Environmental Protection and Green Growth

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

On naked cucumbers? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is so much chuntering going on that I cannot hear about these naked cucumbers through all the noise.

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[Richard Benyon]

Before the election, the previous Chancellor announced that there would be a 50% cut in DEFRA’s capital spend. If Labour had won that election, it might have said that it would not cut flood protection, but in that case, what would it have cut? The hon. Member for Wakefield used the tired old argument that if we are to compare apples with apples, we must compare this Government with the last two years of the previous one. However, in this four years, there is an 8% cut compared with the previous four years. Bearing in mind the cuts across the Government and the appalling legacy that we were left, we have made flooding an absolute priority.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for giving way so early on. Will he correct the supposition of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) that the previous Government said anything about cutting flood defence spending? We did not say that. I shall put that on the record again. The Minister is right that we would have to find the cuts somewhere, but we never indicated that they would come from flood defence, because of the impact that would have on people’s businesses, homes and, potentially, lives.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

This has been a very good debate in which Members in all parts of the House have made powerful and passionate points. One powerful point made by the Minister, with which I strongly agreed, concerned the welcome news of the publication of the national ecosystems services. I know that he will want to commend that worthy project, and to recognise that it was inspired and developed by Labour. I congratulate him on having brought it to fruition.

The Minister mentioned the fourth carbon budget, which Labour developed under the Climate Change Act 2009. It, too, is welcome, but there are two little opt-outs, to which the Chancellor referred in his review. We shall see how that proceeds.

I commend the Minister for his work with the International Whaling Commission. It is good to know that that work is continuing, and I know that he is committed to it. We have always had a cross-party view on that, and it I am pleased to note that he is still standing firm.

I think that every Member present will welcome the £100 million to protect the rainforest. Curiously and coincidentally, the Minister planned to raise the same amount from selling our forests.

Having heaped praise on our motion, the Minister then said that he would oppose it. I assumed from his praise that he would support it; perhaps he will change his mind.

The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) made a very good speech. He spoke well about the need for a focus on biosecurity and cattle movements as a solution to the problem of bovine tuberculosis, and criticised the “Cornwall approach”—much, I think, to the consternation of the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George).

The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) welcomed the number of Labour Members attending the debate, as do I. The Chamber has been full of Labour Members today. In contrast, at one point during yesterday’s debate on the important issue of the Agricultural Wages Board no Conservative Members were present, and then just one was present.

I must correct the hon. Lady on one point. Her long litany of Labour councils included my local council, Bridgend. Bridgend’s recycling rate is not 33%. It was 33% at the end of the rainbow coalition of Plaid Cymru, Tories and Liberal Democrats, but when Labour took control it rose to 51%, the highest in any local authority in Wales. I suggest that the hon. Lady check her figures and ensure that they are up to date. As for the average rate in Wales, it is 45%. She might wish to correct the record at some point.

The hon. Member for St Ives said it was too early to judge this Government, as they have been in office for only 18 months. I refer him to the report by 29 wildlife and countryside charities condemning this Government’s record so far.

I welcome the concept of cross-party engagement. When I was in the Government, we held two cross-party flood summits to work through the issues. That has not happened under the current Government, and I ask the Minister to invite my colleagues to attend such meetings. [Interruption.] He says that has happened, and I accept his assurance, but it is not my understanding.

The hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) painted a very rosy picture of the Government’s green record, but we beg to differ. He talked about the green deal; we hope for the best, but we fear the worst.

I thank the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) for acknowledging my party’s leadership on groundbreaking national and international legislation and obligations, and I extrapolate from his remarks on the slow progress made in the previous decade on renewables, and especially wind, that he supports the building of more onshore wind farms to meet the renewables obligations. I must say, however, that not many of his colleagues share that view.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) questioned the Government’s commitment to the green agenda, and she also questioned Labour’s commitment; I agree with the former remark, but dispute and refute the latter. She accused us and the Government of collective amnesia, but if that is the case it must be catching, as in respect of world leadership on these issues, the Climate Change Act 2008, the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and much else besides were introduced under a Labour Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) observed that what matters is not what we say, but what we do, and I agree. She drew attention to the low ambition shown by the Government and the high ambition on recycling shown in Wales, and said that the Government had missed an opportunity.

My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) mentioned farmers’ concerns about the delays in dealing with, and diminishing responsibilities of, the groceries code adjudicator, and we agree.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) told Members on the Government Benches to stop obsessing about weekly bin collections and to focus instead on recycling, and she rightly expressed the concerns of her constituents about insurance for flood victims.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) has great commitment and expertise in this area, including through his work with the Environment Agency. He expressed regret about the Government’s lack of ambition, which was, indeed, a general theme in the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) picked up on the comments made from the Government Benches that this issue should not be political. However, it is political, of course, by its very nature and because it is very important.

There is a delicious irony in the phrase, “the greenest Government ever”, which was uttered so easily during the coalition’s fleeting embrace of the green movement. It is so easy to say, “I love you”, in the midst of tender fervour. Yet the morning after come the bitter recriminations, the shame and the feeling of being used.

I know that the Minister’s heart is in the right place, so let me direct the following comments to the Secretary of State, who must take personal responsibility for the actions of the Government. If they were a business, they would have been referred to trading standards by now; they would have featured on “Rogue Traders” for ripping off the British public and stealing their votes with their false and overblown promises to be the greenest Government ever.

On forests, the public saw earlier this year how the Government tried to rip them off: coalition failure; on the cuts to flood defences, wasting an opportunity for green growth and jobs, and putting at risk homes, businesses and people: failure; on finding a ban on wild animals in circuses just too difficult: failure; on relegating England to the lowest recycling targets in the UK, missing chances for jobs and new green industries: failure; on their slippy-slidey back-tracking on plans for mandatory reporting of carbon emissions: failure; on the delay to Labour’s plan for universal broadband by 2012: failure; on the delays and the castration of the groceries code adjudicator, letting down farmers and the consumer: failure; on ignoring Labour’s food strategy for 2030, to the consternation of the National Farmers Union and others: failure; on abolishing the Sustainable Development Commission, curtailing independent scrutiny of the Government’s appalling record: failure; on achieving a green light in only two out of 16 traffic lights in the “Nature Check” report by the Wildlife and Countryside Link: failure; and on the Chancellor of the Exchequer commandeering the Government’s green agenda in place of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and then killing it: failure—abject, pitiful, supine, green growth and environmental failure. Fail, fail and fail again; there is a bit of a pattern here.

However, the Government have had success in one area. They have succeeded in splitting the Cabinet from top to toe on their green agenda, with the Chancellor boldly championing the climate-sceptics and deniers, and the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change pitching his shaky, leaky leadership tent in opposition. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs seems to be wholly absent from the battlefield, and after a lovely photo-shoot with a husky the Prime Minister has shot and eaten the poor creature. Since then, there has, understandably, not even been a whimper from the husky, but, more surprisingly, the incredible silence of the Prime Minister on all issues green since the election has been deafening. After a brief pre-election love-in, he never phones. Why does the Prime Minister not just admit it: the love affair is over, he was never serious anyway and it was just a fling? “Get over it” he might as well say.

This Tory-led coalition Government risk being an environmental and economic catastrophe for this country. Over the past 18 months, when we should have been using green growth to stimulate our flagging economy and to lead on the environmental agenda, as Labour did when we were in government, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has instead allowed her Department to be steamrollered by the Chancellor and ignored by an indifferent Prime Minister. This is not a green agenda. This is a not a growth agenda. It is an agenda of despair. It is not a vision of hope for jobs and nature, but one of hopelessness. We do not have a Department driving forward on Labour’s legacy, but one that is actually in reverse. In place of ambition, we see abject surrender.

Even if they have given up on green growth and the environment, at least the Conservatives can repeat their claim to be the natural party of the countryside and still get away with it, can they not? They cannot after yesterday, when they voted to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board, thus weakening protections for farm workers. There was one—just one—principled Lib Dem Member who participated fully in that debate, changed his mind, to his credit, and voted with our amendment. But the combined weight of fellow Lib Dems and Tories, with one notable exception, defeated us and they defeated farm workers. So who speaks for the countryside, for green growth and for the environment? Labour does, as it always has and always will.

I say to those on the not-so-green Benches opposite that owning large parts of the countryside is not the same as speaking for the countryside. Saying that they are green does not make them green. Talking up green growth is no substitute for making it happen with green jobs and skills, training, innovation and investment. This Government are failing. DEFRA Ministers are failing. Green growth and the natural environment will fail with them. I say to Ministers and the Government that they should change course now and up their game, because the country now and in future generations will not forgive a Government who, at a crucial moment, walked away from the environment and from the opportunities for green growth, upon which the health and wealth of this nation depend. If they are not up to the job, they should walk away from government—we will do it for them.

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[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.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Benyon]

I shall not give way because the hon. Gentleman has had his time. [Interruption.]

When we consider flooding, the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal is in my head because it has proved that there are other ways—[Interruption.]