Without wishing to channel “Yes, Prime Minister”.
I am very grateful, in addition to those who so kindly co-signed the amendment, to noble Lords who contributed to this debate: the noble Lords, Lord Hannay, Lord German, Lord Paddick and Lord Coaker. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, really worried me, because every time he said something, I found it was in my speech on the next group. That is going to make the speech shorter, which is a great advantage, but it does slightly worry me as to whether he has a hitherto unsuspected hacking habit.
9.45 pm
To turn seriously to the point, I am not surprised but am deeply disappointed by the Minister’s response. I do not doubt the efforts of the Government—he gave us a very long list. As has been said by others—I will not develop it—what we are looking for in this amendment is one place, one plan, which seems very straightforward. The leadership of the UK around this issue has not been in doubt—but I use the past tense. This Bill puts it in very grave doubt.
Finally, on some of the comments that the Minister brought up, the creation of straw men was proliferating across this Committee. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, there was in fact a great crowd of arguments put forward but unfortunately they were all straw men which bear no relation to what we are actually proposing. Of course it is inappropriate to bind future Governments, but I notice that the Government have produced a strategic plan until 2030 for defence, intelligence and security, covering issues around climate change. They even refreshed it when it turned out, a year later, to be completely inappropriate. That is how strategy works. In the oil industry we produced 30 or 40-year strategies, because that was the length of time you had to think forward, but it did not mean that it was cast in stone—it is not the law of the Medes and Persians. We do need to put this Bill in a longer-term context for all the reasons that noble Lords gave so eloquently, for which I am so grateful. However, that being said, we will think about this and come back on Report, and in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw.