Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. It is always useful to go into these things in slightly more detail. Some powers in the Bill should be delegated to the committee, as my noble friend Lord Taylor suggested, and maybe some powers should remain with the Secretary of State, but as we approach Committee stage, careful thought will need to be given about which of these should appear in the Bill or whether our legislative conventions will have to be re-examined. Perhaps the outstanding example of delegation lies in the Secretary of State's power at Clause 6(2)(a)(ii) to amend target percentages when there have been significant developments in European or international law or policy. This amounts almost to allowing the Secretary of State to have royal prerogative on entering into international treaties. Other than this statement, there is nothing in the Bill to say how we expect this national scheme to relate to all the international obligations to which we have already signed-up. Does the Minister agree that it is at the point of considering our part in any new treaties that this topic should be considered on the Floor of the House? There seems to be a gap in the wording of the Bill whereby we are anxious, as laid down in Clause 66, that our metric tonne of carbon conforms to the protocols of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The provisions for trading schemes—as far as I can understand them—will apply perfectly well to any carbon credits generated and traded within the United Kingdom. But Clause 37(3) seems to limit that to this activity. In the absence of anything in the Bill, my noble friend Lord Taylor made a point of asking the Minister what the Government’s view was on how we should impose a limit on the purchase of overseas carbon credits; but I see nothing in the Bill which states that our domestic targets will be able to accept international carbon credits as part of an individual or our national budget. The corollary, of course is: will any carbon credits generated here be acceptable in other international schemes? The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, pointed out that this country has a track record of picking and choosing in terms of the Kyoto agreement and which gases we will consider, and when. So far, we have blocked the implementation of any of the so-called joint implementation projects under Kyoto—a situation hinted at by my noble friend Lady Byford when she mentioned that we are not taking up the gas reductions through the land use, land change and forestry scheme. We have not implemented anything to do with sequestration in that area. For those who wish to entertain a more sceptical frame of mind, I sometimes wonder whether we should not be prepared to regard all this activity as another example of the enthusiasm that was generated by the proposition of putting a man on the moon. What one might ask was the purpose of all that? But while we were at it we drove forward miniaturisation, computers, IT, unbreakable china and non-stick saucepans. Where would Her Majesty’s Government be without all of those?