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Climate Change (Political Response)

Again, the hon. Gentleman shows his ignorance. Let me tell him this: presumably, there was some leadership to achieve the targets and bring things together. Only four countries in Europe actually achieved the Kyoto target, so we must have been all right on delivery. We were the first to want to talk about carbon trading, which Europe then took over from us. We were the first ones to bring in most of the changes well before anyone else was involved. To that extent, we can easily show leadership since Kyoto. Globally, we have made advances under the leadership of this Government. When it comes to the argument for a statutory framework for carbon targets, tell me of any other country that has done that. If we look at other countries’ proposals, we are the most advanced. I have the advantage of being the rapporteur for the Council of Europe environment committee, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale)—so I will go to Copenhagen—and I have had to look at what all the other countries have done. Without doubt, we have led on the major changes and delivered them. The hon. Gentleman said that we should work with the private sector. Has he not heard of the climate change levy? How does he think that that came about? It was a major contribution to reducing carbon emissions, and it was done by the private sector voluntarily working with the Government to achieve the target. He just does not know what has happened since 1997, and that is why his judgments are so wrong today. As the Prime Minister recognises, adaptation, mitigation and the other policies will require money. It is our Prime Minister who has put a figure on the amount needed, for the first time, and we will have to do a lot more to achieve it. No other country has done that and we have shown leadership, in the hope that we will achieve delivery internationally. We need global action and we have done well in leading that. We also need national policies, and we have shown leadership with the low-carbon road plan and the other issues that my hon. Friend the Minister has worked on. She has an excellent record and I congratulate her. We also need action at a local level. I have campaigned in schools on the environment and specifically on 10:10, and I fully support it, but we have to balance that campaign against the Government’s proposals and what they will deliver over time. It is not long until 2020, and if we do not make the decisions by 2015 we will not achieve the reductions that we need, so we have set targets nationally. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) is very vocal in my area in opposition to wind farms, incinerators and anything that will help to deal with climate change. He should talk to the planning people. Offshore we are on target, but onshore is more difficult. Some 75 per cent. of all planning applications for wind farms are turned down, mainly by Tory authorities, including in the east Yorkshire area that he represents. He campaigns on the basis that people want to keep their view, but that will not do anything to reduce carbon emission or increase alternative energy provision.