Climate Change Bill [HL]

Again, my remarks will be very brief. I am not intervening on the subject of the difference between half a per cent and 1 per cent, but I recall that when I was the budget Minister in the European Union, we reached a situation where the Parliament would vote the money that was available to be distributed in a particular year absolutely up to the last euro. As a consequence, there was no way we could adjust because it had done deals on every single piece of expenditure. We the British invented the negative reserve, under which we knew perfectly well that not all the money would be spent. We therefore created a negative reserve that gave us enough leeway to be able to negotiate at the closing stage. Money in other parts of the budget would not be spent and it was simply put back into the negative reserve to fill it up so that it would come out flat at the end of the year. So I am all in favour of having an instrument of a modest kind at the margin in order to make such an adjustment—because of the way in which the world works.