| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
The amendments would place a specific duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations within five years—essentially for the next budget period. We have proposed this timeframe for two reasons. First, we want to ensure that it is done. At the moment the words “may make ... regulation” are too weak and we want assurances that it will happen. We simply cannot accept the argument that any Secretary of State would be foolish not to address these issues. This needs to be a firm duty in the Bill.
The second reason for the timeframe is that, while five years may seem a long period to some, it may be a short one for those who have to make regulation. We feel that five years is an adequate period for the development of a robust mechanism for counting trade and transport emissions. It means that these emissions would fit in neatly with the secondary budgetary period. It would also allow adequate time for international negotiations and ensure that our hands were not tied during talks on the new EU ETS and Kyoto. The period is still lengthy, but we would rather have a robust and effective mechanism than a rushed one that needed to be scrapped because it was ill conceived or because international agreements changed.
We hope very much that the first budget period will be set in such a way that it takes into account the fact that the biggest contributors to climate change are not being counted. We feel that this approach is the most sophisticated and effective way of ensuring that we count all the important contributors to climate change, including international transport and the movement of people. I beg to move.
5.30 pm
Lord Teverson: My Lords, we on these Benches think that the amendment is not as good as it could be. We should be more plain speaking and include aviation and shipping, but we are beyond that debate now.
It is important that we include in the Bill international movements of people and freight, however that is described or defined, and that this has to happen within a timescale. We need to make sure that there is a duty on the Secretary of State to introduce whatever system is decided upon rather than the matter being left open-ended until some point in the future.
When I first read the amendment, I thought it contained more than the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, described. I thought it was far more revolutionary and contained something I could welcome even more: that within the UK carbon footprint we would include the carbon footprint of all imports and take off everything that we export. In that way, we would have a carbon footprint that related to UK consumption or gross national income. That would be a very advanced concept but it would get around the problems of outsourcing. The United Kingdom and much of Europe have met their Kyoto targets so far purely by delegating manufacturing to China and other parts of the Far East.
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1017
The amendment is not aimed at that. I understand what the noble Lord is trying to get at with the amendment and it is better than the Bill as it stands. There are potential issues around it but, if it was passed, we could perhaps resolve them in the future.
Lord Greenway: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said “if shipping becomes heavily regulated”; I can assure him that shipping is already heavily regulated and becomes more so by the week. What I cannot understand about the amendment is that international aviation and shipping includes the movement of passengers by sea and air, so I cannot see any great difference between this and the previous amendment.
The problem with Europe, which has been mentioned, is that shipping is very much an international business. Any moves made locally in local areas are bound to complicate the international situation. I have worked on and off for many years for the Port of Los Angeles in California. Los Angeles and its neighbouring port, Long Beach, are in the vanguard of trying to cut down emissions connected with the ports and all traffic movements in and out of them.
As I said in Committee, they have started a system whereby ships plug into shore power when they are in port. This is fine where shore power is provided mainly by nuclear or hydroelectric sources. Obviously, if the power is provided by coal-fired power stations it does not help very much. They also recently tried to bring in a local regulation whereby ships have to reduce their sulphur emissions within 15 miles of the port. That regulation was thrown out on appeal, with a higher court saying that that was the responsibility of the Federal Government and that local people should not be doing this kind of thing.
That brings me back to what I was saying about shipping being an international business. As I said on the earlier amendment, the International Maritime Organisation is looking with some urgency at this problem. There is no one-size-fits-all as regards shipping and this is causing the problem.
On emissions within Europe, we already have two areas where ships have to cut down the sulphur content in their engines—one in the Baltic and a new one which has just come into operation in the North Sea and the English Channel. So already things are happening. It would be a great mistake, as the Minister said earlier, for shipping to be brought in now before some kind of international agreement can be reached.
The Earl of Selborne: My Lords, the question is whether the amendments make it harder to negotiate the international agreements that we all recognise will be needed, whether for aviation, shipping or, indeed, the international movement of goods and passengers.
I rather like the amendment because it sets a realistic timescale—the Secretary of State is required to regulate within five years—and we are assured by the previous speaker that the International Maritime Organisation is tackling this issue with urgency. I would assume, if that is the case, that five years is not going to present a problem. In other words, something ultimately will be resolved in five years. Do not hold your breath, my Lords; I suspect that I may be proved optimistic in
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1018
I like the amendment because it recognises that we are seeking to allow passengers—indeed, in many ways, to encourage passengers—to travel, but by the least carbon-emitting method. Taking an overall audit comparing maritime, air, rail and road and putting in place policies which encourage the least emitting form of transport seems a desirable objective which the Secretary of State should address in the medium term.
The Minister spoke very convincingly and, as we knew he would, with some passion on the previous amendment about the need to ensure that we did not put in place measures which would put us at a disadvantage with our competitors. I do not think that that criticism can be held against these amendments and I will be very interested to know whether or not the Minister feels that to be the case. I find myself in a great deal of agreement with my noble friend who moved the amendments.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for moving the amendment. As I am following on from my noble friend Lord Selborne, in some ways there is little more to add. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. We have had many debates in the Chamber on what to do about international shipping and I suspect that when the marine Bill comes along this issue will be raised again very fully.
The amendment does not tie the Government as tightly as the previous one. We have time, a five-year period, in which to look at it and to see what can be developed internationally. When we have the Climate Change Bill before us, it is a great shame that we do not take the opportunity to use it for the betterment of everyone concerned. On a previous amendment, I said that we should not forget that our Government and our country are taking a great lead on climate change, and not to have something similar to the amendment proposed by my noble friend would be regrettable.
I appreciate that the question of how one regulates it is difficult. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said in regard to the import and export of goods, shipping often moves through several different phases; it is not only a one-stop journey but will involve other ports of call on the way. Getting around that will be quite a challenge.
The amendment is certainly worth considering. The Minister clearly was not happy to accept the previous amendment, but if he is not able to take on board some of the proposals within the amendment, I hope that when he comes to reply he will give good reasons why not. I felt that his reply to the previous amendment was, “We do not really like it and therefore we are not going to take it on board”. This amendment is slightly more generous and more flexible than the other one and I hope that he will justify more fully why he cannot accept it—if, indeed, he cannot—but obviously our hope is that he will.
Lord Turnbull: My Lords, the arguments against inclusion seem to confuse two completely different issues. The first is whether aviation and shipping
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1019
It is not difficult to estimate what the emissions are for aviation and shipping, although it may not be exactly the same metric that we come to use when we get to the ETS. My argument is that we should put them into the account while the work goes on to find a method of controlling them. In the mean time, we will rely, in the case of aviation, on recasting air passenger duty as best we can so that it reflects CO2 emissions, not simply the number of people, as is already being planned. I would separate out completely what is in the account and the method by which we then seek to control the emissions in question.
Lord May of Oxford: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, has just said much more gracefully and forcefully what I would have wished to say. I also think the amendment nods gently, and with an appropriately drawn timescale, in the direction in which we ought to be going. I hope that it will be passed.
The Earl of Liverpool: My Lords, there seems to be a wide measure of consensus in favour of this measure and of moving gently in the right direction, as the previous speaker has just said. I wish to say only that my noble friend Lady Byford is supporting it, and I thank my noble friend Lord Taylor for moving it and for the way he described what we are trying to achieve. I hope that if he divides the House, this way will be the alternative to that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in his previous amendment, which was not passed.
Lord Woolmer of Leeds: My Lords, as I understand the amendment, in substance it has two elements to it. One is that it reframes aviation and shipping in terms of passengers and goods and services; and the other is that it inserts the word “must” instead of “may”. I hope I have got that right.
The first of those is an interesting proposition to put before your Lordships. The question is whether that distinction between the movement of people and the movement of goods and services makes more sense than the distinction between the means by which the movement takes place, whether by air or by sea—or, internally, by rail. I will listen with great interest to what the Minister says about that.
With regard to aviation, on many occasions an aircraft will carry both goods and people. International aviation agreements are emerging in Europe, but it would be difficult to have one system of measuring or taking account of the movement of goods by air and another for measuring travel by land to ensure that the
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1020
I will not comment too much on “must” or “may”, other than to make a general comment about this particular clause and the desire in the Bill—which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, most forcefully expressed in his frustration as he wound up on the previous vote—to say, no doubt in the face of pressures, that we as an individual country must take responsibility for every emission, even if some emissions are best dealt with in an international environment, as within Europe. The clause as it stands gives a great deal of credence to that view. I suggest that it is entirely possible that we could well distinguish between those emissions that we are best at dealing with as a country and those emissions that are best dealt with in international agreements. The latter group should be dealt with in that environment, and we should not pretend that we can say that these are British emissions as opposed to French or German emissions—not least because the emitters will be free to trade in any case, and the actual emissions will be quite beyond our control in international agreements.
The saving grace for me in the clause is that it says those necessary orders “may” be made. I have just a slight concern, although I may have misinterpreted this, that saying “must” means that we must say what the UK emissions are. I shall give the kind of examples that have already been given. If I and my family decide to go to India and do not fly direct from London to Delhi but go via Amsterdam, what are the UK emissions? If a Chinese or American visitor decides that they will be put off by passenger duty and will go to or from their country via Dubai, Paris or Frankfurt, what are the UK emissions? There are real problems here, and the clause does not do a great deal to deter the idea that we should perhaps distinguish between emissions. I suspect that the climate change committee will distinguish between those emissions that fall within an international agreement and those that do not. For that reason, I hope that when the Minister responds to this he is able to cope on the may/must issue. I will be interested to see what his answer to that point is.
Lord Rooker: This has been a useful debate. As has been said, there are two amendments here which would make key changes to the Bill. The first, which has been concentrated on to a large extent, would replace the concept of international aviation and shipping emissions with emissions from international passenger travel and imports or exports of goods. It would also put a time limit of five years on the Secretary of State’s ability to exclude the emissions from our targets or require him to come down to Parliament after five years if they had not been included.
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1021
I appreciate the spirit of the noble Lord’s amendment. It has just been commented on in the Lobby—votes are useful for having a chat with people—that the amendment is very clever; it is trying to address the practical problems we looked at in Committee. We accept that. For the most part, the amendment grapples with precisely the same issues that I understand the Government grappled with when drafting the clause in the first place. I agree that one possible way of including the emissions in the Bill is through the categorisation described in the amendment; that is, passenger travel or freight.
I assure the House that Clause 25 is drafted sufficiently widely that, should we decide that the amendment is the most appropriate way forward—I have indicated that it has a lot going for it—it would be perfectly possible to define the emissions in the way that the noble Lord suggested. However, there could be practical problems—we will find this all the way through not just the Bill but also the way in which we operate the policies—in relation to transport carrying both passengers and freight; for example, a boat with passengers and freight. The amendment might also risk international rail transport via Eurotunnel being included in measures to combat emissions from shipping and aviation industries on the grounds that Eurotunnel also carries international passengers and freight.
My notes go to greater length, but I do not see the need to go further into them because I am offering practical arguments. Contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said, I do not do so because I do not like the amendment; I am trying to give practical reasons why we cannot accept it, as I did in the case of Amendment No. 64. I do not want to nitpick this amendment because, as I have said, the noble Lord’s formulation, which we believe can be covered by the Bill as drafted, may—to use an analogy used in another context earlier today—provide a lifeboat for the way in which we come to a solution.
Amendment No. 116 would set a time limit for including the emissions in our targets, or require the Secretary of State to explain to Parliament why they had not been included. I again sympathise with the noble Lord’s intention. As has been indicated in the speeches made, the House shares the desire to tackle emissions from the sectors concerned as quickly and comprehensively as possible. I believe that there is also a strong measure of agreement that they are best tackled internationally; I do not think that anyone is arguing for completely unilateral measures. However, we come back to the same question as to the best way to reflect the points in the Bill in the first place.
I make it clear that we have no problem with the idea of parliamentary scrutiny on the issue; indeed, the Government’s own amendments would strengthen Parliament’s role. The Bill already provides considerable scope for further parliamentary debate on the issues; for instance, in the context of the Government’s orders setting carbon budgets, or amending the level of the 2050 target, which must be passed by affirmative resolution.
However, as we have already discussed, the problem with setting any arbitrary deadline, which is what the
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1022
However, I assure the House that we will not delay. When it is possible to move forward, we will do so. For instance, with international aviation emissions, we have already said that once the European Union emissions trading rules have been finalised, we will ask the Committee on Climate Change for its advice on the methodology. The timing for this will depend on progress at EU level, but we hope that the emissions trading rules will be finalised during this calendar year. We do not wish to pre-empt the committee’s advice, but we would expect to be in a position to decide whether to include international aviation emissions in our targets ahead of the second carbon budget under the Bill, which runs from 2013 to 2017. The situation with respect to international shipping emissions is more complex, as we have already discussed, but I hope that my answer provides noble Lords with some reassurance.
We have always said that we want this to be a genuinely transparent process. I can confirm that the Government would be happy to provide regular information to Parliament on progress in the European and international discussions on international aviation and shipping. This should provide greater transparency. I hope that this would reassure both your Lordships and Members of other place that they would be kept fully and regularly up to date on the international negotiations as they develop. I hope that the assurances that I have provided about our commitment to take action on these emissions will persuade the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response. He has left me feeling that, if only I had time, I could almost convince him to accept the amendments. I think that he can see what we are seeking to do, and I think that he recognises that the Government’s proposals in the Bill cramp the resolution of the problem. Although he said that it is perfectly possible to introduce a system which reflects the terms of the amendments on the basis of the wording that is already in the Bill, I suspect that he can see that the mechanism that we propose has a number of advantages. It is designed to address an area of omission. As the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, pointed out, the omission is that nothing will be on the carbon account until something comes up under the Bill.
The amendment is designed to address not just aviation and shipping; it is designed to include the Channel Tunnel and Eurostar as part and parcel of the United Kingdom’s carbon account. It is designed
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1023
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |