Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 187A: 187A: Clause 67, page 28, line 31, at end insert ““and acting in agreement”” The noble Lord said: The Committee will be relieved to hear that this is a probing amendment. I was led to table it when I read Schedule 1, which of course I read before I got to the end of the Bill because it comes up much earlier and must be read in context. The opening line of the schedule alerted me to the need to have this discussion. It says: "““The Committee shall consist of … a person appointed by the national authorities””." As the noble Lord, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, is in his place, I should say that I too am very glad to welcome him to that job, even though—I hope he will not blush when I say this—I was somewhat surprised to see in the House Magazine that a job which I saw described in another press release as the third most important job in the country, after Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, is apparently assumed to take only one day a week. There is a little inconsistency there, which the Minister may be able to explain. Anyway, we need to discuss a little the meaning of the ““national authorities””. This appears only in Schedule 1 and in Clause 67, which gives the meaning of ““national authority”” in definitions. Clause 67(1) states: "““In this Act ‘national authority’ means””—" which is fine— "““the Secretary of State … the Scottish Ministers … the Welsh Ministers””," and, "““the relevant Northern Ireland department””," which is interesting. Subsection (2), however, says: "““Functions conferred or imposed by this Act on ‘the national authorities’ are to be exercised by all of them jointly””." That, too, is simple enough, and I am glad that it works, except that the relationship is quite complicated. There is in this appointing body one Secretary of State but 12 Scottish Ministers and 11 Welsh Ministers. Indeed, I am not quite sure how many people there are if you include one ““relevant Northern Ireland department””—let us assume that it is one. The real question is how this works. We know that it has worked for the chairman, but the subsection says that the functions will, "““be exercised by all of them jointly””." I think that the people who wrote that into the Bill simply had not thought about the wording, because you will never get all those people together to work jointly. Even if you put in a conference call, someone will not be able to be at the right place at the right time to take part in the discussion. Finally, what happens if someone disagrees? Is there a mechanism for determining whether one Secretary of State in the United Kingdom Government equals 12 Scottish Ministers who might disagree with him? Are we saying that what we really require is a majority of the Ministers in the devolved institutions to accept, and that, if they do, that is all right? What does, "““be exercised by all of them jointly””," mean? I tabled this little amendment because we need to discuss this, particularly because we need a means of dealing with disagreement if difficulties arise in the future—this job goes on when substitutes are appointed to the committee at some point in the future. If you do not think about this when you write the original agreement, by the time the original agreement is in place and in law, it is too late to change it. I beg to move.