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Local Government and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I had intended to talk exclusively about climate change and the Climate Change Bill, but I would like to make some quick comments about a couple of things that have come up in the debate. The first is migration and, in particular, the migration from eastern Europe that several Members have mentioned. I am becoming increasingly concerned about the tenor of the debate on the issue. For example, I saw a tabloid headline last week that screamed, ““All jobs created have been taken by migrants””. That is clearly nonsense. Last year, the Trade and Industry Committee produced a report on the impact of the extension of the European Union to the east. As part of that process, we tried to get a handle on exactly how many migrants had come to the UK. We had before us the statistician from the Department for Work and Pensions and we tried to find out how many Poles, Lithuanians and others were in the UK. Frankly, he did not have a clue; he could not tell us. The main reason why he could not tell us is that, although it is relatively easy to count the number of people coming into the country, it is not so easy to count the number leaving. That is an important point. I appreciate it is difficult to count the people leaving the country because of free movement within the EU, but many people from eastern Europe come here to work on a temporary basis. There is now a significant eastern European population in my constituency. Some of them are settling, but many more come in the summer particularly to pick raspberries and strawberries. The industry would collapse without the labour from eastern Europe. Indeed, many growers are becoming concerned that too much of a crackdown on Romanians, Bulgarians and Russians will lead to a labour shortage in parts of the industry. There is a huge eastern European population in my area in the summer, but most of them go home in the autumn. Many of them are students who return to university and who have come here to earn money to help with their studies. That is perfectly legitimate and we should not get to the point where those people are penalised or stop coming here because of fears about migration. The second point regards council housing, and I listened with interest to the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). I remember that as a councillor in the early 1980s, we sold off huge numbers of council houses after the right-to-buy-policy was introduced. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the policy, the effect was that all the best council housing was quickly sold off to people who had lived in it for many years. The real problem was not selling the houses, but the fact that the money we received from selling the houses had to go to paying off housing debt. We could not build new council houses with that money and the problem was exacerbated later when the legislation was changed. Although previously one could sell at a discount or for the outstanding debt on a house, the latter option was removed, so the sale had to take place at a discount. In effect, when any new houses were built, they were often sold off without getting enough money back to cover the debt on the house. No council in its right mind was building a great number of council houses in those circumstances. The new Government in Scotland have taken action on that. We intend not only to build new houses, but to amend the right to buy to tackle the problem. Only the two measures together—more social housing and ending the right to buy at less than the cost of building—will result in a large number of new houses. Let me move on to what I intended to speak about: the Climate Change Bill. We generally welcome the Bill. Climate change covers many matters, both reserved and devolved. The Scottish Government have accepted the need to work with the UK Government to meet the challenges of climate change, which obviously affect us all. The statutory target in the Bill is a 60 per cent. reduction in emissions by 2050, but as has been noted, that covers only carbon dioxide, not the other greenhouse gases. We do not think that the target is sufficient. Many scientific studies indicate that a reduction of at least 80 per cent. will be required to avoid the 2° rise in global temperature that would lead to a sharp increase in the expected impact of climate change. That impact is already being felt in many developing nations throughout the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific islands and south-east Asia. We must move quickly and as far as possible. The Scottish Government are consulting on proposals to establish both mandatory targets and monitoring arrangements to reduce Scottish emissions by 80 per cent. by 2050. That would cover all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide. We are also encouraging Scottish industries to invest in low-carbon technologies because that would be a way forward both to help our industry and to tackle climate change. While the Scottish Government are looking at creating legislation that would lead to a greater reduction in emissions of not only carbon dioxide, but other greenhouse gases, it is encouraging and welcome that the Secretary of State has been reported recently as suggesting that it might be necessary to increase the target above 60 per cent. and that other greenhouse gases might need to be included. That suggests that there might be scope for cross-party agreement and progress as the Bill makes its way through the House. I certainly hope that that will be the case. However, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) noted, there was a previous agreement among various parties. While we all agreed on some aspects, I recall that the process broke down because of disagreement between the Liberals and Tories, although I am not quite sure what it was about. Prior to that, the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru and even the Democratic Unionists had joined the consensus. It was a pity that the agreement broke down because achieving consensus is important. How does the Secretary of State intend that the UK carbon reduction target will work in the various devolved Administrations, given that the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies will have an interest and will, I presume, put forward their own legislation on the matter? If any of the devolved Administrations achieve a much bigger reduction than their appropriate share of the UK target, how will that be reflected? Would such success be likely to let other parts of the UK off the hook, or will the Secretary of State be giving each area a specific part of the UK target?