Lord Deben:

As I go around the world answering questions from New Zealand to Australia and throughout the rest of Europe, I find one thing in common. No government is really joined up. That is the nature of all our systems, whatever they are. People complain about two things: one is the treasury and the other is joined-up government. The treasury is bound to find the things we want to do difficult because it likes to have control. Of course what we are asking for is long-term loss of control, which is what always happens. Governments are not joined up and this is our biggest problem. The UK Prime Minister's office has been highly supportive for us, but that is not where the power sits. It sits now in the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is actually a great success. Those responsible were rather worried when the Department of Energy and Climate Change was amalgamated with the business Department, but actually it works. It works because we are moving from the position where decarbonising our electricity system was the key point. That is what has enabled us to decouple growth from emissions. Now, other things become more important, including transport, houses and especially land use. All those become more important. We are going to have to be far more iterative with other Departments now. It would be foolish to say that there is enough joined-up policy. I am pleased to see, however, that the UK Department for Transport, having been recalcitrant and having incurred my ire, has now come into line and has accepted the budget properly. In the end we win these battles.

I do not believe it is only about climate change. It is about many other things. It is difficult to get policies across the board. Let us consider nutrition and obesity. Ireland has a similar problem to the problem we have in the United Kingdom. It should be a matter for the ministries responsible for education, health and the Prime Minister's office. It is very important to get the policy across government, but Ireland has not managed it and we have not managed it either. This is a battle we will always have.