Climate Change Bill [HL]

I will withdraw it in a minute or two. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that there had to be thorough assessment of the policy impact. I wonder how many people would have to be employed, and for how long, to draw up these schemes, to produce all those impacts and to work out how it is going to work. I can think of a number of disadvantaged groups. The Minister referred to some of them; for example, groups based on income, or retired people who might be excluded from it altogether. Then there is the question of which benefits, and so on. Will it be means-tested, and will there have to be another system—or, will it simply piggy-back on an existing means-testing system, for example on housing benefit? On family size, one fundamental problem in charging people more if they put out more refuse is that a household with more people living in it will, inevitably, have more refuse and recycling to put out. No matter how much recycling takes place, it will on average have more residual. So, is size of family a matter of disadvantage, or is it only a matter of disadvantage for a poor family? The noble Baroness mentioned mobility—there are issues of mobility, disability, illness and so on. It has been suggested, for example, that there should be dispensations for people with children under 6 months. So it goes on. Where will it stop? Is disadvantage concerned with the type of house or property, or is that taken care of somewhere else? Might cultural issues come into this? I return to the fact that setting up these schemes will require finance. It is inconceivable to have a scheme where, in some areas, perhaps 50 per cent of people will be excepted and for that not to involve the local authority employing more staff, investing in computer systems and in systems on the collection lorries. If people are to have a different number of sacks, which are being handed out as people go around—if that is how it will be—then there will be have a system that such-and-such a house gets so many sacks while another house gets fewer. This house gets one, and the house next door gets three. The bureaucracy involved in setting up and keeping tabs on such a scheme, even in this wonderful computerised world, is quite frankly mind-boggling. The more we hear about the detail of these schemes, the more unrealistic they seem to be. But the Minister has given us some more information which I will read carefully. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.