Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall take a leaf out of my noble friend’s book. Given that we have had this discussion more than once, I do not propose to repeat everything that I said in the previous debate. We had a similar discussion on the previous amendments, which would have transferred a number of functions from the Government to the Committee on Climate Change. We have also discussed the government amendments to increase transparency and the publication provisions relating to the committee. I agree that this group of amendments concerns the budget while the previous group concerned the targets. Frankly, however, they are not any less important and our view remains the same. That is why I am not going over the same ground. Our view is that these functions should remain with the Government and not be transferred to the committee. We do not want the committee to be carrying an executive role. This is not in my briefing, but I will say that the politicisation of all these decisions ought to be here in Parliament from the Dispatch Box—Ministers to the Opposition, Back-Benchers to the Government. That is where it should be. Doing this on the basis of advice from the Committee on Climate Change is a much better way than having rigid proposals. The advice would, in the main, be accepted, as I have said before—I do not dissent from that. Now I have spoken for twice as long as I intended. We hope that these amendments will not be pressed.