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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to cover the points that were made. As I said, my right hon. Friend referred to targets. The committee will report to Parliament on progress, and every year, the Government must respond. We do not, however, support annual targets because there is always some variability in emissions each year—weather being an obvious case in point. Having annual targets would be a great problem, but there will be reporting and transparency, and there will be the opportunity for everyone to comment. In the contributions of the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) and the hon. Members for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) and for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), the true voice of conservatism was heard tonight—completely out of step with the majority of scientists. In February last year, the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change evaluated all available lines of evidence and concluded that there was a 90 per cent. chance that human emissions have caused most of the warming since 1950. That is the clearest answer to the points that the right hon. Gentleman raised.