Climate Change Bill [HL]

I think that I am listening to what I said; that is the last thing that I am saying. I was not saying that we will take the 60 per cent figure out. At least 60 per cent has the scientific validity of a seven year-old target—an aspiration—from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. There is a good scientific base for that view. Work has been done, in some respects, into the economic and social consequences of that, which probably have not yet fully dawned on everybody, and we need to pursue that. I am not standing here, on behalf of the Government, accepting the suggestion from my noble friend that we take out any target and leave it all to the Climate Change Committee. Based on the evidence, that would be wrong; the target of 60 per cent is the absolute rock-bottom minimum.