Environmental Protection and Green Growth

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

We cannot allow all development to be killed off, but I agree that there is no point building and selling homes that are not sustainable, and that will be uninsurable, un-mortgageable and unfit for human habitation if they are hit by successive flood events.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

With a reduction in the flood defence budget to pre-Pitt levels, does my hon. Friend agree that, in getting the deficit down, there is confusion between revenue spending and capital investment? Surely, capital investment means building up assets to protect people’s homes and businesses, but all the Government are doing is playing Russian roulette with people’s lives and futures.

[Mary Creagh]

That is a very good point, and there is also a direct impact on construction and engineering jobs, which are flatlining. For the record, by the way, may I make it clear that I was not requesting any personal thanks? All thanks should be directed to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore, who is sitting next to me.

Labour is the party of jobs and growth not just in cities, but in towns and villages throughout this great country of ours. We are standing up for fairness in the countryside, as yesterday’s debate about the Agricultural Wages Board showed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate as a former chair of Flood Risk Management Wales—for the five years before coming into Parliament, I was charged with adapting Wales’s flood defences to climate change.

The big picture we face is of global climate change giving rise to a reduction in the land mass of the globe, with the population increasing from 6.8 billion to 9.5 billion by 2050, which will mean food and water shortages, migration and conflict. The Kyoto protocol will come to an end in 2012. The Americans seem to want to let it die on the vine, and the Chinese and Indians want to keep it going, but it is incumbent on us to have a strategy that focuses economic growth along a green trajectory.

On that point, some of the Government’s moves are disappointing. They did not support Sheffield Forgemasters, which could have been a global player in nuclear provision, and they did not support Bombardier to get a foothold in exports, which would have given us a green footprint elsewhere while supporting our economy. The big debate in the Chamber is between cuts and growth, and there is a lot of talk about how Labour left the cupboard bare, but we know from the numbers that a third of the deficit was for investment beyond earnings, and that the rest was for the banks. There should be no apology for that, because that is what stimulated growth.

We have now got rid of growth. The Chancellor announced that half a million jobs would be lost, so people in the public services started saving instead of consuming, and people in the private sector stopped recruiting and investing. The deficit is now £46 billion higher than it would originally have been. That is why the Labour party has proposed a five-point plan on VAT, national insurance and so on. The important part of that plan in this debate is investment in capital assets in flood defences.

The devastating floods in 2007 and Lord Pitt were the engine for the new trajectory of investment in flood defences, which would have provided jobs and capital assets—it would not have been money down the drain. That would have encouraged inward investment and protected neighbourhoods, businesses and homes, so I am saddened that it has been reduced by 27%. We are spending £354 million this year, but that will go down to £259 million. Having worked with the Environment Agency, I know that it would have put that money to good use.

Land is an asset not just for carbon capture and generating oxygen but for tourism, but the Government will sell off 15% of our woodland. Sustainable development is the centrepiece, constitutionally, of the Welsh Assembly Government, but it is seen simply as a healthy option in England. If we are to grow our way out of deficit with a green trajectory, we need to look at emerging consumer markets in the developing countries, such as China or India or those in south America, and reconfigure our export offer around green technology. That does not seem to be happening and the Government do not appear to be proactive.

Big companies are developing products. Tata Steel, near my constituency, is developing a new seven-sheet steel that generates its own electricity and heat; and Boeing in north Wales is introducing new carbon planes, which will be 30% more fuel-efficient. The Government must provide an infrastructure and regulatory system that encourages such innovation, not just to take our economy on a green trajectory but to project us into a global leadership role. I do not see that happening.

It is fairly self-evident that global energy costs will continue to escalate, because the rate of economic growth in China, India and south America means that those countries and areas will consume more of it. Those increases in energy prices, although painful, create new and profitable green technologies. The Government should not take such a laissez-faire approach to that. I fear that when, for instance, the Chancellor scoffs at the Deputy Prime Minister’s ambition for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, it sends a signal that he does not take green investment seriously. The risk for Britain is that the Tories will blindly stumble over the green shoots that could be the future of jobs and growth in Britain.