Clause 1
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
12:15 pm
Gregory Barker (Shadow Minister, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
This has been a most instructive and interesting sitting. I disagree profoundly with the hon. Member for Southampton, Test because our proceedings augur very well for the debates and discussions that we will be having in Committee over the next few days. The debate has been by no means a diversion. Our discussion goes to the very heart of what we are trying to achieve, and I do not think that the debate has detracted in any way from the meat of the Bill, or from the frameworks, mechanisms and committees that it will establish.
If I may respond to the hon. Gentleman directly, his suggestion that the debate has taken place at the whim of Opposition parties—either Conservative or Liberal Democrat—was beneath him. He knows that non-governmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace—I am sure that he and, certainly, the Ministers hold those organisations in esteem—have given vociferous support for the principal aim. I propose to address my remarks to that aim, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York spoke extremely eloquently about amendments Nos. 43 and 44.
At the outset of the debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal really set the benchmark for this Bill by making a wonderful and inspiring speech that I hope his children and many other children will read. It reflected the ambition that we all have for this Bill and reminds Members on both sides of the Committee why we came into politics, why we get out of bed in the morning, why we are proud to be Members of Parliament, and why we campaign: because there is a higher purpose. It is very easy to lose that higher purpose in the tit for tat trading of brickbats across the Committee. My right hon. Friend really rose above the party political divide, and he reminded us how profoundly important the Bill is and what we are all about.