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Climate Change Bill [HL]

That is a question to which, in all honesty, I should be able to say yes, but I cannot do that here tonight; I shall have to take the matter away and come back on it. I wanted to come back to the point the noble Lord raised. I do not normally follow notes and read out narrative. I have always said to officials, ““If there are words that you want me to use precisely, put them in bold and I will use them””. This time around, I changed the words as I used them, because, conscious of the debate that I have just heard, I said—and I shall read it again—that, "““we are committed to the international principle of ““supplementarity”” which states””," in bold letters, "““that use of international mechanisms should be supplemental to domestic action and that domestic action should therefore constitute a””—" I then said that perhaps it should be ““the””— "““significant element of our efforts to meet our targets””." So I am with my noble friend on that; it is a question of how we can do it in the Bill. I hope that I have said enough in this debate for my colleagues in the department—the climate change Ministers for whom I am masquerading as their spokesman on earth, while we still have one. We will take the issue away, because I shall have to come back with something solid that I can get the House to accept, otherwise it will force its will on the issue. We want to be practical about this and the answer to my noble friend that I should be able to give is ““yes””, but I am in no position to do that tonight. I will go away and see whether I can come back with that answer.