Climate Change Bill [HL]

I have got to do my best. I want to disabuse noble Lords. I do not have the answer in front of me but when I used the phrase in Committee ““accident of history”” I was referring to the fact that the Prime Minister had a role in making certain appointments as a result of accidents of history. That was the point I was making. I did not go on to delineate the appointments, but I am reminded of that having read, like most who have just spoken, the Friends of the Earth brief. That was the context in which I was speaking. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brooke, is quite right in what he says. Until 2005, of course, there was still a Minister of Agriculture; there was no Secretary of State. I know that was a problem from 1997 to 1999 for certain jobs that Jack Cunningham did or could not do because of the terminology. Secretaries of State are now interchangeable and that is the reason for that drafting. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said that he had not held ministerial office but that he had sat at the side of Ministers. Every time he speaks I am reminded of the phrase in Gerald Kaufman’s book, How to be a Minister, published in 1982, when he was at the Department of Trade and Industry. Amid the Post Office issue, he would send for this character, Mr Dearing, who would arrive with all his bountiful advice which was first class. Nevertheless, I move on to the dodgy part of the debate, which is trying to answer this. One issue that has been raised was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. I do not think that she was complaining about the fact that the media have not covered our debates, although that has been a common theme for one or two noble Lords. It is possible to take to an extreme the sentence in the briefing that noble Lords have received. It said: "““It is a fact of life that the actions of the Prime Minister are more likely to be covered by the media than the actions of a Secretary of State. These amendments are therefore likely to lead to a better informed public and so a stronger ‘court’””." I am a mere Minister of State. It so happens that—as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said about names on paper—mine is the only name that will ever appear on the Bill. I was surprised about this a fortnight ago, simply because I had forgotten that when the Bill arrives in the other place it will not have the list of the great and the good—12 of them—on the back, which would normally be headed by the Prime Minister, because the Bill will be brought in from the Lords. Therefore the period before the Bill becomes an Act is the only time my name will be there. That shows that names on paper are worth nothing.