Now this is interesting. Note on page 9 this bit about the Hockey Stick:

In 2006, the US National Academies of Science carried out a full review of the evidence of temperatures in the last millennium, including the so-called ‘Hockey Stick’ diagram. They found that for the Northern Hemisphere at least, the rapid warming of the past half century has resulted in a level of warmth not seen in at least 500 years, and likely for at least the past 1300 years.

Close followers of the Hockey Stick saga will know of course that this is what the IPCC said about the Hockey Stick; the NAS were much more cautious, saying that it was merely "plausible" beyond 500 years.

Perhaps more intriguingly, we have seen these exact words before, in the paper that Julia Slingo prepared for Sir John Beddington in the wake of Climategate (see my earlier post here).

So the falsehood passes from Slingo to Beddington to DECC officials to ministers.

The finest scientific minds in the country and not one of them spotted it.