Climate Change Bill [HL]

I add my support for my noble friend’s amendment. The Minister said that the Government are committed to decarbonising the UK economy but one needs to think back a little to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and the fact that there is no sanction for this whole issue. In 30 years’ time when our children or, dare one say it, grandchildren are looking at this problem, if it is suddenly decided that the whole thing is a lot of rubbish and there is no sanction, they could just sit back and not implement any of it. That would be a very different day from today when all those who have spoken are convinced that something needs to be done. These amendments place a duty on the Prime Minister and the reporting mechanisms to recommend ways of remedying shortfalls in carbon budgets. Our position is that the Bill does not have provisions for making plans on how to overcome the problems that might arise if the budgets are not met. We cannot be blinded by optimism, which is why we feel that the Bill needs to stipulate that a plan will be put together to remedy any shortcomings in the carbon account. I speak to Amendments Nos. 87 and 93. The risk is that we will get behind. It stands to reason that, should the report find that the Government have done rather poorly in their attempts to reduce carbon emissions, a new strategy might be in order to take into account previous failures in efforts to get back on track. That would increase the transparency and open the Government’s action up to deeper parliamentary and public scrutiny. Any plan to remedy the shortfalls would involve an assessment of the reasons why the Government had not met the target. This fits into our more general theme of beefing up the committee and making the Bill more robust. A roll call of how we had missed targets would be inadequate to face the challenge of climate change appropriately. A duty to have a plan to remedy any shortfalls presented when the report is given would go some way to strengthening the Bill.