EU: Emissions Trading Scheme

Lord Lawson of Blaby Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. The great thing about the British system is that the International Emissions Trading Association has made it clear that we are the most secure of any European country. That does not mean for one moment that we should be complacent—in fact we must be even more vigilant given the potential for cyberattacks and the fraud attacks that have been made on other registries. That is why we recently worked with the European Union on a process to demonstrate the security of our registry—and my thanks here to the Environment Agency for the excellent work that it has done. I hope we can yet again show leadership in Europe on this issue.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

If my noble friend the Minister wishes to show leadership in Europe, perhaps I may ask him a question about that. I am delighted to hear that the UK registry is in good nick, but the fact is that we are part of a European emissions trading system. That system—in the accurate words of the Wall Street Journal recently—has been a story of “serial theft and fraud”, which is continuing. What are Her Majesty’s Government going to do about that?

[Lord Marland]

We are not going to do a lot about other people’s registries at this point but I can confirm that there will be a single European registry in 2013 which I think will iron out a lot of problems. I hope the leadership and direction that we have shown with our own registry will become the benchmark for the single European registry, and again I commend the work of our agencies and Government in securing this very fine example.