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Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill

As my hon. Friend says from a sedentary position, he would hope so. Nevertheless, if we want to have the effect that he has described, the reporting, if we are to take it seriously, would have to be much more detailed than that suggested in the Bill. Perhaps a positive amendment can be made to the Bill in Committee to have reporting at a local or ““community””—which is a much more trendy words these days—level, to make it more meaningful to all those people out there who are literally gasping for information on the subject. Clause 2(2) gets even murkier. Under it, the Prime Minister must lay the report before Parliament and make a motion for a resolution to approve it. I am all for endless reports being laid before Parliament—it gives MPs something to do and to read. I benefited enormously from the report from their lordships to which I referred earlier. Who am I to criticise reports laid before Parliament? I wish that they were all as good as that one. We get into difficulties, however, if it is suggested that the report should give rise to a motion for a resolution of approval. That implies a number of things. There would have to be a vote on the report. Would that be subject to whipping? A huge advance has been made recently in parliamentary accountability, as we now know that whipping, even on Government Members, is much less effective than it used to be. Therefore, perhaps the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) hopes that if a report of this kind emerged to which he and his hon. Friends did not give much approval, they would feel free to vote against it, even if his hon. Friend the Minister said, ““I want you to approve of this report because it indicates my 10-point action plan, which I hope will gain your approval.”” But if the hon. Gentleman said, ““No, I’m not fooled by that, I want to vote against it””, would it be a whipped vote? Would there be rebels on the Government Benches? Would it be another occasion for Government embarrassment? I do not know. The position would be worse than that, however, because the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith wants the report to be laid before both Houses of Parliament. He need not hesitate to intervene on my speech, as it will not continue until anything close to 2.30, and his Bill is perfectly safe, certainly from me—I give him that undertaking now. There will be no Division, and this part of the proceedings will be finished well before 2.30, so if he wants to engage in dialogue, I invite him to do so. What would happen, however, if both Houses voted against the report, or one voted for and one against? I have never seen where that takes us in terms of dealing with climate change, emissions or anything else in a parliamentary sense. I do not see how it would even concentrate the Government’s mind much. We might consider the provisions critically in Committee, and examine whether another mechanism can be found, such as a report, by all means, or even referring it to a Select Committee, by all means, but putting such a provision in a Bill that has pretensions to be a statute is not very helpful or productive.