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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I can already see Members lining up when the next private Members' Bills are announced to introduce one to extend these powers to cover the Government's snowplough sheds. I thank the Minister for her courteous and generous remarks. Credit should go to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), who saw the Bill through Committee and beyond, and to my noble Friend Lord Taylor, whose spirit and approach in the other place were very similar to those of my hon. Friend. It gives me particular pleasure to support the amendment, which, as the Minister has said, will legislate to ensure, among other goals, that new buildings brought into the civil estate are in the upper quartile of energy performance. At a time of record high energy prices, and given the impact that those prices have on poor families and small businesses, the importance of the Government leading the drive towards energy efficiency cannot be understated. As the Minister said, the amendment started life as a private Member's Bill promoted by the hon. Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove). We gave our full support to that Bill. We have long argued that energy efficiency improvements are one of the keys to a reduction in short-term domestic emissions, as well as having a positive carbon abatement cost that will create new jobs and generate new wealth for our economy. I want to take the opportunity to ask the Government to reflect on their record of energy efficiency to date across the civil estate. I think that they will agree that the statistics are not very encouraging. The Sustainable Development Commission's report found that nearly two thirds of Government Departments are not on track to meet their carbon emissions reduction targets. In fact, if the Ministry of Defence—which has achieved its own reductions, by selling off QinetiQ in particular—is discounted, all the public estate performance improvements are negated. Carbon emissions from the civil service estate offices have increased by 22 per cent. since 2006 and energy efficiency has worsened by 3.3 per cent. since 2006. In response to the report, the SDC chairman Jonathon Porritt, said:"““I find all this so depressing that I now hate having to comment on it. In fact, this year, I opted out of all media work around our report.””" Mindful of those sobering facts and of the mountain that the Government have left for us all to climb to meet our ambitions, I am happy to see the amendment included in the Bill.