My Lords, before I speak to Amendment 4, I should say that it is a great pleasure to deal with a Minister who understands the area of energy and climate change, which part of this Bill deals with. He knows the area well, so I am sure that our debates this afternoon will be extremely productive.
I also welcome the fact that the Green Investment Bank comes at the beginning of the Bill, because it is an important part of making growth really happen in this country.
I also commend the list of green purposes; individually, they are excellent in terms of greenhouse gas emission reductions, natural resources and natural environment, biodiversity and environmental stability. I could not write a better list myself. However, what we are trying to do here is to get absolute clarity over whether this is a list that includes them all or whether you can pick one off for investment, and ignore the rest. I very much interpret this—and I presume that this is how the Bill was drafted by the Government—as a way of ensuring that at least one is met, but not necessarily all the others. To have the whole list as obligatory would be unrealistic.
What I and the other co-sponsors of the amendment are trying to do is to tie it into the climate change elements—the carbon and other greenhouse gas reductions—as being a necessary part of the investment programme. I refer not to individual investments, but to the investment strategy and programme of the bank as a whole. That is why the amendment places a legal duty on the board to assess the impact of the bank’s investment strategy on the Climate Change Act, which is an absolute anchor point for all this work, and a mission of this Government and the previous Government in terms of that global challenge. It is also to ensure that there is a duty on the board to have regard to the advice and reports of the Committee on Climate Change. My noble friend Lord Deben is not here today, but I am sure that he would like the fact that we wish to pay particular attention to this independent body that was set up specifically to advise government in this key area. Furthermore, it is to prevent the board from adopting or amending an investment strategy unless it is satisfied that the implementation of the proposed investment portfolio will increase the likelihood of UK carbon budgets and targets being met.
I apologise to the Minister for the fact that the proposed new clause has so many subsections and is so long, but it anchors the bank and legislation not just to the advice of the Committee on Climate Change and its work but to the real area of greenhouse gas emissions and the Climate Change Act, which has broad consensus of all parties—as it did in the last Parliament and does in this one. I hope that in that way we can ensure that this legislation is absolutely fit for purpose.
My noble friend the Minister mentioned the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, at Second Reading. I have huge respect for the noble Lord, Lord Smith, and I commend and congratulate the Government on his appointment; he is exactly the right person to do this. I would just suggest that perhaps post-appointment he might be rather keener to make sure that his board is not inhibited in any way in the decisions that it would like to make. I think that one looks at this in a slightly different way post-appointment, as chair of an organisation, from pre-appointment and as a member of the legislature. It is beholden on us to look independently, from a bird’s-eye view, to make sure that we have our purpose right.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Kelvin, is right in the vast majority of his remarks, but I think that here there is a need for a little more future-proofing of how operations might work, as I am sure that at some point in the long and glorious career of this bank there will be chairmen other than the noble Lord.