Climate Change Bill [HL]

The right reverend Prelate has no need to apologise. Save for one other Bill that I helped to steer through this House just after I became a Member—after the 9/11 catastrophe in the United States—this is the only Bill to touch every department of government. I can assure the right reverend Prelate that while Defra is in the lead—some department has to manage it—the whole of Whitehall is engaged in the Bill. Whitehall is more engaged than it would have been if the Bill had started in the other place because it has received the distilled results and consequences of the Second Reading in your Lordships' House; and the message has gone around that in the Lords this will not wash as it is now. Therefore, some aspects put forward by Members of the Committee will require more flexibility. All the departments mentioned by the right reverend Prelate and others are actively engaged with the Bill team, which is Whitehall-wide, on what we need to do to secure a Bill with which we can all be satisfied. The Committee stage notwithstanding, early in the new year, at Report stage, there will be opportunities to look at what we do with the Bill, including the structure of the Committee on Climate Change, to see whether the House thinks that the Government have got this right.