Climate Change

The hon. Gentleman knows that if we always find difficulties—if the glass is always half empty—we will never make progress. Sometimes it is necessary to establish boundaries—income tax or inheritance thresholds, for example—and sometimes people find themselves on the wrong side of those boundaries. Such measures are not necessary popular, but unfortunately we have to make real changes in our behaviour and it is therefore important to strike out in that direction. Crucially, every penny raised through green taxes to help us to change our behaviour collectively should be handed back in income tax cuts, thereby shifting the tax burden on to activities that we want to discourage from activities such as work, risk and effort that we wish to encourage.