Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hope that I can be brief. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, asked why it was 30 months. Basically, that is half of five years. Annually is too frequent; the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has accepted that. We thought that we could come up with a sufficient review mid-term. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, asked about the Cabinet. The Cabinet Office undertakes these risk assessments already. That is part of the ongoing process of resilience and preparation for all kinds of issues, some of which it would probably be quite wrong to read out for serious reasons. I gave the examples of pandemic flu and flooding or chemical spills. These are major issues which are ongoing as part of the government operation for the public good, to be as prepared as possible for all these issues. However, that is more short-term in the sense that it is looked at annually, in the context of the five years we have worked on, the two-and-a-half year interim reports and the annual checks as a package. That is almost my last paragraph about the departmental reports. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, that the Bill is approved by the devolved Administrations. In the departmental reports, I therefore take it that I am covering that acceptance—in the departmental reports of the Scottish Executive or the Welsh Assembly Government, or the Scottish Office in terms of Whitehall—and that this information will be covered and put in the public domain. My earlier point was that Defra’s annual report will cover all the government departments so that everything is in one area, except for where the public service agreement targets have to be looked at. It is much better for one report to cover everything. Although Defra may be leading on this, this is a government-wide Bill. My only answer to the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, is that the Government will be responding to the report on last year’s flooding by Sir Michael Pitt. There were two excellent reports and the interim report certainly went into great detail. He mentioned how all the various bodies involved in potential flooding have to be clarified and how failure by one, whether it is the Environment Agency, local authority drainage, the water companies or the internal drainage boards, throws the effect on the others. The protection of towns against flood risk causes flooding elsewhere. One has to be aware of that and prepared for it before one starts the flood risk process. Those matters will be fully covered in the Government’s response to that flooding report which will probably lead to a redivision of responsibilities in due course.