Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 5: 5: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, leave out ““ensure”” and insert ““develop policies and take measures, including the setting of five year targets and budgets, with the object of ensuring”” The noble Earl said: The amendment stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. My first duty is to send the apologies of my noble friend to the Committee—he is in Moscow with Sub-Committee C and not even he, in his brilliance, can be in two places at once. We come to an important part of the Bill, the first clause. Clause 1(1) reads: "““It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 60% lower than the 1990 baseline””." The word that we wish to delete is ““ensure””, replacing it with the words on the Marshalled List. The Joint Committee took evidence on this issue—our comments are in paragraphs 104 to 117 of our report. As said on many occasions and by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, who chaired the Committee, this is a unique Bill. When we questioned those who gave evidence on Wednesday 16 May about this duty ““to ensure””, we found that it is a unique clause, which has never been used in a Bill before. Mr Wilson, who is a director of Cambrensis and a barrister at its environmental law unit, told us that, in his opinion, the clause might add a little to public pressure and organise public opinion, but he went on to say that: "““it is difficult to enforce it in a conventional way””." Professor Forsyth said that he was unaware of any other example of a Bill, "““concerned with the setting of targets””." In considering our conclusions, the members of the committee discussed how we should try to strengthen the Bill and how we should impose a duty on the Secretary of State or the Prime Minister—it is still the Secretary of State now—in a way that is enforceable in law. In his evidence, my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth put it very well. He said: "““The problem is not one of target setting, nor of embodying a target in statute, but rather the imposition of a duty to meet a target, the fulfilment of which relies on circumstances beyond the control of the body vested with that duty””." That is the nub of the problem. We have a duty that binds the Secretary of State and future Secretaries of State, yet it is practically unenforceable. That is why my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and I have proposed our wording—in order to put some meat on this important bone. We do not want to dilute the importance of this clause or the importance of the Bill. We want wording that is as equally strong as the word ““ensure””, but which also enables the Secretary of State to be held to account in a proper way, rather than through just public opinion or, as the Minister said, in a way that puts pressure on the civil servants through the Ministerial Code and the Civil Service Code. I beg to move.