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Fuel Poverty Bill

The interpretation under the Climate Change Act would be much more in line with what Mr. Justice McCombe said about previous legislation. We have yet to see the text for the Bill on child poverty, but although I suspect that it will be framed in aspirational terms I should be very surprised indeed if it included such an overriding duty as set out in clause 2(1). If that were so, every last penny of the Government's resources would have to be diverted to deal with child poverty. We could have several such duties, all possibly in conflict and all demanding their share in the allocation of Government resources. The Committee looked at the South African experience, which produced some peculiar consequences. Luckily, the judges there are being sensible and allowing time to adopt the measures, but politicians say that if they had realised what they were doing when they passed social and economic rights they might have done so rather differently, without allowing full justiciability. Such a duty could take from elected politicians our proper role, which is to decide on the allocation of resources and priorities for the country and stand or fall by those decisions at the next election, and put that right into the hands of unelected judges, who are unaccountable and do not face the same pressures as us when we try to make decisions.