Climate Change Bill [HL]

This has been a useful debate. I was almost going to rest my case on the fact that my noble friend Lord Hunt read out Clause 10 (3) but that would be trite. A point that has not been made is that while subsection (2) has that list—and I will come to a discussion on that—subsection (1) requires the Secretary of State as well as the Committee on Climate Change to consider the contents of that list in making decisions. These are matters the Committee on Climate Change has to take into account when it provides its advice on the level of the carbon budgets and the Secretary of State must also take them into account in making their decisions. I will not go over the list in full. It is not a big list but it includes the economic and social contexts as well as scientific factors and the international context. We think it is a broad and comprehensive list and the Joint Committee noted that balancing existing considerations will be quite a complex task for the Government and the Committee on Climate Change, requiring both technical analysis and, of course, political judgment. We do not want to overburden the Committee on Climate Change in preparing its advice on carbon levels but it is entitled, in addition to the areas that must be taken into account by the Secretary of State, to take any other factor into account. That is what Clause 10(3) means. It is not limited; it is a free agent. We are appointing a committee of independent people and if it chooses to look at other issues, that is entirely within the scope of its remit. In some ways we agree very much with the thrust of the debate but we think we have covered the points made in our drafting of the Bill.