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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I welcome the Bill; indeed, its principles have had a unanimous welcome. If they had not, we might as well have given up on combating climate change. Of course, there are issues of detail, and it is perfectly reasonable that they should be debated and tested. Some of the amendments made in the other place have been very helpful in trying to clarify and strengthen the Bill. However, I want to focus on a couple of points. The first is carbon reporting, which has been referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher). He and I are members of the Aldersgate Group, which has been a driving force behind the idea of carbon reporting. There has always been resistance in Government to the idea of more regulation. That is understandable, to a certain extent, but sometimes it reaches the point of irrationality. Regulation can sometimes be more efficient and can benefit industry and society. If I understand my hon. Friend the Minister correctly, he is saying that he accepts the principle that there should be some regulation of carbon reporting so that there is a standardised approach. That makes absolute sense. At the moment, although about 45 per cent. of top companies report on carbon, they use different criteria and assessments. That makes it almost impossible to compare and to see who is the better performer. The CBI climate change taskforce recommended that there should be a standard approach. It looks like that point, at least, has been accepted. At the CBI conference, delegates were asked whether they supported mandatory reporting, and 82 per cent. were in favour. If 82 per cent. of the CBI is in favour of a new regulation, why are we messing about in this way? I suspect that it is not my hon. Friend the Minister who is messing about. Sometimes, some parts of Government are more sympathetic than others to the idea of environmental regulation. However, the principle is sound and I hope that my hon. Friend will give it a little consideration during the passage of the Bill. Clause 80, which was inserted in the House of Lords, strikes me as a sensible clause. I would hope that my hon. Friend the Minister would make that a workable and effective clause. If we are to make real progress in addressing climatic change, we need a complete cultural shift in society. That shift must come at all levels—at a personal level, in industry, in the public sector and in the private sector. We have to do that. I agree with some of the points that were made about the need for this country to give leadership. This country has given leadership over many years in raising the issue, making the scientific arguments and offering a top-quality scientific base through the technical arguments. I have seen the respect that this country is given in international negotiations as recently as the meeting in Kobe of G8 Environment Ministers. We have influence and people look to us for a lead. There is no doubt that developing countries will not move unless they see the developed countries taking climate change seriously and putting in place the essential measures. On a small part of that cultural shift, I disagree with some of the comments about the measures on waste and recycling. We need maximum flexibility in how we deal with such things. There is an argument not only for charging—I take the argument that we do not have to charge, as we can also offer incentives—but for introducing more imaginative ways of encouraging people to recycle more. Recycling is about reducing energy, and reducing energy is about reducing emissions. We should not forget that. It does not help the all-party approach that has been talked about to attack such measures, just as it does not help to attack the idea of congestion charging. Some of the measures that we will have to put in place will not be easy and they will not always be popular, but they are part of the cultural change that we need. In that respect, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will try to make the Bill's capacity to accommodate new measures as flexible as possible. New measures will arise, and the Government will need to respond quickly and flexibly. This is an opportunity to pass empowering legislation that gives the Government that flexibility. There is a possibility of a range of actions. I very much support the idea of measures such as individual carbon allowances. I accept that its time has not yet come; it is a very radical approach. Nevertheless, elements of it could be applied to an aspect of our society, such as the purchasing of fuel or energy, for example. That also has the benefit of a very strong element of social justice, in the sense that those people who are not great energy users—whether petrol or other fuel—will have a financial advantage compared with those who are big energy users. We should not rule out such approaches; we need the flexibility to adapt. There may well be some movement on, for example, sectoral approaches—not exactly popular with many other countries around the world. However, that might address problems in our energy-intensive sectors, such as steel, that are exposed to global competition. It will do nothing for the environment if steelworks cannot compete in a global environment and their capacity simply switches from this country to a developing country. There would be no environmental gain. That is not to say that we should not encourage efficiencies, productivity and innovation, but perhaps a sectoral approach is one way of doing that, whereby technology transfer and energy-efficiency knowledge can be shared among sectors and developing countries can gain from the experience of developed countries. My hon. Friend the Minister knows all about the discussions that have taken place internationally on such issues. They are not easy, just as discussions on a global stabilisation goal are not easy, as he said, but that is a prerequisite to an overall target. I disagree with hon. Members who talked about absolute target figures, year on year. The idea of carbon budgets is a much better approach, because it gets into people's minds the way that we have to go: to budget for carbon, to put a value on carbon and for all of us to be aware of our impact. In that respect, I strongly support the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen) about the fact that there should be annual carbon budgets, which should be treated in the same way as the annual fiscal Budget, so that the Government's annual carbon budget for the country is open and transparent for the future.