Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 183Z: 183Z: Schedule 5, page 60, line 5, at end insert— ““(5) The revocation of a scheme does not affect the duty of the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report under section 53 of the Climate Change Act 2008.”” The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 183ZD and 183ZE in the group. They are about the reports that will come back to Parliament on the pilot schemes that have taken place, assuming that they get that far. The first amendment is to establish that there will be a report back to Parliament on schemes that are halted half way or at some stage during their procedure for whatever reason, stating that: "““The revocation of a scheme does not affect the duty of the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report””," so that if a scheme is set up and is run for a period of time but does not run its course, there will still be a report back to Parliament. The argument is that we want reports back on failures as well as successes. The other two amendments in the group take us back to Clause 53 and out of Schedule 5 at last. It is a question of how the reports to Parliament will work, and the two amendments tackle what should be in the reports. In Clause 53 the Government suggest that the reports should contain a description of the scheme, a comparison of schemes and how they differ from each other and, "““an assessment of the scheme’s success or otherwise””." That wording should be substantially expanded so that the report to Parliament covers the important factors. Amendment No. 183ZD reads, "““a description of the area in which the waste reduction scheme was operated, including the nature of the properties and households and the social and economic conditions in the area””. " The Minister may say that that is going to happen anyway. If he gives me that assurance, that is better than nothing, but it would be better in my view if it were in the Bill. In Amendment No. 183ZE, I suggest that there should be information about the way in which the scheme is operated, namely, "““(i) the changes that took place in the quantity and proportion of domestic waste that was recycled;""(ii) the changes that took place in the quantity and proportion of domestic waste that was collected as residual waste;""(iii) the problems, if any, that occurred in particular types of properties and households, the measures taken to overcome those problems, and the success or otherwise of those measures;""(iv) the problems, if any, that occurred as a result of the unauthorised disposal of waste, whether by fly-tipping or otherwise, the measures taken to overcome those problems, and the success or otherwise of those measures;""(v) an assessment of the extent to which the scheme could be extended to some other areas or generally””." There may be other things that are necessary to report as well but those are the ones that seem obvious to me. There is concern about what is going to happen once the Bill is passed and pilots take place, because once the reports come back it is all in the hands of the Government. We are not talking about another five or 50 pilots. We are talking about a rollout with which the Government hope that they will cover 62 per cent of the country, according to the statistics. That is a big issue. There is concern that the parliamentary scrutiny and decision-making at that stage will not be as deep and effective as it could be. It will be by affirmative instruments. We will be able to debate them; we will not be able to amend them. The number of times that affirmative instruments are kicked out is rightly not often. I propose that it be clearly written, either in these words or in words that the Government prefer, that the report back to Parliament should be clear in analysing how the projects have worked and what success they have had in these areas, and perhaps others, so that if the report is debated—I understand that it will be laid before Parliament and not debated automatically—we will have more information. I beg to move.