Environment Plan

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I apologise that I am not in a position today to go beyond a certain point because I must not pre-empt what is coming forward. All I can say is that these are issues that have come forward and been aired in the consultation. We will bring forward proposals; Parliament will have time to look at them before Christmas, I hope. We will make sure it is possible for Parliament to reflect on this, and will ensure further observations too. We want to get this right. It is essential that we enhance the environment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Government welcome the present campaign called “Extinction Rebellion”? It is designed to give people time to reflect when they are stuck at traffic lights that they are sitting in a very polluting vehicle in the middle of a city. I do not know how many noble Lords have been held up by traffic. I understand the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, was held up for seven minutes and looked extremely happy to be reflecting. Is this not something we should be taking more seriously, to help implement the IPCC’s report, which came out last week, on global warming targets?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the noble Lord has said something very important. The City of Westminster has also had a “stop idling your engine” policy. This is all about how we ensure that, whether near schools or traffic lights, wherever there are jams people switch their engines off. This is where we get the accumulations of pollution in particular. We need to think about it; I agree with the noble Lord. We need to be doing more ourselves to counter pollution.