---

Climate Change (Political Response)

I will tell hon. Members how the Liberal Democrats in Brent sign up to the 10:10 campaign. Under the Labour party, Brent council was on track for a 20 per cent. reduction in its emissions by 2011. On Monday, the Liberal Democrats and their Tory partners in the administration signed up, with great fanfare, to the 10:10 campaign. At the next executive committee meeting they will take delivery of proposals, which they intend to support, that will reduce the figure from 20 per cent. to 6 per cent. by 2011. Under the Liberal and Tory policies at Brent council, the 20 per cent. reduction will not be reached until 2020. I regret the tone of today’s debate. Normally when we debate matters of climate change, we have a considered and measured debate that is consensual and, usually, good. The responsibility for the way in which this debate has gone is to be found in the nature of the Liberal Democrat motion. The Liberal Democrats know, we know and everybody in the House knows that it was tendentious. It was put forward, as my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) said, as a gimmick, to try to bandwagon and to do something that the Liberal Democrats thought might be populist and might embarrass the Government. That is why the debate has taken the shape that it has. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) spoke, quite properly, about the discussions that he had had with the Chinese delegation this morning under the auspices of GLOBE and of the discussions that he had had with Congressman Wang. The hon. Gentleman also said—although it was when he departed from his script and got carried away—that that was why the Chinese did not take the Government seriously. Earlier this afternoon, as I was chairing the GLOBE discussions with Congressman Wang, I happened to note down what he said: "The UK is one of the few countries that has honoured their commitment and achieved their targets and I wish that all developed countries would learn from the UK in this respect." I am afraid that that knocks out of the water the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman.