Climate Change Bill [HL]

As I said a few minutes ago, there are areas of legislation where the Prime Minister is referred to. The Prime Minister is responsible, because of accidents of history, for some odd appointments—I hope that noble Lords know what I mean by that. In other words, we are not saying that the Prime Minister is not referred to in legislation. We are not saying that, because that would be wrong—there are many occasions. The nature of this is that we are quite happy to look at whether we can modify the Bill so that, from a presentational point of view, it clearly signals to everyone that the Government are responsible and that we have a plan. That plan will also be approved by Parliament so, in that sense, we are all in this together, across the generations and across the Floor. However, putting the onus on the Prime Minister in this clause is a big mistake. We are quite happy to look at the presentational aspects in other parts of the Bill, but not to put detailed, onerous requirements on the Prime Minister, which he would only farm out to the civil servants of other departments. There is nothing to stop him taking a lead and, in both those speeches that he made outside the House, he was taking a lead on this issue. In fact, he has been criticised, I understand, for making it clear that there have to be options for power generation, simply because of climate change. What do some of the NGOs do? They go to the lawyers to say that he has pre-empted a consultation. He is giving a lead on the issue. He is doing that now. Modifying the Bill is not required for that to continue.