Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am making a genuine point. What counts is the substance of the Bill and the operation of government. I have obviously failed to get an issue across in Committee. Do not get me wrong; I am not knocking it. A lot of points have been raised to which there has been an inadequate response. On the point of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing—and, in some ways, the point of the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat—we will probably have to look again at how the machinery of government deals with climate change legislation over, say, the next couple of decades; one cannot look as far ahead as 50 years. Because the Secretary of State is interchangeable and will come and go, the machinery of government is bound to change. Departments are bound to change, as they have done even in the past few months. There must be a degree of confidence for the public—and business, because of the decisions being made—that there is a system in Whitehall for dealing with this; a system other than putting ““Prime Minister”” in the Bill. Tackling climate change will require actions by future Governments and future business. We must do that in a way which does not damage us. However, there are good reasons why it is not appropriate for the duties in the Bill to be placed on the Prime Minister. I will come to the precedents. I never claimed that there were no precedents at all. There were roles for the Prime Minister, and some mentioned here today and in the brief could be held not to be on the same scale as the Climate Change Bill and matters of national security which the Prime Minister deals with on an individual basis. The issue of the Secretary of State is very important, because of what the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, said. The Interpretation Act 1978 makes it clear that ““the Secretary of State”” means one of Her Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State. That is the advantage for legislation in terms of the machinery of government. They can all act and, therefore, it may be the Secretary of State for Defra, but it could be other Secretaries of State. The Bill, as it is now, is agreed by the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Administration. So, on the argument raised with me about the devolved Administrations, they agree with the Bill as drafted. As far as I know, they have not come forward during the passage of the Bill with any argument to substantially change how this part of the Bill is drafted on the basis of discussions in your Lordships’ House.