Energy Efficiency

Debate between Joan Ruddock and Martin Horwood

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ruddock]

I am so sorry. I was going to—I do—welcome the hon. Lady to the House, but her intervention is not welcome. We more than doubled—hon. Members know better than to laugh at this—our Kyoto commitment. At the last count, when I was in my place, we had seen a 21% reduction in CO₂ emissions over 1990 levels, and we were very much on target to achieve what we had set out. We introduced groundbreaking legislation that constrained us, with carbon budgets year on year—three budgets already in place and programmes that could enable us to meet those budgets.

[Martin Horwood]

In the same vein as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), I must point out that the achievement of the Kyoto targets was due to other factors—in that case, the dash for gas, which transformed the pattern of greenhouse gas emissions in this country. That and the recession achieved far more than the previous Government.

[Joan Ruddock]

Again, I am sorry to say that the hon. Gentleman knows better than that. Nobody disputes the fact that the dash for gas was a factor, and more recently the recession has, indeed, been a factor, but the independent Committee on Climate Change has acknowledged the difference that Government programmes over that period made. Lord Turner, the chair of the Committee on Climate Change, said very recently that the last Government

“set out a whole series of policies, and as long as we drive those through we will make a difference.”

[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) mutters from a sedentary position, “That’s about the future.” Climate change and what we need to address is indeed the future. I pointed out our considerable achievements in the past. No other Government had made the leap forward that we made, and as I said at the outset of the debate, we left a very strong framework from which any Government could proceed to reduce carbon in the UK.