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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

There are many points to be made on that matter, and I must make progress. Action by the EU is also important to help deliver our targets, and we need to recognise the legitimate right of UK companies to participate fully in the emissions trading scheme, which is the foundation of the EU's efforts to tackle climate change. The framework of carbon budgets is underpinned by clear accountability, through annual reporting to Parliament on progress, supported by the requirement to set out an indicative range for the net UK carbon account for each year of the budget period, and by the independent scrutiny of the new Committee on Climate Change. The Government will be required to report to Parliament, setting out their plans and proposals to meet each carbon budget, as soon as practicable after it is set. The first three budgets and our plans for meeting them will be set out alongside the Budget in 2009. A requirement for the report to be laid by the Prime Minister was inserted in the other place, but since every other duty in the Bill is laid upon the holder of the Secretary of State's office, as is usual in a system of collective Government responsibility, we will seek to amend the relevant clause to uphold that responsibility. There has been a great deal of debate about emissions from international aviation and shipping, which have already been raised this afternoon. They are, by definition, international industries, and the UK has therefore strongly argued for international action to ensure that they play their part in tackling climate change. I hope that aviation emissions will be included in the EU emissions trading scheme from 2012. That would ensure that any growth in aviation emissions in future would have to be balanced by reductions elsewhere. However, the issues in the allocation of national responsibilities for such emissions are complex; and so once the EU ETS rules have been set, we will ask the committee to advise on whether there is a methodology to include international aviation emissions in our targets and on what the impacts of doing so would be. We would expect to be in a position to decide whether to go ahead before the second carbon budget under the Bill, which runs from 2013 to 2017, although we would not want to cut across our parallel efforts to reach wider international agreement.