Climate Change Bill [HL]

Briefly, on the amendment that deals with a committee of the House of Commons, which committee is that? I have already identified six committees that would want to influence events, including the Transport Committee; the Trade and Industry Committee, with its responsibilities for energy; the Agriculture Committee; the Science and Technology Committee; and the environmental protection committee. All I am saying is that unless you create a new structure in the form that I suggested in my amendment last week—a sort of joint ad hoc Select Committee that combines all these committees, which are influencing this particular appointment, on the basis of the Quadripartite Committee in the House of Commons—some competitive differences might develop among committee chairmen in the other place. More widely, the amendments are premature. I am not altogether convinced that the model—which this House appears to be approving at this stage—for the powers and the structure of this committee and the way in which it relates to other committees in the tripartite arrangement to which the noble Lord refers and which my noble friend has qualified as an almost quadripartite arrangement by bringing the public into the equation as well, will work. When the House of Commons deals with these matters, it may want to amend these areas—hopefully. If it does, the amendments as a series may look very different.