Clause 35
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
1:00 pm
Gregory Barker (Shadow Minister, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
I will be brief. My comments on this set of amendments will be similar to those that I made on the previous group, on which I appreciate that the Minister went some way to assuage our concerns. Although I recognise that some tidying up of the Bill is required, we must be careful and judicious and note what powers we may be diluting in the process.
The Minister has alluded to this in her comments, but will she say whether it is the Government’s wish to remove the requirement for the independent committee to report to Parliament on the Government’s progress on the adaptation programme? Why is it necessary to remove the Secretary of State’s duty to give an assessment to Parliament on the progress that the Government of the day have made towards meeting their adaptation policies specifically? Will the Minister assure the Committee that new clause 4 is in no way inferior in its demands on the Government to the clauses that it will replace? We would appreciate a degree of clarity on that.