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Standing Committee C
Wednesday 11 June 2003
[Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair]
2.2 pm
Resolved,
That, if proceedings on the Sustainable Energy Bill are not completed at this day's sitting, the Committee do meet on Wednesday 18 June at 8.55 am and Thursday 19 June at 2.30 pm.—[Brian White.]
Resolved,
That proceedings in the Sustainable Energy Bill shall be taken in the following Order, namely Clause 1, New Clause 1, Clause 2, New Clause (domestic energy efficiency), New Clause (energy conservation authorities), Clauses 3 to 8 and Remaining New Clauses.—[Brian White.]
The Chairman: I should like to make a preliminary announcement about the Bill and remind the Committee that there is a money resolution in connection with it. Copies of the resolution are available in the Room. Clause 1
Sustainable energy policy
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 1—Annual reports on progress towards sustainable energy aims—
'(1) The Secretary of State must in each calendar year, beginning with 2004, publish a report (''a sustainable energy report'') on the progress made in the reporting period towards—
(a) cutting the United Kingdom's carbon emissions;
(b) maintaining the reliability of the United Kingdom's energy supplies;
(c) promoting competitive energy markets in the United Kingdom; and
(d) reducing the number of people living in fuel poverty in the United Kingdom.
(2) ''The reporting period'', for the purposes of subsection (1), means the year ending with 23 February in the calendar year in question.
(3) Accordingly, the report must be published in that calendar year within the period beginning with 24 February and ending with 31 December (''the publication period'').
(4) A sustainable energy report may either be published as a single report or published in a number of parts during the publication period, and any such report or part may be contained in a document containing other material.
(5) A sustainable energy report must be based on such information as is available to the Secretary of State when the report is completed (except that if it is published in parts, each of those parts must be based on such information as is so available when that part is completed).
(6) For the purposes of this section a person is to be regarded as living in fuel poverty if he is a member of a household living on a lower income in a home which cannot be kept warm at a reasonable cost.'.
As Amendments to Mr. Brian Wilson's proposed Clause (NC1) (Annual reports on progress towards sustainable energy aims):
And the following amendments thereto:
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Amendment (a), in
Amendment (b), in
line 10, at end insert—
'( ) each of the following goals (''sustainable energy goals'')
(i) the generation of 20% electricity from renewable sources by 2010;
(ii) the generation of 10GWe of electricity by combined heat and power by 2010;
(iii) reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide of 20% based on 1990 levels by 2010;
(iv) reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide of 60% based on 1990 levels by 2050;
(v) carbon savings as a result of measures to improve domestic energy efficiency of 5 MtC by 2010 and a further 4 MtC by 2020.'.
The Minister for Energy and Construction (Mr. Brian Wilson): I am delighted that the Bill is before the Committee today. I hope that by the time we have completed our deliberations my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White), who has promoted the Bill impeccably, will have worthwhile legislation in his name. I hope that the spirit of cross-party consensus that has applied thus far can be maintained through all the stages of the Bill's consideration.
The core of clause 1 is a requirement for the Government to report annually on sustainable energy policy. We are perfectly happy to take on that commitment, which is consistent with our objectives for energy policy. Indeed, it is a commitment that we have already made in the energy White Paper in which we undertook to report annually on the progress being made towards the aims set out in that paper. In making such a report a statutory duty, however, we believe that it is vital not to be too prescriptive. For instance, a moment's consideration would show that it is not appropriate to set in statute current targets that may well be superseded, or aspirations for which detailed policies need to be developed, costed and implemented over time.
Sue Doughty (Guildford): I am a little concerned about the direction that the Minister may be taking in his speech, although I appreciate that it is early in the proceedings. He talks about the Bill being prescriptive, but surely its purpose is to prescribe the steps—and the way in which we measure them—being taken to deliver renewable and sustainable energy. If the Minister is going to do that anyway, what is the problem with including in the Bill the matters that are to be reported on? Without such reporting, we will have substantial problems.
Mr. Wilson: The one thing that the hon. Lady was correct about is that it is early. I shall explain exactly why we believe that the spirit of the Bill is best reflected by new clause 1, and why it is not a great idea to set targets that inevitably become moving targets. They may become more ambitious as the years go on and as aspirations rise. To identify very specific targets in the process of policy development in a Bill would be extremely unusual, and it is not a very good idea.
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Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby): May I say how pleased I am to be on the Committee, and serving under your chairmanship, Mr. Illsley? The Minister says that he is against specific targets. I am not an authority on the Labour party manifestos from 1997 and 2001, but I think that if one were to read them, one would find that they contained specific targets for renewable energy and combined heat and power. Is that right?
Mr. Wilson: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I praise him on his reading skills, but there is a big difference between being committed to targets for renewable energy and CHP, and putting them into legislation. If the hon. Gentleman's reading extends far enough, I would be interested to hear if he could quote me any other examples of specific targets of that nature being included in legislation. I am happy to restate the renewables target, which is that 10 per cent. of our electricity should come from renewable sources of energy by 2010. The place for that is a manifesto or a White Paper, not legislation.
Mr. Robathan: It seems to me that if a party is willing to include targets in a manifesto, when it is asking for votes, it should be willing to live up to that and put its money where its mouth is by addressing the target and reporting progress on it in a Bill.
Mr. Wilson: All that is encapsulated in our proposal, but we would prefer to put it in a manifesto or a White Paper, not legislation. The White Paper is not designed to seek votes; it sets the pattern of energy policy for the next 50 years, and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East understands the reasons for that.
The White Paper sets out a strategy for the short, medium and long term, and we chose deliberately not to attempt to set out detailed policies through to 2050, but to set a strategy and put in place the means to deliver it over time. It is better that the Government report in the best fashion every year on the progress that they are making rather than trying to be too prescriptive now.
We should not tie future Governments to reassessing a long, detailed list of particular technological and policy options every year in perpetuity. I realise that when we talk about future Governments of a different complexion we are talking in the extremely long term, so it is an academic consideration, but we must deal with the hypothesis. We should not want to tie any successive Government too tightly to the specifics being suggested.
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle): Having come into Parliament only at the last election, my constitutional knowledge is scant, but surely I am right in thinking that it is a fundamental principle of our unwritten constitution that no Parliament can bind a successor Parliament. Are we not looking to the Bill to make a clear statement of long-term policy?
Mr. Wilson: The principle that the hon. Gentleman espouses is correct, but to escape from the letter of the Act, as the Bill might then be, new legislation would be needed. That does not make sense. We have targets for the lifetime of this Government and we shall work very hard to maintain them, but to enshrine them in
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legislation is not usual or appropriate. The renewables obligation, for example, is a 25-year commitment. We cannot bind anyone through legislation to that obligation, but it is extremely important, in the signals that we send out to potential investors in renewables, to have cross-party support for the obligation and an understanding that no future Government, of any complexion, would renege on it.
Gregory Barker: It is simply nonsense to say that it is not usual to have targets that bind future Governments. Yesterday, I was in a Committee Room just along the Corridor where the Government backed a clause to bring in universal doorstep recycling with targets for implementation by 2010 and a derogation to 2015. That is exactly the sort of long-term target that we are seeking here. The Minister is not being very accurate in his description.
Mr. Wilson: I am reaffirming the existence of targets, but we do not propose to include them in the Bill because this is an evolving process, and the targets might well become more ambitious. Personally, I think that by the end of the decade climate change will be a much more clamant public issue, and the targets that we set now may well seem modest compared with what we want then; but, again, I stress that one does not amend legislation every time one changes a target. We would get into that trap if we started incorporating targets, and the other specifics suggested here, in a Bill.
As I said, we should not tie future Governments to making an annual reassessment of a long, detailed list of technology and policy options in perpetuity. We need to judge what is most appropriate every year. In some years there may be little to say that is new; in others there may be a great deal to say that is new and progressive.
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