Steve Webb on the Climate Change Bill

9.04.48pm GMT Wed 29th Oct 2008

• [Oct 28]: ' . . we remain concerned that the guarantees that the nation-and, indeed, the planet-seeks from the British Government about aviation and shipping are not firm enough . . '

Re: New Clause 15 - Advice on emissions from international aviation and international shipping

Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Energy and Climate Change; Northavon, Liberal Democrat): Although we welcome the new clause and the Government's acceptance of the spirit of amendment No. 72, which Mr. Morley tabled, we remain concerned that the guarantees that the nation-and, indeed, the planet-seeks from the British Government about aviation and shipping are not firm enough. Although we may have confidence in the Under-Secretary and the new Secretary of State-any Secretary of State whose first act is to add his name to a Liberal Democrat amendment cannot be all bad-what about their heirs and successors? Can we be confident that future Secretaries of State, who are perhaps not so committed, will be bound by the amendments? We contend that they will not and that, in addition to the new clause, we need new clause 14. We welcome the supportive comments of Gregory Barker about new clause 14, on which I suspect we will test the opinion of the House later.

We are concerned about new clause 15 because of its advisory nature. "Advise" or "advice" appear nine times in it-it is an entirely advisory clause. That would be fine if the Government were bound by the advice but, by definition, one is not bound by advice. Amendment No. 3 would remove the opt-out. The Government have the option after five years of saying, "This is all terribly difficult-we're not going to do it." Our worry is that aviation and shipping are so important that, if five years of the best brains around the globe getting together cannot crack the problem, we are genuinely in trouble. We do not want to give the Government the option after five years of slipping out a written statement on the last day of a parliamentary Session to claim that they had tried hard but could not include aviation and shipping because it was too difficult. There is not enough of a guarantee that those matters will be taken into account.

Although I am beginning to understand the theology of such issues, I cannot understand why the new clause and amendment No. 72, as redrafted, guarantee anything. They are a nudge and a wink and a hint from a well-disposed Secretary of State and Under-Secretary, but they guarantee nothing, especially when Ministers change and others may not be so committed. We therefore need to beef up those amendments.

New clause 14 states that the Government need to provide projections on aviation and shipping. We welcome the Minister's assurance that the projections on aviation will be forthcoming and updated, but simply saying that shipping is too difficult, which is essentially the position, is inadequate. We need to resolve those difficulties. We need an approximation to the best guess. Doing that is not a science; it is an art. However, as my hon. Friend David Howarth said, doing nothing is likely to be an awful lot further away from the optimal solution than having an approximation, an imputation or an assumption.

Our second concern is about the role of national leadership. I fully accept that in time everything will need to be done multilaterally, but we are not playing a game in which we cannot make a move until everybody else has moved. We are talking about a vital issue on which we need to lead by example and bring others with us. If we say, "We're not going to include these things until everybody else does or until we've decided altogether how to do it", the clock will be ticking in the meantime. That is our profound concern.

John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat): Will my hon. Friend give way?

Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Energy and Climate Change; Northavon, Liberal Democrat): If it is about oil, no. [ Laughter. ] Of course I will give way.

John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat): I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to my standard question about oil. Last week the Prime Minister said that we needed an ever-increasing supply of oil, which confused me in the light of our objective of having a low-carbon economy, because burning oil creates carbon dioxide and water primarily. Will my hon. Friend share his views on whether we can satisfy the objectives of the Bill, with or without the inclusion of aviation and shipping, while having an ever-increasing supply of oil?

Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Energy and Climate Change; Northavon, Liberal Democrat): I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. From our perspective we need to get on with decarbonising the economy. The goal of an ever-increasing supply of oil is literally nonsense and should certainly not be an aim of Government policy.

The point that I made in an intervention on the Minister is that it might be great that the Department of Energy and Climate Change sets such bold targets, but as long as the Department for Transport, for example, continues to act as if it were a wholly owned subsidiary of BAA, we will not achieve what we need to. That is why it is vital to bring aviation and shipping within the scope of the Bill, so that the other bits of Government, which are perhaps not quite as well disposed towards tackling climate change as the Department of Energy and Climate Change is, are brought into line. The sooner we do that, the smaller the chance that irreversible decisions will be taken on airport expansion-decisions that would undermine the goal that we all share of tackling climate change effectively.

We welcome new clause 15 and the advice that will be forthcoming, but we simply do not believe that it goes far enough. In addition, we need the projections provided for in our new clause 14 and a calculation of what that means for non-aviation and shipping carbon emissions. The Minister's view seems to be that the rest of the economy can just take the hit, because as long as the grand total is okay, we are all happy. However, the rest of the economy might have a view on taking more of a hit than aviation and shipping simply because aviation and shipping were not included in the budgets.

There is an equity issue, too. We might have a view, for example, on how fair it is to expect manufacturing to take the entire hit because aviation and shipping have been allowed to run away with their emissions. There is an equity issue to do with the balance of reducing emissions, not only at household level but between different sectors of the economy. Favourable treatment towards one sector, which would be likely if we did not bring it within the Bill, is undesirable for us all.

Nick Hurd (Shadow Minister, Cabinet Office; Ruislip - Northwood, Conservative): The hon. Gentleman started his speech with the premise that the Bill places no absolute requirement on the Government to include aviation and shipping in the budgets or the targets. That is correct, but I have struggled to follow how his new clause 14 would change that. I can see that it might improve the transparency of some of the information going into the mix, but it does not change the basic premise of his argument, does it?

Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Energy and Climate Change; Northavon, Liberal Democrat): As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, our new clause 14 would require projections on aviation and shipping that would otherwise not be made, which would deliver an impact assessment on the rest of the economy. As he knows, our concern is about the actions of future Governments. The consequence of our proposal would be for other sectors of the economy to exert more pressure to include aviation and shipping, because it would be much more transparent that they would take the hit. That would be an indirect way of bringing pressure on future Governments not to neglect the other sectors of the economy.

Graham Stuart (Beverley & Holderness, Conservative): Does the hon. Gentleman's point about the impact of aviation and shipping not show the absurdity at the heart of the Bill? Independent studies show that a 75 per cent. increase in emissions from shipping is expected in the next 15 to 20 years and that emissions from shipping already constitute more than double those from aviation globally. The fact that we are introducing an 80 per cent. reduction today while critical elements of delivering it are not within the power of the Secretary of State shows that we are posturing and not really putting down legally enforceable limits on emissions. In the meantime, we are failing to take the practical actions that could be taken to deliver emissions changes today.

Steve Webb (Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Energy and Climate Change; Northavon, Liberal Democrat): I partly agree with the hon. Gentleman, in the sense that we certainly need a legal framework and practical, urgent action now. His point highlights the fact that the Government's approach to aviation and shipping is almost one of "predict and provide". They are almost saying, "We will let that rip, and then we will pick up the pieces in the rest of the economy." That is why we cannot go on risking excluding those elements.

We are sure that the Government's intentions are good, but we do not believe that even this Government-and certainly not future Governments-will be bound by what is in new clause 15 or amendment No. 72. We are therefore seeking to add new clause 14 to the Bill.