My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for missing the first couple of sentences of the introducer’s speech. I rise only to say that if the Minister were to suggest that there might be some contradiction between the work of the Committee on Climate Change—I declare my interest as its chair—and the work of this group, I would disagree. What is suggested here is an important part of the programme. One of the difficulties is that the Committee on Climate Change is asked to
think forward to 2050, to ensure that Britain is able to reduce its emissions by 80%, and yet the necessary mechanisms for delivering that target often operate on a much shorter timescale. Indeed, the two most important proposals that are, or are likely to be, before this Committee, are both about that long-term timescale.
It is quite impossible to imagine a sensible parameter within which people can invest in the necessary improvements in our energy supply that does not go beyond 2020, which is why we propose a carbon intensity target for 2030. It is not possible, either, to continue with a situation in which we spend so little time thinking far enough ahead. My noble friend the Minister will not have had encouragement in this area, particularly from those concerned to ensure that there are no restrictions on what the Treasury may decide. The real problem is that that means the Treasury does not have a say in the long term, because in the long term these decisions are either made or they are not made at all.
My noble friend Lord Jenkin, who again contributed so much of value to this Committee, asked why—this may seem an unfair point, but I make it because it is burnt into me—in that terrible first energy White Paper of the previous Government, every single date was removed except 2050. In other words, every date to which any civil servant, or any Minister, could possibly have been held accountable, was removed—and we know that they were all in to start with. I remember that the White Paper answered none of our problems, because, for example, it would not even face up to the issue of nuclear generation.
If my noble friend looks for a reason, it is the whole of that White Paper and, above all, the attitudes that surrounded it. I do not blame the party opposite for that, although it might have put it right. I blame the whole atmosphere, which was that you must not nail your colours to any mast lest that ship did not sail in the hoped-for direction; you must never be tough about the decisions to be made because you might not turn out to be 100% right. This is the real issue my noble friend raised when he asked about the nature of the governmental process in Britain. Rolls-Royces work only when you have not only covered all the details and very small issues but forecasted what the market will be like in five, 10 and 15 years’ time. It does not happen if you work on the basis of a day-to-day operation. I am afraid that we have become the kind of nation that finds it very hard to make long-term decisions. There is an awful phrase about selection, suggesting that we should not back particular solutions. If you do not back anything, you do not get anything in this long-term process. The reason that most people in government do not want to back things is because they are afraid that someone will hold them in some sense liable for it.
I therefore finish by expressing my deep concern that the British have become believers that if you do not do something, that is not a real decision—that real decisions mean doing things. It seems that we all have to learn again that not doing something can be just as serious a decision, with just as much of a long-term effect, as doing something. Yet we have built a system whereby the phrase, “Better not, Minister”, is heard
more often than any other. I hope that when I was a Minister I made it clear that it was the one phrase that would never result in the response that was hoped for. My father taught me that there was no point in saying to him, “I want so-and-so because everyone else has it”. That meant I would never get it. I always wanted a cap-bomb, I remember, but I was never allowed it on the basis that I once said that everyone else at school had one. That meant I never had it. “Better not, Minister” is one of those phrases to which all Ministers ought to say, “That means we have to find a different answer from the one you are proposing”. I hope that my noble friend will take seriously the concerns that we all have about the fact that our system does not meet the demands of an energy programme that takes 20 years before anything comes to real fruition.