---

Energy Bill

I must be cautious in not answering my noble friend with a short ““yes””. I have no doubt that the department will attempt to give as much information as it can, but he is talking about annual reports, and I suspect that some of these criteria for triggering a review may be best looked at over a period of longer than a year. I cannot give him the reassurance he seeks, but in the letter I am to write to him—in fact I am about to take something away from the letter so I can add this without feeling too guilty about it—I will discuss the best way we think we can publish the criteria that he has set out. I hope he will leave to the letter the question of whether that is on an annual basis. Before I at last sit down, I shall come back to my noble friend Lord Woolmer, who asked whether the climate change committee would be asked for advice on banding. We have consulted on that issue, and the responses suggest that the committee did not have the appropriate expertise in the area of the renewable technologies. We will seek advice from appropriate expert sources in setting the bands. It is not our intention that that committee should provide banding advice. I think I have spoken enough. Amendment No. 35 has been spoken to, to some extent, but I again invite the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment No. 34.