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Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill

It has been a perennial theme that we should trust the people and the institutions to do what is best for their own local communities. Why do we not keep it local instead of getting the Secretary of State involved when he is not even prepared to impose the same burdens on Government Departments? When we come into the Palace, we sometimes see Government Car Service vehicles outside with their engines running. What sort of example does that set? It is an example of the Government saying one thing to everybody else, but doing something else. If some of the new office blocks in London that the Government are preparing for their own occupation met some of the standards that people aspire to in the context of the Bill, I would have more faith that the Government are intent on doing something themselves and for themselves rather than their just imposing burdens on local authorities. In the context of any new ““requirement””, one always has to ask what the sanction will be if local authorities do not have regard to the energy measures report. I re-read new clause 4 to try to find out what sanction there is, and I do not think there is one. What is the point of having a ““requirement”” if there is no sanction? That merely enables those who ignore Government circulars because they are so plentiful and they cannot cope with them to be able to get away with that. It also imposes an unnecessary burden on those who think that, just because something comes from the Government, they have to have regard to it. The fact that there is no sanction gives the lie to the suggestion that this is a significant move forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) described this as a timid Bill, but said that it showed a clear direction of travel. I am not sure that it even shows a clear direction of travel except in the sense that it is an exercise in cynicism on the part of the Government. I do not think that the Bill is necessary to enable local authorities to do what it suggests they will be able to do. They can do what is set out in the Bill already. I do not know whether the Minister will respond to these points, but the context of the debate is about objective universal truths. If there are universal truths about greenhouse gases, global warming and so on, why, in subsection (3) of new clause 4, does he not rely on those universal truths instead of including the expression"““might in the opinion of the Secretary of State have any of the following effects””?" That subsection is a recognition of the reality that we are in unknown territory in which there are arguments on both sides of the issue. In so far as new clause 4 does anything, it seems that it gives the Secretary of State the last say on which way the argument should go. I am sure that my hon. Friends will be familiar with The Spectator, and today’s edition contains a superb article by a former distinguished Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Lawson of Blaby. It shows that there is no universal truth in relation to the issue and that it is subjective. He makes some remarks about whether, for some people, we are talking about something that is tantamount to seeking a religion that they do not already have. I will not go down that road—certainly not without the Prime Minister in his place. I do not think that we are dealing with something objective. What I do not like and find rather distasteful about new clause 4 is the way in which the Secretary of State’s opinion would be imposed on local authorities, even when they disagreed with it. On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) intervened to ask what he was going to do about his local council, which does not buy into the science at all. I think that he thought that the provisions would force the council to buy into the science even if it did not agree with it, and perhaps that is the Government’s intention, but that is the complete antithesis of local democracy.