Climate Change Bill [HL]

I find that a curious and contradictory response. The noble Lord tempts me to go back to the debate that was held in my absence last week on the question of whether there is likely to be a judicial review. I shall resist that temptation in the knowledge that I will have the opportunity to address the issue at Report stage, and I certainly intend to take it then. The noble Lord said that he envisaged the possibility that the courts would order the Government to purchase credits. That scenario is even more improbable than one in which they make a judgment about the legality or otherwise of the Government’s actions. But much more interesting was the noble Lord’s initial comment that he shared the reservations expressed by his noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone about my amendment. She welcomed the amendment but said that it was basically not adequate. She wanted to go further and have a tougher mechanism. Indeed, she referred to the very mechanism which I had just mentioned—that proposed by her colleague Mr Clive Bates to the Joint Committee. That mechanism would have required the Government to purchase credits and then to create a fund for domestic mitigation to reduce emissions in the domestic economy, and thus bring us back down to the domestic threshold. I thought it was a little unkind of her to chastise me for not having produced an amendment on those lines. I would have done so if I had had a suitable draft. Indeed, I asked in the committee for the Environment Agency to work up its ideas and bring forward a suitable amendment, and to include in its analysis what the consequences of the Government acting in this way would be for UK industry and for the performance of individual organisations and so on within the economy. I did not think that I had the skill to draft that particular amendment myself. The Minister said that he did not think that my amendment was adequate and that the Government would consider whether they could come up with a tougher and more effective provision. They would be capable of drafting something along the lines proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, so I look forward to their production of a tougher compliance mechanism. However, the more I listened to the noble Lord, the more confident I became that we must insist on including a compliance mechanism in the Bill. I shall certainly try to ensure that an even tougher set of ideas are included in any amendments that I propose at Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 27 and 28 not moved.]