Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am always hesitant to stand up in your Lordships’ House and talk about adaptation, because every time I do we appear to be in the middle of some manifestation of the sorts of extreme events that we are likely to see increasingly with climate change. There was a report on the news this morning saying that last summer’s floods were not the result of climate change, with which I entirely agree. Nevertheless, here we are tonight facing some of the strongest storms and gales since the hurricane in 1980-odd. That sets the tone for the fact that adaptation to climate change is going to become an increasingly important issue. I, too, welcome the Government’s changes to strengthen the adaptation elements of the Bill. I was rather buoyed up in Committee by what I took to be the assurances of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that he saw the merits of an adaptation sub-committee, or at least a mechanism for independent scrutiny and advice. I was a bit disappointed that that assurance did not seem to manifest itself into a government amendment. I support Amendments Nos. 131 and 152, which would set up an adaptation sub-committee with very different skills from those people on the main climate change committee. It needs to be there to allow the two legs of climate change—mitigation and adaptation—to be properly represented at that level of expert advice. This is not a committee the function of which could be performed by parliamentary scrutiny, which is very much general scrutiny in the public interest. It is a committee similar to the climate change committee that gives expert advice and comments from an expert perspective on the Government’s programmes and progress towards adaptation. The reason why I am hesitant in standing up is because I cannot make up my mind whether every time I talk about this we get visited by some manifestation of climate change, or the way that it might be with climate change in the future. If we do not resolve this here in your Lordships’ House and it has to go to the other place, by then we could be into the period when droughts and heat waves would be the manifestations, and I hesitate to wish those on the country this summer. I know that the Minister is anxious about the setting up of an adaptation sub-committee and feels that parliamentary scrutiny is sufficient. I do not believe that it is a substitute; this would be an expert committee. I was also buoyed up—optimist that I am—when I visited the noble Lord, Lord Turner, last week. I regret that he is not in his place. Having laid out the arguments to him—he has been in the past a notorious sceptic about an adaptation sub-committee—he seemed to get pretty frisky in favour of it. If we have been able to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Turner, perhaps we can persuade the Minister.