Climate Change Bill [HL]

I have a couple of brief points. I can see the importance of the budgetary periods, but it is hard to talk about this in terms of figures and numbers when it is so clear visually. When you look at the trajectory on a graph or a diagram, it is the pattern that the trajectory follows that is so interesting, not how long the period is. The provision will obviously have to be in the Bill, but we should not lose sight of what we are trying to realise in those budgetary periods and what line that trajectory is following. While I completely buy into the reason for having an independent committee on climate change, beyond the independence of the advice we should not get too carried away with this independence myth. It will be one political party or another that has to put into place the policies that achieved this. The decisions they make will be highly political and there will be some very hard choices to make. This happy land your Lordships sometimes talk about, where everything is independent and non-political, simply is not going to happen. That is a reality we have to face and the sooner we face it, the better.