Climate Change Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 24 June 2008.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Good morning. Before we begin, I should make one or two comments and preliminary announcements. I choose to foster an easygoing exchange of views and I would hate people to get frustrated with heat, so, it being the summer, members of the Committee may remove their jackets during Committee meetings. I would ask all members at all times to ensure that their mobile phones and pagers are turned off, or at least rigged for silent running during Committee meetings.

There is both a money resolution and a Ways and Means resolution with the Bill. Copies are available on the table. I remind members of the Committee that adequate notice ought to be given about amendments. As a general rule, my fellow Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that might be reached during an afternoon sitting of the Committee.

The Committee, as members have been informed several times, has been selected as a pilot for the use of laptops in the Room. I would like to make one or two points at this stage about their use. I have never seen a Committee start so much agog. We have had the room thronged with people since about 10 minutes to 10, and yet there is not a proliferation of laptops. I have to say that I am not displeased about that—you will see that I do not have one, although that is probably because I am too thick to use one.

Laptops may be used only by members of the Committee sitting within the body of the Committee, the Committee Clerks and, of course, Hansard. Members should ensure that all laptops have the sound muted—we do not want signals to be going off across the room. The Chair will not entertain points of order about the operation of laptops or the network. Such items must be retained for moments when the Committee is suspended, if I choose to suspend it. Finally, members are expected to use laptops responsibly—I should remind the Committee that we are here to give the legislative proposals line-by-line scrutiny. I would hope that all hon. Members—we are all honourable Members, I trust—will use the laptop in that venture, to further scrutiny and line-by-line examination.

The Committee will first be asked to consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. Debate is limited to half an hour. We will then proceed to a motion to report written evidence, which I hope that we can take formally. Without more ado, I call the Minister to move the programme motion.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 24th June) meet—

(a) at 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 24th June;

(b) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 26th June;

(c) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 1st July;

(d) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 3rd July;

(e) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 8th July;

(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 32; Schedule 1; Clauses 33 to 45; Schedule 2; Clauses 46 to 48; Schedule 3; Clause 49; Schedule 4; Clauses 50 to 69; Schedule 5; Clauses 70 to 74; Schedule 6; Clauses 75 to 80; new Clauses; new Schedules; Clauses 81 to 93; remaining proceedings on the Bill;

(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 7.00 p.m. on Tuesday 8th July.

Thank you, Mr. Cook. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship of this important Public Bill Committee considering the Climate Change Bill. I would like to say how much I am looking forward to the deliberations of the Committee, after one of the most extensive consultations on draft legislation and the consultations and scrutiny in the other place.

I note your remarks about the use of laptops, Mr. Cook. I am in the same camp as you on that. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheltenham on being the first Member, in the history of this place, to have a laptop during the proceedings of the House. No doubt press releases to the Cheltenham papers are on their way out as we speak.

The programme motion is before us. I am pleased to report to the Committee that the usual channels have reached a consensus. There are no knives in the motion. Across the House, we have a consensus on the objectives of the Bill—how do we, in the United Kingdom, help to resist dangerous climate change? The second clause of the programme motion states that the agreed end date is Tuesday 8 July. That gives us sufficient time, so I am happy to move the programme motion.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook, on this important and ground-breaking legislation. The Opposition will do their best to assist the Government in producing the best piece of legislation that we can and to make it fit for the immensely important task of combating global climate change.

The Minister is right that there has been a dialogue between the usual channels, which suggests that the proceedings will be brought to a close on 8 July. However, I sound a note of caution. We do not yet know how the debate will progress. Many important amendments are to be debated and, as the Chairman reminded us, they will be discussed line by line. There are some crucial points to discuss. Although there is broad support for the Bill, there are some sharp points of difference on individual clauses and amendments. The Government propose to delete or remove some of the substantial clauses that were added by Conservative peers in the House of Lords. Those additions made it a much better Bill. We do not want in any way to stifle or cut short debate of those important issues.

When the usual channels made their informal agreement over the time likely to be needed for debate, we had not seen the amendments to the Bill. As we now know that the Bill will not be ready to receive Royal Assent before the spill-over period, I wonder whether the artificial cut-off on 8 July is necessary. If hon. Members felt that we should continue because there are still important matters to consider, I for one would not favour an artificial date to guillotine proceedings.

I am mindful that we need to expedite matters in Committee, but that needs to be balanced with a proper respect for the views of all Committee members. We have a number of learned and expert Members on both sides of the Committee—members of the Environmental Audit Committee, and hon. Members with a long-term interest in the subject. We have a former Secretary of State who was a key figure in the early stages of the Kyoto agreement. I hesitate to agree to an arbitrary cut-off date of 8 July.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

At this point, I should remind hon. Members that the date of 8 July was set by the House and not by the Committee.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook. We will certainly engage constructively on the Bill over the next fortnight or so. As you know, we voted against the programme motion in the House because we thought that two and a half weeks was an absurdly short period in which to discuss the many substantive issues. Now that the Government have indicated that they want to reverse most of the defeats in the House of Lords, we shall have some pretty meaty debates. Therefore, it is disappointing that we have so little time, but so be it.

We are concerned that the Government have not yet tabled their amendments on single-use carrier bags. If I remember rightly—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham will be surfing the net as I speak to correct me—the idea of a levy on single-use carrier bags was raised in the Budget several months ago. I am disappointed that the Committee, which finishes two weeks today, has not even received those amendments. We had been promised that the amendments would be tabled in good time for the Committee to consider. I hope the Minister will ensure that the amendments are tabled expeditiously. These are important issues and we are keen to get on with debating them.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I, too, express my pleasure at working under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook. It would be wrong not to remind the Committee of my principled objections to the whole programming system. This is a good example of what a disappointment it is to the House that we have such automatic decisions to programme matters and have end dates voted for or against by the majority in the House of Commons.

When we have a Bill on which there is considerable consensus, as is the case with the Climate Change Bill, it is crucial that we debate it properly, not because we wish to defeat it or make changes for the sake of it, but because it is so important to get it right. There are people outside who dislike the whole concept of climate change, who do not believe in it and do not accept it. I see that TheObserver ran a poll that showed that the majority of people in Britain still do not believe that climate change is caused by human intervention, so we have a real battle there.

Getting the legislation right is a crucial part of our job. I have been in the House a long time and in my experience the most dangerous Bills, the ones that we are most likely to get wrong, are those on which there is a general agreement in principle and we do not take the time to do the detailed work from point to point. I took through a number of agricultural measures where that was the case. Everybody was in favour of the measure but I could cite points on which we did not spend the time properly and therefore found that things were unintentionally wrong. The Daily Mail is ready to explain why we, once again, failed the nation and I am keen that we should not do that.

Without much hope, although hope springs eternal, I trust that the Government will recognise, as I know the Ministers do, that if we find that the debate leads us to want to spend longer on some aspects than we had hoped, it is always open to the Government to go back to the House and say that we need more time. I hope they will take it in good spirit that some of us want to get the Bill right, rather than get through it quickly. I do not want the Bill to go beyond the spill-over season, but I want to get it right because we will have to defend it over a long period. It must last. By its nature, it is a lasting Bill, which is why I am so pleased that the Government have introduced it. It sets the parameters for a long period, and getting it right is as important as enacting it at all.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I thank hon. Members for their comments. I want to provide some reassurance. First, subsection (2) is a resolution of the House and not of the Programming Sub-Committee. It is the resolution of 9 June, when the House agreed an end date. Secondly, in response to the point made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal about knives and guillotines, I reassure hon. Members that there have always been guillotines. The controversy around the introduction of the programming process related to knives. My predilection is against putting knives in Public Bill Committees, because of the point made by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle that we cannot know where the interesting and controversial bits will be in the proceedings.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Just for accuracy, until 1997 there were no guillotines unless a Committee went on so long that it had to be brought back to the House. We used to do these Committees without guillotines, and when it was a non-controversial Bill, such as this one, we got our work done significantly better, because nobody felt that they had to do it in this way. I am very sad that we have decided on this much less British way of doing things since 1997.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

At the time of the review of programming, I was the Minister with responsibility for House proceedings, when I took the right hon. Gentleman’s point very seriously. I researched the past to see how guillotine motions have been used, and I can tell you, Mr. Cook, they were nasty, brutish and short. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, they were debated on the Floor of the House. I point Members to the evidence, which shows that programming has not led to less scrutiny of Bills. Indeed, the evidence up to 2005—I have not seen the evidence since then—showed that more line-by-line scrutiny had taken place.

I want to assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford and I have open minds on what is a sensible approach. We do not wish to use the Government’s majority to push through this measure, not least because there is a strong consensus on the objectives of this Bill.

There is another reason for reassurance—this Bill is one of the most scrutinised Bills in modern history. It has been through draft pre-legislative scrutiny, which I know that the right hon. Gentleman supports, twice.

The hon. Member for Northavon said that we have rejected most of the House of Lords amendments, but we have accepted a large number of them. If that were the case, Government members of the Committee would have some problems, but we will see as we go through the debate.

The actual resolution of the Programming Sub-Committee has given us suggested timings and the order of debate, as agreed by the usual channels. In my view, having consulted the officials, there is adequate time, but we shall see.

Clause 1

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I beg to move amendment No. 43, in clause 1, page 1, line 5, after ‘that’, insert ‘between 2008 and 2050 total’.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 44, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out ‘the level necessary to contribute to’ and insert

‘a proportionate share of total global emissions of greenhouse gases compatible with’.

Amendment No. 32, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end add—

‘(3) The target for the UK contribution to limiting global average temperatures shall be calculated with reference to—

(a) historic levels of emissions of greenhouse gases by the UK;

(b) projected levels of emissions growth among other countries; and

(c) such other factors as the Secretary of State considers relevant.

(4) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament within one year of the coming into force of this Act a report setting out the basis on which the target for the UK contribution has been calculated.’.

Clause stand part.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

In the absence of the hon. Member for Banbury, I was keen to move amendment No. 43 in order to discuss the important matters that it raises, and I am grateful to you, Mr. Cook, for giving me the opportunity to do that.

Amendments Nos. 43 and 44 focus not simply on the destination point—2050— but also on the route map, because, as was discussed on Second Reading, we cannot simply chug along as we are and then suddenly cut emissions in 2049, which is clearly not what we want. My understanding of what the hon. Member for Banbury was driving at is that we need to give much more attention to the profile of our emissions over the next 42 years and not obsess solely on the destination point. Clearly, the more that we save in getting to that destination, the better it will be. Additionally, the earlier that we save, the better it will be in terms of the climate change impact of any given amount of emissions. It is therefore important to discuss the amendment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham and I tabled amendment No. 32 because we anticipated that the Government would want to take away clause 1. As ever, we wanted to be helpful. We tried to table an amendment that would give the Government what they want. I understand the points that the Minister is likely to make about how the UK cannot change global temperature by acting on its own. We can play our part, but we cannot achieve a specific outcome on our own. I understand that saying that the goal of the Bill is to achieve something for the planet when we are a small percentage of it raises issues.

The purpose of amendment No. 32 is to ask how we move from what we know about what the planet has to do to what we know about what the UK has to do. Amendment No. 32 is our probing attempt to put contraction and convergence, which are jargon, into the legislation. We want to know whether the Government accept that aggregate contraction and convergence on emissions per head should be central to our approach. If they accept that, when do they think that that should take place? The obvious point for that to happen, given the focus on 2050, would be 2050. If we had a formula and reporting obligation, as set out in subsection (4), we would know how the Government have gone from whatever science tells us about the global target to what the UK target should be.

It has been suggested that this Bill should not include a purpose clause, because we do not do that kind of thing in this country. That is essentially what people have said—to quote the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, “It is not British”.

I am sure that the Minister is familiar with the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, section 1(1) of which states:

“The principal aim of this Act is to promote the sustainability of local communities.”

At the time, which was only last year, the House felt it appropriate to include a purpose clause, so there is good precedent. Likewise, legislation in this country over the years has given principal aims to bodies. For example, the Environment Act 1995 sets out

“the principal aim of the Agency...in discharging its functions so to protect or enhance the environment.”

There is no inherent reason why UK legislation should not have a purpose clause. The advantage of including a purpose clause in this Bill, which is how the Government introduced it in the first place, is that without it we will just have a number. As the legislation stands, that number will be plucked from the atmosphere before the Climate Change Committee acts. It is not apparent from the Bill where that number will come from. Although there are mechanisms to update the number, the processes are not as transparent as they should be.

Amendment No. 32 addresses how we set the UK contribution to reducing global emissions. If the science tells us that a certain cut in global emissions is needed to avoid the temperature rise that will lead to dangerous climate change, then the UK should not merely achieve the global average but go further. We give two reasons in the amendment why it should. “We”—the United States and some other developed countries—are a big part of the problem, and a lot of the emissions in the system are from us. It is often stated that Britain is responsible for only 2 per cent. of emissions, but in a sense we have moved a lot of our emissions offshore. For example, a UK consumer who buys a consumer durable produced in the far east creates emissions elsewhere, so it is clearly an understatement to say we are only a tiny part of the issue. Not only are we a bigger part of current emissions than that figure suggests, but we are particularly responsible for historic emissions. As we caused a disproportionate part of the problem, we therefore have a responsibility to be a disproportionate part of the solution.

The second part of amendment No. 32 addresses the question whether we can say to the rest of the world, and particularly to rapidly developing countries, that we have had the fun, but they cannot have it? It is clearly morally unacceptable to say that we have had rapid growth and a high standard of living, but they cannot have those things. I have promised not to use the word “moral” too frequently over the next two and a half weeks, but the Bill is about not only science, but—.

Siobhain McDonagh (Labour, Mitcham and Morden)

Sanctimony.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

It is not about sanctimony, but it is not only about science. I am not sure that I was meant to hear that.

Siobhain McDonagh (Labour, Mitcham and Morden)

I was not supposed to say it.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

Or think it either, hopefully.

Seriously, there is no right answer to British emissions, as the Bill stands. The Bill includes a general purpose clause and a figure, but it does not state how the British figure comes from what global science is telling us, which is the purpose of amendment No. 32. Science will evolve, and it gives us a figure for the required global cut in emissions. The British figure has to be higher than that for the reasons that I have stated, and as the science develops, we want the Government to be transparent about how the two are linked not least because the British number may need to change as the science develops. The next element is setting out how that linkage has been made in a report.

The whole Bill could fail if it does not include a purpose clause stating what the number in the Bill is designed to achieve. We will obviously have a substantive discussion about the right number when we discuss clause 2, so I will not stray into that save to say that without a purpose clause, the number could fail to achieve the objective that we all want for the Bill. We are trying to avoid dangerous climate change, but we know that the number in clause 2 is at best likely to fail to achieve the purpose of the Bill. That is why we think we need to be upfront about where the number comes from and to recognise our international duties.

Drawing those threads together, amendments Nos. 43 and 44 focus on the profile of the emissions, which is entirely right and proper, and I hope the Minister will have something to say about that. Amendment No. 32 tries to introduce the concept of contraction and convergence and deal with the Government’s perfectly reasonable points that the UK is not the world and that putting something in UK legislation about world targets creates problems. If we were to amend clause 1 to say how the UK contribution is calculated and linked to the world problem, however, we would move towards the same objective that the Minister’s rather more direct approach—removing the clause altogether—is designed to achieve. I hope that, rather than removing the clause, we can leave it in and amend it.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I support amendment No. 43 simply because it clarifies what most of us already understood, which leads me to why I am particularly keen to discuss clause stand part and why clause 1 is crucially important. Clause 1 is important for the same reason that the Government want to get rid of it—we either put Britain’s responsibilities in the context of the world or we do not understand what we are talking about. Such responsibilities are inevitable in the world context. Right from the beginning, we must accept that if the whole world goes down the route of “After you, Claude”—if I may use an old-fashioned phrase, which the hon. Member for Northavon thinks that I am keen on using—we will continue as we have done since Kyoto, and even before that, by actually not doing anything at all.

The nature of this Bill is in clause 1. The nature of this Bill—this is why the Government should be congratulated—is to say to the world that we, at least, are a country that takes the matter seriously and that we will act in a way that is incumbent not only on the Government but on the Opposition. It is interesting that the commentators have not noticed that the Bill has a real effect on the Opposition as well as on the Government, because it will not be possible for an Opposition of any kind merely to oppose things that the Government want to do in order to fulfil the purposes of the Bill without providing a practical and real alternative. That makes the Bill very valuable: for the next two years, it will have that effect on this Government and this Opposition, and when we change round in two years’ time, it will be very important when the situation is the other way round. It is crucial that we are all caught by the Bill. If that is the case, I want to be caught by the truth, and clause 1 is an important part of the truth, which is that we have to commit ourselves to act, whatever anybody else does. Unless we do, and thereby inspire others to do it as well, we will not achieve the necessary change sufficiently quickly.

I cannot say that I am overwhelmed by amendment No. 32, but some aspects of it are worth repeating. It refers to

“historic levels of emissions of greenhouse gases by the UK.”

It is an unfortunate fact that most of the greenhouse gas effects and climate change that we are experiencing today is the responsibility of European nations, and the biggest section of that is the responsibility of the British. It takes such a long time for such effects to work through, so our industrial revolution in particular is having an effect that we can see today. So those who say, “Oh, we only cause 2 per cent. of the emissions. We don’t need to worry. Others should do it first,” are wrong not only in a moral sense—I am not ashamed of using the world moral, because there is a lot of morality in this matter, which is needed in a practical sense—but because we caused the problem and should therefore clean it up.

Historic levels of emissions created our wealth. We are rich because we have polluted and therefore we have a responsibility, historically, to pay the price. Paying the price means that we must recognise that as we led the world into the industrial revolution, we must now lead the world into the low-carbon economy. I have absolutely no doubt about that, which is what we are here for. If I may use another word for which I shall no doubt be attacked, we have a vocation to do that. There is no doubt in my mind that that is what we have to do, which is why I appeal to the Minister not to get rid of clause 1. I do not think that he really wants to get rid of clause 1—I think that this case involves the things that civil servants do to Ministers. I was a Minister in similar circumstances, and I know what civil servants say. They have a two-word phrase, “Better not, Minister.” They cannot quite tell you what might go wrong, but “better not”. Charming though the civil servants no doubt are on this Bill, Ministers must never let themselves be led astray by “better not”, because “better not” is a defence against some untoward happening.

I have read the clause again and again, and I cannot see anything untoward. It says clearly that Britain recognises that our actions should be seen in the light of what the world ought to do, whether the world does it or not, unless there is a grossly disproportionate economic cost in doing that. I think that is rubbish. We gain by being ahead. We will alter the economics by taking forward the green revolution, as we need to do. I cannot see what the problem is, unless one still holds the Lawsonite view that that is damaging to the economy.

The proposition is the right thing to do, the right thing to do for Britain, irrespective of what other people do. If that is the case, the principal aim does not harm us. Instead, it enables us to pin a notice on the door stating clearly, “Here we stand, this is what we believe.” And the reason we are doing it, with the first such Bill in the world, is that we intend to stand here until we are joined by the rest of the world when it sees that its own future depends upon doing these things.

I am passionate about debating the clause because I do not want the Government not to live up to their highest aspirations. I have not always been polite to the Government about a range of things. I cannot say that I am entirely happy with their performance to date, but on this issue I do not want them to fall below the standards they have set themselves. This is the moment for the Government to come up to the bar. We are doing something groundbreaking, and we are doing it with the overwhelming support of the whole House of Commons.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Not all.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I said overwhelming. I have no doubt that we could find five dissenters, and I bet there are one or two people skulking away in other parts of the House who did not happen to be there at the time. But the Bill is a remarkable achievement, and the Government must be given credit for it, as must the Opposition. That means that we must excel ourselves, and not suddenly draw back with an intake of breath and listen to the “better nots” of this world.

I remind the Committee of the wonderful London Eye on the other side of the river. When I gave temporary planning permission for that, every single official opposed it. I had more visits from the “better not” brigade than any previous Minister. I said there was no point in being Secretary of State if I could not occasionally back something I thought was right. Now the Eye is the most popular memory of the millennium, and nobody will ever take it down.

This is the moment for the Minister to do that on a much more important matter. It is not a moment for “better not”. It is the moment to say, “Yes, we are going to nail our colours to the mast, nail that notice to the door, as happened in Wittenberg. Here we stand”. If the Minister makes the change by the use of his majority, he will be belittling the Bill from the beginning. That would be a pity.

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that if the Government are seen to be going out of their way to remove any reference in the Bill to an existing UK target and EU policy of 2°C, it sends the most damaging signal to the international community at an extraordinarily delicate time of international negotiation?

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

My hon. Friend is right, but he does not go far enough. I am never quite sure to whom the phrase “international community” refers, but the issue is one for the world as a whole. It applies to everybody. It is inconceivable that we should start such a mould-breaking Bill by removing the sentences that state what is in it, when those words say what we are all committed to.

I hope the Government will think again. If I were asked to vote on the clause, how would I explain to my children, let alone the world, that I do not think we should be trying to stop the temperature rising by more than 2°C? I have been bringing my children up to believe that for the past 20 years, when it was unfashionable to say that that is the most important physical thing we can do in life. How can I say that the UK should not take these actions because we are afraid that everybody else might not do it, when for all that time I, the Government, the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats have been saying that we should? How can I explain to them that I thought that it was in some way dangerous? It is not; it cannot be.

Either the Government have some miraculous understanding that is beyond the usual understanding of mankind—of course the Minister is one of the brightest Ministers on the Bench, and perhaps he will be able to tell us that—or we are back in “better not” land. I say very seriously to the Minister that when he is taking mould-breaking steps, he should be careful of the drag effect of those for whom the world is still as it was.

We are lucky to be living at a time when thought is changing faster than at any period since the renaissance. This is an exciting time to be living. We cannot meet the problems of today through the language or assumptions of yesterday. The fact that the Government have recognised that by introducing the Bill is crucial. I do not want them to fall below that level, even though politically it will be great fun. I shall have enormous pleasure going round the countryside saying, “This Government don’t really believe in all this, you know. They were forced to do it by an amalgamation between the Opposition, Friends of the Earth and others. Now they have done it, we put in a perfectly reasonable clause, and the House of Lords has now taken it out.” The party political temptations, at the beginning of what is supposed to be a consensus Bill, are enormous.

I want to consider the Bill with no party political temptations. I want to be able to say that it is a remarkable, consensual decision. I want to point that out to people who have not yet come on board. I hope the Government will not make it difficult for us, and that they will choose at this late date to accept that the House of Lords was wise. I do not think the Government will much like the clause to be subject to ping-pong between the two Houses. They would not enjoy receiving the Bill back from the Lords, and having to put the clause back, and conducting the argument on the Floor of the House with unbelieving young people, in particular, who will find it impossible to understand.

No doubt the Minister will make the best case possible, because he is a remarkably good Minister. However, in his heart, he knows that he is wrong. That will make it difficult in all those debates, because in his heart he knows that most of it is wrong. I hope very much that he will start off by showing his independence—his version of the great London Eye—and say, “‘Better not’ may be your view, but better do, because it is the better thing to do”. Without that, this will not be the better Bill that it could be.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

It is a pleasure, Mr. Cook, to serve under your chairmanship, especially as you have allowed us to remove our jackets, which was an appropriate first step for a Committee considering climate change.

I thank the Minister for his kind remarks about my rather less historic, but innovative, use of a laptop computer in Committee. My father might be proud of me, as he was one of those at Bletchley Park during the second world war responsible for building the very first programmable computer, Colossus. He might think it appropriate that I was helping to bring the House of Commons kicking and screaming into the 20th century, just as the rest of the country is moving on to the 21st. I should also acknowledge that another hon. Member is breaking new ground with me on the use of computers.

The Minister said that there was a strong consensus on the purposes of the Bill, so it seems strange—

David Maclean (Conservative, Penrith and The Border)

I hate to carp on about the matter, but just to correct the record, Mr. Cook, my assistant sent a version of the Stern report to my laptop at 10.15 this morning, so I think that I set the record. I am sorry.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The right hon. Gentleman is doing rather better than me. I discovered that my laptop was not properly configured for the network, so I am unable to log on, an experience which is probably familiar throughout history.

The Minister started off by saying that there was strong consensus on the purposes of the Bill. It seems strange, therefore, to start the proceedings by trying to remove them. I happily support amendments Nos. 43 and 44, which were tabled by the hon. Member for Banbury and moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon. They rightly seek to improve and clarify the wording handed down to us by our noble Friends in another place.

Amendment No. 32 explicitly spells out that the UK contribution will, in part, be calculated with reference to data from around the rest of the world, but it does not pretend that the UK is responsible for it. We anticipate the Government’s objections to the clause. They will say that it is unworkable, because it seeks to take responsibility for wider global emissions. We hope that amendment No. 32 makes it explicit that that does not have to be the case. If the Government want to improve the wording, we would be prepared to consider the matter during the course of the Committee.

On Second Reading, many of us argued that the targets on percentage reductions cannot simply be a matter of scientific debate and argument. We need to make a moral and political judgment about our fair share of overall reductions. Therefore, it is very important that amendment No. 32 introduces the concept of historic responsibility and the principle of contraction and convergence. It would be nice to hear explicitly from the Minister whether or not the British Government accept the principle of contraction and convergence and whether such a principle will be part of the remit given to the Committee on Climate Change when it works out the appropriate percentage reduction in carbon emissions, because that principle is relevant to the principal aim of the clause.

Oxfam made the important point in its submission on the amendment that the concept of cumulative impact is already built into the structure of the Bill. The whole nature of carbon budgets, as opposed to simple numerical targets, reflects the importance of calculating cumulative impact. We are trying to reflect that historic cumulative impact by keeping the clause in the Bill to make it explicit that we are taking our share of a global target. The global target of keeping global temperature to within 2° C of pre-industrial levels is crucial. I will not try to outdo the eloquence of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, but he is quite right to focus our attention on the impacts of going above 2° C.

Those impacts were spelled out very clearly by Sir Nicholas Stern in the Government’s own report. He pointed out that above 2° C, we are talking about

“significant changes in water availability...possible onset of collapse of part or all of the Amazonian rain forest,”

many species facing extinction,

“rising intensity of storms, forest fires, droughts, flooding and heat waves...The risk of weakening of natural carbon absorption and possible increasing natural methane releases and weakening of the Atlantic THC”—

thermohaline conveyor. The risks associated with rising above 2° C of global warming are extreme, and it is possible to argue that we are already getting a foretaste of possible impacts with food shortages, which are reflected in global food prices, and flooding, which is besetting various parts of the world including America and this country—in the future, it will affect many other areas. We are talking about a very serious objective. To remove the very clause that sets out the end goal, as opposed to the technical pathways that we use to get to that goal, would be a retrograde step.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when the Government argue the case for including an 80 per cent. target in the body of the Bill, it would be much easier if they had pinned their colours to the 2° C target at the beginning? In that case, it could properly be said that the matter should be left to the Climate Change Committee, because the parameters would be clear. If the Government remove those parameters, there will be concern that they are not as serious about the issue as they might appear to be.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. Removing from the Bill the final outcome, which we are all aiming for, certainly makes the 80 per cent. target and other targets seem more like a matter of tactical and political negotiation, rather than a focus on what we really want to achieve, which is containing global warming. It seems strange when we have consensus in the Room and across the House of Commons as a whole about the objectives to begin by trying to remove them.

A lot of praise has been heaped on the Minister, which I am sure is richly deserved. I know him of old, from the National Union of Students, where one of his principal attributes was his mastery of the grubby arts of political tactics.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Is that a compliment?

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

Absolutely, in the Minister’s case—he is a master tactician. I think that the Government would be well advised to mount a tactical retreat.

David Maclean (Conservative, Penrith and The Border)

It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook. It was also a pleasure to hear the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal, although one can never match his tremendous oratory. Last Saturday I opened the Wigton hospital fête, where I managed to acquire 10 volumes, at a cost of £2 for the complete set, of “Great Speeches from the Beginning of Time to the Present Day”. I have a feeling that after this Committee there will have to be an 11th volume dedicated to my right hon. Friend.

I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal on his work on the London Eye. I hope that I am not revealing any Cabinet Sub-Committee secrets, but I think that my right hon. Friend argued passionately that, rather than having a large plastic tent, we should create a huge new pedestrian boulevard from the National Theatre right down to Chelsea, including small shops, theatres and a new bridge across the Thames. That would be a tremendous advance for our environment, but it is not in the Bill, Mr. Cook.

I cannot match the eloquence of my right hon. Friend, but I want to add my little voice to those who are trying to persuade the Government to let clause 1 stand part of the Bill. I also want to touch briefly on aspects of amendment No. 32, which is relevant. Reading the Bill, one might be tempted to think that it is merely a technical measure. We could get bogged down in the committees, reporting procedures and the setting and transferring of budgets. Once the Bill is on the statute book, we might forget why we enacted it. What is the purpose of passing this important measure? The purpose is not to create reporting committees or to set up a wonderful Committee on Climate Change to advise the Government. The purpose, as it says in clause 1, is to try to do things that contribute to reducing world temperature. The clause does not put an obligation on the Government to succeed unilaterally in the United Kingdom in reducing world temperatures by 2° C. However, it says that the efforts that we make in the Bill, and everything else we do, should be part of that aim of reducing world temperature, because that is what it is all about.

I am fortunate because my technology worked instantly—I do not use PICT. I plugged in my computer, the 3G card fired up at once and I was sent a summary of the Stern report, which I shall quote:

“If no action is taken to reduce emissions, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could reach double its pre-industrial level as early as 2035, virtually committing us to a global average temperature rise of over 2° C.”

Stern refers to that crucial figure of 2° C, which was not plucked out of thin air in another place. We are not arguing for that figure for any reason other than Stern himself identified it. He goes on:

“In the longer term, there would be more than a 50% chance that the temperature rise would exceed 5° C. This rise would be very dangerous indeed; it is equivalent to the change in average temperatures from the last ice age to today. Such a radical change in the physical geography of the world must lead to major changes in the human geography—where people live and how they live their lives.”

The Government rightly signed up to the Stern review and so have the Opposition parties. Nicholas Stern continues to advise the Government in a high role and key capacity. If Nicholas Stern picks out the figure of 2° C as one of the key yardsticks, symbols or totems for the amount by which we must try to reduce global temperatures, I see no harm in putting that figure in the Bill, and my right hon. Friend is right that that would not totally tie the Government’s hands.

Possibly, parliamentary draftsmen have highlighted the issue to the Minister. I used to find during my days in the Department for the Environment and the Home Office that parliamentary draftsmen and wonderful civil servants always worried about things being added to their precious Bill. Worries came from two quarters: such provisions might force the Government to do things that they did not want to do, or they might tie them to doing things that they might wish to do in future. I suggest that leaving the reference to 2° C in the Bill would not tie the Government’s hands, force them to do things that they do not wish to do or make them solely and individually responsible for meeting the world reduction of 2° C.

I am concerned, as suggested by some of the amendments that I have tabled for later in the Bill, with trying to flag up more overtly some of the key things that Stern says that we must do if we are to succeed in our aim. Stern goes on to say:

“Key elements of future international frameworks should include...emissions trading”—

well, we have a mention of that in the Bill.

“Expanding and linking the growing number of emissions trading schemes around the world is a powerful way to promote cost-effective reductions in emissions and to bring forward action in developing countries: strong targets in rich countries could drive flows amounting to tens of billions of dollars each year to support the transition to low-carbon development paths.”

I am content that the Bill addresses that point, and I hope that we can strengthen it slightly.

Stern also states:

“Technology co-operation: Informal co-ordination as well as formal agreements can boost the effectiveness of investments in innovation around the world. Globally, support for energy R&D should at least double, and support for the deployment of new low-carbon technologies should increase up to five-fold.”

On action to reduce deforestation—I find this point absolutely critical—he states:

“The loss of natural forests around the world contributes more to global emissions each year than the transport sector.”

We will no doubt be having some intense discussions on the contribution of transport, shipping and aviation to carbon emissions. If the Chair agrees with the way in which I have drafted my amendments, hopefully I will be able to mention deforestation and try to insert provisions in the Bill on that, because I am disappointed that it is not mentioned specifically.

Another of my worries is that if we remove clause 1 we will not have a locus to make stronger arguments about the potential loss of deforestation. I would find it easier to argue that we should do more to prevent deforestation around the world if we were to keep in mind that principal aim. I know that that does not provide an exact legal locus, but it would make matters easier from the point of view of our argument.

Alan Whitehead (Labour, Southampton, Test)

I appreciate that a great deal of the discussion this morning concerns positioning relating to the Bill, but does the right hon. Gentleman accept that Bills should be logical in their construction in addition to making statements about how the world is or should be? In terms of a position concerning 2° C, I wholeheartedly agree with him as regards the overall goal that we should all be aiming for on global warming. Does he agree, however, that if one simply stands by that, it is difficult to talk subsequently about figures for the emissions of one particular country because they have not been finally negotiated through international agreements? If he sticks by his comments this morning, will he voluntarily abjure any participation in the debate on clause 2, which is about numbers and percentages? It seems to me that it is difficult logically to speak authoritatively about both propositions at the same time, and not reflect on the possibility that there may be a contradiction between the two.

David Maclean (Conservative, Penrith and The Border)

I will do a deal with the hon. Gentleman: I will not speak on clause 2 if he will vote to keep in clause 1. I am not being facetious. I will leave it to others who are infinitely more experienced on carbon emissions, trading and targets to argue whether the target should be 60 per cent. or 80 per cent. I approach this Bill from the point of view of someone who negotiated at Rio in 2002 for 18 hot, sticky days. I was pleased at the end that we made that start at the first Earth Summit. Getting an agreement on forests caused me the most problems and led to the most intense debate. We saw tremendous potential to make huge changes on world carbon emissions, if we could prevent deforestation.

This is not the place to get into technical details on that, but that is where I am coming from. I strongly believe that if we keep clause 1, it will make it easier for the Government to take action on forests and other areas, because the principal aim will be doing things to reduce the world temperature. That is not the sole reason for keeping clause 1, and we will not take the blame if the world temperature does not go down, but we should contribute.

In my opinion, other things, such as adaption and emissions trading, are not mentioned strongly enough in the Bill, and I hope to move amendments on those points in due course. I plead with the Minister that it will not destroy the structure of the Bill to leave in that principle, which would not make the Bill look idiotic and would not tie his hands in any way. I would love to see the Minister read out the “if pressed” bits in his notes, which usually include the most spurious arguments for desperate Ministers. The Minister should share his worries about the clause with us. I will return to forests when I move amendments on the subject, but I plead with him to leave clause 1 in the Bill, because it does no harm and a lot of good.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook. May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister for the Environment and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford, on bringing forward the Bill? Given the generous spirit of the Minister for the Environment, I am sure that he would wish to pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Suffolk, Coastal and for Penrith and The Border for the contributions they have made, and to recognise that the UK climate change programme has been going on since 1994. The last Conservative Administration set the first targets.

I will restrict my remarks to amendments Nos. 43 and 44 and set out why we believe that they are necessary. I thank the hon. Member for Northavon for moving amendment No. 43 as eloquently as he did. I would like to draw attention not so much to what is in the Bill, as amended by the upper House, but what the Government have left out. The hon. Member for Northavon described the amendments as the route map towards our ultimate destination. The Government have always said—this has been said internationally—that the objective of avoiding dangerous climate change is what signatories to the UN framework convention on climate change, such as the UK, have committed themselves to do.

The Prime Minister, no less, said in November last year that the Government’s

“vision has one overriding aim; holding the rise in global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees centigrade”.

During the Bill’s passage through the upper House, Lord Rooker said:

“The UK remains committed to the European Union’s 2 degree target”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 December 2007; Vol. 697, c. 130.]

That target has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the European Union, most recently in the European Commission’s 2007 communication “Limiting Global Climate Change to 2° C: the way ahead for 2020 and beyond”.

The Minister will accept that that was at the heart of the previous Government’s climate strategy, before being the starting assumption for the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s report in 2000. This is not something that has plucked from some minor policy document pulled off the shelf. It has been central to the Government’s climate change policy for the entire lifetime of the Government, so why are Ministers so anxious about it appearing in their flagship Climate Change Bill? My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border set out in some detail—he quoted from the Stern review—the consequences of a 2° C rise in temperatures. The Stern review warns that such a rise could lead to, among other effects, a 20 to 30 per cent. decrease in water availability in vulnerable regions such as southern Africa and the Mediterranean, sharp declines in crop yield in tropical regions—5 to 10 per cent. in Africa—and a high risk of extinction for Arctic species. I do not know whether the Minister knows that the crown princes of three Scandinavian countries—Denmark, Norway and Sweden, I believe—are at this very moment looking at what damage is being caused in the Arctic region. I am sure that we would applaud such action.

With a rise of 3° C, we would see 150 million to 550 million more people at risk of hunger, with between 1 billion and 4 billion more people suffering water shortages. Stern finds that some models predict the collapse of the American rainforest. I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border will return to this point at a later stage.

If we moved to a 4° C increase above average, we could see a 30 to 50 per cent. decrease in water availability in southern Africa and the Mediterranean, African crop yields falling by 15 to 35 per cent., and entire regions, such as Australia, coming out of food production. Up to 80 million more people in Africa could be exposed to malaria. With a 5° C increase, Stern predicts the end of large glaciers in the Himalayas, which would affect a quarter of China’s population.

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

I, like other Committee members, have enormous sympathy with the principle of what the hon. Lady says, but this debate is about not whether we should be achieving the 2° C, but the extent to which the Bill and the targets that it sets are dependent on what the UK can achieve itself and how much is dependent on international negotiation, and thus driven by our aspirations, but not the Bill’s legal framework.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I am hoping that, in speaking to the amendments, the Minster will say why the Government are wriggling on the 2° C target.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I have never wriggled on this. The Government are not wriggling on the 2° C target, but objecting to a clause that they argue is meaningless.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention, but the Government, through the Prime Minister and all the preparatory documents, did mention the target on 2° C above average temperatures. I wonder whether it was irregular to suggest that the Minister was wriggling, because he is very robust and does not shift from his position.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Now that the figure is in this clause, does not my hon. Friend agree that removing it would certainly give grounds for doubt and that that would be a mistake? Would she also say to the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North, who interrupted her so helpfully, that nothing in this clause says that Britain would not be negotiating, helping, and seeking to get others to come along? It merely says that we are pinning our colours to the mast, because people will not come along with us if we do not do this ourselves first.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

It is important that Britain plays its role. As my right hon. Friend so eloquently says—I paraphrase him—we want to be in the vanguard of the environmental revolution, just as Britain was in the vanguard of the industrial revolution.

We want to strengthen the Government’s arm, particularly when we come to negotiations in Copenhagen next year. Following our debate on the amendments, I hope the Minister will recognise that it is crucial that we keep the 2° C limit in the Bill.

Alan Whitehead (Labour, Southampton, Test)

The hon. Lady appears to be suggesting that there is some dispute or discussion about the 2° C target, as if having the Bill without that figure would somehow remove a commitment to the target. It would be great to put in the Bill that we would like to save polar bears, and to stop plankton from rising to the surface of the oceans and exuding excessive amounts of methane. Does she accept that the target is actually about what happens as a result of international negotiation? If negotiations go a particular way, the UK’s performance on emissions will be in one category. If they go another way, that will be in another category. If Barack Obama gets elected, that will make a difference to those negotiations. Does she not accept that if one puts something in legislation that does not do—

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Order. Interventions are interventions, not speeches. Please keep them brief.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Obviously, the hon. Gentleman is very knowledgeable on these issues. I have tried very carefully to follow his argument.

It was the Government who pitched this. Their own report—the Stern review—set the 2° C target. For the purposes of international negotiations, the 2° C aim has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the European Union. We want to be part of the European Union’s emissions trading scheme. We want to follow the science. We are asking why the Government appear to be perhaps not wriggling, but backtracking, from their original commitment.

I know that we are on track to meet our Kyoto targets, but we also know that that is in large part due to reduction in emissions during the early 1990s as electricity generation moved from coal to gas. In 1997, the incoming Government made much of the fact that they committed Britain to a much tougher target in Kyoto—a 20 per cent. cut in carbon emissions by 2010. That target soon became downgraded to a domestic aim. I am sure that the Minister accepts that this could be seen as a subtle shift in language to help to make the target an aspiration rather than a promise. With the passing of time, the gap has widened between the cuts needed to reach the target and the actual emissions. I commend the graphs in the House of Commons Library document that set out this point very clearly. Ministers have been forced to admit that the target would be hard to meet but, strangely, the Government tried to assure people that they were still committed to the target, but not expecting to meet it. Now it is widely accepted that this target will be met.

Let us consider another target: the 20 per cent. renewable energy target. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, signed up to that just before leaving office. After making the commitment, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform suggested that the target was hard to meet and that Ministers should explore statistical interpretations that made it easier to meet. Perhaps if they stopped changing the names of Departments, this would be easier to follow.

In a sense, the Bill is the Government’s mea culpa and a sign that they accept these criticisms. Ministers have often said that industry is given confidence to invest in solutions if targets are known and set in law, rather than just being targets in Government policy. That is why the most important of all climate change targets cannot be left as just a policy.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The hon. Lady has given an elegant reprise of many of the arguments that we put in the many climate change debates in the House. May I ask her the same question as I asked the Minister—whether she endorses the principle of contraction and convergence, as set out by the Global Commons Institute?

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. In principle we do. We follow the science. I am clear on that. We want the Committee to propose binding targets. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle will come to that in a moment.

I am disappointed that amendments Nos. 43 and 44 should be moved from the Opposition Benches. Ministers have a formidable civil service team and access to parliamentary counsel to find the best wording to deal with these concerns. We will happily withdraw the amendments if Ministers assure us that this is the approach that they will take, and that they will revert—

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Two degrees

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

Two degrees above. The science is there. It is all in the Stern report. If the Minister can assure us of that, we would be happy to withdraw the amendments. Instead, Ministers appear to have decided to scrap not just the amendments and what is enshrined in them, but the clause. That leads us to suspect that the objections being raised are not the real reasons that Ministers oppose the amendments, but a smokescreen. The real reason may be that the Government are not committed to a 2° C aim, but are using it as a slogan. I am sure the Minister would wish to reassure me.

While no one believes that the targets in the Bill are tough enough to be compatible with the 2° C aim, and while the Government continue to battle with their own Back Benchers to avoid toughening the targets, the only reassurance we have that the 2° C aim will not be dropped like the 20 per cent target, or statistically reinterpreted like the renewables target, is to protect it by including it in the Bill. I commend amendments Nos. 43 and 44 to the Committee.

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr. Cook, and it is a pleasure to be debating again with the Minister, with whom I have done business before on the Sustainable Communities Act 2007. I know that he is a Minister who is prepared to listen to the arguments and stand up to the frogs’ chorus of “Better not, Minister” or, in that case, “Not invented here, Minister,” and I hope he will take the same robust approach to this important Bill.

I speak as that rare beast in the Westminster jungle, a speaking Whip, to support clause 1. This morning’s debate is a valuable opportunity to focus on the purpose of the Bill. To me, this important Bill has only one core value, which is as a robust framework Bill that delivers exactly what the market says it needs—a clear and credible sense of direction in terms of targets and eventually underlying policy, that will allow the private sector to make the investment that is needed and that will make the difference. It is not Government but businesses and their customers—the private sector—that will make the difference, and they need a clearer, more robust and more credible framework.

The key word is “credible”. The background to the Bill is a history of missed targets and a lack of faith and belief out there that the Government are serious about tackling climate change. Therefore, arguably, the key value in the Bill is not the targets themselves, but the process of accountability—the process of keeping the feet of the Government of the day to the fire.

The Bill is, to some degree, the start of a journey, a road map, as it has been described this morning. The destination is important. The Government seem to be happy for that destination to be framed simply in the language of unilateral UK reductions of greenhouse gases. As we have argued from the Liberal Democrat Benches in the Committee, that is not enough.

We need to explain why we are reducing emissions. We are not doing it for fun. We are doing it because we feel an urgent need to control temperature increases in order to mitigate the risk of dangerous climate instability. We have a UK target in relation to temperature. The Prime Minister himself stated it again in a speech to the WWF on 19 November 2007. He said:

“Our vision has one overriding aim: holding the rise in global average temperature to no more than 2 degrees centigrade.”

That is the existing UK target. It is embedded in the framework of an EU policy driving towards exactly the same goal. There are good reasons for that, which have been powerfully articulated in Committee.

All the analysis that we have to date from Stern and the IPCC makes it clear that the risks and costs of growing climate instability rise substantially above 2° C. That has been adequately brought out by the Stern report. It is perhaps worth pointing out that Stern also noted that an increase above 2° C will

“accelerate future warming by reducing natural absorption and releasing stores of carbon dioxide and methane.”

The further we move above 2° C, the higher the risk of tipping points and of accelerated global warming, which is arguably the real threat we have to counter.

It is also clear from the Stern report that the costs of dealing with climate change rise significantly above 2° C. According to the analysis,

“if the temperature rises from 2° C to 3° C, the mean damage estimate increases from 0.6 per cent. to 1.4 per cent. of gross world product; but the ‘worst case’—the 95th percentile of the probability distribution—goes from 4 per cent. to 9.1 per cent.”

Given that the risks and costs fall disproportionately on the poor, we have a moral duty. I congratulate the hon. Member for Northavon on emphasising that word, rather to the scorn of Government Members. “Moral” is exactly the right word to use in this context.

The 2° C target is therefore a line in the sand. It should be our explicit guiding star. The importance of this debate, rather undermined by Government Members, is that that target is under threat because of the global concentrations of carbon dioxide. All the analysis suggests that it will be hard to keep temperatures below that critical threshold. This is an extremely important time to restate commitments to that goal. Surely it is too early to give up on it. That is why it is so disappointing, not just that the Government are so reticent on the matter, but that they are going out of their way to remove from the Bill a clause that makes a link between UK targets and their overarching goal.

That is disappointing because the Government take pride in their leadership on climate change. To be generous, some of that pride is justified. The very fact that we are debating the Bill is a symbol of leadership. It will be scrutinised by Governments across the world who are struggling with issues such as how to set targets, how to make them meaningful, how to revise them, and how to build in processes of accountability.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

When those Governments look at the Bill, will they not also look at the Committee stage, and say, “Why the blazes are the Government bringing forward the Bill, and then taking out this very clause?”? Let us not kid ourselves. This is not a private activity that will not be recognised elsewhere. If they have not already done so, many non-governmental organisations will make sure that they notice the change that the Government have made.

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

I agree with that intervention. The Government are in danger of sending the wrong signal, a damaging signal, because, as members of the Committee have said, as far as we can see, the Government are committed to the 2° C goal. It is stated EU policy.

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

The hon. Gentleman made a very important point a moment before taking the last intervention. It was about targets and accountability. Is it not at the heart of the argument that one cannot write into UK legislation a commitment to a target for which one does not have sole responsibility and sole accountability?

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

That is what we are debating. I take a different view, for reasons that I shall explain. First, there is tremendous value in having the 2° C target as a guiding star, a general duty for the legislation. Critically, the UK target must be linked to something. It cannot just stand as an absolute number.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the basis of the Stern report was to derive UK domestic targets from a perception and an analysis of the global stabilisation targets?

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

Indeed. That is the key piece that is missing. The original 2050 target of 50 per cent. was a rather arbitrary number, and there has been no analysis linking it to any collective international goal at all. The Bill is an opportunity to make a link between a global collective goal, and our individual contribution.

As far as I can see, the Government’s arguments are about the difficulty of legislating to control global tensions. We know that, and we know that there may be underlying concerns about the vulnerability of Ministers to judicial review. However, it is clear, as Lord Taylor said in the Lords, that

“a general duty not intended to provide a test for individual decisions”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 February 2008; Vol. 699, c. 451.]

is a general duty that can be evaluated, that reinforces the direction of travel at a crucial time, and that puts the targets in some context.

I close with a quote from Lord Rooker in Committee. He stated:

“The UK remains committed to the European Union 2º target, but there is no simple relationship between that target and the UK’s 2050 target, which is why we oppose the amendments.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 December 2007; Vol. 697, c. 130.]

That is wrong. Of course, there is no simple relationship, but we need to understand it. We must make it transparent. We need to make that link, which is why I strongly believe that clause 1 must remain in he Bill.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook. I want briefly to discuss the three amendments in the group. I can see the arguments for including the original clause, for withdrawing it and for trying to amend it.

I do not disagree with the general sentiments expressed by all the Opposition Members who have spoken. However, they have perhaps undermined and weakened their argument by exaggerating their case by claiming that the Government have somehow abandoned their sense of the moral significance of climate change as a political issue, suggesting that the Government are not interested in the way in which British efforts relate to international efforts and saying that the Government no longer support the 2º objective.

The central point here is that the 2º objective is a statement of the self-evident. There is no dispute about the importance of 2º in maintaining the volume of emissions in the atmosphere to less than 450 parts per million. In fact, the 2º objective may not succeed in restraining emissions to 450 parts per million as the Stern report and the intergovernmental panel on climate change have made clear.

The real issue is not whether we should be reiterating the importance of the 2º objective and the reason for it, but whether it needs to be in clause 1 of the Bill. There are good reasons for it not to be included in clause 1, because Ministers, including the Prime Minister in a major speech in November last year, and all the scientific advice from the United Kingdom, the European Union and through the whole post-Kyoto process have reiterated the significance of 2º. If a reference to 2º is needed, it should be in the long title of the Bill, which would be a more appropriate place specifically to refer to keeping emissions globally within 2º. However, we are not here to amend the long title, unfortunately.

As drafted, clause 1 contains a serious limitation. It states:

“The principal aim... is to ensure that UK emissions of greenhouse gases do not exceed the level necessary to contribute to limiting the global average temperature”.

What on earth does “contribute” mean? Again, it is absolutely self-evident that whatever the United Kingdom does is going to contribute, which prompts the question of what the level of that contribution should be.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

Does the hon. Gentleman support amendment No. 44? It would remove the words around “contribute” and replace them with,

“a proportionate share of total global emissions of greenhouse gases compatible with”,

which is much clearer.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I will come to amendment No. 44 in a moment, although my comments about “contribute” apply equally to “proportionate”, which is why I do not support amendment No. 44.

There are problems with the wording, because it prompts the question of the nature of the contribution. The difficulty is that, by maintaining the clause as it stands, we are confusing the political and ethical purpose of Government policy with the precise legislative detail designed to implement that policy. For example, in the Counter-Terrorism Bill, which was a matter of great controversy just a few days ago, was there a purpose provision setting out clearly the objectives of 42-day detention? I would have thought that the objective of extending the current period of detention to 42 days is obvious. The objective was not in the Bill, because it was not necessary, absolutely self-evident, well understood by everyone and reiterated by Ministers on numerous occasions.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument carefully, but what is the precise disadvantage of having the provision in the Bill? What would happen that should not happen because it is in the Bill? We would need to know that in order to overcome the obvious disadvantage of removing the statement from the Bill, which would give a signal to the rest of the world. What is the precise disadvantage?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

The obvious disadvantage of removing the statement is, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, that the world at large will not know the significance of the Bill. I think that it was included in the Bill so that it could be taken out, which will allow the Opposition parties an opportunity to campaign. Frankly, if the right hon. Gentleman or his colleagues wish to come to my constituency and campaign on the issue that clause 1, with its reference to 2°, has been taken out of the Bill and that is a major flaw in Government policy, he is welcome to do so. Most of my Conservative opponents in my constituency are still in denial about climate change, so it would help my cause.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

That was a rather flippant answer to a serious question. What is the precise disadvantage to the Bill of the clause being there? Leaving aside the party political point scoring, what is the precise disadvantage to the Bill?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I was coming to that point, had the hon. Gentleman not intervened. The disadvantage is that the clause prompts the question of the level and nature of the contribution. The precise disadvantage would be for a future Government in a future Parliament with a future climate change (amendment) Bill, when hundreds and thousands of hours would be spent by hon. and right hon. Members, civil servants, lawyers, the public at large, the media and non-governmental organisations in trying to define what “contribute” means

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Can the hon. Gentleman conceive of circumstances in which people would not discuss the contribution? How will the clause make it more likely that we will discuss it? We will always discuss it, so I find it difficult to see a disadvantage. We will discuss that whether in this House or elsewhere, but taking out that commitment would make a clear statement.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

That is not the case, because the provision was not in the Bill in the first place—it was inserted for the purpose that I described earlier. The precise disadvantage is that there is no advantage in making the wording of the legislation less precise than it needs to be.

If clause 1 were to stay in the Bill, amendment No. 43 would be helpful because it would improve the wording and make it more precise. Amendment No. 44 would weaken the clause, because it introduces the issue of “proportionate share”, which prompts the question of what that is.

A similar objection applies to amendment No. 32, which refers to “historic levels of emissions”. I am not sure whether there is, has ever been or is ever likely to be exact methodology for calculating historic levels of emissions. Therefore, there is no point in referring in legislation to something that cannot be calculated. The same argument applies to

“projected levels of emissions growth among other countries.”

What on earth does that mean? How many other countries project such levels and over what period of time? The key objection to amendment No. 32 is the imprecision of the language and the fact that it introduces concepts that are subject to vastly different interpretations and, in many respects, do not have a solid statistical base.

This afternoon, by coincidence, it is Foreign Office questions. A characteristic of those questions is that hon. and right hon. Members turn up to ask the Foreign Secretary and his Ministers questions about what Britain is going to do in countries such as Burma, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Iran, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan in the full knowledge that the Government’s capacity to influence events in many of those countries is far less than most of us would wish. The same applies to this morning’s debate about 2° C and the development of an international climate change policy. We must recognise that the Government are limited in their capacity to influence international events and the trajectory of global emissions over the next 50 years.

Our Government have one key way in which to influence the situation, which is by putting forward legislation that is precise, workable, and backed up by policy that is designed to give effect to the objectives described in the legislation and that provides a model for other countries to follow. It is far more important that we get a piece of legislation that is precise and workable, that Parliament supports the policies that are necessary to implement it, that we achieve the emissions reductions so that we provide a model for other countries to adopt, if they choose to do so, and that we engage enthusiastically in international negotiations to try to persuade other countries to adopt that model rather than resorting to what can only be described as gesture politics by trying to make a reference to 2° in clause 1 the be all and end all of the Bill.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I do not for a second doubt the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to tackling climate change. This afternoon, he will move an amendment to put an 80 per cent. target in the Bill. If the Bill is not amended and retains the reference to 60 per cent, we will have a target that does not achieve the goal that he and I share and we will have no statement of purpose. We will emerge with a Bill that does not achieve the goal that we share and does not say what the Bill is for. Surely that cannot be acceptable.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

We must remember that the phrase “at least 60 per cent.” could include 80 per cent. or even 95 per cent. I do not think that that is a fundamental point of importance. The “at least 60 per cent.” target will be revised by the Climate Change Committee when it produces its report on 1 December. However, when we get to clause 2, I may put a slightly different argument.

Finally, a reference has been made to contraction and convergence. The Liberal Democrats attempted to challenge the Government on whether they support the principle of contraction and convergence as the basis for international negotiations. I support the principle, but not because it absolutely relies on specifying 2° C, or 450 ppm, as the ultimate objective; I support it because that is what is happening now. The consequence of the Kyoto protocol gave targets to annexe 1 countries and not to non-annexe 1 countries. It is the general objective of even the most recalcitrant countries, such as the United States and, until quite recently, Australia. So, my response to the Liberal Democrat challenge on contraction and convergence is that frankly, there is no alternative. That is what is happening now, and what will happen over the next 50 years and perhaps beyond. That does not mean that the precise model of contraction and convergence put forward by the Global Commons Institute is going to be followed to the letter—I suspect that it will not be—but the general drift to the richer countries contracting their emissions and the developing countries increasing their emissions, and therefore securing convergence, will obviously happen.

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech, but he has mentioned 450 ppm as an agreed target on two occasions. He knows that the Government, whom he supports, has a target range for stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions, which is 450 to 550 ppm. Will he join me in urging his Government to drop their outlying rider of 550 ppm, because analysis has shown it to be increasingly incompatible with the 2° target?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I have not said at any point that 450 parts per million is the target. I referred to the fact that the scientific advice suggests that above 450 ppm the likelihood of dangerous climate change increasing is even greater. We need to set the matter in context.

For the reasons that I have outlined, there is a solid argument for withdrawing clause 1, when we come to the Question on clause stand part, but even though the Opposition have made important points on the underlying principles, because of the lack of precision in clause 1 and the nature of the Opposition amendments, I am not convinced that they have successfully made their case.

Alan Whitehead (Labour, Southampton, Test)

Opposition Members have made a number of important points this morning, but there has also been quite a lot of mealy-mouthed talk, which augers badly for the progress of the Bill in Committee on the basis of consensus. I am concerned about the insertion of the principal aim clause in the other place, because it may have been designed not so much to emphasise the principal aim as to beat the Government around the head on the grounds that they are not really committed to that principal aim because they will not put it in the Bill.

As I said in an earlier intervention, it is possible to put all sorts of things in such clauses. We could have a whole list of things that we are committed not to do and on which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North has said, we have no traction. I really do not want to see polar bears disappearing from the north pole, but I would not be prepared to stand in this House and place in legislation that the UK Government have a duty to ensure that polar bears do not disappear in the Arctic.

An important question on the overall mechanisms in this Bill, which it is very important that we get right and which will be the subject of our debate this afternoon, is what will the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State or whoever it is be faced with in 2051 when they come before the House of Commons to say what they have done. Let us say that that person stands up in the House and says, “Great news! According to our carbon budgets, we have reduced our emissions by 80 per cent., and therefore we have succeeded in what this Bill set out to do all those many years ago.” Somebody else could say, “No, sorry, you have not actually kept below 2° C, and therefore you have failed.” One approach involves what we can do as far as the UK is concerned; the other involves what we might do if many other countries were to enter the process of making sure that there are international commitments that enable both reductions in emissions to be undertaken in particular countries and an overall reduction in emissions across the globe as a result of those commitments. Then the global targets on parts per million and temperature can be achieved.

That, of course, depends on crucial upcoming negotiations and discussions. If, for example, the United States continues on a path of not wishing to address seriously the sort of emissions that are envisaged by the Bill, or if other countries do the same, the percentage that the UK will have to undertake if we are to succeed will be different. However, if the United States and other countries take a different path—as I hope that they will—achieving something getting on for 80 per cent. would represent a move very solidly towards the idea of keeping the world within a 2° C temperature rise and restraining the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to around 450 ppm.

To suggest that everything hinges on this clause, and that if we do not go for the clause, we are not serious about all the rest of this, is not just overblown but, frankly, a little insulting to those people who are trying to draft legislation that will get those mechanisms right for this country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North said, the Bill will demonstrate to several countries that are looking very seriously at our climate change legislation that devices can be introduced in legislation that enable a country to play its proper role in reducing emissions. If we fall at the very first hurdle—before we have even started looking at how to put this together—frankly, to paraphrase the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, our grandchildren will say “What were they doing? Why were they not constructing serious legislation on what the country could properly do as far as carbon emissions are concerned? Why were they posturing and deciding what should or should not go in declaratory parts of the Bill at the expense of making the Bill work?”

The Committee is seriously concerned with making the Bill work. My modest suggestion, and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, would be that if we were to make any changes, we should place the principal aim of the Bill in the long title. I appreciate that we cannot put all clause 1 in because the long title has to reflect what is in the Bill. Yet, surely the whole Bill is for this purpose, and placing something like that in the long title would mean that those who have made serious comments this morning about how to ensure that business proceeds properly could be satisfied about the intentions of the Bill. That would also make sure that the Bill worked not just to satisfy the ambitions of our country on addressing climate change, but to ensure that other countries follow our lead with similar legislation.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

This has been a most instructive and interesting sitting. I disagree profoundly with the hon. Member for Southampton, Test because our proceedings augur very well for the debates and discussions that we will be having in Committee over the next few days. The debate has been by no means a diversion. Our discussion goes to the very heart of what we are trying to achieve, and I do not think that the debate has detracted in any way from the meat of the Bill, or from the frameworks, mechanisms and committees that it will establish.

If I may respond to the hon. Gentleman directly, his suggestion that the debate has taken place at the whim of Opposition parties—either Conservative or Liberal Democrat—was beneath him. He knows that non-governmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace—I am sure that he and, certainly, the Ministers hold those organisations in esteem—have given vociferous support for the principal aim. I propose to address my remarks to that aim, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York spoke extremely eloquently about amendments Nos. 43 and 44.

At the outset of the debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal really set the benchmark for this Bill by making a wonderful and inspiring speech that I hope his children and many other children will read. It reflected the ambition that we all have for this Bill and reminds Members on both sides of the Committee why we came into politics, why we get out of bed in the morning, why we are proud to be Members of Parliament, and why we campaign: because there is a higher purpose. It is very easy to lose that higher purpose in the tit for tat trading of brickbats across the Committee. My right hon. Friend really rose above the party political divide, and he reminded us how profoundly important the Bill is and what we are all about.

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

In the spirit of bipartisanship, and given that we are all highly committed to the overall end, will the hon. Gentleman recognise that we are discussing not a principal aim, but a process: the extent to which the Bill give us the right framework? There may be a disagreement about that, but it does not go to the heart of the question of the aim. Will he take this opportunity to put on record that he does not believe that any disagreement about process reflects a fundamental wavering by the Government or the Minister on achieving a 2° C reduction?

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I certainly agree. I am not here to question the Government’s commitment to 2° C, although at the tail end of an Administration, it is not this Government who should greatly concern us, but the commitment of future Governments, whether they are formed by my party, the Labour party or any other. We are talking about a process that will run for decades and decades. When people look back at the measures and technicalities to which the meat of this Bill addresses itself, it will be important that its overall aim is clear in their minds. We are beginning our discussions with the first page of the Bill, and it is important that the aim is there, clearly and squarely.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal made a very thoughtful and interesting speech, but he threatened that if clause 1 were withdrawn from the Bill, he would travel around the country and launch a campaign against the Government for doing precisely that. I am inclined to invite him to my constituency because that could be very helpful to my cause—I might issue him with a personal invitation—but how can the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle reconcile that threat with his assertion that the right hon. Gentleman was able to rise above the party political divide?

Mr. Gummerrose—

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I would love to answer that, but I fear that my right hon. Friend could answer it even better.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Order. I am reluctant to allow any kind of response to an intervention from someone who was not even holding the Floor.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I think that I follow that advice, Mr. Cook.

I think that my right hon. Friend was trying—no doubt he will correct me if I am wrong—to challenge Labour Members, whom I know in their heart of hearts most emphatically endorse the aim, to have the courage of their convictions, to be bold and not to listen to the siren calls of the civil service chiming in from behind Ministers—

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Order. It would now be correct for the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal to intervene. That keeps both the Committee and the Chairman in order.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I give way—spontaneously—to my right hon. Friend.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Did my hon. Friend notice that the hon. Member for Bury, North made a partial comment about what I said? I said that I did not want the Government to put themselves in a position in which one would be tempted to behave in such a way. I was trying hard to get the Government to recognise that the more they enable people to keep the Bill consensual, the better. Perhaps I have been misinterpreted. If I was so opaque as to make it possible to believe such a thing, I apologise. However, if I remember rightly, the hon. Member for Bury, North was, perfectly reasonably, making the kind of mischief that is perfectly reasonable across the Floor. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle that it is my intention to keep the Government on the straight and narrow.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Indeed. That is what we are all endeavouring to do.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, who was the Minister who represented the UK to great effect at the Rio conference, drew out a very important point that answers many of the points that were raised quite validly by Labour Members. This Bill is infinitely more than the sum of its parts. It is more than just a collection of technical measures. It is more than a series of sensible measures to bring to life committees, reporting mechanisms, budgets and commitments to report further and to make public appointments. It is so much more than that.

We will be doing a disservice to the public, to the layman, to students, to children and to interested parties who have heard so much about the Climate Change Bill in the press if, when they pick up the Act that the Bill becomes, they are immediately confronted with quite technical gobbledegook that is meaningless in the overall battle to keep down the rise in temperature. Putting a clear aim in the Bill is not just totemic, but common sense.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood reminded us of the costs and catastrophes that would befall the world if we did not keep the rise below 2° C. He also reminded us of the excellent report by Lord Stern commissioned by the Government.

I could not quite follow all the argument outlined by of the hon. Member for Bury, North because while he clearly set his face against supporting the clause, he said that he would be in favour of including its wording in the Bill’s long title. He seemed to accept the principle but then, because his own side is against the practice, he did not support such wording in the clause. I am advised—I will stand corrected if I have wrongly interpreted the advice—that it is not possible to revise the long title of the Bill, and nor is it possible for the Committee to insert a preamble into the Bill, although I believe that the Government could do so. I will come back to that in my closing remarks. Perhaps a chink of light is being shed on our proceedings.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Order. Perhaps I may help from the Chair. The title can be changed as long as the changed title does not impinge on the content of the Bill. The title must still reflect the content of the Bill.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Indeed, Mr. Cook. The problem that we would encounter in changing the long title of the Bill is that that which we sought to put in the long title would not be in the Bill if we removed it from clause 1. Is that correct, Mr. Cook?

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

The purpose of holding the title of the Bill until the closing stages is to ensure that it reflects everything that has gone before, by agreement.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Indeed. I do not profess to have a monopoly on wisdom, but it would be difficult to incorporate something into the long title if there was no mention of it in the Bill. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test is making wonderful gestures. He would find it difficult to interpret in the long title something that was not stated specifically in the text of the Bill.

Alan Whitehead (Labour, Southampton, Test)

The long title reflects what is in the whole Bill. If the Bill is about climate change and temperature rise, which is a concomitant of climate change, it is perfectly reasonable for that to be reflected in the long title, whether or not there is a specific mention within the Bill of the precise description that is in the long title, provided that it does not stray outside the subject matter of the Bill. That was the basis of my suggestion.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

That is very interesting, but while the hon. Gentleman was making his speech I sought informal advice, and I am given to understand that what he suggests would be difficult to accomplish. I understand the point that he makes, but technically speaking, it would be difficult to incorporate that reference into the long title at the end of the Committee, for the reasons that I mentioned.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Will my hon. Friend at least reassure the Minister that, were he to give us an assurance that he would seek to do as we propose, we would be happy for that to replace the clause?

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

My right hon. Friend has robbed me of my coup de thÃ(c)âtre at the end of my speech, for which I thank him, although I had been warned by colleagues about his ability and talent for so doing.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I am sorry that my remarks earlier were not entirely clear. I was trying to draw a distinction between the validity of the reiteration of the objective of securing as a global limit a 2° C temperature increase, and its relevance—whether it should be in the text of the Bill at this point. My reference to the long title was not intended to trigger a serious debate as to whether the long title could be amended. I was certainly not suggesting an amendment to the long title, but perhaps the Minister would give that some consideration and report back later.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

A consensus is starting to emerge, which can only be a good thing. That is the result of a rather robust conversation this morning. It is an example of the robust scrutiny that my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal mentioned earlier during discussion of the programme motion.

I shall summarise the primary arguments in favour of the clause and our criticism of the Government’s argument. The Government’s opposition to this important clause is based on three arguments: that the principal aim is unworkable and unenforceable, that Britain alone has no control over keeping global warming under 2° C, and that the Government have stated in the past that the principal aim is without precedent. We believe that none of those three arguments holds up under scrutiny.

First, we all understand that the UK cannot be held responsible for all the world’s emissions, but that is not what the clause says, or what it aspires to. There is nothing in the principal aim that places an obligation on the United Kingdom to deliver single-handedly the ambition to keep global warming under 2° C. We understand that even if global emissions stopped today, there is no guarantee that we would not exceed the 2° C target.

The principal aim set out in the Bill does not offer such a guarantee. It states that the United Kingdom should be committed to doing its fair share to prevent a dangerous outcome and should show international leadership. The aspiration to limit the global average temperature increase to not more than 2º C above pre-industrial levels is not some obscure aspiration dreamed up by those on the Conservative Front Bench to bait the Government with, or plucked from the sky. The Prime Minister said last November:

“Our vision has one overriding aim; holding the rise in global temperatures to no more than two degrees centigrade.”

The 2º threshold is the agreed policy of this country and, in writing, the stated aim of the entire European Union. If the Government are truly committed to this “overriding aim”, why are they so timid and cautious about saying so in a landmark Bill? Why have they committed to a target with the EU that they will not put in this unprecedented domestic legislation?

Neither the Minister nor any of his successors should fear being hauled off to jail should temperature rises exceed 2º. Even if that dangerous 2º scenario is reached, the UK Government would still have fulfilled the terms of the principal aim as long as they had made emissions cuts which, had they been replicated across the developed world, might have prevented such a rise.

What of the argument that the principal aim is inappropriate, or “unprecedented” in UK legislation? Evidence suggests otherwise, and I thank Friends of the Earth for looking into the matter so carefully. There is a sizeable list of laws on the statute book which set out the broad aims of Acts and the purposes of the bodies that they set up. For example, in the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, section 1 states:

“The principal aim of this Act is to promote the sustainability of local communities.”

For that, I pay handsome tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Does my hon. Friend remember any argument during the passage of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 in which the Minister suggested that such a phrase would be inappropriate at the beginning of the Act?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Better not.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I hear from the Minister that he was given the advice, “better not”, but clearly, on that famous Friday he came to the House having eaten three Shredded Wheat, and his political convictions got the better of him. I am sad that the Minister has not had his breakfast this morning.

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

Does the hon. Gentleman remember any discussions during the passage of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 that required the UK Government to promote sustainable communities in America, Africa, Asia, Australasia and indeed across the world? That is the point—the Sustainable Communities Act applied to what lies within the powers of the British Government.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Nevertheless, the Minister, or subsequent Ministers, will not be hauled off to jail if they fail to deliver sustainable communities in the UK.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

The hon. Member for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North has shot her own fox. The difference is this: the Government’s purpose is to make sure that other nations follow us. If the Government do not bother to do that, by their own admission they will be letting down not only this nation, but future generations throughout the world. It is exactly as the clause outlines.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

My right hon. Friend is correct. Surely the Bill, which was devised and introduced by the Government, is not a timid piece of domestic legislation. It is legislation of which we can be rightly proud, I hope, and which will be an example around the world. It is about asserting international leadership. Surely setting out the principal aim of a Bill at the start makes that clear.

I give another example. Many Acts give principal aims to public bodies. For example, the Environment Act 1995 states:

“It shall be the principal aim of the Agency...in discharging its functions so to protect or enhance the environment,”

It is no more specific than that. Other broad aims appear in the Food Standards Act 1999, the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales Act 2001, the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 and the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.

Beyond the national precedent, there is international precedent for including a purpose clause in the Bill. Although the UK was the first in the world to commit to introducing a Climate Change Bill, progress has not been as speedy as we would have liked. During the period of procrastination in bringing the Bill through Parliament, it appears that the Canadian Parliament may have got there before us. Interestingly, the Climate Change Accountability Act in Canada includes a purpose clause which was recently passed by the Canadian House of Commons, and it reads thus:

“The purpose of this Act is to ensure that Canada contributes fully to the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”

So the clause is not without precedent, at home or abroad. It is not a subtle attempt to legislate for the rest of the world. It does not place any obligation on the UK to deliver the principal aim single-handedly, nor does it leave any Minister—particularly any future Minister—liable, should the global effort fail.

It is worth noting that the legislation is called the Climate Change Bill. It is not the Carbon Emissions Reduction Bill. It is the Climate Change Bill—the global Climate Change Bill. [Interruption.]

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Nor is it the Climate Change (UK) Bill.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

My right hon. Friend is right. This is the Climate Change Bill. What this principal aim does is to anchor what is otherwise—

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Order. I am trying to preserve a fairly free and easy exchange of opinions here and to that extent, I am happy for everyone who needs to do so to make an intervention on anyone who is holding the floor. What I cannot stand—partly because of my partial deafness—is the amount of chuntering that is going on. It is unnecessary. It is unparliamentary, so please take my advice and chunter not.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Thank you, Mr. Cook. It is worth noting that the legislation is called the Climate Change Bill, not the Carbon Emissions Reduction Bill. It has a global leadership purpose and we should be proud and celebrate that fact. The principal aim clause anchors what is otherwise just a framework of targets to a central ambition and purpose that we all share: for Britain to do our part in the battle against dangerous climate change.

The principal clause lifts the Bill from simply being a series of technical and administrative reforms and innovations. It gives the legislation a clear statement of our national shared intent, our national purpose and the ambition that I believe all members of the Committee have, in their heart of hearts, for the Bill. As another member said, let us pin our colours to the mast and put at the very start of the Bill a clause of which we can proud.

We had intended to vote against the Government on this most important clause. However, I am advised that, although the Committee cannot do so, it is possible for the Government to insert a preamble to the Bill. I am advised that it would be difficult to insert an effective form of wording into the long title. The idea has merit, but technically that would not be feasible. However, the Government could bring forth a preamble. I invite the Government to consider that proposition, in the spirit of consensus and in the spirit in which all members, on both sides of the Committee, wish to work in scrutinising the Bill. Let us see whether, between us, we can come up with a form of words, as a preamble to the Bill, that would be acceptable to all members of the Committee.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Cook, and for allowing us to have an extremely useful and wide-ranging debate. I want to use this opportunity not only to answer questions, but to explain why the Government do not want the clause in the Bill. Opposition Members are motivated by the fear that the Government are trying not to commit to 2° C as a target. They are trying to strengthen that target, and I do not challenge their motive.

I will try to put the matter in an international context. Within the United Nations negotiations and talks, the European Union—of which we are a leading member in those talks—is committed to the 2° C bloc. We are seen by the world as the leaders. There is a group of countries that does not support 2° C: the Pacific island states. For them, 2° C is too much, because that means that they disappear. Other countries are not prepared to commit to a long-term goal of a 50 per cent. reduction in emissions by 2050, which is how the 2° C limit is expressed in terms of emissions. The poorer countries are not prepared to commit to that at this point because they fear that doing so, without legally binding commitments from the richer countries, would put too much of a burden on them. So, there is not a consensus around 2° C from those countries. Some members of the G8, particularly the United States of America, but also Russia and Japan, are also not prepared to commit at this point to 2° C. The consequence of that situation is that if we were to legislate for something outside our control, we would be passing legislation that, in our view, would be meaningless, thus damaging the credibility of the Bill.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

My understanding is that the EU will negotiate en bloc. It will negotiate from a position of 2° C.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The hon. Lady is right. Her argument fails to understand—I would ask Opposition Members to ask themselves this question—why the European Union has not legislated for 2° C. It has not done so because, as in my argument, that would be a meaningless act. Legislating for a global goal of 2° C, and whether or not we are committed to that, are separate questions. That explains both our stance and that of the European Union.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I genuinely would be on the Minister’s side if I thought that that was what the paragraph meant. All the clause says is that the

“principal aim of this Act is to ensure that”

our

“emissions...do not exceed the level necessary”—

in effect, to make up our contribution—

“to limiting the global average temperature increase to...2°C”.

It says nothing about us legislating for other people; it says that about us.

Subsection (2) says that the

“functions under this Act must be exercised with”

that objective. I cannot see the “better not” in saying that.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

When I reach the end of my argument, the right hon. Gentleman will see the logic of my point of view. He is one of the most experienced Ministers in the history of our country. I think that I am right in saying that only four other people in history served a longer period in the UK Cabinet, so he is an extremely experienced legislator. He knows that when one gets advice that says “better not”, “resist” or “resist if pushed”, one has to take a decision. He also knows that the advice that is given to Ministers from parliamentary counsel and officials is often to resist on the grounds of legislative incoherence. The strongest thing for a Minister to do is to put aside party political objective. It would be easy for me and the Government to say, “We accept it, and it is our policy.” We are basing all of our efforts on getting 2° C, so why do I not just put it in the Bill? The answer to that is rather than saying “better not”, such a decision would render the Bill meaningless

Let me explain to the right hon. Gentleman why that is the case. I have not had a chance to check Hansard,but I bet that during consideration of the Environment Act 1995, there was advice that said, “Do not accept a purpose clause.” Incidentally, the clause to which the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle referred was the primary purpose of the Environment Agency, not the Bill.

Let me explain my argument. I refer the Committee to clause 2 because it directly relates to this question. It is the other side of the coin of why the Government do not want clause 1. I beg the Committee’s indulgence, but I will keep my remarks very brief.

Clause 2(1) does two profoundly important things—let me take the second first. It considers the target of “at least 60 per cent.” on the 1990 baseline by 2050. Where does that figure come from? It has been subject of national debate, and of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of communications. That figure comes from a royal commission report that recommended the cut in emissions that would be required in the United Kingdom as a contribution to the world effort to do the same thing, assuming that the world signed up to that and that the science did not change. Since then, the science has changed, which is why the Government have changed the original royal commission recommendation of 60 per cent. to “at least 60 per cent.”

Let me answer the question of whether or not the target should be higher. First, the year 2050 and the figure of 2° C are based on the royal commission’s recommendation, and that is our policy. Secondly, and this is the crucial point, in the first part of subsection (1), the Bill goes far beyond other legislation—far beyond what the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 and the Environment Act 1995 did. The Bill puts a legal duty on the Secretary of State—the Government—to ensure that they act to achieve the objective of “at least 60 per cent.” cuts in emissions in the UK, or more depending on what the committee advises. If there were an additional clause, for example existing clause 1, that rendered it impossible for the future Secretary of State to act legally because of the actions of other countries, we would be undermining the ability of future Governments to implement the Bill. We would also put other people or organisations, such as local authorities that have duties under the functions of this Bill, in a position in which they would be acting illegally and in impossible circumstances. We would take away the very certainty that the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood sought for businesses and third parties and render impossible the very basis of cap and trade and the top-down approach of the European Union and this country, as against the bottom-up pledge and review approach of other Governments. It would be easy for me to say that I accept the clause, but I do not, precisely because I am committed to the working of the Bill.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The Minister is trying to make the case that there is a fundamental incompatibility between the target of 60 per cent. in clause 2 and the target of 2° C in clause 1. He suggests that that introduces some legal uncertainty. In fact, the target of 60 per cent. is explicitly based on the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s report in 2000, which was itself explicitly based on the IPCC second assessment report, which was in turn based on a stabilisation target for the number of degrees of global warming. There cannot be inconsistency between those two targets. I do not see where the legal uncertainty he talks about arises.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Let me try to explain more slowly and more clearly. Clause 2(1) puts a duty on the Secretary of State

“to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 6 per cent. lower than the 1990 baseline.”

That is within his power, and if he fails to achieve that, he can be subjected to legal action. Future Governments, of whatever persuasion, will have to be accountable in that way. However, clause 1 puts a duty on the Secretary of State to do something—control the temperature—that is based on the actions of the rest of the world. That he cannot do.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The Minister is introducing inconsistency when there simply is none. Clause 1 does not oblige a Minister to do anything outside his power. It simply defines the aim, and the aim is precisely the same as that explicitly adopted by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution when it came up with a 60 per cent. target. There cannot be an inconsistency in aim.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The hon. Gentleman is missing the purpose of legislation. If, in 10 or 20 years, the rest of the world has not acted in accordance with the demands of the United Nations framework convention on climate change; if deforestation has not been stopped, as urged by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal; and if global temperatures have increased in such a way that it is not possible for the target in clause 1 to be met—

Martin Horwoodrose—

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Listen to the argument, please. In such circumstances, future Secretaries of State would be obliged by law to take actions and decisions to reach a temperature goal that they could not possibly reach. That would undermine the ability of the Government of the day to implement the requirement in clause 2 for a 60 per cent. reduction in emissions. Global temperatures are already at 0.7° C above pre-industrial revolution levels. If, in 10, 15 or 20 years, they are 2° C above, and the law requires the Secretary of State to act in a certain way that is thus not possible, what would the hon. Member for Cheltenham advise?

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The Minister is making the argument of somebody sitting in a sinking boat who stops baling out because the other people baling out do not seem to have made as much effort as he expected. Clearly, the whole purpose of the Bill is to contribute to a global effort and that is explicitly what the subsequent measures—including the 60 per cent. target on carbon emissions—are designed to achieve. That was what the Minister said, based on the Royal Commission on Environmental Protection and, through that, on the IPCC.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the purpose of the Bill. One of its purposes is to commit us to that contribution, but its other purpose is to make it law that the Government of the day have to act towards a target.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:

Amendment No. 44, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out ‘the level necessary to contribute to’ and insert

‘a proportionate share of total global emissions of greenhouse gases compatible with’.

Amendment No. 32, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end add—

‘(3) The target for the UK contribution to limiting global average temperatures shall be calculated with reference to—

(a) historic levels of emissions of greenhouse gases by the UK;

(b) projected levels of emissions growth among other countries; and

(c) such other factors as the Secretary of State considers relevant.

(4) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament within one year of the coming into force of this Act a report setting out the basis on which the target for the UK contribution has been calculated.’.

Clause stand part.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I was in mid-stream, having just returned from a 48-hour conference session in Korea, debating with the G8 and G5, and attempting to convince them of the virtues of our policy on a 2° C cap and the mid-term goals to achieve that, only to arrive back in our country to face criticism from the Opposition that I was not committed to that. The ironies of political life are great.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

How did the Minister get on?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The significant breakthrough at the weekend was that the G5 countries tacitly accepted the need for a 50 per cent. cut by 2050. Some of the G8 countries were not happy with that, but as ever, the United Kingdom played a pivotal role. Mr. Cook, you are frowning, so I shall move on.

I was attempting to persuade the Committee, with the greatest integrity, I think, that clause 2, the 50 per cent. obligation, provides the surety that the Committee seeks, through the limit of a 2° C increase in temperature on pre-industrial revolution figures. Therefore, clause 1 is not only unnecessary, but unworkable. The Committee is looking for assurances, so having reflected during the break, I shall answer the questions that were asked of me, and then put my argument.

The hon. Member for Northavon described his amendment as being “as ever” intended to be helpful. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden to make a note of that, so that we can come back to it. The hon. Member for Northavon, displaying terrific research, referred to the purpose clauses that were included in the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 and the Environment Act 1995. It is no coincidence, of course, that I was the Minister during the passage of the former, and the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal was the Secretary of State during the passage of the latter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Northavon on his research.

At the time of the Sustainable Communities Bill, I was advised that it was better not to include a purpose clause. When I asked whether it did any harm to the legislation or whether it was just repetitive, I was advised that it did no harm, so I took the bold decision as a Minister to accept one.

On the 1995 Act, I think the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal will back me up—it was his Bill—when I say that the purpose clause was for the Environment Agency. It was not specifically a purpose clause for the legislation. The hon. Member for Northavon will press me and say that the Government have accepted purpose clauses in other Bills. He makes a reasonable point, but I would say in defence that, where legislation places an obligation on the Government of the day to act in a certain way, such as in the fuel poverty legislation, it places that legal obligation for as long as the Act is in existence. In that sense, a purpose clause is beneficial to the judiciary in defining the Act.

That is my explanation why a purpose clause is not appropriate in the Bill. The crucial point is that clause 2 places a legal requirement not just on Ministers, but on civil servants, who can advise on policy decisions only within the law. Given that clause 2(1) is based on a 2° temperature limit at 2050, I urge Opposition Members to consider my intention. My argument is that clause 2(1) does exactly what it says on the tin, exactly what they want to do in clause 1, without the disadvantages of clause 1, which I am trying to explain.

Let me say clearly that the Government and I agree with the points made by hon. Members on both sides about the trajectory—about the mid-term. The point about 60, 80 or 100 per cent.—whatever the long-term target—is that it is not important, compared to the mid-term target. Greenhouse gases accumulate in the air. How one gets to the target is more important than the target itself. With just a long-term target of 60, 80 or 100 per cent. reduction, one could increase emissions for the next period, through to 2049, then decrease them in the last year.

That would be analogous to my saying that I intend to give up alcohol by Christmas day. I will drink a bottle of wine each day until 24 December, but on Christmas day I pledge not to have a drink. I will have reached my target of no alcohol on Christmas day, but I would probably have killed myself by then. Seriously, there is an analogy with greenhouse gases. What matters is not just the target, but what we say in the United Nations talks below the curve. What is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions below the curve? That is why, on clause 6, amendment No. 31, tabled by the hon. Member for Northavon, is important. It is about the mid-term target.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Northavon about historic greenhouse gas emissions. The firm policy of the United Kingdom is to accept the responsibility that comes with that. I repeat that in this important Public Bill Committee. We accept that we are one of the countries with that historical moral responsibility. There is no question about that.

I also accept the hon. Gentleman’s point about the progress of developing countries in increasing their prosperity. It would not be tenable politically, economically or morally to say that developing countries cannot develop because we have discovered that greenhouse gases are damaging. My argument is that, in the long term, developing countries will increase prosperity through a low-carbon economy, which is in our mutual interest. It follows that the amount of overseas offsetting of carbon emissions must take into account not only the benefits that accrue to our country, but the benefits that can accrue to developing countries. However, we will come to that debate on other clauses and amendments.

The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal placed me in a difficult position. He has enormous experience. When I saw his name on the Committee, I admit that I worried. Not only does the right hon. Gentleman have great experience—he had more experience in Cabinet than virtually anyone else—but he is an environmentalist. Therefore, the charge he makes against the Government has to be taken very seriously indeed. He said that we cannot adopt an “After you, Claude” policy, and he is right—we cannot do that.

Of course, we are ahead of other countries, and the Bill, particularly clause 2, underlines that. Basing our target for a reduction in carbon emissions on the premise of a 2o increase and making that obligatory on the Secretary of State—which means the Government—further enhances the policy in legislation and means that we are not in an “After you, Claude” situation.

I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point that not accepting clause 1 puts me into that category. I can see that, presentationally, it will do so, and I have to find an answer to that, but I hope he accepts that the United Kingdom is not in an “After you, Claude” scenario.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I totally accept that the Minister and the Government have produced a Bill that is designed to put us ahead of other countries, not behind them. There is no question about that. However, there is a difficulty if we start by removing from the Bill something that people see as adding to it, even though the Minister explained that there are those who believe that it involves a legal obligation. I still find that difficult to accept. I do not believe it to be the case, but that is the advice that he was given. I am not a lawyer and I do not want to be one.

The Minister said that there is nothing of substance in the clause to which the Government do not accede. What is wrong is the legality of the way it is expressed. In those circumstances, would it not be reasonable to ask him for an undertaking that he will genuinely—I know that he will do it genuinely—look at whether there is a way of putting into the Bill, in some other form, somewhere, something that does what we all want done, without causing difficulty? We genuinely do not want disagreements between us on legal matters. Lawyers are the curse of the intellectual classes, and we should not allow them to destroy the proposal.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I hope that Labour Members support my saying that the right hon. Gentleman has just shown that his motive is not party political—I am grateful to him.

Before I go through the answers to the questions, with your permission, Mr. Cook, I would like to enter a cul-de-sac and read out the advice that I was given on a preamble, because it is worth reading:

“Preambles are a rarity in modern Acts of Parliament. We are not aware of any for many decades, although they were more common back in the 19th Century. I understand the desire of politicians to make clear statements of principle, but I must remind the Committee that Bills are about making laws”.

That is good advice. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has seen it before—he will have seen it during his 17 years in ministerial office—but I am teasing him. Let me return to the argument.

I emphasise that European Union policy, to which the UK is a signatory, does not put clause 1 into European law, although it is well known around the world that the EU is the strongest advocate of the 2° increase. It does not put it into law for the same reason that I have advocated that we should not put it into law. That does not deny the objective of capping at 2°, but it does deny that clause 1 is the best way to do it.

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

Is not the underlying problem that the European Union objective of 2°, strongly stated by all leaders, has been around since 1996? I believe that that was when it was first adopted. The problem is that we are not making any progress towards it, yet each year it costs us a great deal. Is not the underlying problem the lack of political accountability for the goal? It is easy to talk about it, but there is no accountability on delivering it.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I do not accept that point entirely. The EU is well placed internationally, because a number of EU countries, including the UK, are on course to meet the Kyoto targets. Indeed, it is interesting that in the international debate the objection to 2° C is sometimes that some European countries are on course to do better in their contribution. The EU policy is a 20 per cent. reduction in the medium term. A 30 per cent. reduction is on offer to the international community, if we can achieve an international agreement premised on 50 per cent. by 2050, which is the 2° C target we are talking about. As one of the few countries within the EU—bearing in mind that we have one of the biggest economies and are therefore one of the biggest emitters—the UK is committed to the point that hon. Members from both sides have urged the Government to put in the Bill.

The right hon. Gentleman has teased me about resisting “better not” advice. He is right, and I am a signatory to that policy. However, the statutory obligation that clause 2 puts upon the Secretary of State, the Government and future Governments meets his point. My problem with clause 1 is not the principle, the goal or the 2° C target, to which we in the international community are wedded night and day, but that it could jeopardise what the Committee seeks to do.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the London Eye, a comment which is, of course, within our remit because the south bank is part of the defence against floods, and is therefore part of adaptation to climate change. I understand that it is also British Airways’ only profitable cost centre.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I want to bring the Minister back to a possible way through. He has said that there is nothing here with which he disagrees in principle, but I commend to him a discussion that I had with lawyers in the Department of the Environment when I arrived there. I brought them in and said that while I was Secretary of State I did not expect them to find reasons why I could not do what I wanted to do; their job was to find out how I could do what I wanted to do, but do it legally. Will he undertake to ask the lawyers, “In this Bill, how can I express it so that in removing clause 1 I do not give any quarter to those who would suggest that I am in some way undermining the Bill?”? If he were prepared to do so, I for one would be happy to support him, because I know he would do it honestly, and the Committee would be perfectly happy with that—even those who do not feel too unhappy about leaving out clause 1.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The right hon. Gentleman has made a fair point. My considerations are partly domestic, in that I need to show the Opposition, Labour Members and other interests that the Government’s opposition to clause 1 is not in any way based on an opposition to its objective. As the right hon. Members for Suffolk, Coastal and for Penrith and The Border know, it is very important that as our deliberations are followed in the international forum we do not signal a lack of commitment to that objective. I will come on to what I intend to do about that in a moment.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The Minister has said that the Government are committed to not more than 2° C above pre-industrial levels. What benchmark are they going to use to ensure that they and the rest of Europe do not go above it? That is the purpose of clause 1—we are not at cross purposes; we are all on the same side. The Minister is trying to make out that the two targets are mutually exclusive, but I believe that they are not.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The answer is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North made: the Government’s target concerns carbon emissions in the UK, which is commensurate with our contribution to an international effort to cap at 2° C—or to hope to cap at 2° C. There is agreement about that, but my point is that it is within the power of the Secretary of State—I should say “Secretaries of State”, collectively, because that is the legal meaning of “Secretary of State”—to do what, within our carbon account, we have the power to do. My only difficulty with clause 1, as I have said three times, concerns subsection (2), which states:

“The functions under this Act must be exercised with the objective of achieving the principal aim of this Act.”

I am trying to avoid a problem for a future Government not for the existing Government, as I hope I have explained. If I can finish my argument, I shall be able to satisfy the hon. Lady.

Michael Weir (Scottish National Party, Angus)

Will the Minister indulge a slightly cynical lawyer? He has discussed the 60 per cent. reduction target being sufficient, but clause 3 gives Ministers the power to amend it up or down. It may be amended upwards, but it could be amended downwards, and the impact assessment mentions changes, such as significant increases

“in the price of gas on international markets, or the pace of development in a new technology”,

so there are ways in which Ministers will be able amend the target. Is there not an argument for maintaining clause 1 because it provides for the principal aim of the 2° C reduction, irrespective of what happens to the target?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on an ingenious argument, but the answer is the same—in my view, it would be folly for the British legislature to pretend that it can legislate on something that it cannot control. That is my simple point. The proponents of the clause say that the Bill does not do that, but the advice that I have received indicates that it does. I cannot envisage circumstances in which the emissions target would be reduced, but the point of clause 2 is to set the carbon budgets to provide a target and trajectories, which we will come on to.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham asked about the contraction and convergence policy. I was interested to note that the hon. Member for Vale of York, on behalf of the Opposition, accepted it as their policy. In Delhi and Beijing, they will be very interested to read that. To be fair, there is a different interpretation of contraction and convergence. It is normally taken to mean the coming together of per capita emissions, and in Delhi the Prime Minister made it clear that in international negotiations, the Government would be open to arguments that lead to such a policy. However, it would be pre-emptive to accept it now. The hon. Member for Cheltenham is right in the sense that we accept the historical responsibility of industrialised countries such as our own. The hon. Gentleman also discussed the cumulative impact, on which he was absolutely right. It is important that we understand and explain to the public that the most important factor is not the end target but the trajectory to get there. He also asked about the amendments on carrier bags, and they will be available tomorrow. I am sorry that they will not have been available before.

I am trying to draw my arguments to a conclusion, because time is running on and my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden is frowning at me. The simple point is that there is a difference between UK emissions being the responsibility of the United Kingdom and the temperature in the UK being the responsibility of not just the United Kingdom. That is the main point.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I will try not to labour the point yet again but the action mandated in clause 1 is still a reduction in UK emissions, and not in global temperatures, which would clearly be implausible. Will the Minister not take up the invitation of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal and return to the lawyers to see whether there is a way through this problem, especially as we seem to be more or less united in what we are trying to express? In particular, we should consider whether the principle of convergence should be reflected in clause 1, because that seems to be a get-out in the sense that we can only converge if other people are doing likewise, which means that we would not be unilaterally bound to international targets.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Given the stage that we are at, and in answer to the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, I undertake—I have already started—to find a way to achieve what we all want to achieve, which is to make the 2° target our target.

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

On that point, I wonder whether the Minister and his advisers will turn to clause 33 and the Committee on Climate Change for a possible way in which to make the link with 2°, the importance of which everyone agrees on. The Committee will be required to advise the Government on the adequacy of the target in December. I do not know whether the terms of reference are public, but I assume that they will be. The Committee on Climate Change could be required to make some form of judgment on the compatibility of the target with the 2° goal, which could be made explicit in clause 33.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The hon. Gentleman has made a very interesting point. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test made the suggestion, which was backed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, that we could include the 2° in the long title of the Bill, but other hon. Members have urged another solution. My answer to the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal is that I undertake to try to find a way to meet the objective for reasons not only of domestic politics but of helping the UK’s standing in international negotiations. As I understand it, the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood has suggested placing a cap on the remit of the independent Committee on Climate Change.

Nick Hurd (Conservative, Ruislip - Northwood)

My understanding is that the Committee on Climate Change will be required to give some form of judgment or advice on the adequacy of the targets and the carbon budgets. All I am suggesting is that part of its terms of reference for that public advice should be a judgment on the compatibility of the target and the budget with the 2° goal.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am more than happy—the hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to understand that when I say that I mean it—to consider a way in which we can satisfy the demands of my hon. Friends and the Opposition to achieve the point about the 2°. I repeat my simple point that clause 2 enshrines 2° but does not express it. I know that people both domestically and internationally will be looking for that.

As ever, our policy is based on science. That is why I wish to achieve a satisfactory way forward. The hon. Member for Vale of York asked about the policy of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, but I do not accept her point. The Department has looked at how we can make the targets real, and I believe that we have shown good leadership on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, to whom I owe a great debt for my education in life and politics—he was my tutor in geography and other matters, and I have listened to him ever since—is absolutely right on this point and has made a very powerful argument.

Indeed, I was worried that my hon. Friend would not support my point of view, because if he had not supported it, he would have destroyed my arguments, so I was very grateful that he accepted my point. He said, and he is right, that we cannot legislate on the temperature. We can pass a law to control emissions, but we cannot pass a law to control the temperature—I wish that we could. He made the point that the Bill legally obliges the Government to act towards meeting a target on emissions that is commensurate with the 2° C policy that hon. Members have asked for.

My hon. Friend also pointed out that we could not pass a law that obliged us to protect polar bears, and he is right. Let me use an analogy—I see that the hon. Member for Cheltenham is scratching his head; I had to listen to him, so he has to listen to me now. We could pass a law that said that we must protect polar bears. However, it is possible that in the future the Governments of the United States of America, of Canada and of Russia could decide to kill polar bears, perhaps on the grounds of protecting other species or for another reason that we cannot predict. Because the Bill places a legal obligation on the Government and on future Governments to act in accordance with the target in clause 2, under any circumstances it would be illegal for the Government of the day not to act in protection of polar bears. Therefore, if the United States of America, Russia and Canada were to decide to cull all polar bears, the legal obligation on the Government of the day would be to declare war on Russia, Canada and the United States of America.

David Maclean (Conservative, Penrith and The Border)

Hear, hear.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The analogy is sound. The right hon. Gentleman teases me, and I know that my analogy is extreme, but I think that statutorily my point is valid.

Michael Weir (Scottish National Party, Angus)

rose—

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Scotland is about to join in the action.

Michael Weir (Scottish National Party, Angus)

Will the Minister accept that his analogy is not only extreme but wrong? The obligation would be to look after the interests of polar bears within the UK, in other words within zoos and breeding programmes, and not in the wild, just as this obligation to look after 2° C relates to the UK and not the world.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

That is my point. Clearly, we could not do so. I will stop the analogy there, Mr. Cook, because you are getting fed up. However, my point is that the implication of clause 1, which is unintended but nevertheless real, is that it would do exactly what I said it would do.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

The Minister has said that he does not believe that the Government can legislate against temperature rising. However, this experiment with laptops in Committee might contribute to rising temperature, and the Government could change people’s behaviour by legislating to stop such experiments, if we were to reach that conclusion. So there are mechanisms that the Government can use to achieve the Minister’s aim of a temperature rise no higher than 2° C, and I am not convinced by the Minister’s argument.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I will not be drawn into laptops, Mr. Cook, because you will not let me. I have been advised that the total carbon footprint of UK personal computers is greater than the total UK carbon footprint of aviation—I just note that for a later debate.

Let me put on the record an argument based on an understanding of the law and what clause 1 is trying to do. I urge hon. Members to look at clause 1(2), which concerns “functions under this Act”:

“The functions under this Act must be exercised with the objective of achieving the principal aim of this Act.”

That aim is expressed in clause 1(1). That means in law that all functions of the Act must be subservient to that principal purpose. For instance, because of part 5 of the Bill, a local authority would need to consider the impact on global temperatures when deciding to introduce a waste scheme.

More importantly, let me look at the role of the Secretary of State and their decisions on carbon budgets. Under part 5 of the Bill, in 2016 the Secretary of State will need to set the carbon budget for 2028 to 2032. Let us suppose that in eight years’ time, between now and 2016, the UK has made good progress in reducing our emissions by setting and meeting ambitious carbon budgets. However, suppose that over the same eight years emissions in the rest of the world have increased significantly. Let us suppose for the sake of argument—I believe that this is a realistic assessment—that the science has got more pessimistic, which my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test has referred to. In such a situation, because of the point eloquently made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal that this is an epoch-making piece of legislation that sets a new paradigm, we would be responsible for the future. Even with the addition of the amendments, which were tabled with the good intent of trying to meet some of the points, clause 1 would still require us to set that 2028 to 2032 carbon budget with the aim of achieving a 2° C cap, because—this is the crucial point—it is an ongoing duty.

That duty must be met every time a function is exercised under the Bill, no matter what the rest of the world has done, which is a fundamental point. Either one has a target for the Bill that is within one’s control—an emissions reduction based on a 2° C objective—or one has a target that is dependent on others in the world and on science.

I hope that I have convinced the Committee that clause 1 is an intention that we wholeheartedly support—indeed, the UK’s investment in the international community and the European Union is based on it. The European Union itself has a policy based on that, but not a policy that is enshrined in EU law for the same reasons.

I accept the invitation from hon. Members to find a way to enshrine 2° C within the Bill, if I can. Suggestions have been made, and I am grateful for the positive way in which they have been put. My argument is that clause 1, as Lord Rooker said in the other place, would serve to undermine that intent in practice, because it would create difficulty for future Governments—I am talking about some time in the future—in meeting the exact point that people are trying to reach.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I welcome what the Minister is saying, if that is an olive branch that he is holding out. That is a very sensible way forward. I am mindful of the precedents for a purpose clause in the Legal Aid Act 1988 and the Family Law Act 1996. Even though I have not been in Parliament for nearly as long as other Committee members, I have enough experience in Committee to know that blandishments offered in the spirit of consensus somehow melt like spring snow by the time we get to Report or Third Reading. I press the Minister to be more specific on how he anticipates solving the problem, which we have been wrestling with all day.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

The hon. Gentleman has asked a fair question. I reject the implication that Ministers make statements in Public Bill Committee that are not followed through—it may be that the Opposition fail to push such issues in the future months and years—and I am not aware that I have ever done that. In any event, the Third Reading and Report stages of this Bill will be scrutinised, I suspect, over and above other Bills passed in this place.

The advice that I have received states that there are potential problems in incorporating 2° C in the long title, but it is one suggestion that I am going to take away and look at. Another suggestion is that we have a preamble. I have to tell the Committee that David Renton MP looked at the question of preambles in his influential report on legislation in 1975, so I am not coming up with this off the top of my head and there are precedents. The bottom line is that as much as politicians like to put manifesto commitments and so on in Bills, we make law in Committee. Although I do not rule out the first two suggestions, other suggestions have been made. It is clearly in the interest of the Bill that we find a way of stating clearly that a limit at 2° C is our objective. I just remind the Committee that not everybody in the world is content with that and that there are those who say that that goes too far.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The Minister has mentioned the preamble and the long title, but he has made no reference to the precedent of a purpose clause, as I mentioned with reference to the Legal Aid Act 1988 and the Family Law Act 1996. Is he therefore ruling out the possibility of returning with a reworded, reworked purpose clause?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

There are always such arguments in Standing Committee. I remember the then Member for Kensington and Chelsea, Michael Portillo, a former Transport Minister with many years’ experience, being appointed to the Transport Bill Committee and pointing out, rather like the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal did, that where civil servants say “better not”, one should be brave and stand up to it. The important point is that the preamble to a Bill must not diminish its legislative coherence.

Martin Horwoodrose—

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am going to satisfy the hon. Gentleman, so he does not need to intervene. If I can find a way of meeting the objective without damaging the coherence of the Bill in its legal terms, of course I will do so.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

Given that his argument is that it is impossible in British legislation to have even the aim of contributing to objectives that are influenced by events outside this country, may I refer him, using my trusty computer—a welcome innovation, in my view—to the International Development Act 2002, which includes statutory duties in part 1, section 9 to carry out agreements for

“improving the welfare of the population of”

countries outside the UK.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I am beginning to wonder why we ever set up the Modernisation Committee, because what has happened is what you warned against, Mr Cook.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

Not yet.

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

I do not think the hon. Member for Cheltenham has made a fair comparison—his example relates to what this country does to influence another country. What I am arguing here is that it is irresponsible to legislate on things over which one does not have control.

I have given a commitment to the Committee, and I must draw my remarks to a close. Amendments Nos. 33, 43 and 44 would not add to the Bill, and I believe, as my right hon. Friend Lord Rooker argued in the other place, that they would create problems.

Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Vale of York)

I want to help the Minister, because I want us to coalesce around a form of words and a way forward. The long title of a Bill has legal status and is legally binding, although that is possibly not the case with the preamble. Is he therefore minded to change the long title rather than the preamble?

Phil Woolas (Labour, Oldham East and Saddleworth)

A long title of a Bill is a descriptive title as to what the Bill is. It is not there to set out the Bill’s purpose, but I am happy to investigate whether we could do that. One could argue that limiting global temperature increases to 2° is, in common-sense terms, the purpose of the Bill. Common sense is not a bad policy, so I shall continue to consider that.

The arguments of my hon. Friends the Members for Bury, North, for Southampton, Test and for Regent’s Park and Kensington, North, are very powerful, and none of us wants to do something that would jeopardise the UK’s ability to implement the Bill. My advice is that clause 1, even if it were amended—I accept the intention behind the amendments—would do that, and I therefore urge the Committee to reject it.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I shall not detain the Committee long. We listened carefully to the Minister and we do not accept that there cannot be a principal aim or a purpose clause in the Bill. We think there is room for that, but we are open-minded about working with the Government to improve the clause further and ensure that it complies with the best legal advice. If there is another way in which the intention in the principal aim can be incorporated, in a preamble or otherwise, we shall consider it constructively. We therefore do not intend to obstruct the Minister.

We shall work constructively with the Government, but we will hold them to their word. They must return with a workable solution that does not water down the intention behind the principal aim. If they cannot, we shall bring forward our own solution on Report. I hope that we will be able to work with the Minister to achieve broad consensus.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

All that talk about bears has been slightly polarising, so I shall try to identify common ground. [Interruption.] Perhaps I should stop there. I think I have lost them.

On a serious note, there is far more agreement in the Committee than one might have imagined from listening to the debate for the past three or four hours. In logical sequence, we accept that there is scientific evidence that there is a global figure for emissions consistent with a 2° change; we accept that the UK needs to play its part; and we accept, as the Minister has confirmed that the Government accept, that the UK’s part needs to be more than the global average because of our history, as amendment No. 32 states, and because of the desire for other economies to grow. The debate is therefore about whether the clause helps to establish how we can move from a global to a national figure.

The debate has been constructive. I shall not go through the contributions, but we have benefited hugely from those of two former senior Ministers. I have not heard the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood speak on the subject before, but he made a well informed and well considered contribution. The hon. Members for Bury, North, and for Southampton, Test, raised the matter of whether there is a better way to meet our goal than is provided for in the clause. We appreciate the Minister’s willingness to consider that, whether through the long title of the Bill or another mechanism.

We would like to keep the clause, in case the Minister makes a lot of promises and, shall we say, does not have time to fulfil all of them. However, if there is a better way to achieve what is largely a common goal, we will be happy to work with him to that end. We shall not divide the Committee on the amendments, but we will do so on clause stand part. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 2

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

I beg to move amendment No. 2, in clause 2, page 2, line 4, leave out ‘60%’ and insert ‘80%’.

The amendment is straightforward and short, but that does not necessarily mean that the debate will be short. I thought it was the shortest amendment on the amendment paper, until I discovered that amendment No. 52 to clause 16 reads:

“leave out ‘1%’ and insert ‘0.5%’.”

That amendment is one digit shorter.

Frank Cook (Labour, Stockton North)

We must concentrate on amendment No. 2.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

Of course. The history of the amendment—the debate about 60 per cent. and 80 per cent.—has been well rehearsed. It has been well argued in the Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, and I imagine that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has also debated the matter at length. It was debated at enormous length in the Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill this time last year, and of course, it was given consideration in another place, so we do not need to go over the arguments in great detail. It is also not necessary to reinforce the urgent need for action and, in the context of the amendment, more stringent action on climate change, because of the damage that it is causing and is increasingly likely to cause. We are all familiar with those effects and predictions.

It is important, first, that as my hon. Friend the Minister said, the Government’s decision and the Bill reflect the scientific evidence, and secondly, that it has credibility. I shall come to the different kinds of credibility, if necessary, in due course.

In the debate on the previous clause, the Minister expressed concern that I would undermine his arguments. I am delighted that he was relieved that I did not. I want to reassure him that I do not intend to undermine his arguments in defence of the wording in the Bill. I want to strengthen the case that will underline some of his arguments and may get him to reconsider them, if not today, then before the Bill comes back on Report.

When the Government first expressed their intention to establish a 2050 target, it was framed in terms of 60 per cent.—the wording in the Bill is “at least 60%”—owing to the landmark 2000 report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. That report concentrated the minds of many policy experts and the Government, and helped to generate a wider debate on climate change. The important thing is that the report based its judgment on the scientific evidence presented in the second assessment report by the intergovernmental panel on climate change, which was published in 1995. We are now in 2008 and the scientific basis for the figure adopted by the Government is therefore 13 years old. It is time that we reviewed the state of the scientific evidence.

Two years ago, the intergovernmental panel on climate change published its fourth assessment report, in which it made it much clearer that the evidence base had changed and that the likely reduction in emissions needed to remain within the 2° had increased. To be precise, the report stated clearly that if annexe 1 countries wish to keep to the guideline carbon concentration of 400 ppm by volume, we need to aim for cuts in the range of 25 to 40 per cent. by 2020, and 80 to 90 per cent. by 2050. Even if we keep to those guidelines, there is no guarantee that the temperature increase will remain below 2°. However, they represent our best chance.

If the scientific evidence undermines the Bill’s content, we need to base our judgment on the fourth assessment report. The Government recognised that to some extent by replacing their original formulation of a 60 per cent. reduction by 2050 with a reduction of “at least” 60 per cent. That provides a certain flexibility, but of course it could include 61, 62, or 60.003 per cent., and according to the fourth report that would not be enough.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

As I understand it, the Government’s position is slightly broader than that. Essentially, they are telling the Committee that the decision cannot be taken by MPs, but by the Committee on Climate Change. On Second Reading, the Minister was asked twice whether the Government would accept and implement the Committee’s recommendations. I was concerned, because on both occasions he replied no. Even if the Committee comes up with a recommendation of 80 per cent. or more, we have no guarantee that Ministers will accept it, unless we get a clear undertaking. Surely that raises another issue of credibility.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

That is an important point, but the Bill provides opportunities elsewhere to debate the role and significance of the Committee on Climate Change’s advice. I know that that was discussed in another place.

If we are to have credibility, we must stick with the Government’s position, which is that the final judgment on the 2050 target should be based on the most up-to-date scientific evidence. I need to say at this stage—I think I said it on Second Reading, and perhaps this morning, as well—that we have to avoid the assumption that the science is precise. We have to avoid the danger of getting hung up on an absolutely precise percentage, because the world is not like that; the knowledge that we have is not yet sufficiently advanced and may never be so. We are always going to be looking at figures within a range. To set a minimum, when we know that the latest evidence clearly indicates that we need to go significantly beyond that minimum, is the very least we can do. I also do not accept that, if the Climate Change Committee came up with a specific percentage or if a fifth assessment report from the IPCC suggested another percentage of 82 per cent. or 85 per cent., that should be the only factor, because those figures are not absolutely precise; it is not possible to predict what circumstances will be in 2050.

Simply because of the competing interests in any large, industrialised democracy, how the issue can best be managed has to be a matter of political judgment. In one sense, that answers the intervention from the hon. Member for Banbury. It is important that the voice of those who are generating wealth in our economy are listened to. It is important that consumers are listened to and the impact on their standard of living and way of life is reflected. It is crucial that the survival of the planet is at the centre of our considerations. However, it is also important that we listen carefully to those who have the skills and the knowledge to develop the new low-carbon technologies that are going to get us out of this deep problem.

There has to be credibility. There has to be a balance of credibility within those four different competing interest groups, but there also has to be credibility at international level. Again, I shall try to reflect the essence of the argument put by the Opposition on clause 1. If the Government are going to retain international credibility, it would be a contradiction if, having established such a lead internationally and having been the first country in the world to introduce a Climate Change Bill with binding targets, one of those key targets fell well short of what was proposed by the latest scientific evidence. In order to maintain credibility domestically, and internationally, it is crucial that we stick with the science.

Of course, it is not just the IPCC report; the United Nations Development Programme has also been very clear that an 80 per cent. reduction by 2050 from annexe 1 countries is necessary. In addition, on 21 January this year, the Government received a letter from the chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and, I think, two former chairmen. It may be as well for me to read it into the record again just to reinforce its importance. The letter was addressed to party leaders from the former chairman, the former chief executive of the Met Office and the past president of the British Ecological Society and former chairman of the RCEP. The letter said very clearly that the

“UK Climate Change Bill targets are based on out-of-date science. In tackling the global challenge of climate change, governments must follow the latest science that clearly shows the need for the UK to reduce its C02 emissions by at least 80 per cent. by 2050. This will require much more substantial action by 2020 than the Government is currently considering. The UK Climate Change Bill proposes a reduction in C02 emissions of at least 60 per cent. by 2050. This target is based on a report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) from 2000. Since this time, developments in climate change science show that this target is insufficient to avoid the worst impacts of climate change for people, species and habitats.”

I want to argue the case for an increase in the target at this stage from at least 60 per cent. to at least 80 per cent. I also want to deal with some of the objections that the Government have raised when this point has been made previously.

It has been said, rightly, that the target in 2050 is not necessarily the determining factor in whether we avoid a rise in temperature of more than 2° C. The interim targets for 2020 are equally if not more important. The Minister said earlier that it would be possible significantly to increase the stringency of the targets by 2020 and suddenly to decrease the targets in 2050—highlighting the point that 2050 was perhaps a little bit arbitrary. In theory that is so, but in reality that would not happen. We need two sets of targets—interim and longer term—and if the interim target is sufficiently stringent, the technologies deployed to achieve that target will continue to generate emissions reductions as we move to 2050. I recognise that 2020 is crucial. In fact, the IPCC fourth assessment report argued clearly that, in the advanced countries, CO2 emissions need to peak by 2015 and then start on a downward trajectory, so there is no dispute about the urgency of the situation. Of course, that message was reinforced by the Stern report.

The Government have said that the at least 60 per cent. reductions formula is not necessarily the definitive one, because the Climate Change Committee is charged with the task of reviewing the existing science, considering the first carbon budgets and reporting by 1 December. That is true, but, returning to the question of credibility, it would seem contradictory if the Bill completed its progress through the House—perhaps not before the recess; it will probably come back in October on Report and Third Reading—with a target of at least 60 per cent. and the Climate Change Committee published its review four or six weeks later, suggesting a target of at least 70 per cent. or 75 per cent. It would be uniquely embarrassing if the target figure on which the Bill was based were immediately made obsolete by the Climate Change Committee’s report on 1 December.

The power to amend the targets cuts both ways. If the Climate Change Committee came up with a higher figure, it would be easy to amend the existing formula of at least 60 per cent., but if a formula of at least 80 per cent. was included in the Bill now and the Climate Change Committee on recommended a 70 per cent. target, it would be possible to amend the Bill downwards to mention 70 per cent. It is unlikely that the powers proposed under the Bill as it stands would enable us to do that.

A point of crucial significance has not yet received the debate it deserves—not in the Joint Committee on the draft Climate Change Bill last year, in the other place, or on Second Reading in this place. Let me quote briefly from the Prime Minister’s statement to the House yesterday, reporting from the European Council meeting in Brussels over the weekend, in which he reminded us that,

“This time last year the price of oil was about $65 a barrel. At the last European Council in March it stood at $107. At the June Council, the oil price had risen further still to more than $135 a barrel.”—[Official Report, 23 June 2008; Vol. 478, c. 23.]

The conclusion that we can draw from the relentless rise in the oil price in the past 12 months is that that may achieve as much if not more than any targets that any Government set, because the price of oil will drive a fundamental change in our use of fossil fuels, our lifestyles and our technologies.

Michael Weir (Scottish National Party, Angus)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the reference to the carbon budgets in the final impact assessment, where it specifically mentions rising oil and gas prices as a way that the Government can lengthen the time frame for meeting the reduction target, whether it is 60 per cent. or 80 per cent.?

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

The short answer is no, because I have not yet looked at the final impact assessment, but the hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. The argument here is the same one that has previously been deployed against the diminishing group of professional climate change deniers. Even if one does not accept the science of climate change, which a majority of the world’s scientists do accept, it makes good sense to increase our fuel efficiency in order to conserve what everybody understands is a finite resource.

Even though the Government may have difficulty at this stage in accepting the figure of at least 80 per cent., and even though I know that they genuinely want to see the report of the Climate Change Committee, it makes good sense to adopt the most stringent targets for 2050 now, because nobody believes we are going to go back to the era of cheap oil. That fact is going to drive change of a sort that we have not seen for 150 years, since the beginning of the oil era and the end of the age of steam. The sooner the Government, the Opposition and we as a society start to understand and adjust to that, the less painful the transition will be. It makes good sense to adopt a higher target now for 2050 and, of course, for 2020—though that will be debated later—in order to preserve and conserve our finite supplies of fossil fuels.

The Minister’s defence is that the figure should be determined by an outside expert body, rather than plucked out of the air. I hope that he does not think I am plucking it out of the air, but that I have demonstrated that it is a conclusion drawn from the latest science. I would be completely persuaded by his defence—I see the value of that point of view—but it is slightly undermined by the fact that there is already a figure in the Bill. If the argument that we have to delegate the decision to an external body of experts is sound, there should be no figure in the Bill. If there is to be a figure in the Bill, it has to be based on the latest scientific evidence.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I pay tribute to the very knowledgeable speech made by the hon. Member for Bury, North, with whom I had the pleasure of serving for some years on the Environmental Audit Committee. I know he is a great expert on these issues. I find no fault with any of his analysis of the problem, nor do I doubt for a moment his sincerity in wanting to tackle it urgently. I share his ambition to get on and start doing, rather than just talking and providing a framework. However, I find that the tables have been turned rather strangely.

In the last debate, his colleagues did not argue against the principal objective of clause 1, but said instead that it was not consistent with the rest of the Bill. I am afraid that, in this case, that is my view and the view of the official Opposition, and I suspect it is also the view of the Government. We do not disagree with any of the hon. Gentleman’s analysis, but we believe it is not consistent with the spirit of the Bill, which, most importantly, establishes the independent Climate Change Committee.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

There is one very important difference between the view of the official Opposition and the one espoused by the Minister in the Chamber on Second Reading. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) will give me an undertaking that when in due course he becomes Secretary of State for the Environment, the Conservative Government will implement, and not ignore, the report of the Climate Change Committee.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

My hon. Friend has made an important distinction. We attach the highest importance to the full implementation of the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations. We have always stated our belief in the primacy of science over politics in the debate.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Will my hon. Friend not go even further than that? Surely the key feature of the Bill is that Governments will have to carry out the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee. That is the point of its independence. We would be happy for the Climate Change Committee to make recommendations to the Government and for the Government to accept them, rather than beginning a debate.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Indeed. The only thing that stands between the Climate Change Committee and its conclusions becoming law is the democratic seal of approval of its conclusions through the parliamentary process. As my right hon. Friend says, the intention is not to start a debate, to consider, to ruminate upon, to deliberate or to take other soundings. That is certainly not the intention or the modus operandi of the next Conservative Government.

That is why we have consistently argued for a strong, independent committee on Climate Change, which is empowered to make recommendations on the basis of science, not politics. That is why we successfully argued in the House of Lords for the independent committee to have the power to review the 2050 commitment, and report to the Secretary of State in advance when the first five-year carbon budget is set. That is why the official Opposition in this place have tabled further amendments to enhance Government accountability and transparency in their dealings with and heeding of the independent Committee.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal, I was disappointed to read at the weekend of the Ipsos MORI opinion poll in The Observer, which showed that there was considerable public reservation in the UK about taking action on climate change.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I am trying to follow the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s position. I understand the argument that the Bill should not contain a target. Through the Bill, we create a committee, the committee advises and politicians decide. But why have a target in the Bill at all? If we are to have one, why not have the right target?

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I shall come to that, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me. We should recognise that there is still widespread scepticism about the causes of climate change, and there is still a big education job to be done. One of the reasons for the reluctance shown in the opinion poll was the considerable public cynicism about the Government using the veneer of green objectives to impose further regulation or, particularly, further taxation. There is a good deal of public scepticism out there about the imposition of green taxes. We must be clear when we make the case.

In order to win back that trust, and to ask the British people to join together to meet the challenge of climate change, we must make it clear that we are being led not by the demands of some political lines in the sand, but by the demands of science. If we are to raise our 2050 reduction target from 60 to 80 per cent., we must be sure that we are taking people with us. There is a broad consensus around the 60 per cent. figure. I do not doubt for a moment that we will need to move much higher, and 80 per cent. is probably the right figure, but we cannot take it for granted that everyone will fall in behind us.

When that figure is raised to 80 per cent., we must be able to say that we are not underestimating the challenges and difficulties that that may impose. As alive as we are to the opportunities that a low-carbon economy will bring, we must be able to turn to the country at large and say why it is being called upon to make that additional effort. It is not because the Prime Minister wants to look greener than my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), or vice versa, or because we are trying to outdo the Lib Dems. It is because the clear, independent, scientific and expert opinion is for 80 per cent.—although I do not know why 80 per cent. should be such a magical number, rather than 79, 81, 85 or 90 per cent. It is because the scientific committee has come out with a clear recommendation that that is what we must do in our struggle to contain dangerous climate change. Public cynicism is our greatest enemy.

Michael Weir (Scottish National Party, Angus)

The hon. Gentleman said that in a future Conservative Administration, a Minister would accept a figure given by an independent committee. Would he also, therefore, do away with the power to amend the figure in clause 3?

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

No. I can hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal, who has experience in Government. That power needs to be held in reserve. However, I can give the clear assurance that the next Conservative Government have a huge ambition to lead the country into a low-carbon economy and make the fight against global climate change a No. 1 priority.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Surely my hon. Friend would agree that we need a mechanism in the Bill for the Government to accept the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee and to enact it. That is why the power is there. Without that, the Government could say, “Of course we will”, but they would have no mechanism for doing that. There ought to be no argument over that.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am grateful for that first-rate clarification.

In preparation for today’s discussion, I thought that it would be insightful to see how many climate scientists sit on the committee. To the best of my knowledge, there are none. I, for example, am not a climate scientist. I have a degree in history and politics. The Minister, able as he is, has a degree in philosophy, and the hon. Member for Northavon, I believe, read politics, philosophy and economics—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford has a science qualification. Later in the debate, our treat will no doubt be to hear what that is.

The serious point is that we politicians should not be the ones to decide on the 2050 target, having gone to such lengths to set up the groundbreaking, unprecedented and globally authoritative body that is the Climate Change Committee. It will include such international luminaries and authorities on climate change as Sir Brian Hoskins, from the Grantham institute at Imperial college, and Professor Lord Robert May, from Oxford university. Having brought together such a distinguished collection of experts, it is crucial that we respect their opinion. Our first act under the Bill ought not to undermine the very reason for which they were brought together or prejudge their most important decision. I therefore do not support the amendment, although I understand the motivation, impatience and ambition of the hon. Member for Northavon in tabling it.

I conclude by addressing some remarks to the Minister. Can he assure us that the Government will not ride roughshod over the evidence of the expert panel? On Second Reading there were those of us who detected a glimmer of hedging—just a hint.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

That was not a glimmer. The Minister spoke in plain terms. Would the Minister give an undertaking to accept the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee? In turn, the Minister said no. That is not a glimmer. That is a huge spotlight.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

My hon. Friend is spot on. I was trying to be consensual and not too partisan—most out of character for me—but he is right. That leads to obvious concerns. I can assure him that a future Conservative Administration would have no such reluctance or hesitation. That will reassure many people about the future.

This is not an ephemeral issue of the day. Politicians should not trump the primacy of science. There is an overarching necessity to respect it over politics. If we do not listen to the experts, if we undermine them before their first sitting, if we prejudge what they will say, if we inform them that we know better than they do, we will—

David Maclean (Conservative, Penrith and The Border)

I am sorry for interrupting my hon. Friend’s peroration. One can easily find sceptics who will debate the exact rise in global temperature, and people who will argue for years about what it may reach by 2050, but we know for certain, almost to the hectare, the millions of acres of world forests that are being destroyed and lost, never to be recovered. We know exactly the amount of diversity that is being lost, all of which has an immediate impact on climate change and world health. The World Health Organisation makes that clear. So, yes, the sceptics and scientists may argue, but there is already a huge body of fact.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

That is a sound point, but it does not detract from my party’s essential tenet. We believe that the Climate Change Committee is an important innovation—it is, perhaps, the most important tangible part of the Bill—and that all support should be given to it. Therefore, we urge the Government to allow it to produce its preliminary recommendation as soon as possible. I have no doubt that it will advise a significant raising of the target, but we believe that the target would have more impact, importance and authority if it were set by that committee rather than by politicians in this Committee.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

As the hon. Gentleman went on with his remarks, I became more and more concerned. He is trying to argue against the formulation of “at least 80%” by saying that it would be based on a political judgment, not on scientific evidence. My argument is that it is based on the latest evidence from the most authoritative international body of climate scientists. Why does he not accept it? Is it simply that he prefers a British committee to an international one? That is rather like the point earlier that the guillotine is not particularly British. A guillotine is a guillotine, regardless of the nation in which it is used. Why does the hon. Gentleman not accept the clear, overwhelming, substantial consensus that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expressed in its latest report, which was its fourth assessment report?

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, but, having brought the new committee into being, having invested it with such authority and having asked it to make important decisions, we should, on this most important of decisions, defer to it. That would involve only a matter of months and would not materially affect our ability to hit the long-term 2050 target. Allowing the committee to make the judgment call on what the target should be would, I hope, have a significant effect on public opinion and the authority and credibility of the target—far more so, I am afraid, than if the decision is made simply by politicians, on whatever basis we make our judgment.

I do not doubt the science that informs the hon. Gentleman’s argument. All I am saying is that to win the support of the public, whose good will we must win if we are to be successful in the battle against climate change, it is vital that the higher target, which will be stretching and incredibly ambitious, enjoys the utmost authority. We would invest it with greater authority if we were to allow the experts, not politicians in this Room, to come forward in the next few months with a recommendation.

Joan Walley (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North)

It is a great pleasure to serve on this Committee, to have the opportunity to influence what will be Government policy for many years to come, and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook. I am sure that you will keep us in order and ensure that we make the best possible contribution to the Bill today. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in favour of amendment No. 2 in a probing way. It was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North, who has served for many years on the Environmental Audit Committee, as has the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle.

I shall speak briefly, because it is important to give the Minister the best possible ammunition so that when he is dealing with civil servants, Governments and his Cabinet colleagues, he knows the strength of feeling among my hon. Friends who have signed the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths), who spoke in the Chamber earlier.

It is most important to get this right. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle said that it is important to leave the matter to the Committee on Climate Change and scientific evidence. My perspective is that our starting point should be the scientific evidence, which initially led to 60 per cent. and then to “at least” 60 per cent. as being so importantly the starting point for this Bill, and being put in the Bill.

If the Bill, when it has completed all its stages, is to be up to date with the latest science, it will not be about leaving it to the scientists, but about the marriage of politics and science, and ensuring that we have informed legislation that is fit for purpose and that will stand the test of time. We all know that time is running out for dealing with the matter, so it is all the more urgent to get the starting point right.

It seems to me that 60 per cent., or “at least” 60 per cent., is not enough. There may be worries that if we do not go further we will send the wrong message and dilute the Government’s credibility, which they deserve for having introduced such an innovative Bill. I wonder whether some of the opposition from the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, who speaks for the Conservative party, is on account of not wanting the Labour Government to have the credit for introducing the best possible Bill. He said that we should leave it to the scientists, but we already have that here.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

May I say on behalf of Opposition Members that we want the Government to get on as quickly as possible with all these measures? We are not in the business that the hon. Lady suggests. It is a tough enough time, and we are wholly supportive of the Government if they are prepared to do what they say. To suggest otherwise is not only untrue, but not in the Labour’s party political interest. Please will she not say that to the Committee?

Joan Walley (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent North)

I am heartened to hear that, and I take note of what the right hon. Gentleman says. He has a long-standing record on the environment.

My perspective is that we need the strongest possible targets in the Bill. The Stern report makes clear the difference between a 2o C temperature rise and an even higher rise. If we do not get our targets right at the start of the Bill, we could experience all sorts of unwanted consequences that we could have prevented simply by having the strongest possible targets at this stage.

Later this week, I shall chair a meeting on public health to consider the international threat of malaria and other public health issues. All such public health problems will be exacerbated if we do not set the right target.

My hon. Friend the Minister takes a close interest in the work of the Environmental Audit Committee. In the past couple of years, we have concentrated our work on the issue of climate change. In an earlier report, the Committee highlighted the incoherence of the 2° C aim and the 60 per cent. target. We feel that there is a real gap between the two.

For the record, may I remind the Committee of the previous recommendations of the Environmental Audit Committee? The majority of evidence that we considered suggested strongly that the 60 per cent. target was inadequate. The target was based on a recommendation made by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in 2000. The royal commission’s overarching aim in making the recommendation was that global warming should be limited to a rise of no more than 2° C, according to the science at the time. That was adjudged to require stabilisation of the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at 550 parts per million by mid-century.

All the evidence that we have received points to the fact that, on scientific evidence alone, we now know—in June 2008—irrespective of what the Committee on Climate Change may come up with later, that our starting point should be at least 80 per cent. rather than the more conservative 60 per cent that we have in front of us today.

In Victorian times, a colliery in my constituency was the first to produce more than 1 million tonnes of coal a year. We have a huge debt of honour to deal with that legacy of carbon that our industrialised nation has produced. We cannot waste any more time in starting off with 80 per cent. I know that the Minister cannot say to the Committee today that that is what he will now accept, but many of my colleagues genuinely believe that, in signing this amendment, they wish the Government to get the best possible credit for the best possible target.

With regard to business and the business community, it is important that we establish from the outset the certainty with which we expect industry to meet our objectives. The sooner that we have included in the Bill targets that are consistent with scientific knowledge but realistic enough for us to meet, the sooner we will be able to make progress towards getting to where we want to be. That will mean that all of us—not just us in the UK but over the planet as a whole—will not feel the worst effects of failure that were outlined in the Stern report. I ask that the Minister take into account the genuine desire and the responses that many of my colleagues have given to the non-governmental bodies that have fought so strongly on this campaign. We do not want to achieve the impossible, but we want to ensure that what we do is right. If at least 80 per cent. is right, we should be working towards that now.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

We have heard two well-informed, thoughtful and persuasive contributions. The debate has been unusual in that we have the hon. Members for Bury, North and for Stoke-on-Trent, North arguing against the Government’s position and the Conservative party supporting it. I slightly wonder which way I am leaning. It is striking that, printed on the amendment paper today, we have the names of more than 80 Labour Members who have endorsed the 80 per cent. cut.

As you will be well aware, Mr. Cook, the parliamentary arithmetic is such that, with 80 Labour Members, every single Liberal Democrat MP and all the nationalists, who I believe support the 80 per cent. target—I do not know what the Democratic Unionists think—that coalition alone, plus the Conservative Party, would guarantee 80 per cent., so the only thing that stands between this country having a scientifically up-to-date 80 per cent. target is the Conservative Party. That is a statement of fact. [Interruption.] I say that because the Government’s reluctance to endorse the 80 per cent. target would not matter if the Conservatives were to back it, because there are enough on their own side to carry it anyway. It is therefore the position of the Conservatives that is pivotal, so, in a moment, I want to focus on the logic, to the extent that there is any, of the arguments used by the Conservatives.

The starting point must be science and the 60 per cent. figure was not a political number but a scientific one. It is just an old scientific number and the people who came up with the old number now think that using the same sequence of logic that gave us a figure of 60 per cent. would now give us a figure of 80 per cent.

As the hon. Member for Angus points out, the Bill still gives the Government the power to vary the figure up or down, so the figure is not definitive but indicative. That is the point. There is a perfectly legitimate argument for saying, “Let’s not have a number in the Bill at all.” The Government could have introduced a Bill to create a committee that was given a remit and told to come back with a number that would then be considered, but that was not the avenue that the Government went down.

I refer again to the infamous long title of the Bill. The first handful of words are:

“A Bill to Set a target”.

Tempting though it is to argue that another strategy could have been adopted, given that the wording of the Bill starts with:

“A Bill to Set a target”,

we cannot fail to have a target.

The next question is, do we have what seems to us the right target, or a number that we all think is the wrong target? I find it incredible that the one person who has spoken for retaining the wrong number himself accepts that it is the wrong number. I fully accept that we do not know definitively that 80 per cent. is the right number, but the latest scientific evidence is that, indicatively, 80 per cent. is closer to the right number than 60 per cent.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I was not arguing against the number. All I was saying, with the greatest respect, is that the international experts on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would have rather more locus on public opinion than even the hon. Gentleman.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

Okay, we have started. However, what about 60 per cent.? We have all just accepted that 60 per cent. has an origin. The hon. Gentleman is backing 60 per cent., I suppose in small ‘c’ conservative fashion, because, like Everest, it is there. However, 60 per cent. had a logical basis and that logical basis now lends itself to a different number but he is not prepared to follow through the logic of how the 60 per cent. figure came about.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

Surely it is perfectly reasonable to say that the Government produced the Bill at a time when the 60 per cent. figure was sensible. When it became clear that there was a real reason for change—I am committed to 80-plus, I make no argument about that—the Government took two steps that seem perfectly reasonable. I am loth to fall out with the Government when I do not need to. There were two steps: one was to say “at least”, which made sure that we knew in which direction the target was going; the second was to turn to the committee of experts that the Government were setting up to say, “What should the figure be?” It seems to me that that is a perfectly reasonable way to proceed. One could go down a way that says, “We will put it up to 80”, but having asked the committee of experts to come up with a figure, to choose another one would be to undermine the committee itself. Therefore, although the hon. Gentleman can say that it is a pity that we do not all agree, it is not reasonable to say that those who take the view that the committee of experts should fix the figure are somehow unreasonable.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

The right hon. Gentleman makes a number of points, none of which I agree with, but I will address them in turn.

The right hon. Gentleman raises the issue of the standing of the committee of experts and that is clearly important. The first thing to say is that that committee has got a socking great amount of work to do. It is not just advising on the 80 per cent. Figure, but has a long list of things that it has to do and on which its opinions are vital. Aviation and shipping is one, but there are many others. It has got a huge programme of work on which its views will be taken incredibly seriously.

Even if we were not asking the committee to look at the 80 per cent.——in fact, we are still asking it to look at the 80 per cent., that is the important point—it would have a huge amount of work to do. I understand that it has a part-time chairman, which I find worrying, but we will come back to that point. The committee has a critical role to play, a very short time in which to do its work and I do not see anything in what we are saying that would undermine its standing. Everyone knows that it has a very important part to play, but we are still asking it to look at the question of having an 80 or 60 per cent. 2050 target.

Nobody is suggesting that we tell the committee that we have made its mind up for it. We are simply saying that when it is asked to think of a number, there will be a number in the Bill. The question is whether the number in the Bill should be our best guess, based on what we know, which is where the 60 per cent. came from. That is the only question on these amendments. The committee will still be asked for its advice, and so, for example, if it comes back with 83 or 77 per cent., I would expect the Government to take that seriously. There is nothing, in arguing for moving from 60 to 80 per cent. that undermines the standing, status or validity of the committee.

There is, however, a reason for putting 80 in the Bill——one of timing. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, who is no longer in his place, said, “It’s only a few weeks, what is a few weeks among friends? The Bill comes back in October, gets ping-ponged, Royal Assent in November, four weeks later, they say 80, Bob’s your uncle, we have got 80 per cent.” We have not though, because, as the hon. Member for Banbury says, the Government have not said they will accept 80—or anything—if the committee comes up with it. If the Minister were to tell us that if the committee says 80, the Government will accept it, that would take much the steam out of this, because it would then be a matter of weeks.

Quite honestly, and with no disrespect, when I intervened on the Minister on Second Reading, I expected a lot more wriggling and we did not get it. It was absolutely clear that the Government do not guarantee up front to commit to 80 per cent., even if that is what the committee says. A general election could be two years away. If we allow 60 to remain, even if the committee, which I respect, came up with 80, the Government are not bound to accept it, so 60 could run for another two years. We are talking about 2050, but the interim targets are also critical and losing two years is a huge risk. It matters enormously what number goes in the Bill. This is not a matter of weeks or of gestural whatever, but of fundamental importance.

The right hon. Gentleman said that the insertion of the words “at least” is progress. It would be progress if the Bill prohibited downward revisions, but as I read it, it does not. It can be “at least 60”, but the 60 can be changed to a lower number. As far as I can see, there is nothing to prevent the Government from changing it to “at least 50”, or “at least 40”. There is nothing in the “at least” that binds them to go upwards, so the words “at least”, rather as the words “better not”, do not reassure me at all.

Why is this so important? The latest evidence that DEFRA itself has been given is that to achieve the 450 ppm that is being talked about, 80 per cent. is not fine but actually the bottom end of the range. The range given by the Ecofis report to DEFRA in May 2007, just a year ago, is 80 to 95. There are many who think, and I am one of them, that 80 per cent. is not enough. I would love to be proved wrong on that, but my reading of the science is that 80 per cent. is probably not enough either. If we are going to have a number in the Bill, it needs to be our best estimate of the right number, especially as that number might hold for two years.

The key question is how do we convince the Conservative Opposition to back 80 per cent., since that is what it will take to get this number through. I am not sure whether feeling their pain and saying that we understand that it is all very difficult is the best way of doing it or whether it would better to slag them off and say “You say, vote blue and get green, but actually that is not so.” I would quite like to take any old Conservative Member outside for a quiet drink and get them to explain Conservative thinking to me. My working assumption is that the reason the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle does not support 80 is because his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), who speaks for the Conservatives on these matters, wrote to all his colleagues saying, “We think the Bill is tough enough. Do not worry, do not frighten the horses, do not frighten business. We will not beef it up.”

This is important, because we are talking about targets that will have to be implemented by Governments of all parties. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle said that he would take very seriously what the committee said, but I do not think he pledged himself to implement what it said. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal says that he did, but the hon. Gentleman is not in his place to confirm either way.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

The hon. Gentleman will see that my hon. Friend said that a future Conservative Government would accept the figure as proposed by the committee. The question is, will this Government accept it? The argument is not—could not—be that the Conservative party is in some way resiling from this. It is a question of whether one thinks it more likely to gain the support of the public if presented by a committee made up of experts or if presented by politicians who are not at the top of the tree of popularity at this moment.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

Again, the right hon. Gentleman makes a distinction that is not there. Even if we amend the Bill to say 80 per cent., that would not stop us asking the committee, as we should, for a number and taking very seriously what it says. He is creating a false antithesis between making the Bill as accurate as we can and asking the committee for advice. We can do both. There is no problem with doing both. That would be the point. I am happy to accept his assurance that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle said that the Conservatives would implement 80 per cent. I thought he said that they attach the highest importance to it. Perhaps that is my misunderstanding. I am very pleased to hear that they would do so.

To return to the evidence, we heard that the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution argued for 60 per cent. eight years ago but that the key figures on that commission, then and now, have argued that 80 per cent. is the up-to-date best figure. There are two avenues. There is an argument that says there should be no targets and we should let the committee do it, but the Government have chosen not to go down that route, so that avenue is closed. We have a Bill that sets a target. I cannot see why we should want to have a target that we all agreed was the wrong number. We ought to have our best estimate, recognising that we are politicians who read what scientists say, not scientists. Surely, we ought to take, for example, what the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution said, what advice to DEFRA said, what the IPCC has said. That is enough to be going on with to give us the right ballpark figure. Surely, we want the right one not the wrong one.

Linda Gilroy (Labour, Plymouth, Sutton)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Cook, and to have been selected to serve on the Committee.

It is already evident that everyone is motivated to make this Bill workable. I want to explain why I have not signed the early-day motion that this amendment reflects. As I understand it, there is a more stringent baseline target which is the subject of the amendment. It would demand more aggressive policies. These policies need a great deal more technical detail to know whether they are deliverable. The body of fact on science, which is important, is not yet matched by the body of technical detail necessary to ensure that the more stringent budget that this amendment seeks is achievable.

It is vital that we do not set ourselves up to fail in the early years in the first carbon budget cycle that is set. That would be the worst, most irresponsible thing that we could do and would undermine the credibility of the framework that this legislation seeks to set up. It would be very bad for the work that the Minister for the Environment will have to do in international negotiations to bring others around to using a similar framework.

It is for those reasons that I have not signed the early-day motion and stood firm in explaining that position to my constituents, some of whom are members of my climate change panel and many of whom are among the 1,600 students who study marine and environmental science at Plymouth University and the 450 marine scientists who are very knowledgeable about climate change and keep me on my toes in the position that I have been taking and will continue to take.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

That last speech led me to be very worrying indeed. If we are proposing that the targets we set should be affected by our ability to meet them rather than by the danger posed to the future of the world, we may as well pack up and go home. The target has to be set on the basis of what we need to do if we are to protect the climate for our children and grandchildren. There ought to be no argument in the Committee as far as that is concerned. We can argue about where to put the target and how to reach it, but the Committee must be united on the basis that the target is unconnected with our ability to deliver it, because it is forced on us by the effects of climate change. To say otherwise would be like saying we will fight a war when we know we have enough guns, but in the meantime, if we are overrun, we cannot fight the war.

Linda Gilroy (Labour, Plymouth, Sutton)

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to clarify my point. It was rooted in his earlier observation that the credibility of politicians is low, while the credibility of those on the Committee on Climate Change is much higher. The people who need to be persuaded to take action will therefore be much more likely to sign up to doing so if target setting can be accompanied by a delivery plan.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

That is all right as long as the hon. Lady agrees with me that the two things are separate and that we need to have an accredited body give us the figure at which we have to aim seriously—rather than aim with the thought that we might not get there—and which would deliver our real purpose. We already have such figures, and most of us think it will be something in the region of 90 per cent., though it might be more than that. Our real purpose, which we have had a long discussion about, and which we have agreed on, is to keep the temperature rise below 2° C. We recognise that the UK has to give more than its fair share, for all kinds of historic and moral reasons. The question is how we deliver that target. I am instinctively an enthusiast for getting down to it, pushing up the number and telling people exactly what we are going to do. That is the way I work.

I am very concerned, however, about the nature of this committee. If the Government had not done what they have done, I would have been wholly happy with putting in a new target. But they have put us in a very difficult position by saying that they think the committee ought to fix the target, showing that they recognise that the target is likely to require upward revision by putting these changes into the Bill, and giving the committee as its first task the need to review the target in the Bill.

The hon. Member for Northavon said clearly that, even if we were to agree with him, the Committee on Climate Change would still have to look at the target figures, so I do not think that any argument about the committee being very busy holds up. It will have to do that anyway. If I were chairing a committee of that sort, the very first thing I would want to do would be to review the terms under which we were working and see that we were on all fours. Otherwise, we might find that we were halfway through some serious discussion and discover fundamental flaws in the understanding of this very eminent committee as to where it started from and where it was aiming. I do not think we can avoid that discussion, and as we are all agreed that it is going to take place, we ought not to give the committee any more to do.

The problem for me is this: we know that the 60 per cent. figure is in the Bill because all those years back, when the Bill was first read, that was the most sensible figure to put in according to science. We could have given no figure at all. The hon. Member for Northavon is right about that. Most of us would have been unhappy with that, because it would have introduced a degree of vagueness. I would not have liked it much, but we could have done that. However, we did not.

The Bill has been discussed throughout with the figure of 60 per cent. in it. As the Minister said, it has gone through the full parliamentary procedure on that basis, and here we are now. The question is how we think the target should be revised in future, given that we all agree that revision upwards is necessary. We now have provision for a committee, which we did not two years ago when the Bill was first drafted. By some sleight of hand—I do not know what, and I shall not criticise it because I am very pleased about it—it appears that the chairman has already been selected, even though we have not got the Bill through yet. Nevertheless, that seems perfectly reasonable because we all agree that we want it.

We have the committee and it can get on with its job. As its first task, it could produce a clear figure for the target. There would be great advantages to that, and they were presented well by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle. Now that we have a committee, it is sensible for it to be the body that fixes the target. If we did not have a committee, we would have to do something else. In the past, because there was nobody else, politicians did their best. Now that we have a committee, I am happy with the Government’s proposal for it.

I am less happy—indeed, dismayed—that that there is not a natural, full part of that proposal that states, “When the committee that we have had the confidence to appoint decides what the target ought to be, we, the Government, guarantee that we will implement it.” That seems to me a clear distinction between the position that I hold and the Minister’s position. I want him to understand how serious the situation is. There are those who want to put the 80 per cent. target in the Bill, and many of us would normally be happy to do that. We are held back from feeling that way because the Government have instituted what could be a perfectly proper procedure that we would like to follow. This will be not be the only time when the figures need to be revised. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton, is right that we should have a system that people recognise as a proper one for such revisions.

The hon. Member for Angus pointed out the problem that, if the Government are to be able to make changes as we go along, it is conceivable, although unlikely, that they could make changes downwards, against the science. The best protection against that—on this point I disagree strongly with the hon. Member for Northavon—is to have a very clear process whereby the Government ask the committee to set the target and then agree to make the order for a target change to take place.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I am sympathetic to the argument that the right hon. Gentleman, who is very experienced, is making. We have been arguing that the setting of the initial baseline target is not a simple scientific judgment but a moral and political matter, especially in the light of our voting to remove the broader 2° outcome target from the Bill. Surely it is vital that an appropriate and fair initial percentage reduction target is set by the Government, not the committee.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that point and I shall explain why, because there is an important distinction to be made. We have a real problem in this country understanding and supporting the battle against climate change. Those of us who believe that this is the most important physical threat to civilisation—I think that every Committee member does—are clear that, once we have taken that view, we are bound to do something about it, not just for scientific reasons and not even just for personal reasons and to save our families, but for moral reasons. If this threat exists, we have to do our bit to defend the future against it.

In setting targets, we are giving people the best indication of the scientific demand. The morality arises in respect of the need to take the measures that are necessary to meet that best indication. In other words, the figure has to be fixed on the best science that is available, because we have to be able to tell the doubters, who are not in any particular party. One of the most vociferous believers in what I shall call, for the sake of shortness, the Lawsonian thesis, is a Liberal Democrat.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

Give us his name and address.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I will not name that person, because it would embarrass both him and me.

The figures will have much more power if they are clearly the result of the scientific assessment of the situation. We are the people who will then say, “If that is what the science says, we as politicians will make it the political figure.” I hope that we, as moral politicians, believe that we have a moral imperative to ensure that the measures that will ensure that we meet those figures are passed and carried through and acted on by business and individuals. If the figure is to have the proper effect on the public as a whole, its establishment must be regarded as untainted, if I may use a biased word, either by politics or some moral order. The figures should be as scientifically clear as possible, although we are dealing with a complex science.

Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat, Northavon)

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s view that the Government should listen to and follow the expert committee, but he said that we are afraid that they may not do so. In the event that they do not listen, does he accept that the number in the Bill is our only insurance policy? He said himself that the number should be based on the latest science.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I am trying hard to create the best circumstances to ensure the success of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman tempts me to become cynical, but I will not be cynical because I have been impressed by the fact that the Government have moved further than I thought they would on a number of issues, although there are many things on which they have not done enough. I shall not talk about hydrofluorocarbons and a range of other things that I could list, because I know that almost every Labour Committee member agrees that those things should have been done. We draw a line under that. However, we accept that a range of things have been done, including this Bill.

The Committee has a duty to try to make this as good a Bill as possible and to enable the Government to give as much as they can to it. I have done the job that the Minister is doing, in effect, and I know that it is not always easy to win even one’s immediate friends over on some of the essential issues. I accept the Minister’s argument, which is that the Government have already shown that they have tailored the Bill to use the committee to proper extent and that they are asking it to set a new target and to indicate that a new target is likely to be necessary. The one thing that remains is an assurance that, when that is done, the Government will accept that target.

David Chaytor (Labour, Bury North)

Is not the difficulty with the right hon. Gentleman’s argument simply that he puts enormous emphasis on the importance of following the most expert scientific advice but that the most expert scientific advice actually comes from the IPCC? The Committee on Climate Change is not made up entirely of scientists. In fact, as his colleague pointed out, the chairman is a part-time chairman who was previously a director of the Confederation of British Industry. The committee is made up of some scientists, some economists and others with whose specialisms I am unfamiliar. If he really believes that the target must be based on the best available science, it must be based on the advice of the IPCC. It really is not good enough to say that because it is an international committee of experts, it is somehow less important than a British committee of people who are not entirely experts on climate science.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

I will not go too far down that road, but it seems that what we have is an argument about the nature of the committee. As I understand it, we have set up a committee that has a strong scientific membership, a strong economic membership and a strong membership who can look at such things in the round. Some of the things that it will be asked to do will not primarily involve science but the interpretation of science within the economic sphere, so the committee has to have a balance of people. When the committee comes to make decisions on the science, it will, of course, draw properly and entirely on the best available science. The fact that Lord May is one of the members makes that absolutely clear. It will then make its considered judgment.

It will be difficult for the public to argue in any sense that the judgment is a political one. It will be difficult to make the argument that some newspapers will try to run that it is a decision of the Government, or of enthusiasts. It will be seen as being as good a statement of the science as can be made, not just by scientists but by those who are looking at the science from an economist’s point of view. That is actually rather important, because some people attacked the IPCC for saying that the science was very good but the economists were very bad. That is one reason why Nick Stern was asked to do the job. He upset the sceptics because they thought that he would say the opposite of what he said. As a result, what he said was stronger.

The Government proceeded in a sensible way but I seriously say to the Minister that they have now put themselves in a difficult position. Having presented a sensible proposal that commended itself to the only other party likely to form a Government—let me put this most delicately—and gaining the agreement of all parties likely to form a Government, they have now suggested that there is a possibility that the committee’s decision would not be accepted.

I find it difficult to believe in that possibility. Imagine this: the Government ask the official committee, which they set up, to produce something, and then they say, “We are frightfully sorry, but we will not accept it.” Do the Government really think that that is a political possibility? It is a further step down the slippery slide that they have been going down. I cannot believe that they really mean to suggest that they want to hold in reserve the ability to say to the Committee on Climate Change, “We asked you to give us a target. We have accepted that the target in the Bill is wrong, but we will not accept your target.” That appears to be what the Minister said.

For me, the key issue is that that approach has put the Opposition, and, I believe, Labour Members, in a difficult position. There are Labour Members who would be perfectly prepared to go along with this arrangement—many would have some sympathy with what I have advanced as the philosophical basis for what is being done. They are going to have to come to terms with the Minister explaining to them that, despite all that, the Minister will still retain the choice. That would not even be a theoretical choice. He has not said, “We cannot conceive of occasions in which we would not.” Such a phrase is possible, but he has not said that. He said no. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, that was not a glimmer, but a spotlight—no.

As much as I am pleased that the Minister’s reply was not a wriggle—he does not wriggle and said he cannot, which fascinates me physiologically—I must say that he now has an untenable position. I do not think it possible to say to the Committee, “I want the independent committee to make that judgment, because it is better made there than by politicians. I have asked it to do that, and I have amended the Bill so that its making that judgment would be a natural consequence of adding ‘not less than’, but I am not necessarily going to accept it.”

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The right hon. Gentleman makes a strong case for Labour members of the Committee feeling uncomfortable with the scenario that he has described, but a lot of Labour Members do not support that scenario. They say that we should have a tougher target of 80 per cent. in the Bill Surely the Members who are in a difficult position are those in the Conservative party who are tempting Liberal Democrats and others to say that the Labour Government are being rescued by the Conservative party.

John Gummer (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal)

No. Being frank with the hon. Gentleman, I am keen to make sure that our commitments are clear, because we will have to carry them through. To be blunt, it is all right for the hon. Gentleman, because he will not have to carry them through, but we will. We are committed to carry through what the Climate Change Committee asks of us, and we have made that absolutely clear. Therefore, it is of considerable importance that we put the Government in the same position. It does not matter, frankly, what the Liberal Democrats or other people think about it. What matters is whether the succession of Governments commit themselves to do what the body that they have set up asks, or are we going to treat it as a kind of advisory council? If the Government mean that the committee is not the one that we all fought for, that goes way beyond the goal of 80 per cent. and to the very heart of the Bill. That is the real issue for all of us.

If the Climate Change Committee is merely an advisory committee with no other strengths, the Bill is not the one that I fought for, that Friends of the Earth drew up and that the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and other parties stood behind. The Minister is putting forward a solution that ought to be a joint solution—a solution of the consensus. Frankly, if he were to say that the Government agree to implement the committee’s decision at once, some of his hon. Friends would not be too unhappy, even though they would like to change the wording in the Bill, and the Minister would find that any revolt would at least be reduced. However, if he repeats that he is not prepared to implement a committee decision, it seems to me that it is extremely difficult—not for the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats or the Labour party, but for the Bill—because that would mean that the committee we believe in would not be the committee that the Government think that they are setting up.

I know that the Minister thinks that we are buttering him up in the hope that we will get a bit more out of him, but that is not the case. He has shown himself to be one of the good Ministers. When people ask who the good Ministers in government are, we put his name on the list. I know that that is embarrassing for him, and it will probably stop any possible promotion, but there is no doubt that that is what we say. We say it because he has always been as good as his word. That is what worries me, because his word in this case is pretty frightening. I am not keen on this at all. It seems to me that he has given us reason to doubt something that is much more fundamental than the 70, 80 or 90 per cent. What we are doubting here is that the Government have the same view of the Committee on Climate Change as the rest of us. We therefore need a reply from the Minister not only to this debate, but to that deep concern.

Even those Labour Members who want to vote with the Minister—the case was beautifully presented by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton, who is just returning to her place—will ask themselves, “What has happened to the Climate Change Committee?” When the hon. Lady talks to all those students, they will say, “This Government are not going to listen to the Climate Change Committee.”

The Government have now said that the committee is merely advisory. If that is the case, the members of the committee will wonder why they are members. Why do we have such a good committee? Like us, its members thought that the committee was going to be, in a real sense, the setter of the course for this country to give a lead in the world on how to deal with climate change. That does not mean to say that the Government would have to sign up to every jot and tittle, but they would have to sign up to the target. If the committee cannot even set the target, what is the Bill about?

The Opposition parties, along with Friends of the Earth and others, agreed that we needed to set a target when we compiled the “Quality of Life” report, which I had the honour to chair—my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood was a member of the central committee, if that is not too socialist a phrase. We saw the target as the driving force in our battle against climate change.

I came to this Committee believing that the Government had the right answer. I was willing to support the Government, because I believed that they were offering us the right way forward. I hoped that this Committee would provide another example of the consensus that I am trying to build. However, I am afraid that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury has caused the trouble. His accurate memory of what the Minister said means that the Minister has either got to change what he said and re-establish our belief in his belief in the primacy of the Committee on Climate Change, or we will have to consider very carefully not only this part of the Bill but every other part. Unless the Government are bound into the consensus that caused the Bill to be created, we are in a really difficult position.

Anne Snelgrove (Labour, South Swindon)

It is a pleasure to serve under you again, Mr. Cook. I apologise to the rest of the Committee for not being able to be present for the whole of the sitting, because I had an unavoidable constituency commitment. I have signed the amendment, and I believe that the solution to the difficulties described by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal is in amending the Bill to make the target 80 per cent. rather than 60 per cent.

The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the Ipsos MORI poll in The Observer at the weekend, which apparently showed that a large number of people are sceptical about climate change. I have looked up the results of the poll, which asked people to agree or disagree with the statement that many scientific experts still question whether humans contribute to climate change. Six out of 10 people who were asked that question agreed with the statement. Rather confusingly, however, later in the poll three quarters of people who were asked professed to being concerned about climate change, and we can take comfort from that finding. I must also say, Mr. Cook, that I am grateful to my portable computer for that information.

As I have said, I take comfort from that finding, and I also take comfort from the fact that the 80 per cent. coalition includes not only well-respected NGOs such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and WWF, but the women’s institute and indeed Eurostar, from which I received a briefing. The combined membership and influence of the vast number of NGOs that have come together in that coalition will help to drive understanding in this country on the importance of climate change. I believe that there has been a sea change since the election of 2005, which has put the environment and climate change right at the top of our agenda. That is another reason why, as a Government, we must show our understanding and commitment to upping the climate target to 80 per cent., because the people and groups in that coalition will be looking to us for a very strong signal that we take this issue seriously.

A number of Committee members have discussed the basis for the 60 per cent. figure, which is a 2000 report from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. That report is already eight years old, and it was based on IPCC evidence from 1995, which has been updated twice since then. It is 13 years since the scientific evidence was published, and we know that the scientific data and our understanding of them have vastly improved since then. Rightly, the Government have said that the 60 per cent., 80 per cent. or whatever target must be based on good science, but I wonder whether basing a target on evidence from 13 years ago is good science. We need to re-examine that issue. If we are going to put our faith in the Climate Change Committee, which I thoroughly support, we should set it stiff targets, because the scientific evidence exists.

So, the upper limit must be changed. I do not want to speak too long on this issue, Mr. Cook, because many Opposition Committee members have been waiting patiently to speak, and I have jumped in ahead of them. I believe that the science is there, and our constituents up and down the country, as well as the NGOs, expect us, as a Government, to back the higher target. Also, 82 hon. Members, many of whom are Labour colleagues, have signed the amendment, and more than 400 hon. Members signed a previous amendment and early-day motions. The will in this House is there to make the target stiffer. Like Opposition Members, I know that this is a good Minister who listens and takes action. I hope that he will listen to the arguments about upping the climate change target to 80 per cent. and take appropriate action.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.