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Local Government and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) who served with me on the Joint Committee on the draft Climate Change Bill. He underlined a number of issues concerning the Bill which I also wish to address. Before addressing the detail of the Bill, it is necessary to reflect on what it now represents. I say to those who claim that the Queen's Speech is not visionary and lacks substance that this Bill has an astonishing amount of substance. The architecture will, we hope, last many years and ensure that we move from a profligate carbon-energy economy to a low energy and low carbon economy. It provides the means and framework by which we can achieve that. It is right to say that we must get this right and that there might be ways in which we could better move towards achieving our goal, but it is momentous that we will in this coming parliamentary Session be debating—and, hopefully, all agree on—a Bill that achieves that goal. The Bill sets that architecture up not only in terms of the targets that have been mentioned. It is important that we pay attention, as we have done in Committee and elsewhere, to the question of which target is likely to enable us to get to the point—which must be a global point, not just a national point—that we want to reach: the point above which we start encountering serious feedback effects. The generally recognised level for that is 2°, and therefore talking about degrees rather than percentages might provide us with a more appropriate target in the long term. There are two important aspects of the architecture. There are the arrangements on carbon budgets so that we can continue to drive down the quantum of carbon year by year—five-year period by five-year period. That is an essential element of the way forward because it is at least theoretically possible to reach one's targets over particular periods by being extremely profligate in the use of carbon and then shutting everything down for a short time, so that the target will have been met but nothing will have actually been done about the carbon that has been released over that period and which cannot be taken back. Another important aspect that is substantially covered in the Bill, but which has not received particular mention this afternoon, is the architecture of how we trade carbon in future within Europe and, hopefully, on a worldwide basis. The setting up of a number of protocols relating to how that carbon trading takes place is an important element of the Bill because, among other things, it will create pressure by establishing a value and price for carbon that drive the decisions that will be made within the carbon budget periods. That will help begin to ensure that decisions on different forms of energy use, and different forms of housing and land use, can be based on how carbon is running through the economy rather than just on bottom-line financial arrangements. It is important that we address the issue of carbon price in the context of another piece of proposed legislation in the Queen's Speech: the energy Bill. I have mentioned that some people have said there was little vision in the Queen's Speech. To address that, we need point no further than at other Bills referred to in it that should, can and will back up the Climate Change Bill architecture in terms of moving from a high carbon to a low carbon economy. The context in which the energy Bill is set is that in the next 15 years or so—roughly the period of the first three carbon budgets in the Climate Change Bill—we will need to renew some 40 per cent. of our power stations. All except one of the existing nuclear power stations will be decommissioned, as will a number of gas and coal-fired power stations. One thing that we do know is that we cannot replace those power stations with a gas power station economy, because we would simply burst open the carbon targets set in the Climate Change Bill. We also know that, whatever we think about nuclear power, when we have to replace that substantial part of our energy generating supply in that approximately 15-year period, it simply will not ride to the rescue. It will not be generating any power—certainly not by 2020, and probably not even by 2025—unless very different proposals from the current ones on commissioning, planning, justification and so on are introduced, even allowing for the context of the planning Bill, which is also in the Queen's Speech. In renewing our power supply, the emphasis over the next 15 to 18 years will therefore have to be on renewables or near renewables. It is at this point that the question of the ends and the means of the Climate Change Bill comes into view. The energy Bill provides a different regime. Renewable obligation certificates encourage different forms of renewable energy to come on to the market, but the decisions that we will have to take about those forms of renewable energy will often be hard ones. Although the full support throughout the Chamber for the Climate Change Bill is most welcome, the reality is that once it is enacted, we will have to consider what we actually do—either with assistance and advice, or through the mechanism of this Chamber—to ensure that those carbon budgets are maintained. We will undoubtedly face some controversial decisions, such as that on the Severn barrage. I welcome the recent announcement of substantial Government assistance for a feasibility study of the Severn barrage, which, if built, will provide some 5 per cent. of our future energy supplies on a renewable basis. However, its environmental impact on the Severn estuary, wildlife and so on will be controversial, so there will be trade-offs between our ends and our means. What concerns me is the bad signals emerging from early attempts to ensure that those future trade-offs have a positive impact on climate change. Reference has been made in this Chamber to the fact that the Conservatives are resisting the climate change levy, and the question was asked earlier this afternoon why we need carbon budgeting in the Climate Change Bill. We also heard a disgraceful depiction of a policy that is being put forward, which is deeply involved with the questions of what we do about climate change and how we organise our lives in such a way as to reduce our carbon emissions and the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions on our environment. I trust that the Climate Change Bill will contain this policy of ensuring that residents who act positively on recycling get rebates from their local authorities, that local authorities have the power to do that and, possibly, that people who take no action on recycling or on ensuring that their waste is managed in a reasonable way face some form of consequence. That relates very much to climate change, because if we do not recycle more, if we do not stop burying our rubbish in the ground, and if we do not use that waste as a resource to remove the sucking in of virgin materials and to ensure that the carbon consequences of that alternative way forward are recognised, we will simply allow our waste arisings to become a substantial repository of additional carbon emissions over a very long period of time. Simply to characterise such a policy as a spy in the bin, a chip in every waste bin and a stealth tax is disgraceful in terms of climate change commitments. I hope that the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), who will sum up for Opposition, will dissociate himself from that characterisation. I respect the hon. Gentleman for his knowledge, experience and understanding of environmental matters, and he surely must have been squirming in his seat while that pantomime characterisation of a policy that is essential to an early approach on climate change and waste minimisation was discussed in this Chamber. This is about means and ends. We must get them both right. I welcome the measures in the Bill that get both of them right.