Climate Change Bill [HL]

I shall intervene briefly to speak tangentially to the amendment, as this offers me a peg to put a thought into my noble friend’s mind. A very interesting committee, the Quadripartite Committee, has been established in the other place. It draws on the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Defence Committee and the Overseas Development Committee and deals with issues of defence sales. Some say that it has not been successful in the sense that it has not been able to secure the required level of accountability, but it was what I had in mind some years ago when I was pushing the idea of a defence exports scrutiny committee. If the mechanisms in the House of Commons are correctly constructed, you can get a forum for accountability that does not meet like a Select Committee—weekly, two-weekly or whatever—but at the right time to take evidence on issues when something has happened and where the view of Parliament should at least be in the mind of Ministers and others when decisions are taken. I just wonder whether climate change as an issue should not necessarily be left to a committee such as the environmental protection committee. The issue would be only one item on its many agendas but it would obviously be a critical one. Perhaps a structure will be established in Parliament—possibly a Joint Committee arrangement; I do not know—that parallels that sort of quadripartite reporting mechanism in order to deal with developments in this area as they make their way through departments. I should think that that is a way of communicating on issues such as targets for action, what is going to happen and what action is being taken, as a mechanism for ensuring that Parliament is kept informed during this whole process. As I say, the body would not meet weekly or bi-weekly as Select Committees in the House of Commons do but would be like the Quadripartite Committee and meet when necessary. It would not have to be defined in legislation; it would not have to be defined in legislation at all. However, it could be something that the department itself wanted to sponsor as a way of dealing with these problems. I ask the Committee to forgive me for using this amendment as the peg for raising the issue.