Climate Change Bill [HL]

I fully accept that point. I have no knowledge of future plans, but I suspect that, given the nature and detail of the strategic speeches that the Prime Minister is making on the issue outside Parliament, from time to time he may deliver statements inside Parliament. To put a statutory duty on him, with all the detail implied, would be a big mistake. I am not arguing from a presentational point of view about sending signals. I freely admit that there are parts of the Bill where we might be able to look at ways of demonstrating that the Government as a whole are committed on this issue. That is the central point: there is a fear that ““Secretary of State”” means one department working in a silo. Cabinet government—as people understand the Cabinet sub-committees—will give instructions to Secretaries of State across the whole of Whitehall. That is usually done behind closed doors, which I fully accept does not send a signal outside. However, we are happy to look at where that can be done to show that the Government as a whole have a grip on this, as I implied when answering the intervention of the right reverend Prelate on the earlier amendment. All the departments in the whole of Whitehall—I do not know a department that is not—are involved in working on the Bill. It has to come together. Your Lordships’ House prides itself that, at Question Time, the Questions are to the Government, not to departments. That causes considerable difficulty with many Questions, simply because they cross more than one department. There is mayhem in Whitehall when two or three departments have to agree an answer—compared to the other place, that is the reality, as those who have answered Questions in this place would find out. One Minister has to answer. If Ministers sometimes start talking about their department, they are corrected by your Lordships: ““You are answering for the Government, not the department””. That is exactly my position presently. Although I am Defra, which is the lead department on the issue, I am answering for all departments. That is the same for the Prime Minister.