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Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hope that I do not have to come back in three years’ time because there are riots in the streets and name all noble Lords who said that this did not need to be done. There will be great anxiety in the everyday lives of people because matters will have got mixed up in their minds about the obligation. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is now so intellectually confused that he does not remember that it was him, following Kyoto, who brought in a degree of hypothecation whereby we are transferring funds to mitigation in Bangladesh and so on. These are all part of the deal. It involves a huge amount of money, which soon will approach $500 billion a year. Therefore, people should have a chance to understand. I am afraid that everyone from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, on has contradicted themselves and has made totally inconsistent remarks. It seems that if people do not understand the statistics, presumably that is their fault and the poor dears will never be able to understand them. We should put the statistics in a form that people can own and understand, giving them a picture of the problems, and reasons for the price increases, that they can accept. I do not know whether the noble Lord thinks that he is living in ancient Athens, but we have a wider electorate than they had there.