Baroness Verma (Conservative)
With regards to the Written Answer I gave the Noble Lord on 8 November 2012 (Official Report, Column WA 224-5), I have nothing further to add beyond my previous answers on this subject.
Further to yesterday's revelation that the government has abandoned the global temperature record as evidence of manmade climate change comes this new exchange between our two ennobled gladiators:
Lord Donoughue (Labour): To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on 8 November 2012 (WA 224–5) stating that “the temperature rise since about 1880 is statistically significant” and the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on 21 January (WA 99) stating that the Government do not use “purely statistical models” to analyse global temperatures, whether they will reconsider the earlier assertion that the rise in global temperatures since 1880 is “statistically significant”.
Baroness Verma (Conservative): With regards to the Written Answer I gave the Noble Lord on 8 November 2012 (Official Report, Column WA 224-5), I have nothing further to add beyond my previous answers on this subject.
I feel for Baroness Verma. Parliament has been misled and she has been made to look thoroughly dishonest. However, I think readers should be in little doubt that she is just a mouthpiece here, faithfully repeating the story she is told by the civil service. It would be ridiculous to suggest that she offered up her own opinion on statistical significance in the temperature records. I therefore have no reason to doubt her sincerity or her honesty.
But at this point there needs to be some accountability. What we cannot have is the noble baroness pretending that everything is well in the world. Someone told her that the warming since 1880 was statistically significant. That was wrong. Who takes the blame?
Lord Donoughue (Labour)
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on 8 November 2012 (WA 224–5) stating that “the temperature rise since about 1880 is statistically significant” and the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on 21 January (WA 99) stating that the Government do not use “purely statistical models” to analyse global temperatures, whether they will reconsider the earlier assertion that the rise in global temperatures since 1880 is “statistically significant”.