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Planning and Energy Bill

It is a great pleasure to speak on behalf of the official Opposition in strong favour of this excellent Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon). I am pleased that it bears a striking resemblance to an amendment that I tabled to the Climate Change Bill during the last Parliament. The cause has a good history, not least that of the battle fought by the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton). We recognise the efforts on both sides of the House to give statutory standing to the localist agenda at the heart of this new and badly needed legislation. This has been a very worthwhile and particularly good Friday morning debate. All the contributions from both sides of the House have been extremely positive and insightful, drawing on the great experience of the Members who are here. Many Members support this measure, including the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (John Battle), the hon. Members for Gower and for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), and my hon. Friends the Members for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) and for Upminster (Angela Watkinson), who all made worthwhile and forceful contributions to the debate. The Bill is an excellent piece of workmanlike drafting; it does exactly what it says on the tin. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks for his brevity. In just a page, it could achieve a paradigm shift in the pursuit of climate change policy. Members need little reminding of the economic and human necessity of acting now to restrict the worst impacts of climate change. The latest report from the intergovernmental panel on climate change states in the strongest language yet that the scientific evidence is now overwhelming. The case for economic action now rather than later is also increasingly clear thanks to the work of Lord Stern. Yet despite the seemingly widespread acceptance of those facts across the House, the policies of this Government, while generally heading in the right direction, lack sufficient ambition and urgency and the vision that is needed to meet the scale of the global warming challenge within the time frame that we now know is necessary. The Government's record on carbon reduction and low-carbon technology deployment here in Britain is disappointing to say the least. Credit is due to the Government for introducing the Climate Change Bill; we look forward to working constructively with them to toughen it up when it reaches the Commons shortly. However, unless there is a clear layer of policies beneath the Bill to deliver real change in our economy, it will have been a waste of time and risks just becoming an effective way to audit our failures. On its own, it will not deliver the changes that we need to make—the dynamic industrial changes, the changes in consumer behaviour, the changes in Government policy—if we are to rise to the challenge of a low-carbon future. Despite three consecutive Labour manifesto promises to cut emissions by 20 per cent. by 2010, it is a matter of record that total UK carbon emissions have risen since 1997. If the Government had a record to boast of in this regard, perhaps there would be less passion and less need for my hon. Friend's Bill, but all the evidence and all our experience show that the drive and impetus for the radical changes that we need to make in the UK are coming from the bottom, not the top. In 2006, emissions fell by just 0.1 per cent., despite the great help from some of the warmest weather on record. In 2006, Labour's manifesto commitment was quietly dropped in favour of a watered down target of 15 per cent. by 2010.