Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours will undoubtedly repeat variations of his remarks throughout the two to four days of this Report stage. We may therefore rehearse them again. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, says, it is not an exact analogy at all. Far from a tripartite arrangement, it is not at all clear—as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said—what role the Government would serve here other than as a post box. The opposition Front-Bench proposals throughout the Bill effectively involve the climate change committee taking decisions about a whole range of things. If it made a recommendation on the emissions from energy generation of a particular scale and rigour and those could effectively be met only by nuclear generation on a large scale—and that is not impossible—it would mean that the Government of the day, even if opposed to it, would have to accept the target knowing that the means of achieving it was something to which they were diametrically opposed. That seems—although I would personally be in favour of such a policy—nonsense. The climate change committee will make proposals based on judgments it has reached through its scientific and rigorous assessment, and those proposals will have implications. The Government of the day will have to face the question of what they will recommend to Parliament, and they may have to take a different view. That is the role of government. The Government of the day have to weigh up a whole range of complex issues as well as the expert scientific advice. I cannot imagine a situation where any Government would want to be bound in this way. I finish with the following conundrum. If Parliament rejected what the climate change committee recommended, who would negotiate with the committee to change the situation? Would it be the Government, who are a post box for a disagreeing Parliament? With which House of Parliament or party would it negotiate? It is the politics of the madhouse. The Government of the day ultimately have the responsibility of proposing to Parliament. That is their political responsibility. They will agree or disagree. But if Parliament rejects the proposal, it is then clearly the Government's duty to negotiate with the climate change committee. If the Government are simply a post box, the Secretary of State will be in a totally invidious position. He would have no locus or authority. The climate change committee would say, ““It’s no good negotiating with you because Parliament has rejected it””.