---

Climate Change (Political Response)

I was giving credit to the Commission for the work that it has done, but I am afraid that on the 10:10 campaign the Chamber must trump the Commission. This is where we decide on Parliament’s ambitions. I also give credit where it is due to the Government. It is fair to say that they have shown leadership in helping to put climate change on the international agenda and introduced the world’s first climate change Act, although they were dragged somewhat reluctantly to the target of 80 per cent. However, it was supported by the Government in the end, which is good. They have also shown a commitment to renewable energy and carbon capture and storage, although they showed similar reluctance on feed-in tariffs and left something of a giant loophole in the CCS policy. However, the Government must also accept that there are some worrying signs of complacency and lack of urgency. As the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) pointed out, it does not really compute that the Government can give the go-ahead to the third runway at Heathrow based on flawed calculations of the future cost of climate change while trying to maintain an international position as strong as that of President Obama. The right hon. Gentleman was spot on when he spoke of how much greener most of the stimulus packages around the world are than our own. There is a constant recitation that we have been on target for Kyoto when, as the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) pointed out, that target was met long ago by the dash for gas. Actually, if the target is met, it will be partly because of the recession—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but it is true. The Government are at risk of being seen to ask everybody else to act, but not to act themselves. They have an energy bill of some £4 billion and massive buying power. The public sector has the chance to shape entire markets, and how British industry and the private sector respond to the challenge of climate change. It is very worrying that the Minister, I hope in a lapse, described the 10:10 campaign as a gesture—[Interruption.]Those were her very words. It is also worrying that she cast doubt on the Government’s ability to sign up to 10:10 despite the fact that her Department has done so. Look at the list of organisations that have had that ambition and signed up to 10:10. It includes the Environment Agency; Newcastle, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Bristol universities; 52 local councils responsible for 8.8 million people, including most recently, I am proud to say, Bristol City council; more than 150 schools; 40 NHS trusts; B&Q; Aviva; Microsoft; Atkins Global; and the Royal Mail—the latter does not get everything right, but it has signed up to the 10:10 campaign. It is a fantastic campaign that has finally captured the real sense of urgency that is needed to put us on almost a war footing—that psychology that we must act soon to avert catastrophe. We have had one or two regrettably partisan and bad-tempered speeches. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths) claimed that the Liberal Democrats opposed wind power at local level. I can tell him about York, Leeds, Ipswich, Lewes, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Islington, West Berkshire, Devon, Vale of White Horse and Cornwall—I do not have time to finish the list. However, we have mostly heard real passion and wide support on both sides of the House. Many of the contributions have shown why the 10:10 campaign has captured the public imagination. I am proud to have followed my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), who has shown leadership on environmental issues for a few decades—I will not embarrass him by saying how many—and helped to make the Liberal Democrats such a green party. To the Conservative Front Bench, I say that I forgive their nuclear peccadilloes and some of the people with whom they keep company in Europe on climate change, and the occasional Back-Bench outburst on wind power, and pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) on his articulate defence of the 10:10 campaign. He rightly pointed out that there is no conflict between carbon budgets of the kind supported in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the 10:10 campaign commitment. In fact, I would go further and say that committing to 10:10 will make those carbon budgets easier and cheaper to achieve for the British economy. I also give credit to the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) and all those Labour Back Benchers who have signed up to the 10:10 campaign. I hope that they are prepared, just this once, to defy the party Whips and do the right thing for this country, for the planet and the environment. I make a final appeal to the Minister. She has a proud record as a political campaigner. Many members of my party have followed her on marches in the past and listened to her defiance of the establishment. Her Secretary of State has asked for a popular mobilisation to help to push through action on climate change. Well, we have got that. It is called the 10:10 campaign and tonight is the night when we can take a decision as a Parliament to support it. The Minister has signed her Department up to it and she says that Departments are working hard to improve their admittedly miserable record to date. It is therefore a mystery why she will not allow her colleagues to commit the whole Government—or at least this Parliament—to the 10:10 campaign. This is our chance to send the clearest possible signal to campaigners across the country and negotiators on Copenhagen across the world that we are committed to urgent action. The truth is that the Minister probably does support this campaign and it is the establishment in the Treasury, No. 10 or Lord Mandelson’s Department who have got to her. This is the moment when she should join hon. Members on both sides of the House, rediscover her radical roots, be brave, ambitious and bold, and believe that together we can do more than we think we can—and support this motion.