Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, we, too, welcome the amendments, with perhaps two and a half cheers, for much the same reasons as the right reverend Prelate has given. However, while what the Government have done appears to follow fairly closely what the noble Lord and my noble friend Lady Northover tried to say on an earlier occasion, what we were talking about was expertise in international development, and those words do not appear in the Bill. The right reverend Prelate has also rightly welcomed the speed with which the Government have announced the names of those being appointed to the climate change committee. Some of them—such as Dr Fankhauser, with his knowledge and experience on the World Bank—could be said to have the requisite experience of international development. I so agree with what the right reverend Prelate said—that we need to have regard to the official government objective of helping developing countries to realise the millennium development goals to which the international community is heavily committed—although we see now, for example from the recent UNICEF report on State of the World's Children, that in many regions of the world those goals are unlikely to be attained within the timescales set. So although we welcome the Government's proposed additional words, we are concerned that there is not apparently a person with particular expertise on international development nominated to the committee. We hope that the words that the right reverend Prelate quoted do not exclude the appointment of additional persons in the future with that particular expertise.