Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 79: 79: Clause 14, page 8, line 15, at end insert— ““( ) It must— (a) state the final amount of carbon units that have been credited to or debited from the net carbon account for each of the national authorities for the period; and (b) give details of the number and type of those carbon units.”” The noble Duke said: My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment No. 79 before dealing with the others in the group. This amendment would require that the final statement for the budgetary period that reports on the UK net carbon account must also outline the final number of carbon units that have been credited or debited from the net carbon accounts of the national authorities. The Minister stated in Committee that there are no net carbon accounts as such for the national authorities; that is, there are no formal accounts. However, there would be de facto carbon accounts as each of the national authorities drive through their policies to reduce climate change. Of course, many of the programmes and policies will come from Whitehall, but the very nature of the battle to reduce carbon emissions is that it affects all levels of society and every type of organisation. As a consequence, it also affects all levels of government, and thus we on this side of the House think that it would be particularly useful to understand what each of the national authorities is contributing to the net UK carbon account, so how much of the reduction takes place in the regions is important information to have reported. Having as much information on these matters reported to Parliament as we can would improve transparency and ensure that everyone is on the same page. It would also offer further advantages because different schemes may be operating at different levels throughout the devolved administrations, so it would allow for a substantial amount of comparison. If the Scottish de facto carbon account was faring much better than the overall UK budget, for example, it would provide an opportunity to explore Scotland’s local proposals in an effort to implement them more widely. This also brings in questions about the UK carbon account more generally and the actual logistics of the calculation. Can the Minister take us through the process of verification of compliance with the carbon budgets? Surely this will involve knowing the status of the accounts, with some degree of accuracy, of the devolved Administrations. Of course there will be circumstances in which the contribution to meeting the UK carbon budget will be difficult to assign to a particular region, but there will certainly be others that will be easy to assign. Would this information in itself be valuable? Would it be useful to know to what degree emission reductions are occurring by virtue of companies that span across the borders and what are being accomplished on a much more local level? Can the Minister explain how the carbon accounts are put together and what logistical difficulties, if any, would there be in having a delineation based upon region? Amendment No. 115, which is grouped with Amendment No. 79, concerns the national authorities but in a different way. It shares some overlapping concerns—namely, on transparency—but it would place a duty to publish the consultations with the national authorities when laying regulations regarding the carbon account. First, as a matter of principle, we cannot see why these consultations should not be published. It is important to know where the national authorities stand in relation to UK policy and which of their concerns have been incorporated into UK policymaking. There are also particular instances with regard to carbon accounting and their relation to national authorities that it might be important to publicise. One example is the burgeoning industry of hydroelectric power in Scotland which might eventually qualify as a way of generating carbon credits. That possibility is still to be debated in the Bill and I am sure that we will debate it in other forms at great length. Regulation affecting the definition of a carbon unit and how they are counted could be crucial to the industry and thus any consultation should be published. It is important to investigate the degree to which the Government are taking on board the concerns of the national authorities and whether or not some of these concerns might warrant parliamentary attention. I found with some shock that Amendment No. 233 was also in this group. I had not realised that, having had the amendments separated, they had been happily coupled together again by the Government Whips’ Office. However, in the mean time, for the sake of convenience, I shall deal with all three as that is what everyone expects should happen. The amendment ensures that the national authorities should set out the procedure to be used in reaching agreement in those circumstances where they are required to act jointly in terms of the Act. Clause 76(1) defines the national authority and Clause 76(2) states that functions conferred on the national authorities are to be exercised by all of them jointly. These relate specifically to functions in respect of appointments to the Committee on Climate Change and various activities detailed in Schedule 1. However, the Bill makes no provision for the mechanism which is to be employed for the national authorities to act jointly. There is no provision for what happens if they do not act jointly. In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, said about the clause: "““It will be important to ensure that its application to the devolved Administrations is set out very clearly and to ensure a joined-up approach between Administrations as far as possible, as the noble Duke and the noble Lord have already highlighted. We will be agreeing a concordat with the devolved Administrations about how we will work together on implementing the detailed elements of the Bill””.—[Official Report, 4/2/08; col. 910.]" However, the Bill does not provide any detail about the nature of this concordat and the amendment is designed to set out the procedure to be used for reaching agreement and also to provide that the agreement shall make provision for the consequences of failure to reach an agreement and what alternative actions may be pursued by the national authorities. It is of great regret that my noble friend Lady Carnegie of Lour has not been able to stay on because she has already addressed this question tangentially on one or two other areas during the evening. I beg to move.