Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Environment Bill (Sixth sitting).
14:50 Richard Graham
The hon. Gentleman’s amendment looks, on appearance, to be a modest word or two, but what he is trying to achieve is a rewriting of clauses 1, 2 and 3 altogether, setting not the guideline, but a very specific target and deadline. I cannot help wondering whether the deadline, which is before January 2030, is not linked specifically to the Labour party conference motion that called for net zero carbon by 2030—something his own Front Bench has rejected, accepting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s target of net zero by 2050.
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Dr Whitehead
(1B) Any advisory body set up under subsection (1)(a) must comprise 50 per cent of members nominated by the OEP and 50 per cent of members nominated by the Committee on Climate Change.”
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15:05 Dr Whitehead
We have suggested that the members of the advisory body for this purpose should be nominated by two bodies, one of which is independent and the other, we hope, will very shortly be independent. We suggest that 50% of members be nominated by the Office for Environmental Protection and 50% by the Committee on Climate Change.
That brings me to the procedures that were set up under the original climate change legislation, the Climate Change Act 2008, which, as I have already mentioned in these proceedings and will undoubtedly mention again, seems to me to be a yardstick by which we should measure what we are doing in the Bill. The Bill has often been described as a Climate Change Act for the environment, and it is right that we should make that comparison, because a Bill in its best form will, first, stand the comparison and, secondly, as the Climate Change Act has, stand the test of time between Administrations and through vicissitudes and changes in scientific consideration. It will have within it the mechanism to keep a firm eye on what we are doing, but at the same time change, if necessary, with changes in circumstances.
The Climate Change Act is clear about what the Secretary of State must do in terms of either setting targets or amending target percentages. That is a comparator with what is suggested in this Bill in clause 3. The Climate Change Act states the following:
“Before laying before Parliament a draft of a statutory instrument containing an order…amending the 2050 target or the baseline year…the Secretary of State must…obtain, and take into account, the advice of the Committee on Climate Change”—
the Committee on Climate Change was set up by the Climate Change Act for that purpose of providing independent advice. The Act also says that the Secretary of State must publish that advice and, if the order that the Secretary of State lays makes provision different from that recommended by the committee,
The “comply or explain” mode of doing things is enshrined in the Climate Change Act. Indeed, it is shot through the Climate Change Act in terms of different orders that can be made to amend targets or baseline years or to amend target percentages. When the target percentage in the Act was, as hon. Members will recall, changed in July of last year—I was privileged to lead for Labour on the change that was put forward in, as it happened, a statutory instrument—that change went through well, in that the procedures in the Climate Change Act allowed the change to be made on the basis of proper advice and consultation and ministerial statements to that effect. All those procedures worked well in relation to the Climate Change Act and the changes made there.
There are no such procedures in this Bill. That is what we are particularly concerned about. We think that a procedure similar to that in the Climate Change Act but addressing the particular concerns of the Environment Bill—not everything can simply be squeezed in unamended and unchanged—would be the appropriate way to deal with this request for advice on setting targets and interim targets. Yes, the amendment is quite a bit more extensive than the brief mention of targets in clause 3, but it would add real lustre to the Bill, ensuring that targets would be properly set, properly consulted on and properly explained. Therefore, they would be properly and legitimately adopted.
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15:20 Rebecca Pow
The shadow Minister rightly drew analogies with the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Committee on Climate Change. I am pleased that he recognises the similarities. In designing this framework, we have learned from the successful example of the Climate Change Act—for example, the strong duty to achieve long-term targets, the requirement to report on progress and scrutiny of progress by an independent, statutory body, in this case, the Office for Environmental Protection. That mirrors the CCA. We are confident that the framework is every bit as strong as the CCA framework and that it provides certainty to society that the Government will achieve the targets, delivering significant environmental improvements.
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15:31 Dr Whitehead
Amendment 82 would insert the phrase, “interim targets are met.” That would effectively place a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the interim targets that they set. In that context, it is no different from the provisions of the Climate Change Act, which I keep repeating as an example for us all to follow. Indeed, how the five-year carbon budgets work is an example for all of us to follow. They were set up by the Climate Change Act effectively as interim targets before the overall target set for 2050, which is now a 100% reduction; it was an 80% reduction in the original Act.
Those five-year targets are set by the independent body—the Committee on Climate Change—and the Government are required to meet them. If the Government cannot meet them, they are required to take measures to rectify the situation shortly afterwards. Therefore, there are far better mechanisms than those in the Bill to give interim targets real life and ensure they are not just exercises on a piece of paper.
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15:38 Kerry McCarthy (Labour)
I will be very brief. I entirely support what my hon. Friend says about the need for interim targets. We have seen how the carbon budgets work under the Climate Change Act. There is real concern that the timetable might be slipping and that we might not manage to meet the commitments in the next couple of carbon budgets, but at least there is a mechanism.
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15:41 Rebecca Pow
The shadow Minister rightly referred back to the Climate Change Act and the five-yearly carbon budgets, as did the hon. Member for Bristol East. He asked why, if the carbon budgets were legally binding, the interim targets are not. That is a good question, but of course the targets in the Environment Bill are quite different from carbon budgets. Carbon budgets relate to a single metric: the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions. These targets will be set on several different aspects of the natural environment.
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