---

Industry and the Environment

I congratulate the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) on her maiden speech. Wales is the heart of oratory. We have heard some great Welsh orators in Parliament, and she spoke with clarity, humanity and humour about herself and her constituency. The one thing that she did not mention was the wonderful singing that comes from Wales. I remind the hon. Lady of the opportunities of the parliamentary choir, and I am sure that, should her voice be appropriately mellifluous, my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) would be only too happy to invite her to join. The more good voices, the better the choir performs. I wish the hon. Lady well in her parliamentary career. I hope that she follows one or two other traits of her august predecessor, the right hon. Denzil Davies, with whom I used to participate in economic debates. One never quite knew what Denzil was going to say. He had his own unique and very independent perspective and as time wore on, that independence shone forth. He was a keen analyst of the economic situation and what he had to say was always worth listening to. I begin my contribution to this debate by drawing the House’s attention to the business interests that I declare in the Register of Members’ Interests. I shall deal with matters connected with the environment and climate change, especially in the context of the work of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, of which I had the honour of being Chairman in the previous Parliament. Subsequently, I shall deal with issues connected with my constituency’s manufacturing interests and the future of the UK aerospace industry. When the Queen’s Speech was finally printed, I thought that an error had been made. I was looking for a sentence to the effect that the Government would continue to recognise the importance of worldwide action to combat the threat of global warming, and so on. However, no such sentence appeared, not even one of a declaratory nature. That is disappointing, especially given the priority assigned by the Prime Minister to the impact of climate change, Britain’s current G8 presidency and our forthcoming presidency of the EU.I salute the fact that the Prime Minister has given climate change a top priority, but it is disappointing that the Queen’s Speech did not mention it, and that there are no specific proposals to deal with some of the challenging issues exposed by the most recent Select Committee report. My first concern has to do with the G8. The sentence that I found to be missing from the Queen’s Speech would, I hope, have gone on to say that the Government hoped to influence the US, India, China and others to take up their Kyoto treaty responsibilities. If that was not acceptable, I would have hoped that some other means of bringing those countries into line could have been found, but only yesterday I heard an American city mayor say on Radio 4 that he and other mayors would like to get together and do something about climate change on a city-by-city basis. American science appears to be in denial about the problem of climate change, but it is clear that American mayors would like to introduce some form of emissions trading arrangement in the US. It seems that they feel guilty that their country is not prepared to take its international responsibilities seriously, and that they want to do something about one of the greatest threats facing mankind. America may have the technological solutions to the problem, but there is no national impetus for that country—the planet’s largest polluter—to take action. The existence of climate change is still a subject for debate in America, even though our chief scientist, Sir David King, told the Select Committee that carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions are at record levels. We know the facts of the matter, so measures to reduce greenhouse gas production make sense, both in terms of the precautionary principle and of simple politics in respect of the world and of energy. I cannot understand why the US refuses to put technological emphasis on reducing its dependence on hydrocarbon fuels, as that would relieve its dependence for fuel on some of the most politically unstable countries of the world—a dependence that stems from the current slowdown in the world economy. It was disappointing that the Prime Minister did not use his G8 presidency to address those issues. It remains to be seen whether he will be brave enough to use his EU presidency to include aviation in the emissions trading regime, or adopt some other approach that might deal with a problem that is getting worse all the time. The Select Committee looked at the problem, and it was clear that there are many Government fingers in the climate change agenda pie. The Treasury, the DTI and DEFRA are all involved, as are many other parts of Government, but the response does not appear to be joined up. For example, whatever the overall performance in reducing carbon dioxide emissions since 1997, the amount of those emissions arising from the transport sector has been rising. It is a source of great sadness that the UK has no coherent policy to deal with the problem. I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), to his Front-Bench post. For some time, his Department has been advocating the establishment of a UK biofuels industry, and it has produced a very nice coloured brochure entitled ““The Facts on Biodiesel and Bioethanol””. I read it assiduously. It talked about the job opportunities that would arise and the benefits that would accrue to UK agriculture, and gives the impression that the Government are entirely sold on the idea. However, in successive Budgets, the best that the Treasury has been able to provide is a duty derogation of 20p per litre. As a result, we are struggling to establish a viable biofuels industry. The UK is a signatory to the European directive that requires us to achieve a biofuels inclusion rate of 2.75 per cent. by 2005, rising to more than 5 per cent. by 2010. If we cannot achieve that, we are required to say why. DEFRA subscribes to our having an indigenous biofuels industry, but we have no industry producing bioethanol—the green element included in petrol—and the Queen’s Speech contained nothing to suggest that the Government intended to accelerate the process. All we have is a British Sugar planning application for a plant that would produce 55,000 tonnes of bioethanol a year.