Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Kyoto Protocol Registry) Regulations 2021

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

The next speaker on the list, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has withdrawn from the debate, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure my good friend the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and I thank my noble friend the Minister for setting out so clearly the effect of these regulations.

I support these regulations, which amend retained EU law. We clearly need to do that in order to ensure the continued application of the UK’s Kyoto Protocol obligations, which, as my noble friend said, persisted from 2008 to 2020 but will clearly go on for several years after that. That is the importance of these regulations.

Along with other noble Lords, I am keen to hear from my noble friend that we will carry on in the same way. I think he gave that reassurance, but I hope that that will be carried across in our ambition to COP 26. As he said, there will be a fresh assessment made at COP 26, and I will say something about that in a minute, if I may.

I am also concerned by the hiatus, which my noble friend touched on, between the end of the transition period and the new regulations taking effect in, I think he indicated, June 2021. Clearly there is a gap there. I think I understood him to say that that gap has been catered for and that the 112—I think he said 112—businesses that are potentially affected by this are aware of this, and I hope that they have been given guidance on how that will affect them in the period before our own registry takes proper effect in June 2021. I would welcome that reassurance.

We as the United Kingdom have a historic opportunity with COP 26, and it is incredibly important that we seize it and go forward with at least the ambition that we had in the EU—and I hope beyond it—to show that global Britain really does mean business. I know my noble friend will say that this is a matter for the usual channels, but I hope that he will be able to convey to the usual channels and to other parties the importance of having a meaningful debate in your Lordships’ House well ahead of COP 26 so that we can express our collective ambition so that can be carried forward, because this is of crucial significance not just for our country but for the entire globe.

With that, I am more than willing to support these regulations, which make sense, but I would welcome my noble friend’s reassurance with regard to the hiatus and, I hope, to a meaningful debate on this issue.