Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support my noble friend, having put my name to a variation of this amendment for the third time. As my noble friend has said, we worked on this at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. Although, I feel that we could have won a Division had I tested the opinion of the House on Report, it would have been wrong to do so in view of government Amendment No. 50, which I needed to consider. The Government’s only argument, which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has used on every occasion, is that this amendment would weaken the Bill. I dispute that. This amendment strengthens the Bill. It makes it a realistic proposition rather than a fanciful idea, which the original Clause 1 did by imposing a duty on the Secretary of State that could not be upheld in the courts. As has been said, we discussed this in the Joint Committee at great length. Without doubt, this is one of the key amendments now left to be agreed by the House in order to put this Bill into the right shape to send to another place. If we do not alter it in this way, there is little chance that the other place will have even the opportunity to consider such an important matter. For that reason, and everything I have said at previous stages, I support my noble friend Lord Crickhowell.