Communities and Local Government/Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall return to that in a few moments. Secondly, the Bill will establish an independent body, the carbon committee, to work with the Government to reduce emissions over time. It will create enabling powers to put in place new emissions reduction measures and it will improve monitoring and reporting arrangements—including how the Government report to Parliament. It is important for the House to remember that, as a result of the Bill introduced last year by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), we already have a commitment to annual reporting and debate in legislation. We do not support binding annual targets. That was the difference between us and the Opposition when I left for Nairobi. I have with me a Bill published by the Conservative party on 25 October and part 3 refers to ““binding annual targets””. However, something seems to have moved on while I was away. In the new Bill, re-presented last week, on 14 November, part 3 is now about the responsibility of the commission to set targets. In addition to the four different Conservative positions cited by the Prime Minister last week, I can also advise the House on the contents of the Conservative research department’s briefing on the Queen’s Speech. On the subject of binding annual targets, it says—[Interruption.] Conservative Front Benchers would do better to listen to what I am saying. Mr. Speaker will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that he is well occupied at the moment. The Conservative research department document starts by saying that year-on-year targets are essential to reduce emissions. It goes on to say, in respect of annual targets, that it does not expect the Government to meet them precisely each year. Instead, it proposes rolling targets. Mr. Speaker, the binding commitments are, in fact, ““rolling”” and the targets are changed annually, not hit annually—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for East Surrey, who speaks for the Conservative party on the issue, is passionate and knowledgeable. He knows the difference and I think that he must have blanched when he tried to explain on the ““Today”” programme last week how he could at the same time be in favour of both binding targets and rolling ones.