Climate Change Bill [HL]

I am doing my best to scrutinise the Bill in a responsible, sensible and constructive way but, the more I hear about it, the more I think that it is completely bonkers, although I do not blame the Minister for what she is putting forward. The noble Baroness talked about disadvantaged groups. In my part of the world, when wheelie bins and recycling came in across a great swathe of the borough all at the same time, it did wonders for neighbourhood cohesion, as the Government might call it, or community spirit, because people mucked in and helped each other to understand the new system. People who had not been talking to each other started to talk to each other, and they started to look after the older residents and so on. It was fantastic. However, if there is an old lady in the street who is thought to be disadvantaged and does not have any rubbish, everyone will put their rubbish in her bin because she will not have to pay, and it will all be done as part of local community cohesion. If people respond to financial incentives and penalties, as the Government claim, they will do so in the way that is best for them. They will fiddle the system, just as people do all the time if they can get away with it. Then I wondered what would happen if there was a large family of six or more adults living in one house and they ordered one mini-bin under a system of big bins and little bins. Would the council say, ““No, we won’t allow you to order one mini-bin; you’ll have to have a big one. In fact, if there are six of you, you’ll have to have a super-bin””. Would the council be able to dictate the size of bin or would people be able to have one little bin? If the latter were the case, I do not know what they would do with the rest of their rubbish. The whole system is open to fiddling. The noble Baroness painted a wonderful picture of her recycling system at home, which she felt terribly homesick for. That is because the Minister is a public-spirited citizen who responds well to what I assume is a good system in her borough, as do lots of other people. I come back to the point that we will get more people to recycle and to save waste by putting in systems that they can sensibly operate. A lot of people, especially people as old as us who were brought up after the war, have real guilt and angst about the amount of rubbish that they throw away. Lockable bins? Well, okay. On bills in advance, will councils give rebates in advance as well, or will they bill in advance and give a rebate after the event? Is that how it will work? I cannot imagine councils being anxious to send people their rebates and bonuses in advance. We get estimated utility bills, but if we think the estimated bill is out of sync, we read the meter, ring up the utility company, tell it that the bill is wrong and tell it what the number is. It then sends us another bill for less. That is how it works. You will not be able to do that with rubbish. You cannot weigh your own rubbish, or will there be a market for rubbish-weighing scales for everyone? I do not know. My final point is that there is a fatal flaw in the argument that on the one hand the initial bills can be estimated on existing sources of information, and that on the other hand the purpose is to change people’s behaviour. If you do not send the first bills on the basis of their changed behaviour, the whole system will be brought into disrepute. There is something wrong about sending out the bills on the basis of historical behaviour before people have changed their behaviour. This will not work. I feel really quite grumpy about the debate on this set of amendments, because this is cloud-cuckoo-land stuff. Having said all that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 183RA to 183TB not moved.]