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Adaptation will be important, not only to avoid some of the major economic, social and environmental impacts of climate change, but also to avoid the political impacts of an increasingly impacted upon and concerned public. It is important that the Bill is strengthened in terms of the adaptation agenda. One way to do that would be to provide for independent scrutiny of the Government’s risk analysis and the adaptation programme in a similar way to the independent scrutiny to be exerted by the climate change committee over the targets issue.

Specific skills will be needed for that; namely, skills in risk analysis, technical skills in water supply, flood risk management, public health, contingency planning,

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economics, asset management and infrastructure, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, ecology and biodiversity. Not only would these skills be necessary to do an appraisal of the risk assessment and the programmes, they also would enable the Government to gain from an appraisal of the adaptation agenda a background, a context, for successive carbon budgets. That would be a useful analysis to feed into the work of the Committee on Climate Change. Clearly if the impacts of climate change were getting worse, we would need to be a lot more stringent about how fast we were approaching the budgets and targets.

The amendments that you have before you are threefold and to some extent they encapsulate the range of options open if there was to be a process of independent scrutiny. Amendment No. 158 talks about giving that role to the Committee on Climate Change. We have already talked about the fact that that would extend the role of the committee and diffuse it from its key focus, which needs to be targets in greenhouse gas reduction. It would mean another set of skills and the committee would probably have to be bigger, which would not be a good idea.

Amendment No. 175 gives a role to the Environmental Audit Committee but really what is required is independent scrutiny on the basis of scientific expertise. The Environmental Audit Committee would be parliamentary scrutiny but would not be in the position of having specialist expertise. We would need to bring that in. Again, that does not quite do the trick.

The proposal in Amendment No. 183B for an adaptation committee would bring in that specific expertise and would allow for an independent assessment of the Government’s risk assessment on the adaptation plan and progress against it on an expert basis, not on a political basis. If that was seen as more bureaucracy, more committees and more cost, it could be done on a periodic basis rather than having a Standing Committee. That would reduce all of those concerns but it would be a bit cheeseparing, to be honest, in the face of the real economic and social impacts that climate change is going to produce in terms of our requirement to adapt. The figures for flood risk management and flood damage alone are astronomically large. Quibbling about the cost of a small expert committee is too much. An adaptation committee, given a very tight focus on technical assessment of the adaptation agenda, would provide a real focus that could feed into the considerations of the Committee on Climate Change. It would give a reassurance to the public and above all would probably give defence to the Government of the day when climate change impacts start to really produce major public concern about the floods, droughts, heat waves and desertification that we are inevitably going to see as climate change bites.

Lord Crickhowell: Not for the first time the structure of the Bill has got us into a bit of a tangle: an amendment has been moved in connection with Clause 28 to give a new role to the Committee on Climate Change when we are really looking at the provisions of Clause 49, which we are going to debate a good deal later. I agree that we are going to need a committee to

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report on this matter. As has already been indicated, there is a difficulty about my noble friend’s amendment in the sense that he or the committee are looking at future policies—the effectiveness of policies to reduce future carbon emissions and progress in that direction. When we come to adaptation, we are not dealing so much with those future policies. We are dealing with the consequences of what has already happened over the past couple of hundred years. We are now facing the need to respond to what exists at present. There will come a moment when the two things interlock as we move into the future but for the foreseeable future, we have to adapt to the consequences of past actions. There is a legitimate question of whether, by giving it this task, it should really be for the climate change committee to look at future policies in addition to its existing heavy burdens.

On the other hand, I am not sure that Amendment No. 183B goes far enough. If we are to have an independent scrutiny committee, it certainly will have to do what is suggested in that amendment, but it does not actually suggest that it should report on how things are going and the achievements so far. The new clause provides that the committee should consider the adequacy of assessments and of any programmes, but does not seek the progress report that my noble friend seeks in his amendment and what I think we should require.

Curiously, Clause 49 provides the Secretary of State with a reporting function, but with no indication of how frequently that should happen and whether there would be regular updates. The clause states:

It then provides for the proposals and policies employed to meet the objectives that have been set. Later the clause provides that:

But it does not say how frequently new programmes and policies should be developed. We could go for many years before the Secretary of State brings forward a set of new policies and proposals or any report at all on how well these matters are being dealt with.

My conclusion from all this is that we have to have a regular system of reporting. It is highly desirable, and when we come to the later clause, I shall support amendments that address the need for thorough policies; we will debate them later. I do not think that either of the amendments before us fully meets the need for regular progress reports. I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say and I hope he will agree that there is a need for such reports. It may be that on Report we shall have to come back with something like Amendment No. 183B to the relevant part of the Bill and make sure that regular reports are produced and are not dependent on how frequently the Secretary of State comes forward with fresh proposals. Indeed, if the noble Lord who moved the amendment were to come forward later with a suitably adjusted proposal, I certainly would support it.



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8.45 pm

Lord Puttnam: I support the principle behind this amendment. It is particularly useful to see the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, in his place, because I have two points that I wish to make. The first is that the only deficiency in the Joint Committee’s report was the passage on adaptation. That had absolutely everything to do with time pressure. We were up against almost insane time constraints to get the report out, and we did not do that part justice. Indeed, all that has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is accurate.

Secondly, the only Member of the Committee who, so far as I am aware, has any real experience of the issue of adaptation is the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. When he was Secretary of State for Health, he moved with great speed and effectiveness on the issue of AIDS. The situation was similar in that it arose as a consequence of actions that had in some cases taken place years before; there was an awareness of the dangers, and the need to move swiftly. Adaptation will be expensive and complicated, and will involve people and expertise quite unlike those of the climate change committee itself. It is going to be a very important part of the Bill and I can only hope that we learn from the experiences of the past. We must take on board many of the actions taken so promptly and brilliantly by the Government of the day; frankly, that put Britain in a better place in the fight against AIDS than any other country in the world. If we can achieve the same with climate change, we could be very proud of ourselves.

The Earl of Selborne: Amendment No. 183B brings us to Part 4 of the Bill. We are discussing adaptation slightly out of context; we are still on the Committee on Climate Change. I accept that these three clauses may need amendment, but what needs to be discussed at this stage is whether the work of advising the Secretary of State on how he can fulfil his responsibilities in Part 4 can adequately be fulfilled by the Committee on Climate Change or one of its sub-committees, or whether it would be better to have a separate advisory body with different expertise. We have already heard from all around the Committee that the case for having a separate conduit is strong. The timescale is different, the expertise is different and the immediacy is different—although one could argue about that, perhaps.

I am quite clear that it would be helpful to have expertise that was specifically encouraged to advise the Secretary of State—in the widest sense, meaning the whole Government. Just about every department and, indeed, the rest of the economy, will have to address the sort of issues that the committee envisaged in Amendment No. 183B will be advising on. Although I accept that any amendment that imposes yet further committees has an onus to justify its position, in this case I would go along with the proposal.

Lord Redesdale: I apologise for being a couple of minutes late. I want to raise, from Amendment No. 183B, the important issue of embedded carbon. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, mentioned that this needs to be strengthened; it probably does. We should

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not forget that this is about not only future carbon emissions but trying to protect the infrastructure, as set out in this amendment. It is important to realise that an immense amount of carbon is already embedded in the infrastructure, in roads, power stations and water treatment plants. What if they are destroyed by flood? The housing stock is built to retain heat, rather than to be cool, which will be a major issue in the future. We have already talked about the enormous amount of carbon that has been put into the atmosphere over the past 200 years. We have to start thinking about preserving infrastructure, because replacing infrastructure is incredibly carbon-expensive. It is an issue that we will move back on to, but I very much hope that the Minister will realise that the committee should look at embedded carbon costs. If we lose the infrastructure and need to replace it, we will add yet more carbon.

Lord Rooker: At the risk of embarrassing the noble Lord further—not that he should be embarrassed—I support what my noble friend Lord Puttnam said about the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. At that time he persuaded the then Cabinet to put that leaflet—some 20 million of them—through every door in the country. I do not think that a Labour Cabinet would have done it at the time. His powers of persuasion over the need for change were vital. This translates across; this is also a powerful argument that works in more than one policy area.

The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, rightly demanded a timetable for the reports. I draw his attention to Clause 48, because the timetable is there. It says that the first report must be laid within three years of Royal Assent, with subsequent reports at least every five years after that. I know that most of the noble Lord’s remarks were on Clause 49, but it is linked to Clause 48; both are about adaptation. The timetable is in Clause 48 because the Clause 49 report responds to the risks identified in Clause 48. In other words, something is set out in the Bill in respect of a timetable.

The comments we have heard recognise that the Government’s work on adaptation needs independent scrutiny, and we agree. We do not think that any of the amendments meet this need. However, I am more than happy to take away this issue and this package and consider them before the next stage. This comprises a separate issue in the Bill. The noble Earl, Lord Selborne, made the point that the range of expertise required here is slightly different from that required in the rest of the Bill. This matter requires further work. We shall certainly consider independent scrutiny of the Government’s work on adaptation.

Lord Crickhowell: I do not think that Clause 48 entirely meets the point that was made in this debate. That clause states:

However, what we are looking for here is a report on progress made in dealing with the matter. Therefore, we are trying to take the matter slightly further forward than Clause 48 provides for.



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Lord Rooker: I accept that. If I have misunderstood the noble Lord, I apologise. I realise that the Committee seeks to take the Bill further forward. The status quo is not acceptable to most Members. We are happy to look at this package comprising Amendments Nos. 158, 175 and 183B. We shall see whether we can find a satisfactory way of dealing with this. However, we baulk at an issue in Amendment No. 175. It is not appropriate for the Government to require Parliament to do things when Select Committees are their own masters. They are the House committees. Further, they may not always comprise their present form so there is a danger in including such a measure in primary legislation. We ought to be wary of that.

As regards Amendment No. 183B, setting up new independent committees on an ad hoc basis could be resource-intensive and we are not clear what such committees would do in between time. However, I am not knocking the amendment on these technical grounds. I am conscious that I forecast at Second Reading that the Government would bring forward an amendment with regard to what they intended to do about adaptation, and that we have not done so. However, we hope to do so very shortly. It is an area on which we want to move in Committee if possible so that people can see how the land lies. We shall come back to this matter on Report when we have considered it further.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I knew that we had taken our time for a purpose, which was to give the Minister a chance to prepare his response on this matter. I am pleased with the debate. We have moved the subject on. The case made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for independent scrutiny seems to have been accepted by the Minister as being a possible way forward. We look forward to Report and to hearing more about the Government’s proposals on adaptation in this area. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9 pm

Lord Taylor of Holbeach moved Amendment No. 158A:

The noble Lord said: I shall speak first to Amendment No. 158A and then to Amendment No. 159 with which it is grouped.

This section relates to the duty of the committee with regard to its annual reports. It makes special mention of its report in the second year after the end of a budgetary period. That will have to take account of the final statement from the Secretary of State who, under Section 14, will have had five months—until 31 May—to produce it. If we assume that, in any year where 31 May is a Saturday, a Sunday or a Bank Holiday Monday, the Secretary of State will have completed his report beforehand and the committee will have had between 20 and 22 days in which to produce the section reviewing the progress that has just been summarised by the Secretary of State. That reflects five years of a budgetary period.

Obviously, one hopes that the committee and the Secretary of State will have a good working relationship

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and will, consequently, be generally aware of each other's relative position. That will not, however, necessarily be adequate to allow, in four weeks, a full appreciation of the Secretary of State’s justification for the work of the preceding five-year budgetary period. Should the Secretary of State be unable to complete his report until, let us say, 1 or 2 June, the time available to the committee will be reduced by 5 or 10 per cent. There can very quickly be a significant erosion of the time to deliberate properly.

As things stand, the Secretary of State will receive the report of the committee on or before 30 June and will then have three and a half months in which to draft his response, and discuss it with the other national authorities, prior to laying it before Parliament not later than 15 October.

It seems to us that the balance on these dates is not quite right and that the committee should be given adequate time in which to evaluate the Secretary of State’s assessment of each budgetary period. In our view such an evaluation is likely, every five years, to take considerably longer than the four weeks allowed in the Bill.

Turning to Amendment No. 159, having just expressed our concern that the committee is not being given sufficient reporting time in the years where they have to include a commentary on the outcome of the preceding budgetary period, it would appear that the Government share our anxiety and are prepared in principle to allow the committee extra time in which to complete its statutory duties. Unfortunately, the wording in the Bill does not specify any circumstances in which that leeway will be applied. Our concern is that the only cause for extending the committee’s reporting period will be where the Secretary of State is unable to meet his statutory time limit and the committee will find itself at the end of each five-year budgetary period with a scant four weeks in which to assimilate the final figures, assess their meaning, review the measures that gave rise to them and evaluate the outcomes.

Few assemblies could contain a greater collective knowledge of the ways committees function than your Lordships’ House, but experience tells me that if the secretariat can do all of the analysis and suggest a commentary that appears to all committee members to be logical, comprehensive and positive there will be little need of many meetings or further research. If, however, the situation is not so clear—if there is a range of opinion among the members of the committee or if the results to be assessed are not more or less as expected or desired—there may be a need for several meetings with a fair amount of preparation in between. In such circumstances, the final wording is also often seen as being critical. At such times, the four weeks allowed to the committee would be impossibly constraining. Our view is that this section, as it stands, is likely to lead to unnecessary stress and missed deadlines. I beg to move.

Lord Redesdale: I speak to Amendments Nos. 159 and 160, which are tabled in my name. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has already set out very clear reasons for his amendments. I have just one question, as this is a probing amendment. Clause 28(4) says,



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Is there any limit to which that response can be extended, because many of us who have waited for Government responses to Select Committee reports and other such documents find that the Government’s timetable can be slightly elastic in certain cases? I say that because it will obviously have major impacts on policy if the response is to be shifted over a long period, especially if you are dealing with a five-year period. Does that eat into the next year’s budgetary period, or does it affect only the period in which the Government are responding? Does it have any effect on the budgetary provisions set out by the committee? The committee’s work will obviously be greatly affected not only by its report but by the Government’s response.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: To be fair, this is an interesting amendment. When we looked at the analysis of the amendments, we thought that other issues were bubbling away about setting budgets going forward, rolling periods and the 30 June report coinciding with other 30 June reports. Looking at the timetable, the intention is clearly to give the committee flexibility about extending the time that it needs to report and thereon to give the Secretary of State more time, should the committee decide to extend the timing of its report.

In truth, there is not a deadline on the extension that the Secretary of State could put on the response. However, we view the Secretary of State’s extension as being as a result of the committee’s extension, so we would not wish there to be any suggestion—as the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, is suggesting—that there would be an expectation that the Secretary of State could just ponder the committee’s report indefinitely.

Given the points made by noble Lords this evening, we will think about it. It might be that I am not necessarily hearing the concerns properly. I will read the points made by noble Lords and think about the debate. I was looking at it from a completely different angle, so I do not want to detain the committee further with points that are possibly irrelevant. If I can add further or come up with any further ideas, I hope to offer noble Lords more reassurance about reporting deadlines.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I am grateful for that response from the Minister, which is very satisfactory. I hope that we can look at this again on Report and at least have a mechanism whereby the individual parties to this process of the ping-pong of reporting and responding have enough room to do the job properly and to do the issue credit. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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