Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Tax Strategy

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, we are conscious that the net-zero transition requires us to think more strategically about the role of levers that change the price of emitting greenhouse gases in supporting that transition—including carbon prices through taxes or emission trading schemes—and we are doing that work in the context of the net-zero review.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Bach. Lord Bach? I call the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the House is considering the Environment Bill at the moment. It has important environmental principles within it, but strangely enough, the Treasury is excluded from them. The Bill says that

“taxation, spending or the allocation of resources within government”

are not included in those principles. Given the important and excellent Dasgupta report that the Treasury produced, will it reconsider that position and persuade the Defra Secretary of State to include Treasury expenditure within those principles?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I undertake to follow up on the noble Lord’s point from Grand Committee. I know that, as far as the Treasury approaches these things, it is undertaking constant review of its Green Book guidance to ensure that net-zero commitments are incorporated into our fiscal decision-making. Although GDP remains one of our most important economic indicators, we are working on other wider indicators. For example, we are looking at taking the importance of the natural environment into account when we look at our public finances as well.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.