Environmental Protection and Green Growth

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. Lady think a little humility might be in order, given that when we take into account the UK’s share of international aviation and shipping emissions, under Labour’s three terms of office, greenhouse gas emissions rose, rather than fell?

[Mary Creagh]

A little humility might be in order for the hon. Lady, who ignores the fact that we were the first Government in the world to legislate for binding emissions targets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree with that, but it ultimately comes down to us. I do not want weekly bin collections to be restored and nor do any of my neighbours. They are a waste of time and of our natural resources. There is virtually nothing in my waste bin; almost everything goes into the recycling bin. If I can do it, so can everybody else.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the hon. Lady agree that although recycling is important, it is third on the so-called waste hierarchy? Reusing resources and reducing the number of resources that we use in the first place are also critical. On those matters, we need Government action as well as local authority action.

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree. We need a proper strategy on recycling and waste, and we need to stop obsessing about bin collections.

On flood defences, I know that DEFRA has taken a massive 30% cut and that some of that has been passed on to flood defence schemes. The Government have rejected the Pitt report on improving flood defences and have cancelled major schemes that were scheduled to take place in towns and cities such as York, Leeds and Morpeth in Northumberland. That will cause massive concern not only for people who have suffered from flooding in the past, but for anyone who lives in a city or town that had hoped to be included in the flood defence scheme. We all acknowledge—even the Government acknowledge—that the flood risk is growing and that flooding will affect more communities across the country in the future.

In the summer, I was visited in my constituency surgery by constituents who live halfway down Blackhill bank in Consett. They came to see me about flooding. Anyone who knows Consett will know that it is 885 feet above sea level. According to Wikipedia, it is the second highest town in the country. We have never had flooding in places such as Consett before. Those people told me that it is not only water that comes through their house, but black water—sewage. It can take up to two years for home owners and businesses to get back into their properties.

Despite that, flood defence schemes have been cut. That means that many home owners and businesses will no longer be able to get insurance when Labour’s agreement with the insurance industry runs out in 2013, because that agreement was based on continued Government investment in flood defences, not on cuts.

The Government’s strategy on the environment is simply not working. It is not supporting the countryside, it is not delivering for the majority of people in this country, and it will leave communities that are vulnerable to flooding to fend for themselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am gratified by the extent to which successive Governments have sought to brand themselves as green—after all, imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery. However, I also see it as part of my role to scrutinise the authenticity of any promises made and, most importantly, to inquire whether fine and noble rhetoric is backed by fast and ambitious action.

It is important to say at the outset, as the Green party always has, that environmental policies cannot be just bolted on to business as usual. We have always said that to judge the greenness of a Government, we should look not so much at their environmental policies, but at their economic programme. If a Government’s economic policies are simply about promoting more and more conventional economic growth based on the production and consumption of yet more finite resources, it does not really matter how many green trimmings they add to their manifesto. The direction of travel will still be fundamentally unsustainable. Judged by that measure, sadly not one of the main parties has come close to understanding the true nature of green politics.

Therefore, although I welcome the fact that Labour has chosen the Government’s green record as the subject for today’s debate, and although I am heartened by the commitment that I have heard in the Chamber today, it is interesting to contemplate why those aspirations, commitments and statements are not made when we discuss the Budget or growth, for example. In those debates, all the “business as usual” economic arguments are trotted out, as ever. We do not marry up all the nice words about the environment that we have heard today with the arguments that we hear in those economic debates, which is when it really matters. To say that this shows remarkable inconsistency would be a kind way of putting it.

Over a year ago the Prime Minister pledged that this would be the greenest Government ever. The first thing to say about that aspiration is that it is sadly not particularly ambitious, given Labour’s poor record on the environment in the preceding 13 years in office. At the end of that Labour term, the UK was getting more of its energy from fossil fuels than in 1997, when Labour came to power. Everyone rejoices in a sinner who repents, but one cannot help but think that, at best, Labour’s criticism of the Government’s record today shows an almost heroic degree of collective amnesia.

It is significant that one of the first acts of this Government, who aspire to be the greenest ever, was to abolish the very body that could have had a role in judging whether they could achieve that. I refer, of course, to the Sustainable Development Commission—I support the comments that the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) made about that. As a critical friend, the commission was a vital in providing well-informed scrutiny of Government policy. The commission also saved the Treasury around £300 million over 10 years, against running costs of just £4 million a year. The scrapping of that commission undermines the Government’s assertion that they are committed to green issues. It is also the first of many examples of ideology trumping common sense, economic sense and environmental sense.

Much has been said today about the green investment bank, and of course it is a good idea to have such a bank. It is very badly named, however, in that it is not very green and, so far, it is not even a bank. The Government are actively considering using it to subsidise nuclear power, and its wings are being clipped from the outset through insufficient capitalisation and no initial borrowing capacity for several years at least.

I could refer to many other issues, but I would like briefly to mention the complete chaos that the solar industry is now in, thanks to the way in which the Government keep moving the goalposts in relation to the level at which the feed-in tariffs are going to be secured. That is a tragedy not only for the environment but for some of the fantastic solar industries in this country that could be at the forefront of solar power internationally. Because the Government keep changing their level of support, however, the industry has been left in great confusion.

In conclusion, I shall return to my first point. Slavish adherence to the same economic model that has created the economic crisis and the climate crisis will not empower us to build a sustainable future and make the transition to a zero-carbon economy, yet that is what the Government and the Opposition are relying on. Yes, efficiency gains can help, and yes, technology will have a vital role to play, but there is a real risk—which has not been addressed today—that, with a rising population and understandably rising expectations from a growing middle class around the world, those efficiency and technological gains will be undermined by the overall level of net growth. That means that behaviour change will have to be a far greater part of the solution when it comes to adopting sustainable development, yet the dogma that we can carry on with business as usual provided that there is more and more economic growth to get us out of this economic crisis—never mind the long-term environmental, social and economic consequences—is barely questioned by politicians. Professor Tim Jackson states:

“Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must.”

We must—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will address the House again at the conclusion of this superb debate. The last comments made by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) amused me greatly. They sounded desperate. They sounded as if he was in complete denial of the 13 years of failure, of which he was part. I, like my DEFRA colleagues, feel that we are in a Department that deals with emergencies. One of the emergencies we are dealing with is the great sense of failure that the previous Government imposed on the countryside and on the environment. We are having to work our socks off to repair the situation, but it is a challenge that we take and take seriously. We look forward to achieving on it in the coming months.

The Government can show leadership in protecting our environment, which is exactly what this Government are doing. However, the Government alone cannot protect our environment. We believe that having communities, business, civil society and Governments working together is likely to have the greatest impact on protecting and improving our environment. We are providing new opportunities for local people to play a bigger role in protecting and improving the environment in their areas. We have some of the world’s best civil society environmental organisations to help us to protect and improve our natural environment, and we have provided the tools for them to work with us.

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[Richard Benyon]

No, I will not give way.

We welcome the “Nature Check” report. It is very important that the organisations that took part in it have an edgy relationship with government. They frequently come to the Department and we work closely with them, and we will get green lights on the items as we progress. When that report was produced we had been in government for 15 months, dealing with abject failures created by the hon. Member for Ogmore and the Labour party in government, for which he has to take responsibility.

Let me deal with some of the excellent points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) was missing the point. Just dealing with recycling does not deal with the whole waste problem; we need to look at this the whole way up the waste hierarchy. Unlike her Government, we will introduce proposals to ban wood from landfill next year.

I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) on a customary visionary speech. The leadership he is giving in his community on broadband, on local housing initiatives and on improving mobile coverage for his constituents is matched by this Government’s commitment to do the same for rural areas right across this country.

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) again showed that Labour Members just do not get the whole waste issue. I urge him to look at our waste review and see what we are achieving.

My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) made an excellent speech in which she pointed out the failure of Labour councils. It is councils that deliver and it is coalition party councils that are achieving.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

There have been some excellent initiatives all around the country, not least in my hon. Friend’s constituency, that have shown how we can unlock more money for flood relief and coastal erosion resilience. I commend the points she made. The total environment concept that we are rolling out around the country is showing that we can work with local government, other organisations and the wider DEFRA family to achieve a better result for the rural communities she represents.

I remind the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) that when her party was in power it was selling off forests at quite a dramatic rate with very little protection for public access. She said that we have rejected the Pitt report, but nothing could be further from the truth: we have implemented all but one of its recommendations and I had a meeting on that recommendation today.

I appreciated the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George). There is much that is consensual about this debate although it might not feel like it at this precise moment. My right hon. Friends and I had a meeting with Sir John Beddington when we took office and he told us that we had to do something that is hard for politicians to do—look beyond the horizon of four or five years that we are accustomed to looking at in the electoral cycle. What is required is a horizon shift to deal with the possible storm that could be approaching from a shortage of energy, water and food. That requires initiative, vision and a proper approach to these issues; that is what we are doing.

The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) made a fascinating speech. It is good to see that deficit denial is alive and well and living in Swansea. What he and others fail to understand is that sustainable development is now mainstream in government; it is not parked in some organisation that is peripheral—it is central to what we do.

I appreciate the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael). He is right that what we are looking for is joined-up policies across government. The benefits of localism come from an understanding not just in silos, as it was considered in the past, but with support from across government to the benefit of constituents.

I hope that the scepticism of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) about the green investment bank will wither as we introduce it and she sees its benefits for new green technologies. She talked about business as usual, but this Government are not about business as usual on green technologies. This is about a horizon shift and taking a new approach.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Benyon]

I do not have time—I apologise.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) made an excellent point about the failures of the past that have put us 25th out of 27 in the EU on recycling. We have to improve on that. People ask what our ambition is: it is for a zero-waste economy, which is a high ambition indeed.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) talked about dark conspiracies, but I assure her that they do not exist. She should move on from that idea and stop watching those programmes.