Energy Bill [HL]

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The question is: why are we not using the flexibility in the Climate Change Act to amend it, to ease some of the obvious and immediate pressures that are making the problems of the steel industry—but not only the steel industry—so very difficult because we are too far out of line? Anxious as we are to create a good example, which I fully accept, we are too far out of line with our direct competitors. People are being hurt and jobs are being lost. Why are we not amending our own Climate Change Act now, as we are allowed to do, to meet the new conditions? Is this to be part of the strategy, which we clearly need and which we talked about earlier today, to recover our own commercial and viable steel industries? My simple question to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester—it is a bit to my noble friend Lord Bourne and the Government, too—is: why are we not following the precepts and guidance of the Climate Change Act itself and meeting the obvious needs of industry at this moment in some towns and areas, where many people are being thrown out of work?

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. Perhaps I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Howell, as she has, that this amendment does not specifically help the steel industry or, necessarily, the size of the budget from the Climate Change Act. I guess that an amendment back on Report would have been needed to do that. This amendment would make sure that we repatriate entirely the powers to create our own carbon budget. So in fact it is a step towards what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, would want. Ironically, when we debated the Climate Change Bill I raised this matter specifically a number of times, but unfortunately the Labour Government of the time did not want to hear about it. I do not think that they necessarily understood it themselves. However, we now need to make a change. This should not be a party- political issue at all. It is about making a budget something that we could set ourselves and measure against our national performance. That is what we are trying to do.

In a way, I regret that we are not debating the original amendment, perhaps understandably amended to exclude the fifth carbon budget, for the reasons that have been explained. When we are tackling climate change and trying to get everybody to help, it is really important to make measuring our carbon emissions transparent, straightforward and easy, so that they mean what most people would understand them to mean: that the carbon emissions we create within the boundaries of the United Kingdom from products, services and industry are what our carbon budget measures. At the moment, that is not the case: it is only so for about half of it. The rest of it just reflects the European Emissions Trading Scheme settlement.

I fully support this amendment and hope that the Government will accept it as a way forward. There is no party angle to it whatever. All it would do is ensure that our UK emissions count against our UK carbon budget under the Climate Change Act. It would make government policy on climate change simple, straight- forward and manageable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I think the noble Baroness is aware of the reasons why. I do not want to be provoked into going into some of the discussions we have had, but it is not as if she is unaware of some of the reasons why we cannot progress. I do not want to go into those in any detail except to say—

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords—

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

Let me just finish this point. We are not unsympathetic to the principle of looking at this—I think I have made that clear—but we do not feel it is timely to do it at the moment in the way suggested. I do not really want to go any further than that.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way and I do not wish to take up the time of the House, but I interrupt because it is not reasonable—

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but he may need to be reminded that, at this stage of the Bill, only one speech is permitted.

[Lord Teverson]

I am sorry, but I do not think it is right procedurally for the Minister to say that he has had a private conversation with another Member of the House or that that is a sufficient answer when the rest of the House is not privy to that conversation. That is not reasonable.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

It is perfectly in order for me to have discussions with other Members. I have indicated that there is some sympathy for looking at the accounting principles—but not, as I indicated in my speech, at this time. I have indicated that the timetable is unrealistic. I hope that in the future we can look at these issues, but the Government do not feel it is timely to do it in the way suggested. That is something that has been shared with other Members: there is no great secrecy about that.