Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, as the noble Lord said, this group of amendments deals with the carbon accounting system established under the Bill and how to ensure it will be robust, transparent and subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny. We are all trying to achieve the same thing. Amendment No. 107 would create a link between the carbon accounting system and international carbon reporting practice, but we are not sure that it is the best way to ensure that we have a robust and credible system. The concept of international carbon reporting practice is defined in Clause 75 more in terms of the protocols for measuring greenhouse gas emissions than in accounting for carbon units, credits or allowances. We think there are better ways to design the necessary safeguards, to which I shall come later. The Bill already limits what could be recognised as a carbon unit. In order to be recognised it must meet one of the three criteria set out in Clause 21(1). It must represent a reduction in greenhouse gases which has taken place; the removal of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere; or form part of a scheme which caps the amount of permitted greenhouse gas emissions. Amendment No. 113 would add to the list of situations in which the affirmative resolution procedure was required relating to changes in the body administering the carbon accounting system. We do not think this is justified, nor do we believe it is necessarily the most important issue when looking at the robustness of the scheme as a whole. The body appointed as the scheme administrator is only one aspect of the way in which we will manage our carbon accounts and, while it is an important issue, we do not see why it should be given greater priority. Instead, we feel the priority to ensure a robust carbon accounting system is to ensure that any carbon units used under the Bill are of the right standing and environmental rigour. Government Amendments Nos. 112 and 114 will ensure this by providing for independent advice and proper parliamentary scrutiny before any new types of carbon units are recognised under the Bill. I shall speak to and move these two amendments in due course. Clause 23 already provides that the first set of carbon accounting regulations should only be made following advice from the Committee on Climate Change and a vote in both Houses under the affirmative resolution procedure. The two amendments provide that where new types of carbon unit are recognised as being valid for compliance purposes, or where the value of existing carbon units has been changed, the same safeguards will apply. Any such changes could only be made following advice from the Committee on Climate Change and a vote in both Houses. The two government amendments are intended to provide further safeguards, on an ongoing basis, to ensure the environmental rigour of the rules on carbon accounting. They will ensure that, every time a new carbon unit is recognised as counting towards the UK’s targets, and every time the value of a carbon unit is changed, the Government must seek expert independent advice from the Committee on Climate Change, and be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny in both Houses through the affirmative procedure. These amendments go beyond the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee, which recommended that the first set of carbon accounting regulations should be subject to the affirmative procedure, "““so that the House may be assured that the basic framework for the credits and debits regime is satisfactory””." We have accepted this recommendation already, in Clause 23, and now propose to go even further. The question of which carbon units are used, and how much they are worth, is more important in terms of the overall robustness of the system than a change in the body administering the scheme, which is proposed in Amendment No. 113. This touches on the concerns raised by my noble friend Lord Puttnam in our previous debate about the quality of the carbon units that we can count towards our targets. Amendments Nos. 112 and 114 would prevent any Government from seeking, in some way, to smuggle through fundamental changes to the rules on carbon accounting, without proper advice or scrutiny. I hope that the amendments provide noble Lords with confidence about the Government’s commitment to the robustness of the system we are establishing under the Bill.