Climate Change

So there are no actual policies. It is difficult to maintain a cross-party consensus on policy because the Conservative party does not actually have any. The hon. Gentleman also accused us of begrudging people expensive cars. We do not, but we begrudge them the most polluting cars and will reward those who have the least polluting cars. We have specifically agreed a policy of raising green taxes to change behaviour and to give tax breaks to the least well off with the proceeds. I have great respect for the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe, and I agree with some of his remarks about Government and local government procurement and the idea of feed-in tariffs as a more useful policy tool. However, he strangely defended five-year targets on the basis that they give more flexibility to Government, but that is the fundamental problem with them. They give far too much flexibility and apply too little pressure. How are we to judge the performance of the Government at the next general election when the five-year target will be on the other side of it? If voters cannot judge that performance, how can we expect human politicians to take the actions necessary? The right hon. Gentleman also raised another important issue, which is the need to address those nations that do not take part in the Kyoto, or even the post-Kyoto, process. That point was also raised by Sir Nicholas Stern. It is interesting to note the remarks by Nicolas Sarkozy, who has just been elected President of France. He may be a soul mate for the new Labour leadership. He said of the US:"““I want to tell them that France will always be by their side when they need it, but I also want to tell them that friendship means accepting that your friends may think differently and that a great nation such as the United States has a duty not to put obstacles in the way of the fight against global warming, but on the contrary to take the lead in this fight, because what is at stake is the fate of humanity as a whole.””" That is the kind of constructive but critical approach that allies need to take. I fear that this Government have sometimes taken too relaxed an approach to the White House and its attitude to global warming. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) combined green idealism with a practical grasp of the problems associated with the low carbon buildings programme, which he rightly described as a fiasco and which is still suspended. He paid tribute to the pioneering work of Stockport Liberal Democrat council and its record on recycling, which I happily applaud. The hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson) called for a ban on incandescent light bulbs and I would be happy to support that in due course. She appeared to think that green mortgages were likely to prove an arbitrary cost to consumers, but the whole point of the warm homes package that we propose is that it will save consumers money. It would not work otherwise on a voluntary basis. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) spoke from great experience about biofuels, and the virtues of miscanthus and other biofuels that are actually energy efficient and lead to a substantial reduction in global warming if used. That underlines the need for the Government to get on with a proper certification scheme, so that we can tell the difference between those biofuels that are making a contribution to fighting global warming and those that are not. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) talked about security of supply. It is true that green generation is also often secure. It is much more difficult to bomb a tidal array or 1,000 microgeneration sites than it is to bomb a nuclear power station. He also criticised China, as he appeared to believe that it is outside the Kyoto framework, but it is not. In some ways, the Chinese Government have made radical moves towards carbon neutrality in the community at Dongtan. The Liberal Democrats have set out a radical and coherent plan. We want to see powerful, long-term incentives for renewable energy; a green tax switch; annual targets for CO2 reduction; a tax on flights, not people; no new runways at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted in order to constrain the supply of aviation; smaller, more efficient cars paying much less in excise duty than urban 4x4s; green mortgages; greener homes sooner; more community heat and power; and more pressure on the White House. We want clear green policies, not blue sky waffle or Brown fudge.