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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I have missed out a bit. I apologise and I stand corrected. The right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton said that the Government must produce a clear and precise strategy for meeting the EU 2020 target of 15 per cent. renewable energy. On that we all agree. My right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), the Chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, made a wide ranging and expert speech ending with a call for a Cabinet Minister for climate change, which was probably noted by both Ministers on the Front Bench. The hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) made a valuable contribution, as did the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor). My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) was spot-on with his observation that stealth taxes disguised as green taxes serve only to give the whole environmental agenda a bad name. Progressive, profitable, forward-looking businesses everywhere are grasping the climate change opportunity. However, the Bill on its own will not deliver the changes that they need. Although we support the framework, it should be no surprise that we are far more critical of the Government's record of real carbon reductions to date, and their lack of ambitious policies to deliver the economic carbon transformation anticipated in the Bill. Nevertheless, I congratulate Ministers on bringing the Bill thus far. It is a welcome step towards creating a long-term public policy framework that will enable British entrepreneurs and wealth creators to gain some of the certainty and direction that they need to drive dynamic industrial change—dynamic industrial change that will spawn new industries, create thousands of new jobs, utilise the tremendous talents, skills and abilities of the British work force, help arrest the remorseless exhaustion of the planet's finite natural resources, drive the transformation of our economy and secure the long-term prosperity and well-being of future generations. I look forward to working constructively with the Government to take the Bill into Committee, to scrutinise it and improve it, mindful of the need to protect the interests of hard-pressed consumers in a tough economic environment, mindful of the need of businesses for long-term clarity and certainty, and mindful of the need to maintain full accountability to Parliament of the present Administration and all future Governments as they strive to meet the demanding, stretching carbon reduction targets set out in the Bill. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State opened the debate from our Benches by quoting Margaret Thatcher, the first world leader to call for concerted global action against man-made climate change. I close with a less well known quote from her, which was equally prescient. In November 1990, in one of her last speeches before leaving office, Lady Thatcher told the world climate conference:"““The IPCC tells us that, on present trends, the earth will warm up faster than at any time since the last ice age. Weather patterns could change so that what is now wet could become dry, and what is now dry could become wet. Rising seas could threaten the livelihood of that substantial part of the world's population which lives on or near coasts. The character and behaviour of plants would change, some for the better, some for worse. Some species of animals and plants would migrate to different zones or disappear for ever. Forests would die or move. And deserts would advance as green fields retreated. Many of the precautionary actions that we need to take would be sensible in any event. It is sensible to improve energy efficiency and use energy prudently; it's sensible to develop alternative and sustainable and sensible…it's sensible to improve energy efficiency and to develop alternative and sustainable sources of supply; it's sensible to replant the forests which we consume; it's sensible to re-examine industrial processes; it's sensible to tackle the problem of waste. I understand that the latest vogue is to call them 'no regrets' policies. Certainly we should have none in putting them into effect.””" Indeed, we should have no regrets, just renewed ambition and even greater determination to overcome the challenge of global warming. In that spirit, we welcome the Bill.