Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will explain how we envisage an appeals body working. There are already many appeals bodies—the best example is the valuation tribunal, which considers council tax appeals. If residents consider that they are not liable to pay council tax, or disagree with the amount they are being billed, they can appeal first to a valuation tribunal. Following this, they generally have four weeks to appeal to the High Court in relation to a valuation tribunal’s decision. In setting up an appeals body, we would look to draw on these experiences, as well as the lessons learnt specifically from the pilots. Any regulations would be subject to wide consultation. We would otherwise ensure that they were human rights-compliant. In other words, with five pilots, we could have five different financial collection appeal systems. That is the point of doing the pilots and we need to learn the lessons from them. The enforcement options would be the same as for a civil debt and would have broadly similar sanctions to those for non-payment of council tax—but without the sanction of imprisonment. That gives the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, no opportunity to raise another one. He has already had the bailiffs knocking down the door to get the money for the waste. No one is going to prison. Nor would we envisage bankruptcy or charges on property as a sanction for non-payment of the waste charge alone. Before these hares start running, we can make it absolutely clear—no imprisonment, no bankruptcy and no charges on property for non-payment of the waste charge alone. On Question, amendment agreed to.