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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

May I, too, wish the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs a speedy recovery from his ill health? The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill, but in this debate my worry is about the risk of complacency. There is a danger that we will congratulate ourselves on the first Climate Change Bill—that when we go home tonight having agreed to its Second Reading, as I am sure we will, we will say, ““Haven't we done well?”” when all that we have done is set a not very demanding target. Targets are all very well, but we all know that they have a knack of not being met when the target is only a few years away, let alone when it is a generation or more away—for example, the entirely laudable target of halving child poverty in two years. On the statistics, child poverty is going up. The target of abolishing fuel poverty for the vulnerable is due in a couple of years, and fuel poverty is going up. My concern about the Bill is that if it does not have teeth, we can set the most extraordinary targets we wish and we will be deceiving not only ourselves, but the rest of the world. That is why it was regrettable that in his introduction the Minister said that the Government want to remove the teeth that were added in another place—the requirement to report to the Prime Minister. With due deference and no disrespect, I referred to DEFRA as a piddling Department. I also referred to it, mixing my metaphors, as a minnow among wolves; perhaps a minnow among sharks might have been a better description. As DEFRA is not responsible for green taxation, transport emissions, housing, energy or any of the other principal sources of emissions, the worry is that no matter how noble and worthy a person they may be, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is just a small cog in a very big wheel. If we do not make the head of the Government of the day responsible for the target, it will not get the priority it deserves and, like so many other targets, will be missed.