Climate Change Bill [HL]

Having read some of this earlier in the day, I said to officials, ““This will no doubt flush out a huge number of Members of your Lordships' House who are members of local authorities””. In fact, as I discovered some years ago, there is an even huger number who are members of police authorities””. People come here with experience and I appreciate what the noble Earl has said. Let me explain who the enforcement authority is under the existing and the proposed trading schemes. Under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the enforcement authority is the scheme regulator. In England and Wales, it is the Environment Agency; in Scotland, it is the Scottish Environment Protection Agency; and in Northern Ireland, it is the chief inspector. We expect to take a similar approach for the carbon reduction commitment. The enforcement authority is expected to be the scheme administrator, which will be the same bodies as in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The scrutiny arrangements that I have set out will ensure that proposals for the technical details of trading schemes, including who the enforcement authority should be, will need to be justified and such decisions taken on a case-by-case basis. We therefore consider that it would be unnecessarily inflexible at this stage, ahead of having any detailed provisions of particular schemes in front of us, to place restrictions on which persons or bodies may be appointed to undertake enforcement action. It may be the case that in a future scheme administered by these powers, a local authority would be the most appropriate body to act as the enforcement authority. But as a preliminary view, we think that it is unlikely that local authorities would be chosen, because trading schemes work best on a much larger scale, which is why the larger agencies tend to be chosen. I asked whether we could rule out local authorities in order to have clarity in the Bill, but I have been assured that it has not been envisaged that local authorities will play a big role. However, there is the possibility that in a future case for which we do not have a hypothetical example, they might be the most appropriate body, although we cannot conceive of a case where they might be. As I understand it, under the new burdens agreement between central government and local government, no new burdens are placed on local authorities unless central government provide the wherewithal and the resources. I know that there is always an argument about this, but I think that about 80 per cent—certainly well over 70 per cent—of local government money is provided by central government in the first place. The idea that local government is out there raising all its own money is preposterous. One should not seek to give the impression that it does. However, clearly there is no doubt that this would be a new burden in the context of climate change and local authorities should be properly financed and resourced for any new burdens relating to activities under this Bill. I cannot conceive of anyone in Whitehall who would disagree with that. The argument would be about the amount and, probably, the area. However, as I have said, it is unlikely that they would be chosen, simply because trading schemes are working on a much larger basis.