Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Fifth sitting).
09:28 Alex Norris (Labour)
“The area where I think the Committee could make a real difference is around the levelling-up missions and the overarching framework around the Bill. I am not sure the Minister will necessarily thank me for saying this, but I think the reporting requirements and the architecture around the levelling-up missions could be strengthened considerably in two primary ways. First, we have seen through the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Climate Change Committee the importance and strength of an independent body to hold the Government to account for delivering against its own targets, and I think the levelling-up missions would benefit from that level of scrutiny and accountability. At the moment there is a bit of a risk of the Government setting out its own interpretation of progress rather than us having an independent view.” –– [ Official Report, Levelling-up and Regeneration Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2022; c. 144, Q179.]
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09:47 Rachael Maskell (Labour)
Thirdly, I will make the comparison, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North did, to the Treasury establishing the Office for Budget Responsibility. That organisation has enabled independent scrutiny of Treasury assessments and has enabled Parliament and the public to hold the Government to account and to scrutinise the workings of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and wider Government respectively. In addition, the Climate Change Committee now has such authority that the nation looks to it: we know that academia particularly focuses on it, the Government certainly focus on and adhere to its calls, but so does industry. Having that rigour across industry enables us to see the seismic change that is necessary to meet our climate objectives. Seeing such scrutiny at work demonstrates the importance of independence. We can look at the power of COP26: had the Climate Change Committee not undertaken its vital work, we might not have seen the outcome that we did.
We have independent scrutiny across most functions in society. We have heard about the OBR and the Climate Change Committee, but I draw the Minister’s attention to Ofsted, Ofcom, Ofgem and the Care Quality Commission—independence is absolutely at the heart of all they deliver, so why not have it for something as fundamental as levelling-up missions? This is now recognised as the mechanism by which performance can be judged nationally, regionally and locally. A mature Government therefore have to understand the rigour of independence.
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10:12 Rachael Maskell (Labour)
The big challenges facing our society, such as climate and the economy, have independent bodies, but inequality and the injustices that come from it will not. What do the Government see as the value of independence when it comes to the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Climate Change Committee that they do not see with this particular agenda?
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Rachael Maskell (Labour)
Thank you, Mr Paisley. I want to develop the argument on what the Minister was saying about the Office for Budget Responsibility. The reality is that, over generations, we have seen entrenched inequality that successive Governments have been unable to address. It was the same with climate challenges, on which successive Governments have not placed a focus. Yet through the OBR and the Climate Change Committee, that focus has started to bring about change.
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Matthew Pennycook (Labour)
The Minister dwelled on the OBR in his response. I understand why: he is much more personally familiar with it. He did not touch on the Climate Change Committee, but that should be brought into the debate, not only in terms of the rigour the Committee provides for holding the Government to account on climate targets, which change over time—as when the House updated the Climate Change Act 2008 to take into account the net zero target—but for what it does for the consensus around those goals. It is extremely important.
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10:19 Alex Norris (Labour)
Our discussion has been good. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central made excellent points about the impact of the Climate Change Committee and COP26. The points about arm’s length bodies and the broader partnership involved in levelling up are important. This legislation is not just about holding the Government to account, but holding to account all parties involved in levelling up, including all of us in this room, in whatever guise—be it as Members of Parliament, as volunteers in our communities, or in local government, as a number of us have been. We all have different stakes in and must hold each other to account on what is a shared endeavour rather than an endeavour of the Government of the day.
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