My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Committee on Climate Change. I echo the words of the noble Baroness that this is not a party-political issue but is much wider than that.
As was clearly shown by my noble friend, we live at a time in which the issue of energy, in particular oil and gas, is changing so fast that we have to be extremely careful that we do not set up systems that are not capable of easing alteration to meet new circumstance. It may be that the major Amendment 1, which was proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, is not something that the Government will wish to be tied to; the particular time and so on might well be better expressed. However, I hope that the Government will take seriously the need to have within this legislation the means whereby this House can address the speed with which these things are changing and have the opportunity to make such alterations as become necessary—because we all know that however well one writes legislation, it is surprisingly easy to move to a situation in which you wonder why on earth you did not put that in, or why on earth that was not there.
Secondly, it would be very odd to produce legislation that did not allow specifically for the transportation and storage of greenhouse gases. This will not change in the future; it is central at the present time. The Committee on Climate Change has advised the Government of the importance and centrality of carbon capture and storage for many of the reasons that have already been addressed. However, the noble Baroness was right to say that there may well be an interim period in which we will need to use more fossil fuels than we would like, and the only way we can do that without having a damaging effect on the climate is of course by using carbon capture and storage. Britain has a leadership role in that and has already committed significant amounts of money to seek to ensure that we can do it. It would be simply odd to produce a Bill at this moment without enabling ourselves specifically to talk about carbon capture and storage.
Thirdly, it is important that this is in the Bill itself. I spent a long time as a Minister—some 16 years—and one thing I learned very rapidly was that it is very easy for institutions to say, “It’s nothing to do with us because it isn’t in the Act; that’s not where our responsibility lies”. I remember very nearly having a stand-up row with the person who was then responsible for the gas
industry, because what should be done seemed so obvious, and she was determined to say that she could not do it because it was not in the Act. I thought that with a bit of imagination she would be able to do it, but that is a different issue. I do not want the need for imagination to be required here. It is one of the rarest talents and therefore it is a quite a good idea to make sure that we put into the Bill the ability—and also insist that it is part of the responsibility—of the new institution.
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Lastly, I want to echo the comment about the people who will naturally be at the heart of this process. All of us are creatures of our experience and knowledge and all of us find ourselves more at home with the things with which we are at home. In this particular area it is easy to have reached the sort of level that would mean that we would be suitable for work in this new authority without perhaps spending a great deal of time on carbon capture and storage. So there is a serious reason why we should add to the Bill in this way and I hope that my noble friend, if not necessarily agreeing to any of these amendments—and, like others, I say that it is a collection that might well have been brought together more effectively—will say, to benefit the Committee, that he will bring forward amendments to at least ensure that the transportation and storage of greenhouse gases becomes a serious part of the activities that we are discussing today.