Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 22: 22: Clause 4, page 3, line 6, after ““budget””),”” insert— ““(aa) to set a target for the reduction in the net UK carbon account over a 12 month period every 12 months,”” The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 76, 144, 150 and 154 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Teverson. I should also like to associate myself with Amendment No. 31 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford. The purpose of the amendments is quite clear: they would set annual targets. The purpose of the Bill is to reduce the level of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The Government have talked about five-year targets and they were not persuaded of the need to support our amendments for three-year targets. Indeed, I have a sneaking suspicion that they may not support these amendments because of a few well-judged words at the end of the first Committee day. However, will the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, answer a question which is at the heart of the Bill? If we do not set annual targets, is there any point in the Bill at all? A five-year target could quite easily be missed and, if we are to follow the scientific evidence that has been so ably demonstrated by many Members of the Committee who have spoken about the science behind this issue, and 10 years’ time will be the point of no return at which irreversible climate change will have taken place, the first few targets are incredibly important. As we all know, there will be slippage because when policies are put in place they suffer from implementation stages, planning stages and so forth. As we have seen in the past, there can be a major difference between the levels of emissions on a yearly basis depending on whether there is a cold winter or a change in the spot price of gas, which means that companies move from gas power stations to mothballed coal power stations. That would have a major impact on any budget set by the Secretary of State. The other point is that many Secretaries of State will not last the full five years. It is my conjecture that most will not last the full year, although that is probably just on past form and shows that I am quite cynical. However, it is important that each year target gives each Secretary of State his own individual stamp to ensure that the policy is being adhered to. The most important aspect of all of this is that, if we are serious about reducing the amount of carbon dioxide, we must do so as early as possible. Each year that we do not reduce carbon dioxide is adding to the greater total and therefore the carbon dioxide will be in the atmosphere for a longer period. It would be great if further along we had reduced the amount of carbon dioxide, but there would still be an interest rate of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that had built up at this end of the curve. The Minister will probably say that there are excellent reasons why this should not be adhered to because it would put a straitjacket on ministerial policies. However, he may have a slight difficulty with that partly because of the bravery of the Government in introducing the Bill into this House first. I am sure that an amendment carried by this House would be extremely popular in another place and in the country. We should not forget that the Government say that they listen to consultation. If decisions are taken on that basis I am surprised that this provision is not in the Bill already, because 16,292 of the respondents to consultation called for annual targets. That is out of the 16,919 people and organisations who dealt with the consultation. Added to that, it might be the will of the other House not to agree to an amendment. However, an EDM in the other place earlier in the year on this issue was signed by 412 Members. My mathematics is slightly rusty, but that does give a fairly large proportion of Members of the House of Commons who might well welcome any amendment to the Bill that deals with annual targets. If we want to stick to the five-year targets, it is incredibly important that we do not forget that the five-year targets that the Minister was arguing for were set out so that we can dovetail into the ETS system. But from next year, the ETS system will be working on a completely different timescale. I hope that the Government will come forward with positive reasons why they are rejecting this amendment and perhaps with notice of amendments of their own that they intend to bring in to introduce the milestones. I believe that introducing the Bill, which we all support, without milestones makes the Bill fundamentally flawed in its objective of achieving annual reductions—leading to the massive reduction of between 60 and 80 per cent at a later date. I beg to move.