Finance Bill

I wanted to speak briefly to support new clause 1, which addresses Treasury reporting on energy efficiency matters and microgeneration. I tabled the same amendment last year and I want to make it clear that it has cross-party support, which was reflected in the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006. That had the support of the whole House. The key weakness in our current approach to reporting is that there is a range of departmental responsibilities, involving the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but in each case, the policies hit a brick wall in the absence of a commitment from the Treasury to be part of the reporting mechanism about fiscal measures, which promote microgeneration and energy efficiency. That is a glaring gap in the coherence of our approach to climate change policies. In other parts of Europe, Finance Ministries have been at the heart of driving climate change programmes and commitment to the shift to microgeneration and renewable energy. They have done that by placing themselves at the centre of parliamentary and democratic accountability. Yet whenever the matter has been raised in the House, the Treasury has refused to accept the reporting responsibilities that it quite happily places on other Departments. There is a central point for the House to grasp: unless our climate change policies and the accountability for them are driven by the centre, we will not get the take-off points that will shift our economy into seriously promoting microgeneration, renewable energy and energy efficiency. That will not happen if there is a gap at the centre. I put it to the Treasury Ministers that it is not enough to give the lead in policy pronouncements, or to be first off the blocks with the press releases. They need to be first out of the frame when it comes to holding themselves to account in such a way that we could then expect other Departments to follow suit. I make a plea to them that this should not be done in a way that will divide the House along party lines. It can be achieved with cross-party consensus, and if we were to do that, the whole House and the whole country would welcome it.