Energy Bill [HL]

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly before the House commences Committee to raise a very serious objection and concern that relates to the Bill. At present we do not have the impact assessment for the Bill, which we were promised before our deliberations began, and they begin now. I would like to hear from the Minister why this delay has happened—in fact, why the Bill was not published with an impact assessment in the first place. I also seek assurances that when the impact assessment is published, it will contain full details of the assumptions on which the Bill is based. Namely, there is the Government’s continued assertion that we are on track to meet our renewables targets, which relates to Part 4. That is incredibly important and sensitive, since we have had many representations from industry about the impact of the Bill. It should be recalled that those elements of the Bill were not subject to public consultation, so the impact assessment is incredibly important for us to be able to consider the impact of the Bill. The other assumption that the Government now seem often to quote is that the levy control framework is spent and there is no more money left. We need to see details of those assumptions and the figures that underlie them but we do not have an impact assessment. I am very concerned about this issue and I look forward to a response from the Minister.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I should like to say a word in support of my noble friend Lady Worthington because this is not just an isolated example of the Government treating this House, and Parliament, in a cavalier fashion. If I may give another example, next week we were due to have a debate on English votes for English laws. It was promised again and again by the Leader of the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell—I notice that she has disappeared—yet it has been switched. We are to have a debate on the size of the House, which is not an immediately urgent matter, yet the Commons will make a decision at some point about English votes for English laws and we were given the assurance that we would be able to feed into that. My understanding—I hope that the Chief Whip will answer this—is that the decision to move the debate on English votes for English laws off the agenda for next week was taken unilaterally by the Government and that when the Opposition were consulted, we said that we did not want to change. We wanted to have the English votes for English laws debate because it was promised to this House. That is another example of the cavalier way in which the Government treat this House, wanting to bulldoze their business through. It is about time that some people in this House stood up and said that Parliament has a responsibility to challenge the Government. The Leader of the House may think that we should come in only one day a week when we want to say a few words but we are here to hold the Government to account.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

The noble Lord has asked that I say something about the decision to change the agenda for the coming two weeks to allow the House to discuss the whole business of its membership. I think the House is acutely conscious of the issues raised in the media and by other noble Lords. I felt it was right and proper, as did the Leader of the House, that we should have an opportunity to debate this while we are here. As the noble Lord will know, we had promised a debate on EVEL. He made a point about that. Subsequently, this House decided to support very strongly a Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider this matter. There has been no reply to this Motion from the House of Commons and, in the absence of a reply, if I am honest, there is not much that the Government could say in this House on this issue at this time.

I felt it was proper that we should deal with something of immediate concern to this House. That is why the Leader informed all sides of the House. There were consultations and there were reservations about changing business, but nobody does this freely or without proper consideration of what is right and proper. I am sure all noble Lords are pleased that we will have the opportunity to debate in full the future of this House and its future reform in terms of the Motion tabled by the Government and the Motions of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and the noble Lord, Lord Steel, which will be debated at the same time next Tuesday.