Climate Change Bill [HL]

It might be argued that the Government have no control over the committee—certainly not with the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments involved. Before I respond briefly, I should say that the point made is valid because, it may surprise Members to know, it is not normal practice to specify terms of appointment in a Bill. There is nothing in the Bill about the length of appointment. It is not there, and there is a reason for that, as I will explain. A number of important issues need to be considered before the terms of appointment are agreed. Our current working assumption is that the first committee members should be appointed for a term of five years to marry with the carbon budget cycle. We are presently looking at how the appointments can be staggered to ensure that there is sufficient continuity between budget periods so that committee member appointments do not all end at the same time. Nor do we want the timing of members’ terms of office to affect the committee’s work on formulating advice on carbon budgets; that is another factor. Six years is a particularly long term for such an appointment. Public appointments are usually, although not exclusively, for three years. Whatever their duration may be, they are restricted to two terms in total, which cannot exceed 10 years. Much of this flowed from the work of the Nolan commission. This is another reason why we are still considering whether five years is appropriate. I should also note that it is possible that the length of the carbon budgets may need to change at some point in the future. As I have said, it is important to build the flexibility to follow international practice into the working arrangements. There is therefore a risk to stipulating a precise term of appointment in the Bill. For instance, if the international community or the European Union were to switch to, say, an eight-year or four-year budget period, we would want to do this within our domestic system. Clause 18 allows us to alter the length of the budget period in these circumstances, so it is important that we retain the flexibility to alter the length of the committee members’ terms of appointment. This system is consistent with that of other committees, so there is nothing unusual about not having the length of appointment in the Bill. I hope that I have given enough of a flavour of our current thinking, which would of course be clear on the appointment of the members. The point about the appointments being staggered is obviously very important.