Climate Change Bill [HL]

Amendment No. 183B brings us to Part 4 of the Bill. We are discussing adaptation slightly out of context; we are still on the Committee on Climate Change. I accept that these three clauses may need amendment, but what needs to be discussed at this stage is whether the work of advising the Secretary of State on how he can fulfil his responsibilities in Part 4 can adequately be fulfilled by the Committee on Climate Change or one of its sub-committees, or whether it would be better to have a separate advisory body with different expertise. We have already heard from all around the Committee that the case for having a separate conduit is strong. The timescale is different, the expertise is different and the immediacy is different—although one could argue about that, perhaps. I am quite clear that it would be helpful to have expertise that was specifically encouraged to advise the Secretary of State—in the widest sense, meaning the whole Government. Just about every department and, indeed, the rest of the economy, will have to address the sort of issues that the committee envisaged in Amendment No. 183B, will be advising on. Although I accept that any amendment that imposes yet further committees has an onus to justify its position, in this case I would go along with the proposal.