Climate Change Bill [HL]

I speak to Amendment No. 166. One of the major flaws with the whole ETS was that the allowances allocated to some energy companies led to a windfall to energy producers. The allocation was probably due to the lobbying power of some of the German energy companies involved in the European scheme. The point of Amendment No. 166 is to say that these allowances should not be allocated. One of the major problems with the ETS is how to keep the price of carbon at a realistic level. If the price collapses, as has happened in the past, the whole basis of the scheme becomes almost irrelevant and the scheme suffers. This is a probing amendment to find out the Government’s view on the value of such a proposal.