Climate Change Bill [HL]

I strongly support what has been said from both Front Benches and by my noble friend who has just spoken. The Joint Committee felt that, as currently drafted, the Bill does not communicate the right degree of urgency. After all, we are dealing not with the mitigation of events into the future but with the consequences of the situation we are already in, due to what has happened over the past 150 or 200 years. We are feeling those effects now and the need for action to deal with them is urgent. Surely we ought to reflect that in our approach to reporting. I have one other matter to raise. I was hoping that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, might speak. During the proceedings of the Joint Committee she made what I thought was an important suggestion: that the adaptation report should be timed carefully to come before the Committee on Climate Change considers the next five-year targets and before the process of the Government setting those budgets. The effort regarded as practically and scientifically sensible needs to be informed by the impacts on the ground. Again, if we accept these amendments we will have the reports in adequate time for them to be taken into account in the setting of budgets. That is another good reason for supporting them.