Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I think that this issue—this relationship—is at the heart of the Bill. I ask noble Lords to consider for a moment what happened with the establishment of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. I remember being advised as a humble Labour Back-Bencher at the time that we could not trust the politicians and that we needed an independent body to take a major decision affecting management of the economy, whereby prior to elections we would not put interest rates down and after them we would not put interest rates up. It was as simple as that; that is how it was presented. I accepted it on that basis and I think that my noble friend probably accepted it similarly on that basis. I cannot see the difference here. The policy of raising interest rates after elections and putting them down before is the policy of drift, and it does not work. The Labour Government’s greatest success in all these years has been to take that one decision which removed from us that responsibility. It did not provide for drift. This is another amendment which is trying to tie us down and tie us in to a decision taken by the committee; whereas, alternatively, some of us believe that drift is inevitable. I remember some weeks ago when my noble friend stood there and told us that, one day, he would return to the Back Benches. I have a vision of him standing on the Back Benches in a number of years’ time hectoring and belabouring the then Government—not necessarily a Labour Government—over the fact that they have allowed drift to interfere with the committee's decisions and that we will not meet targets because they have allowed electoral considerations to interfere when the real decisions have to be taken.