Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 177: 177: After Clause 30, insert the following new Clause— ““Power to provide advice or other assistance of its own initiative The Committee may of its own initiative provide advice, analysis, information or other assistance to a national authority in connection with meeting the objectives set up under this Act.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall begin where the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, finishes. Clause 30 states that the committee must, if asked by a national body, "““provide advice, analysis, information or other assistance””," which was helpful in relation to daylight saving. I want to go one step further and say that the committee can do analysis, get information or give advice without being asked if it thinks it is relevant to helping the Government achieving the targets that it has set. The House will not be surprised that, as a former civil servant, once upon a time I read Machiavelli. I quote him bearing in mind the difficulty that Ministers have in doing unpopular things, which is why I want the committee to be able to take the initiative in raising issues. Machiavelli said: "““There is nothing more hazardous that the Prince may essay than to change the established order of things, for he has for adversaries all those who are disadvantaged who contest the changes like partisans, whilst those who are advantaged maintain silence, lest their advantage be perceived””." If only Mrs Thatcher had read that before introducing the poll tax, she might have been wiser. There is a risk that the Government will hesitate to invite the committee to look at issues that would be very challenging to a political party which has to get re-elected. I can think of nowhere where that is more true than in relation to domestic premises and our cars. As I said on the first day of Report, those two between them account for 35 per cent of carbon emissions. They hit everyone’s pocket and it is difficult stuff to go into. It will help the Government if the committee opens up some difficult boxes. I do not think the committee should have the power to say ““thou shalt””, as was argued earlier today, but it should examine, comment and pass its advice and analysis over to the Government. I am prompted a little in making the suggestion because it has been put to me that the Sustainable Energy Policy Advisory Board, set up after the 2003 energy White Paper, started off in good fettle but seemed to have its role gradually diminished because it was doing or saying some rather unpopular things. I do not know whether that is true—it has not been put to me by an energy body—but it is in the interests of the Government and us all that the Government should have, through the committee, the information and analysis required to formulate good policy even though they have been reluctant to ask for this box to be opened. The Minister has said several times that he does not want the committee to be engaged in policy—and certainly not in decision-taking—but if a committee has, as this committee has under Clause 27(1)(a), the duty to advise the Government on energy budgets; and if, as under government Amendment No. 144, it goes into sectors where there are particular opportunities for making savings; and if, as required under the same section of the Bill, it has a duty to give the reasons for its advice, I cannot see how the committee can do that without evaluating the implications, benefits and costs of specific actions. If not, it is an empty box; there is no basis for its advice. It must give that advice to the Government, and we have agreed that it should be made public. If it is not, I guess it will be wheedled out under the Freedom of Information Act. Although the committee is not there to decide, it inevitably presents the Government with considerably worked-out policy options and it will be to the advantage to the Government to have this. Once upon a time I was invited by the Government of the day to chair a committee on the future of further education. One issue was paramount—how it was to be funded. The place was in uproar about higher education. It is very handy in those circumstances to a Government—and perhaps even to an opposition party when an election is not very far off—to have independent persons, under a chairman of sufficient age that he is wholly expendable, to say the things that are very difficult to say and to present the Government with options for something as challenging as, for example, tuition fees. It is very tempting to leave such difficult issues on one side. Sometimes independent persons, such as the committee which is to be appointed, if given that extra bit of freedom, can tackle those issues, open the box for the Government and make it possible to debate them in public and move forward on policy issues. I propose that it should be open to the committee to provide on its own initiative the advice that can be requested by a national authority under Clause 30. I beg to move.