Climate Change Bill [HL]

I am extremely grateful to all Committee Members who have taken part in this debate from all sides of the Chamber. I believe that we are all pushing on the same door: it is a question of getting that door open in the right way to make sense of the Bill. The Minister gave a very full reply and I was particularly grateful for his penultimate sentence when he said he would look again to see whether there were better wording. I want to press him on an earlier point. He said that if a department went against the wording of the Bill as amended there would be major problems. Could he identify what those major problems are and what are the solutions, because that might help us? He also said that the amendment would weaken the Bill as drafted. Yes, I admitted that right at the beginning. It was one of the problems that the committee toyed with. We could not get the right wording because we felt that whatever we came up weakened the Bill. But we also wanted—and this is clear in our recommendations—to make this enforceable. If we use the word ““ensure”” when Britain will be the lead country in the world, any country can turn round and say, ““You can’t ensure it. This is all just a pretence, spin, a sham””. That is what is wrong with the word ““ensure””. It cannot be enforced. It sets a very bad example both nationally and internationally. We need to give a lead. We need to be able to set an example that others can follow. If we are to do that, we have to get this part of the Bill absolutely right. The wording is crucial. I know that the Minister listened to everybody in the Committee and there is a common theme here that this part of the Bill needs to be looked at. Has the Minister any further points he would like to make on the major problems? Could he come back to me at another stage?