Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support entirely the principle of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Lea and I certainly recognise his frustration because I feel it myself from time to time. In a speech made in Japan last week, the former Prime Minister Tony Blair said the following: "““We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change … failure to act on climate change now would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible … the scale of what is needed is so great that the purpose of any global action is not to ameliorate or to make better our carbon dependence; it is to transform the nature of economies and societies in terms of carbon consumption and emissions””." He finished by saying, "““we’re not talking of adjustment, we’re talking about a revolution””." Revolutions are not best dealt with by adopting an attitude of business as usual, and there is a sense that much of this Bill has drifted through in such an atmosphere. My noble friend makes a very good point by saying that the party that has failed to come to the table here is the Treasury. From time to time during the passage of the Bill I have felt that in discussions relating to Treasury matters, we are dealing with a small town bank manager who is looking at the bottom line from a very narrow perspective rather than as something that we all agree is urgent and of real global importance. I hope that when the Minister comes to respond, he will accept the fact that many people, not just in this Chamber but outside it as well, sincerely believe that the degree of urgency running across Government—I am not talking about individual departments because I happen to have the highest regard for Defra—and the sense of a possible revolution in the air are not as palpable as some of us would wish.