Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for hurrying back to speak to this amendment, which both he and I think is important. The Minister has clearly grasped that there is an important point here. I certainly would not accept, as I said when I moved the amendment, that it creates a huge new burden of work for the department, because it already gathers all this information. All we are asking for is that it should be transparent and publish it. The Minister also said that the department seems to think that it should gather information about environmental impact and so on ““where appropriate””. In talking about carbon emissions, an extremely serious issue, it is surely always appropriate that that information is gathered. There can be no excuse for it not to be, and it needs to be made public. Whether it is the most improved department depends on where the baseline was. I come back to the fact that about £1.8 billion of taxpayers’ money going to support things that the public cannot know about, and having emissions that they cannot be aware of, is unacceptable. I am sure that between now and Third Reading the Minister may be able to give me more interesting information on where the Government intend to go with this issue, even if not in the Bill. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 65 [Report on climate change: Wales]: