Climate Change Bill [HL]

Before my noble friend responds to the Minister perhaps I may raise a couple of issues. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, was able to be with us today and I reiterate our thanks to him for his previous amendment. I totally support the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, who reminded us of how important this Bill is to the young. My grandchildren are aged 14, 12 and 12. When you ask them what is important to them, they bring up climate change as one of the most important things. I am sure that the ways we do business now will have changed enormously in 50 years’ time. I support my noble friend’s amendment. It may not be perfect, but that is another matter. I am a strong believer in the need for a consensus between the Government, science—though I am no scientist myself—the committee itself and Parliament. I am raising these points now, before my noble friend replies to the Minister’s response, in order to try to help the Committee. In the previous two sittings the Minister has been very honest in responding and has taken our points on board, saying that he will come back with ideas on Report. I have a feeling that we are covering the same ground again and again in many of these amendments. Is there any chance that we might have a more general feeling for how the Government might meet us halfway on some of the proposals that we debated in the previous two sittings and are debating again today? Otherwise we are clearly going to keep going over the same ground, raising the same issues with the Minister, and we will get no further until Report. That does not mean that I think that it is a waste of time. But perhaps we are not progressing on this Bill as we have on previous Bills when the Government came back between sittings and gave us a slightly fuller response on how they saw matters progressing.