Climate Change

Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Soley

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend knows of course that we work very closely with our European partners. We will of course push those that are slightly slower in coming forward in reducing their carbon emissions to do much better. We all need very ambitious targets. I hope that the conference will see that.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the number of organisations asking for a single voice, or person, in government whom they can approach about, for example, taxation on different fuels, which does not take into account the advantages and disadvantages in terms of their impact on climate change? That is a particularly important point and the Government could move on it. Will the Minister listen to those many organisations that want a place to go in government with a single message about what government can do to relate to their need to improve performance?

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Lord is of course right to raise that, but I assure him that climate change is embedded in thinking across all departments.

Atmospheric Carbon

Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Soley

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend is absolutely right to say that we need to ensure that there is certainty for investors. The Energy Bill, which is to come to your Lordships’ House next week, will set out exactly what the Government are doing through the electricity market reform project. We are working hard to ensure that there is certainty in the renewables sector and we are on target to meet our carbon emissions reduction goals. I think that noble Lords will find, during the passage of the Bill, that this Government plan to be one of the greenest Governments because of the measures they are currently taking.

[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I understand the interest in international agreements, but is there not an important factor here in the form of the science and technology sector, which is talking increasingly about extracting carbon from the atmosphere? Will the Government continue to give major support to the scientists and technologists who are working on the extraction of carbon, which is now being discussed increasingly as an option?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord has made an important point; it is one that has a great deal of technical and scientific evidence behind it. If the noble Lord will allow me, I will give a more detailed answer in writing and I will place a copy of that response in the Library.

Open Public Services White Paper

Debate between Baroness Verma and Lord Soley

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

I thank my noble friend for his warm welcome for the Statement and I absolutely agree that it is about decentralisation and being able to give more and more control over to local people and local authorities, so that we can actually get the sorts of services that local people need in those local areas. There is no point in trying to micromanage local areas when one does not have the special needs of those local areas within one’s own way of delivering. My noble friend is absolutely right that it is really important that the decision-makers are part of the communities that are being served.

Personalised budgets, which are something that I know about, are one very good way of being able to deliver. In her response to the Statement, the noble Baroness talked about personalised budgets. Not enough people are signed up to them; we want to deliver, we are building upon what the previous Government were doing, but, of course, it takes time to roll these things out and make people aware. It is about an awareness campaign as well to make people aware of what is available to them so that they will make informed choices.

[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I do not have a problem with the direction of travel that the noble Baroness is mapping out; indeed, as she said, it builds on what the previous Government were doing, and more acknowledgement of that might make it easier to reach agreement on some of these areas. The problem that the Government are not addressing—as far as I can see, although I will need to look at the White Paper—is the detail of it. I am very much in favour of co-opting mutuals, but I know from personal experience that, for example, setting up a housing co-op and making it work is very difficult and, frankly, it fails more often than not. That has been tried on many occasions.

On more personalised and individual budgets, again I am very much in favour of that. I have argued for children to have budgets enabling their parents to give them extra lessons in whatever they chose—music, or whatever—but that runs into the problem that every now and then a parent wants something which is not considered to be in the interests of the child. To take what is perhaps an extreme example, a parent might say, “I do not wish my child to be in a science lesson which teaches Darwinism; I want to take them out and give them lessons in creationism”. We will run into that problem, so we have to have managerial structures which decide how the money can be used, in what format and who says yes or no. It is not just an issue of money; it is an issue of management structures which allow us to do what I think most of us would like to do, which is to devolve downwards.

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Lord raises a number of interesting points. I did say that we are building on what the previous Government were doing. We are trying to make it a build-on that will be a bit more directed and focused on what the outcomes are going to be. I think that we are still in that mode of debating. It is important that we debate and discuss the best possible ways of delivering. These conversations do not stop just because a paper is produced. Consultation is an ongoing process, but it is also very important that we do not become so blinkered that we decide that the White Paper is not going to deliver anything. The White Paper is already able to deliver a lot, because we are building on what was already in place.

The structures will, of course, have areas that we will need to fine-tune and to look at how things can be made much tighter, but the Government are making sure that we have continuity plans and safety nets in place so that we can ensure that, when people make those choices, they are not left without support mechanisms. That is why we want to encourage champions to come forward through organisations such as Which? or HealthWatch and also make sure that there are ombudsmen for each sector, so that everyone knows that there is a line of recourse if they face difficulties.