EU: Emissions Trading Scheme

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

I totally agree with that statement. I would just point out to the noble Lord that airlines will not join the system until 2012, so it is hard to evaluate the role of the system in that regard. By way of evaluation, it will be very interesting to see how it works, because airlines will be registering their carbon in the country to which they send their planes most often rather than in the country where they are domiciled. So there are one or two things that need to be looked at before 2012. However, I completely agree with the noble Lord in the sentiment of his question.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, I express my gratitude to the Minister for his clear statement that there were no cyberattacks on the emissions scheme, because there are all sorts of conflicting views about that. However, will he confirm that it is imperative to the interests of this country that we secure the services provided by the European Union from cyberattack to precisely the same level as we protect ourselves domestically, and that if that has implications for the European Union budget, so be it?

[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.