I thank my noble friend. I feared that “inappropriate” and “hypothecation” would be words used in the arguments produced. I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in support of the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, put his finger on the matter. If we do not set it up when we start, it will never get set up; it either happens now or it will never happen. Once the money starts to flow, no Government will ever take their hands off it, and the Treasury certainly will not. So we either set the framework up now or this will go the same way as North Sea oil.
The argument that my noble friend has not answered at all—it is unanswerable—is about the inter-generational fairness. Why should we spend it all on ourselves? No matter what the situation may be, if we have got ourselves in a hole we should clamber out of it and not try to rob future generations of what they should share with us. I shall not go on any further, but I am disappointed with what my noble friend has said, although I am not surprised. I shall discuss the matter with people who are more sympathetic with what I am trying to achieve and see whether they want to come back to this at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.