Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am delighted to respond to the amendment again at Report stage. I am hoping for a little bit of inspiration, which may be coming my way. As the noble Duke pointed out, I explained in Committee why we have an issue with the amendment. We have not changed our view. He asked how the devolved authorities play into changes to the length of carbon budgets. I am advised that the carbon budgets are UK-wide and therefore all the questions that we had before about how the Bill, as a UK Bill, affects the devolved authorities would apply in this situation. It is therefore the Secretary of State’s decision to take following consultation with the devolved authorities. That is set out in Clause 9. The noble Duke also asked which other areas of the Bill will be affected by changing carbon budget lengths. The answer that I am given is none. The periods for consulting devolved Administrations will remain the same. I shall be happy to review the noble Duke’s questions to ensure that we have picked up his concerns—I will follow up in writing if I have missed anything—but perhaps I may summarise our arguments for the record. It may be necessary to amend the length of a budgetary period in order to maintain consistency within commitment periods at EU level and under any post-2012 international agreement. In the event that we do so, specific requirements that the annual equivalent emissions should be measured in terms of the overall budget divided by five would mean that the term ““annual equivalent”” was applied to a period different from a year. As noble Lords will be aware, this was the point that we made in Committee. In this context, since the Committee stage, the European Commission has proposed an eight-year budget period from 2013 to 2020. Although this is still being discussed at a European level, clearly if it was to be agreed we would want the ability to reflect it domestically. The amendment would add significant complexity to the situation for what we see as no gain. I therefore hope that the noble Duke will consider withdrawing his amendment.