Climate Change

The hon. Gentleman is an economist, so he is used to dealing with many variables. The practice of having budgets that are set over a five-year period where the total amount of CO2 counts is a simple way of demonstrating what progress the Government are making. It will be clear to the public whether we are on target to meet our budget because we will report, as regularly as the information is available, on our performance against those targets and in accordance with the legislation that we hope to put before the House in due course. I stress that more action is in the pipeline, for example, the phasing out of inefficient light bulbs and the removal of inefficient white goods from the market. We also need to continue our work to engage the public. An ““Act on CO2”” campaign has recently been launched to help make individuals more CO2 literate. Part of that will be an ““Act on CO2”” deal, which will set out how the Government and individuals can work together to reduce CO2 emissions. Everyone can make a difference, especially in their homes through improvements to insulation, the use of energy-efficient products, better energy management, increasing recycling and wasting less food. The public sector also needs to play its part and give the necessary lead. It is important that we meet our commitment of making the Government office estate carbon neutral by 2012. I acknowledge that our performance to date has not been as good as it should have been, and the hon. Member for Eastleigh made a number of comments in that regard. That is why the Government are taking a number of steps to improve our record and that of the wider public sector. We are working hard to make sure that buildings and products procured by the Government are energy efficient. Every secondary school in the country is being rebuilt and refurbished. As part of that, over the next three years £110 million will go into helping them reduce their CO2 emissions. Some schools will achieve carbon neutrality. Many Government Departments have energy-efficient lighting and are phasing out the use of inefficient light bulbs. Government offices make increasing use of renewable energy, including biomass boilers, solar panels and wind turbines but, again, we need to do more. We are also reducing the environmental impact of Government travel. All official and ministerial air travel is captured under offsetting schemes, and we are committed to reducing CO2 emissions from road vehicles. We are also leading the way by reducing those emissions from the Government car fleet