My Lords, I refer to my past as chairman of the Climate Change Committee merely to say, in very short terms, why I think it is important to take seriously the way in which the planning Acts affect decisions made by the whole nation when it comes to dealing with climate change, both adaptation and mitigation. There is no doubt that we will have to make all our decisions through that lens, because that is the only way we are going to be able to fight the existential threat we now face. No one who has looked at the effects of climate change this year, all over the world, can possibly misunderstand the reality of the threat. If we are going to deal with that, it is not just about policy or programmes but action and delivery.
This Government have been extremely good on their policy and programmes. We cannot complain about a Government who have set the best targets in the world, who led the world in Glasgow, who first set
a net-zero target for 2050. We really have to accept that this Government have done all those things, but the criticism is delivery. Doing those things is essential. Setting those targets is crucial. Leading the world in all those ways has been a privilege for all of us, but we now have to deliver. In this amendment there is a real chance to do one of the pieces of delivery which is vital.
I say to my noble friend, with whom I have worked for many years, including in the Department for Environment, when we began the journey to where we have got today, imagine putting the word “not” into Amendment 191:
“The Secretary of State must”
not
“have special regard to the mitigation of, and adaptation to”.
Imagine doing the same in sub-paragraph (2):
“When making a planning decision”,
he must not “have special regard”. We would find that utterly unacceptable, because we know perfectly well that this is central to the future of this country and of the world, and we therefore have to have that. No doubt we will be told that the Government have got that. Well, once again—which is why I intervened earlier, in wicked preparation for this one—it is not good enough just to have the intention. We know which road
“is paved with good intentions”,
and that is not a road we ought to travel, although it is the road down which we are all travelling at this moment. Therefore, I say to my noble friend that I very much hope that he will understand why it is crucial for us to make it clear that the planning system must be used throughout its length and breadth to ensure that we make the decisions upon which the future of our children—and, indeed, ourselves, even those as old as I am—really depends.
I finish by saying this. People attack some of the techniques and ways of behaviour of the extremist organisations, and I join them in that. It is not what I believe in. But what I object to is that people do not ask themselves why they are doing it. It is because there is a whole generation that does not believe that the democratic system can deliver what needs to be delivered on climate change, and we in this House and in the other place have got to overcome that. That is why this amendment is so important as part of reassuring and reasserting that the democratic system can deliver and that you do not have to take to the streets, you do not have to behave in the way that all of us deplore; you have instead to accept this kind of amendment. I hope the Government will see why it is crucial.