Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat)

I wish to inform the House that, further to the Foreign Secretary’s oral statement launching the review of the balance of competences in July 2012 and the written statements on the progress of the review in October 2012, and May 2013, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has today published its call for evidence for the energy report.

The report will not include climate change aspects of the Department’s work, international climate change negotiations, the reduction of collective EU member state greenhouse gas emissions via burden-sharing arrangements and the EU emissions trading system. These issues will be covered in the Environment and Climate Change report due to be published this winter.

The resulting report is intended to be a comprehensive, thorough and detailed analysis of EU competence for environment and climate change and what this means for the UK. It will aid our understanding of the nature of our EU membership and will provide a constructive and serious contribution to the wider European debate about modernising, reforming and improving the EU. The report will not produce specific policy recommendations.

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