Climate Change Bill [HL]

I support this amendment. I have talked to my noble friend Lord Crickhowell who asked me to enter my tuppence-ha’pennyworth. The Secretary of State is Mr Hilary Benn. His grandfather was, I believe, Secretary of State for India in 1927. His father was a distinguished Minister in the Labour Government in the 1960s. There is an element of the fact that the Benn family are becoming hereditary Members of the House of Commons, which has an element of irony about it. I believe that Hilary Benn’s son also is standing as a Member of the House of Commons, so the tradition continues. I suppose that it is possible that a Mr Benn—or perhaps a right honourable Lord Stansgate KCMG or something—will be Prime Minister at the time that this duty is imposed on the Secretary of State. Those are probably the unique circumstances in which someone could be held responsible in 2050 for actions taken by others between now and then. For the sake of argument, let us assume that this passion for wind power turns out to be what a lot of the wind power sceptics say that it will be in not reducing CO2 emissions. I believe that there is recent evidence of that in Denmark. We know that wind power cannot be used all the time because either the wind is too strong or too weak. Consequently, it has to be backed up with other forms of electricity generation. If the policies adopted by the present Mr Benn as Secretary of State are the wrong policies, and they do not affect CO2 in the way which we all wish and all know to be quintessentially essential, how can Mr Benn junior—probably the present Mr Benn’s great-grandson—or whoever is Secretary of State in 2050 be held responsible? Of course, we should have something of planning in the Bill. This goes a long way towards it. Perhaps it would be better to have a declaratory clause. I know that modern legislators do not like them, but they have been present in other legislation. I have been trying to show the difficulty and illogicality of putting this wording in the Bill. I therefore support this amendment completely.