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Department of Energy and Climate Change

I also warmly welcome and congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on this critical role within government. I also congratulate the Government on following the Lib Dem lead from nine months ago and putting energy and climate change into a single brief. However, I want the right hon. Gentleman to be even more powerful than he is because we will tackle climate change effectively only if he also has control over pretty much the rest of the Government as well. Is it not the case that, in the week that he was appointed, one of his ministerial colleagues said, ““We will expand Stansted airport””? What is the point of having a climate change Minister who has no clout with the rest of the Cabinet? I urge the Secretary of State to wield a big stick around the rest of the Cabinet and ensure that not just energy and climate change decisions, but all other Government decisions are taken through a green lens. I welcome the move to the 80 per cent. target. Can I save the Secretary of State some trouble? He does not need to table a fresh amendment. He can simply accept mine: amendment No. 1 to the Climate Change Bill, which deletes ““60”” and inserts ““80. It is on the Order Paper, and I will be honoured to have his name added to it. On a serious point, can the Secretary of State clarify the coverage of the 80 per cent. target? He used some vague words in his statement about aviation and shipping playing their part, but he did not say that they were included in the 80 per cent. target. Is not excluding aviation and shipping from the 80 per cent. target like being on a calorie-controlled diet but not counting the cream cakes that one plans to eat? Surely, we have to count the big polluters and the rapidly growing polluters in the target. On the issue of domestic effort, we fully appreciate the importance of saving emissions at home and abroad, but is it not the case that the Climate Change Bill would allow every single saving to be brought in? We do not have to save any domestic emissions at all under the Bill. Surely the Secretary of State, when he goes to international forums, wants to set the lead? Is there not some floor that he is willing to set that insists that the British domestic effort is substantial? The Secretary of State had a meeting with the energy companies yesterday, the latest in a very long line of cosy chats with them that have delivered precisely nothing. Is it not time, not for more cosy chats, but for action? His statement says that, if the energy companies do not play ball, he will threaten them with consultation on legislation. Have not hard-pressed customers had to wait long enough? Today, I have published figures that show that the poorest four fifths of single pensioners will on average be in fuel poverty this winter; the figures were produced by the House of Commons Library based on Office for National Statistics projections. That is totally unacceptable. Waiting another month and then consulting is too late for pensioners this winter. Will the Secretary of State act far more urgently than that?