Climate Change Bill [HL]

Perhaps I may intervene before the noble Lord responds; he may be able to cover both points together. I understand absolutely and sympathise with what he has been saying about long-term assessments, international assessments, weather assessments and all that. Clearly the assessments cannot be rushed. However, I am a little worried that we may not be acting quickly enough to respond to the practical lessons we have been learning from events on the ground. The noble Baroness who has just spoken has more experience of those than I have because she has had to deal with them. However, apart from the long-term assessments, we have been learning some painful lessons from events. If we have to wait some time for the publication of conclusions, I am worried that it will be a very long time before effective action is taken. When I was chairman of the National Rivers Authority, we launched the Maidenhead flood defence scheme, a major scheme that has provided hugely improved protection for a large area of the Thames Valley. It took a long time because we had to deal with every sort of obstacle along the way—with those who opposed it, for good and bad; with the planning process; and so on. If we are to take a year or two to assess events and then have to go through all those procedures, it may be a good many years before measures are in place to prevent a disaster that might have been avoided if we acted more quickly. The noble Lord may almost have given me the beginnings of an answer in his last sentence, when he referred to the annual reporting of the departments and so on. There may be another way of dealing with the matter. However, I ask him to consider carefully that although there must be a long timescale for major international assessments, we have to learn quickly the lessons from recent events which have caused so much damage and disruption.