Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Caithness has usefully informed the House about this issue. It has also been useful to have the views of subsequent speakers, in particular the graduates of the pre-legislative scrutiny process. I wonder whether I ought to declare an interest as a flower grower who, faced with Mothering Sunday and St David’s Day coming in the same weekend, has a great interest in making sure that lots of flowers come out before the markets close. We understand the purpose of the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. As the Bill stands, there is a legal duty to ensure results. That is simply not within the power of the Secretary of State. Though we are in favour of placing the most stringent possible mandate on the Secretary of State and using the full power of the law to ensure that he does everything to achieve the targets, we understand that he has at his disposal only policies and programmes. However, mandating him to have policies that aim to reduce emissions and placing a duty for these to be sound policies by obliging him to submit them for approval to the Committee on Climate Change are enforceable and something that we would expect from the Secretary of State. The government amendment, which is grouped with Amendment No. 2, only partially addresses the issue that my noble friend intends to address with his amendment. Indeed, on this side of the House we welcome the Government’s amendment, which requires the Secretary of State to draw up policies and proposals with the aim of meeting the budgets and targets. We are also grateful that the Government seem to have heeded the call that has long been coming from the Conservative Benches to have regard for sustainable development issues when such proposals are made. That is certainly to be welcomed. However, it in no way addresses the issue that my noble friend seeks to address. We want the Secretary of State’s mandate to be realistic. I look forward to the Minister’s response.