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That reinforces the need for transparency. It is imperative that a change such as this cannot slip by unnoticed. Perhaps it would not, because there is usually an alert Member of this House keeping an eye open for these things. As the Bill stands, the Secretary of State could simply amend the heart of the Bill without anyone really knowing. We need parliamentary approval to allow for public scrutiny, as well as scrutiny in Westminster, of the reasons for adjusting the targets and the baseline year. The Bill will affect everyone in its implementation. It needs to have the transparency and authority that will have public support throughout. We need consensus; we have consensus on so much on this Bill and we need consensus to change things in this way. I commend the amendments to the Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Teverson: I promise not to get into targets and trading during this brief intervention. I welcome the spirit of the Conservative amendments, which go a long way towards getting the right balance between meritocracy, parliamentary democracy and government accountability. I welcome the fact that we are not moving towards having something equivalent to the Monetary Policy Committee, where the sages and the wise people make their decision and that is it. There must be a strong element of parliamentary accountability, which I welcome. We on these Benches want to think more about the balance between the committee, Parliament and the Executive’s duty to govern and to lead. Certainly, a number of the committee’s roles need to be strengthened, but we will think further and come back on Report.
Lord Woolmer of Leeds: Can the noble Lord clarify whether, when these powers are exercised, the order must reflect only what the committee says? The committee might recommend making an order, but the order could vary the burden of the recommendation—the percentage or whatever it happened to be. If, under the amendment, the order could reflect only what the committee recommended, the decision would effectively be made only by the committee, subject to Parliament; the Government would be a rubber stamp. The implications of some recommendations are potentially substantial. It is entirely possible that the Government of the day, notwithstanding a recommendation and following discussion and reflection, might bring forward an order that did not reflect precisely the committee’s recommendation. The amendment is silent about that point, so it would be helpful if the noble Lord could illuminate it.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I am happy to do so. Drafting these amendments is complex and the whole point of this stage of the Bill is to air ideas and to see to what extent we can strengthen the Bill with new ideas. The purpose of the amendment is to establish a triangular relationship between the Secretary of State—the offices of government, which are the delivery agency for policy—Parliament, as the representative of the people’s will, and the committee, as the provider of expertise. On the recommendation of the committee, and not without the recommendation of the committee,
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The process of initiating ideas and recommendations in particularly important fields should be transparent. If the Secretary of State brings forward an order that is not the same as the committee’s recommendation, it should be clear that the Secretary of State is taking that responsibility at variance with the committee. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said that it is important to get this right. We believe that this is a reasonable balance. All of us who want this to be effective will want to get the balance right between government responsibility, parliamentary responsibility and the committee’s responsibility. While that might not be explicit in our amendments, we surely should be able to make it so at some future date, or the Government might be able to present their own amendment along those lines.
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): The last comment of the noble Lord is useful because, if he thinks that that is the effect of the amendment, I should say that it is not. We now know what purpose he wants to effect. As it is drafted, the Government would have no discretion whatever. The only discretion that the Government would have would be not to bring the order to the House. If they brought an order, it would have to be from the recommendation of the committee, so the process would not be triangular. To be triangular, it would need another form of words. The analogy of the Monetary Policy Committee might look fair, but in terms of practicalities it is not a similar organisation; I will come back to that.
I am not nit-picking about the amendments; for the next stage, it is useful for Members to know what I am about to say. The amendments would sub-contract effective, large-scale policy-making over a range of issues—not just the dates, but the consequences—to the climate change committee. The changes would not just be simple. The committee is being set up as an independent expert body—there is no question about that—because we want to manage the framework for emissions in a more transparent fashion that is more likely to deliver results. Clause 3 already requires, before amending the 2050 target or baseline year, that the Secretary of State must consult the committee as well as the devolved Administrations. Clause 2 already requires that any amendment to the target is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, which means that it has to have strong parliamentary scrutiny.
The amendment would require the Government to seek parliamentary approval twice, both in considering the committee’s recommendation and when laying the relevant statutory instrument for the affirmative resolution. That is straightforward duplication. The key question that noble Lords have to ask themselves is whether it should ultimately be the responsibility of the Government, with parliamentary scrutiny, or of the Committee on Climate Change to take decisions on the way forward. Our view is that the decision should ultimately rest
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- “unlike the clear relationship between interest rates and inflation, CO2 emissions do not respond to one well-understood lever—the rate that reductions will occur depend on many different factors”,
such as changes in technology, processes,
- “changes in energy demand, the energy and carbon intensity of the economy, multilateral action, the development of carbon markets”.
In other words, because the relationship between interest rates and inflation is so tied and precise—that seems to be the way it works; I am reliably informed about that, not being an economist—that is a narrow area where the Monetary Policy Committee can have executive authority.
The complexities go far beyond that narrow area of the Monetary Policy Committee. If a Secretary of State, having consulted the climate change committee, came to Parliament with an order that varied from its transparent and open advice, he certainly would have to be accountable and explain in great detail why his decision, with which he is asking Parliament to agree, is different. That is crucial. I am with the noble Lord precisely on that. Frankly, I will be more than happy to look at that aspect of the matter because, judging by his speech, that is what he is searching for, but the amendments do not do that. From that point of view, it would be useful to look at that aspect again.
We will have scientific advice, but, as the generations and decades go by and Parliaments and Governments come and go and international relationships probably change as well, there will be political judgments on this which must be subject to democratic scrutiny. Parliament is the place for that.
It is worth putting it on the record that the Joint Committee looked at the issue. It concluded:
“Overall, the idea that the Climate Change Committee should have analogous powers to the MPC, while attractive, would probably be unworkable ... the wide range of the areas that the Committee on Climate Change must address would mean the Government”—
That does not mean that we are building into this Bill the process for the Government to ignore the Committee on Climate Change; far from it. The Government must be absolutely accountable for what they do, and the committee must be transparent. The committee’s advice will be highly influential and, as I said in an earlier debate, judging from what has been said in earlier debates it would be a brave Secretary of State who would come to Parliament with substantial variations from what the committee had recommended. If that were the case, they would have to explain that situation to Parliament and the court of public opinion, because we would have set up an independent body of world-class people who must be taken seriously. If that gets devalued, there are serious problems for the Government and Parliament.
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I need go no further. If the content of the second intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is what he is seeking, this does not accomplish it. I am happy to look at what he seeks to see whether we can bring something forward. In the mean time, he and his advisers can take account of the fact that, as drafted, the amendment does not create a triangular relationship. It creates a two-sided relationship with the Government out of it. It would be Parliament and the climate change committee, and the Government would have no role. It would be terrible if the Government disagreed so much that they brought an order to have it voted down or did not bring an order at all. That would create a stalemate, which would do nobody any good.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I am reassured by the Minister’s comments. It will be worthwhile having a look at this before Report to see how we can build the authority of the committee into this triangular relationship. That is important. As the Bill stands, it does not give the Committee on Climate Change quite the integral role that we would like to see it play in the process. In the light of the Minister’s comments, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 13 to 16 not moved.]
Lord Taylor of Holbeach moved Amendment No. 17:
(1) A Minister of the Crown in charge of a Bill in either House of Parliament must, before the Second Reading of the Bill—
(2) The statement must be in writing and be published in such manner as the Minister making it considers appropriate.”
The noble Lord said: I continue on the same theme. This amendment is about the interaction of the Committee on Climate Change with the organs of government, namely parliamentary legislation: both Bills and orders. This idea, to give him credit, came from my noble friend Lord Cathcart, who I am sure was inspired by the fact that everything presented to the House carries the endorsement that the legislation is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. We feel that all legislation should carry an imprimatur about the Climate Change Bill. The one thing that we must be able to drive through government is the notion that everything that government does must bear the obligations of government to the success of the Climate Change Bill in mind.
This is an effort to ensure that it has a real and wide-ranging effect on all policy decisions. We know that our government departments will be bound to have to bear in mind elements of the Bill, but it is not
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There may be some elements of legislation that are not compatible with climate change objectives. In such circumstances, it would be right and proper for anyone proposing such legislation to present a statement saying to what extent it was not compatible, why it was not possible for it to be compatible and what would be the consequences of the legislation on our climate change targets. That is not beyond the powers of government, and it certainly guarantees that all government departments would take this seriously. I beg to move.
Earl Cathcart: Not surprisingly, I fully support the amendment. Kyoto, Bali, Stern, Al Gore, the World Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth and all political parties acknowledge that climate change is the most important issue facing us. If that is the case and we are serious about reducing our emissions, all future legislation should be compatible with this Climate Change Bill. Currently, on the front of all legislation the Minister states that in his view the Bill in question is compatible with the Human Rights Act, and on the front of the Climate Change Bill it states that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has made such a statement.
The amendment would make all Ministers think twice before introducing a new Bill. As my noble friend Lord Taylor has just said, this compatibility clause should cover other policies and proposals as well as Bills. The Prime Minister promised in his recent speech to the World Wildlife Fund that:
“Every new policy will be examined for its impact on carbon emissions—not just those which reduce emissions, but those which increase them”.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: In my extreme youth and later I worked with a series of politically correct local and health authorities. Presenting proposals to them became a bit of a grind, as one had to list the compatibilities: diversity, disability, efficiency, the Welsh language and whether there was an “R” in the month. One ended up with a pile of bland assurances that things were compatible. That might lead me to think that this was not a good amendment, but I think it is a rather fine amendment. I wish that I had thought of it. It would be an extremely useful discipline in this incredibly important subject. Everyone would have to pause for thought before bringing legislation forward to consider whether it would take climate change and carbon reduction forward. In reality, the hill that we have to climb is so
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Lord Teverson: I also welcome the amendment. I was going to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, but I obviously have to congratulate the noble Earl instead. We should take this further, and, like the white goods that I buy in Curry’s, we should have a bar at the bottom of each Bill, so that as it goes through it would be red to green—just as we have now in the HIPs, or whatever that is. A little quantification of whether it is an “A” Bill or a “G” Bill in its carbon emissions would be excellent. An amendment in this style would add greatly to our legislative process.
9.15 pm
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: Although we do not discuss the Finance Bill in this House, it would probably be a really interesting exercise to apply it to that.
Lord Rooker: That is probably a good reason why we should not discuss the Finance Bill in this House. This has been an interesting short debate. The package of amendments that we have just heard together requires, as a purpose, that the Minister makes a statement of compatibility on any future Bill on any topic—it is incredibly wide and, as the noble Baroness has just pointed out, it would include finance legislation—before Second Reading.
Obviously, this compatibility practice only came in under the present Administration. It is taken quite seriously; it is not just a question of the statement appearing with my name as though I have done nothing. I get a note from the lawyers, as every Minister would, and I am required to sign a document before the Bill gets printed. In this House, I have not introduced that many Bills and therefore have not done it many times, but this note is still required when they come from the other place. I have known examples over recent years, which I will not go into, where there has been a debate about particular Bills and the Ministers were concerned to seek extra advice about whether they were truly compatible with human rights legislation. In other words, it is taken extremely seriously in government, and the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, has probably done the House a service in bringing it forward.
That being said, the Government are sympathetic to the overall spirit of the amendment. No doubt, ambitious action will be required. I will give the Committee some reasons why it might not achieve that; I emphasise that it is in the way the amendment is drafted, covering every Bill on any topic. The Bill, as it exists, will help drive behaviour across Whitehall—one of the points on which I rested my case in the earlier debates—and, certainly, put the Government’s ambitions to cut emissions on a statutory footing.
As I have repeatedly said, Ministers in all departments, not just the relevant department, will receive advice from their civil servants about their duty to abide by the law and to do what they can to meet the targets and budgets established under this
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Those requirements are all cross-government and will ensure that the Government are focused on what needs to be done to meet the targets and budgets, whether through primary legislation, regulation, expenditure policies or, indeed, executive action. There are, then, powerful incentives and further safeguards through the impact assessment process that all major policy statements must pass.
Secondly, the relationship between the UK’s targets and the level of global temperatures is highly uncertain. As I said earlier, the direct link between many of the issues is not precise, so it would be difficult to determine the impact of individual pieces of legislation. Because many aspects of society and living will be affected by attempts to meet the targets in the Bill, there will be difficulty for the lawyers in assessing any particular legislation. Everything would be covered by the need to make that kind of statement relating to the climate change targets, including legislation on housing, health, or on individual human relationships that have nothing to do with climate change, such as in marriage legislation. It would be incredibly complicated for lawyers to give advice on that, leaving aside the scientific uncertainty in some areas. I am not knocking that. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, is probably not the only person in the Chamber who would have hoped that they would have thought of that. Frankly, it adds to the overall image and perception and the joining-up of government at no cost.
Because of the way that the amendment is drafted, following the pattern of human rights legislation—clearly, in opposition, you take a pattern that works, and this works on all legislation—if we were to do it for every single topic covered by a Bill, we would come up against a real problem. It just cannot be done. As I said, I can think of many Bills—I just thought of one, which is only about individual relationships—where making that kind of statement might be more difficult. However, it ought to be possible for a body of legislation, a range of legislation, to be covered by such a statement. I am happy to take the amendment away to take advice on it; I have no doubt that other colleagues will do so as well.
I do not think that we can go as far as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, suggests and put a coloured bar coding on it. On the proposal that Ministers in departments other than the lead department should be required on their legislation not just to take into account the legal duty required of government under the Bill but to sign a piece of paper to that effect before the Bill starts on its parliamentary journey, I counsel against being precise about every piece of legislation. How you define legislation, I do not know. There are better brains than mine in the Parliamentary Counsel Office to consider that. The proposal certainly adds positively to the idea of the Bill being cross-government, up front and transparent and with genuine extra accountability. I will be happy to look at it on that basis. That is three in a row—no more tonight.
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I am happy to hear what the Minister has to say; it is very encouraging. I have worked with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, on work and pensions legislation, and I understand that there may be some aspects of government activity that have little or no relevance, but that could be clearly stated. There could be a formula of words to deal with those matters.
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