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Climate Change

I am delighted to be able to contribute to this debate, and it has been extremely interesting to listen to the speeches that have been made so far. I would guess that this is the first time—and it will probably be the last—that the hon. Members for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen) and for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) have been in agreement on anything. The word ““consensus”” has been used a great deal, and it is important to recognise that there is a belief—not only here in the House but more widely—that the moment has come for serious action to be taken on climate change. I want to pay a compliment—perhaps unusually, coming from these Benches—to the Deputy Prime Minister. The House ought to recognise that it was he who represented Britain’s position at the Kyoto summit and played an active part in securing an agreement. At that point, many of us thought that there was an opportunity for Britain to show continuing international leadership as well as national leadership. Perhaps it is part of the cycle of hope and disappointment that is inevitable in politics that that has not really been followed through. At that time, I took on the energy portfolio for the Liberal Democrats—a post that I held for a number of years. I was therefore one of our representatives on the Standing Committee on the Energy Bill in 2000. Great efforts were made by hon. Members on both sides of the House—although regrettably, not from either the Government or the Conservative Front Bench—to strengthen the Bill and to put into it some positive, hard-edged proposals that would have implemented the kind of policies that we need in this country if we are to change our behaviour and modify the way in which we use energy. This is not all about taxation policy, although that is important. Nor is it all about regulation, although that is important, too. A lot is about changing the culture involved in our acting out our lives. I should like to give a parallel illustration. Long before I arrived in the House, legislation was introduced to make it compulsory for motorists to wear seat belts. It was not terribly popular, and for a long time it was not particularly well observed. It is now very well observed, however, and people believe that wearing seat belts simply goes with being in the car. Another parallel example that I have cited many times before is that of smoking on the London underground. Smoking on the London underground was always illegal, but it stopped when the King’s Cross fire took place. Not even the yobs smoke on the underground nowadays, because that has become part of our culture. We need to ensure that the changes that we introduce not only run with the grain of popular culture but encourage it to go in the right direction. I was disappointed when many of the measures proposed by hon. Members on both sides of the House for inclusion in the Energy Bill in 2000 were not adopted. I shall give a small practical example. At that stage, it would have been possible to introduce a regulatory requirement that when electricity meters were replaced, they should be replaced by intelligent two-way meters. An attempt was made to introduce that provision, but it was unsuccessful. In 2004 I was fortunate enough to come first in the ballot for private Members’ Bills. I chose to introduce the Bill that became the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act 2004, which amends the building regulations set out in the Building Act 1984 and gives the Government the opportunity to introduce building regulations relating to sustainability, not only for new buildings but for existing ones. In that way, we can begin to catch the 99 per cent. of buildings that have already been built, and bring them up to an acceptable standard. It was interesting to hear what the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) said about traffic—she is obviously absolutely right—but we need to recognise that our houses produce twice as much carbon each year as our cars. We ought therefore to expend our political energy on doing something about our building stock, and particularly about our homes.