Climate Change Bill [HL]

I rise to support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer. Indeed, you could argue that it is inconsistent to talk about indicative targets and then about a duty to fulfil them. Faced with such situations, it would be customary for a speaker moving an amendment to say that it was only a probing amendment. This goes a bit further than that as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said. This is about the sort of mechanisms the Government need to have at their disposal to keep the pursuit of the Climate Change Act—as it will be when it is enacted—on course to meet that target. I make no apology for introducing these concepts. The Minister is already halfway there, as I said in my preamble. I said that he had accepted the notion of the noble Lord, Lord May, and what he was trying to say about measurement. Then one hears about indices and the way the scientific world talks about the dynamics of measurement. It is not, then, a great leap to start talking about predictive indicators. If you do not have a duty to try to fulfil the obligation to meet those indicators, there is no coercive power under this Bill to deliver what we are seeking. The Committee is in the position of having to bring forward amendments to give the Minister and his successor the opportunity to deliver what we all know this Bill is supposed to produce.