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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I will name no names, because the Member concerned is not in his place. My Bill aimed to ensure that all new Government buildings were in the highest quartile of energy performance. I was very pleased to have had the support of not only the Government, but Conservative and Liberal Democrat Front Benchers, so it is a shame that the actions of one maverick stopped the Bill going into Committee. It is a modest request to make of the Government as it simply gives legal force to a commitment that has already been made in their own energy efficiency action plan. This is where I have to thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment, because he went the extra mile to ensure that both he and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) were able to acquiesce to some of the demands in my Bill. I am very grateful for the patient work by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and his officials. I welcome the fact that as a result of this Bill the Government will have new powers to require public bodies to produce action plans on adaptation at the discretion of the Secretary of State and on many other things. I recognise the importance of the five local areas, but the Government should give a lead and show local councils that when procuring new buildings for the Government estate, they are aiming for the highest possible environmental standards. Without a commitment on the face of the Bill, Departments will continue not to pull their weight in the fight against climate change. Some 17 out of 21 Departments are not on track to meet their energy efficiency targets, and energy efficiency across the central Government estate has actually worsened by 3.3 per cent. since 2000. I proposed a modest change and I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will find some way to include it in the Bill. The Minister has said that the Bill is about leadership and that it should be about keeping promises. In recognition of their duty to lead by example, the Government committed in the energy efficiency action plan in 2004 to procure only buildings in the top quartile. The commitment covered Departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies. To put that in perspective, there are currently around 100 executive agencies and more than 800 non-departmental public bodies. They include organisations as diverse as the Highways Agency, the Meat and Livestock Commission and the Royal Mint. The top quartile commitment was subsequently restated in the ““Common Minimum Standards for the Procurement of Built Environments in the Public Sector””, published by the Office of Government Commerce in September 2005. The most recent restatement of the commitment was in the 2007 energy White Paper. The promise to carry out this action has been made a number of times. However, the Environmental Industries Commission wrote to me earlier this month stating that in 2006-07 only 46 of 351 Government new build or refurbishment projects were even assessed for their environmental impact. The failure to ensure that major public building projects will be energy efficient and sustainable is a huge wasted opportunity and will undermine the Government's aim of making the UK one of the EU leaders in sustainable procurement. We can all see failure looming. Only if this Bill is amended to include a requirement that public buildings are procured in a better way can we stop that failure happening. As I said, the Bill is supported by hon. Members on both sides of the house and NGOs across the UK. Millions of people make up their memberships, and tens of millions make up their supporters. They will be watching this debate closely and I will make sure that its outcome is also reported to those who have written to me from my constituency.