Climate Change Bill [HL]

I shall come back to that issue if I may. I apologise for not answering the question about liquidity, but I have a better answer than the one that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, about the administrative burdens. All the issues would have to be looked at when considering whether to develop a scheme. The question would be whether it was too costly or administratively burdensome to introduce a trading scheme, in which case the Government would have to look at other instruments. It is hypothetical, but when there are proposals for a scheme the Government have to consult and Parliament must approve it by affirmative procedure. There is no chance of something that would damage industry in a big way slipping through on the nod, without any debate. On the liquidity of the market, it is expected that the carbon reduction commitment will cover up to 5,000 direct participants. While the volume of each trade may be small, we expect the amount of trades to be considerable; that will be the test of a liquid market. In addition to direct participants, third parties will be able to trade in a secondary market, which will further increase that amount. The noble Lord mentioned the consultation; as I said, the Government will publish our response to that next month and, as part of this process of looking at more detailed aspects of the CRC, we will consider further issues relating to that market. I am not in a position to answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about where we go next. The snag is that there is a trigger for industries or bodies that use a certain amount of electricity. I cannot put my finger on it—I know that I have seen it somewhere in these notes on a future amendment—but the figure that I have in my head is some hundreds. Whatever it is, a separate set of metering covers those industries, so that there is no argument about who is and is not covered.