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Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill

I was of course disappointed, although not surprised, by the Minister’s reaction, which illustrates the problem that we have with our procedure to which the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), referred a short while ago. It is rather assumed that amendments made in Committee in a friendly way when people all agree with each other are okay, but that if people have the gall to table amendments on Report, it is somehow outrageous or unacceptable. That is a rather sad comment on the parliamentary process. The Minister said two interesting things, one of which was encouraging and another that was rather intriguing. He might regret giving the usual consultation undertaking. He said that the Government will consult before they set the targets, but there would be a problem if the responses received from those who were lucky enough to be consulted were somewhat at odds with the Government’s intentions. It is not unknown for political parties to undertake consultation. If the answer to the consultation is not what was expected, the party can try to go off in a different direction, although that would be very rash. I remain to be convinced that the consultation exercise will be in any way meaningful, and it remains to be seen with whom there will be consultation. I was intrigued that the Minister said—I tried to write it down, but I am sure that he will correct me if I have got it wrong—that we should not worry about the regional point because the regions will be able to set their targets within any national targets. That does not make sense. How could we ensure that the regional targets that were set would sum to a national target? If there was a difference, how would we explain and deal with it? The proposal would be a rather odd way of going about things. After the Government have undertaken their consultation process with people as yet unidentified, presumably they will come forward with simply a national target for microgeneration. I suppose that we would be considering the government regions—what else could they be—to which the Government seem still to cling. I am happy to say that we still oppose the regional bodies—that is one of the things that we have not yet changed. Each region would set its own target, but what would happen if the sum of the regional targets fell far short of the Government’s national target, or, even more surprisingly, exceeded it? How would the regional targets fit into the subsequent monitoring of the national target? If there was a shortfall, or—surprise, surprise—the national target was exceeded, what would be the policy outcome for the regions in which the targets had been set? We all look forward with great anticipation to finding out how the mechanism will work. I assume that the Minister was reading from a brief when he made his intriguing comment. If not, when he goes to his officials and says triumphantly, ““Now look, I want you to set about erecting the procedures and mechanisms whereby this will happen,”” they will all have a merry time doing it. I await the outcome with some interest.