Climate Change Bill [HL]

One of the joys of Committee is that we have an opportunity to have two or three goes at a particular subject. I urge the Minister to take this matter away to see whether he can be a little more flexible. I am quite prepared to accept that he may not currently have a reporting mechanism in place that will allow him to produce the figures quickly, but it really is not good enough to say that we cannot put such a reporting system in place. It is nonsense to say that we cannot deal with this matter because we will not have the figures for another 12 months or so. We are in an age when, if I read my financial press correctly, many major companies, some of which operate on an international basis, report their results quarterly. If we can require that of major international corporations, we should be able to require it of energy suppliers in this country. It does not particularly matter which energy system is used to supply energy to the final customers. Coal has an immediate carbon equivalent and, if coal is consumed, its carbon equivalent can readily be calculated. Oil and gas also have carbon equivalents, but of course we know that wind does not produce carbon dioxide at all. So I believe that the energy suppliers should be required to report regularly what they have supplied. It would not matter whether they were within the European trading system, although I accept that the Government could not regulate them in the same way if they were within that system. None the less, the companies supply a commodity with a carbon consequence that can be measured, and that can be reported. We may need to think about other schemes—I think that the Minister has more resources for thinking about that sort of thing—but we should put a reporting mechanism in place. I was more prepared to intervene in relation to my noble friend’s amendments, which we will come to but which we seem to be debating with this group, but I agree with noble Lords on the two opposition Front Benches that it would be enormously helpful to have an annual record of the position and an annual target. Of course, there are all sorts of other difficulties. For most of the first five years, the legislative and regulatory background and the financial incentives background will be those that exist at present. Current evidence suggests that energy consumption is not immediately price-related. The price of oil has gone up by a terrific amount over the past couple of years, as has the price of energy. Unsurprisingly, so far as I can see, the volume of energy has not retreated in the face of that price attack, so, in my view, the idea that price changes will have a great effect on customers, as one or two speakers implied earlier in the debate, is simply not borne out by the practical evidence. However, we have to find mechanisms to make this scheme work. There is no doubt that annual targets within a five-year budgetary period would be enormously helpful in knowing what is going on. It would be perfectly possible to put in place a reporting system that would make this achievable. I beg the Minister to take this matter away and look at it seriously.