean that I stand alone. It does not mean that I am wrong or necessarily that I have got it right. However, I will not do as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, suggested. I will not make extravagant claims that I cannot back up when questioned. I have not done that on this Bill. On the first occasion when these claims were adduced, perhaps on Second Reading, I pointed out that Australia had legislated on some aspects of this matter. I am therefore not saying that we are the only ones doing this, that we are the world leader and No. 1 and that no one else has ever done anything remotely like this. I am talking about what is in the Bill, not what people think should be in it or thought was in it. With our changes, Part 1 taken as a whole—I am not looking just at the narrow aspect of Clause 2, or Clause 1 as it was originally—constitutes a package that meets the objective that everyone is concerned about while not diluting it. We strongly believe that to approve these amendments would dilute the package in Part 1, as I have sought to explain. I therefore hope that, contrary to what he said, the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, will not press the amendment.