My Lords, this is a very small and modest amendment, adding a fifth element to a list. Clause 85 is very long, so I will try to keep to its key elements. The clause
“confers powers on the Secretary of State and the Treasury to make provision in connection with access to customer data and business data”.
It is particularly focused on information about
“the supply or provision of goods, services and digital content”
by a business. The four elements are these. The first is where it is “supplied or provided”; the second is “prices or other terms; the third is “how they are used”; and the fourth is “performance or quality”. That fourth element does not cover the specific issue that my modest Amendment 195A proposes to add: the energy and carbon intensity of goods, services or digital content.
This might be seen as an attempt at future-proofing and including something which is a fast-growing area of great consumer concern—it should be of government concern too in the light of the Climate Change Act and the Government’s responsibilities. It would add a modest piece of possibility. I stress that, as the explanatory statement says, this can be required; it does not demand that it has to be required, but it provides the possibility that it can be.
There is a parallel here. When you go into a shop to think about buying white goods because you need to replace a fridge or washing machine, you expect, as a matter of standard, to see an energy performance certificate that will tell you how much electricity it will use, or, in the case of gas cookers, how much energy. We now expect that as standard, but of course, that is not focused on what is in the appliance but on what it will use.
The other obvious example is energy performance certificates in relation to housing. Again, that is something that could probably be considerably improved, but there has been some step towards thinking about issues around energy use rather than what is put in. In that context of building, we are seeing a great deal of focus—and, increasingly, a great deal of planning focus —on the issue of embodied carbon in buildings. This is taking that further, in terms of goods, services and digital provision.
Perhaps the obvious reason why a future Government might want to do this is that, if we think of the many areas of this so-called green rating in environmental standards, we have seen a profusion of different standards, labels and models. That has caused considerable confusion and uncertainty for consumers. If a Government were to say that this was the kind of step that would be used, it would give a standard to apply across the digital fields that would be clearly understood and not open to gaming by bad actors, by just creating their own standard, and so on.
Take, for example, the Mintel sustainability barometer —it is a global study but is reflective, I think, of what is happening in the UK. Consumers are increasingly demanding this information; they really want to know the environmental impact, including the impact of the production of whatever they are purchasing. This is information that consumers really want.
The other thing that I would point to in terms of this future-proofing approach is the OECD’s Inclusive Forum on Carbon Mitigation Approaches. That is rather a mouthful. In February, it put out a study entitled—another mouthful—Towards more accurate, timely, and granular product-level carbon intensity metrics: A Scoping Note. That makes it clear that we are talking here about something that is for the future; something that is being developed, but developed fast. If we think about the Government’s responsibilities within the Climate Change Act and the public desire, this modest addition, providing the legislative framework for future action, is a small positive step. I beg to move.