Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 70: 70: Clause 12, page 6, line 33, at end insert— ““( ) It must contain a comprehensive report on the effectiveness of the climate change strategy and recommendations for new measures, proposals or policies for inclusion in the strategy.”” The noble Lord said: This amendment concerns the annual statement and the fact that it should report on the effectiveness of measures; in other words, that it is a matter not only of the annual statement saying what the facts are but of how effective individual initiatives have been. This is an extremely important point. Many of the previous amendments moved today have focused on increasing the accuracy and transparency of the reporting process. I am pleased to hear from the government Benches that they accept that this is an important aspect of what the Bill should seek to do. We feel that these are important mechanisms to have in place to ensure that the Government, Parliament and the Committee on Climate Change are working together in the right balance. The most essential feature missing from the Bill’s reporting procedures is the duty for the reports to contain an assessment of the effectiveness of the measures taken to reduce carbon emissions. Amendment No. 70 requires that the statement laid before Parliament should include a comprehensive report on the effectiveness of the climate change strategy as well as details of any further policies or proposals that may need to be included. Government policies to reduce emissions should be assessed regularly; their successes should be reported on openly and changes should be proposed wherever progress is falling short. As I mentioned before, we fully intend on being the Government responsible for the report on the first budgetary period and many of us are spending a great deal of our time ensuring that that comes about. We are willing to stand up to this kind of scrutiny and I hope the current Government are also prepared to do so. In a sense, this is like the annual finance Budget: the Chancellor proposes a tax and spending regime for a year, and he says he will bring in £X billion in taxation and spend £Y billion on providing services. It is inevitable that the following year the Chancellor finds that growth was not exactly as predicted or that events caused a little more spending than proposed, and the next Budget will therefore make the necessary adjustments to get things back on track. This is how we should deal with carbon emissions if we are to bring them under control. The environmental group Friends of the Earth claims that the amendment is exactly the approach needed under the Bill. Does the Minister agree? I beg to move.