Durban Climate Change Conference

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

Yes, I agree very much that the relationships that we are increasingly building with China and India are very valuable and absolutely key to the agenda’s success. We have to make it clear that there is no conflict between the absolutely legitimate expectation of developing countries to be able to raise the living standards of their people and our need to protect our children and our grandchildren, and their children and their grandchildren, from the effects of climate change. One of the most passionate and moving speeches that I heard in Durban was from a Bangladeshi Minister, who described the real threat that there is to his country and to his people if we do not get a grip on climate change.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I commend the Secretary of State for his statement and the ongoing work that it reflects. He mentioned the resolution on a work programme to look at long-term sources of finance for developing programmes. When does he anticipate the programme commencing? Does he believe that the UK’s input will be on an EU axis, and do the possible sources of finance include in that context a financial transaction tax?

[Chris Huhne]

The work programme will kick off, and it is up to the UNFCCC secretariat to arrange the details, but I do not anticipate any time being lost in setting it up and getting it under way. The details of those represented on it will be settled through the process, but we as a Government are keenly interested and have a lot of expertise in the area, so I hope that we will be able to play a full part and, depending on how that is determined, be represented on any group that pushes the work programme forward.

On the financial transaction tax, the hon. Gentleman will know that we as a Government support financial taxes in general. We have moved on our own banking levy, for example, further and faster than other European countries, and we take the view that we can have further taxes on financial services, but that if such a tax touches areas that are very mobile, as a financial transaction tax obviously would do, it must be concluded at a global level. It cannot be done in only one country, because if it is the activity switches to other centres, and one simply loses out on all the revenue that one anticipated.

With that very important caveat of realism, the issue certainly has been talked about, but I do not believe that it is very likely to make progress, given the stand that other key parties have made against a financial transaction tax—and I am thinking in particular of the United States.