Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I believe that it would add insult to injury if all the money came from water bills, and I should be very concerned about that. I hope that the funds will come from the reprioritisation of broader Government spending. Perhaps we could save money in other sectors of government if we invaded fewer countries. The Association of British Insurers has been pretty clear about what needs to be done. As well as backing the Liberal Democrat policy that we should clear up the tangle of responsibilities surrounding flood prevention, it has backed our call to increase spending faster. In October, it said:"““Government spending for the next three years is less than we were asking for even before the floods. It does not begin to address the major issues, including drainage, which were highlighted this summer. The Government will have to increase spending substantially, as needs are identified by the Pitt review team…the Government has completely failed to grasp the importance of improving Britain's flood defences in the wake of the devastating floods across the UK.””" Yet the Government are not really being so generous, even with their existing spending on floods. The overspend on flooding this year, along with unexpected spending on foot and mouth disease, bluetongue and avian flu, is going to mean budget cuts elsewhere in DEFRA. The Brown doctrine on departmental funds appears to be that a Department that gets hit by an unexpected overspend cannot expect money to be transferred from elsewhere in government. That is a more important point than one put forward by the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), who characterised the approach as one of pure financial mismanagement. The Prime Minister's callous approach brought the NHS into crisis last year, and now it seems to be DEFRA's turn. Estimates of the amount likely to be cut from other programmes range up to £300 million, as we have already heard. Will the Minister share with us where those cuts are likely to be made? Where is the support going to be cut for action on climate change, the protection of our natural environment, or support for our hard pressed farmers? Will Natural England's vital conservation work be reduced? It is already being asked by the Government to repay the £16 million spent on setting up the new agency structure, which was decided by the Government. Will the Minister at least confirm that the Environment Agency's £51 million budget for new conservation work will be protected, or will the axe fall on recycling and action against waste? I want to seize this opportunity to praise the Government's initiative on the business resource efficiency and waste—BREW—programme, and applaud the real practical action against climate change being taken by Envirowise, the waste resources action programme, the Carbon Trust and the lesser known but equally impressive national industrial symbiosis programme. That alone has eliminated 300,000 tonnes of hazardous waste, prevented the use of 5 million tonnes of virgin material and saved 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Perhaps the Minister will make it clear that their budgets are all safe. Is it even clear that the promised increases in flood defence spending will be protected? Or perhaps, and most astonishingly of all, is it animal disease control that will suffer? I find it quite breathtaking that DEFRA has requested local authorities to return funds for animal disease control—even in Surrey, where councils have been hit by both avian flu and bluetongue. I was surprised that the hon. Member for East Surrey did not find time to mention that. Devon county council has said that the cuts mean five of its eight posts may have to go as a result, and that"““it will be catastrophic if an outbreak of disease happens.””" At a time when climate change is opening the door to new diseases like bluetongue, surely that is the last thing that we should be doing. The Secretary of State made the intriguing announcement on 19 November that he believes current arrangements to be unsustainable. Was that driven by strategic thinking, or by the short-term financial crisis in which DEFRA seems to have found itself? Surely our farming industry has suffered enough, not just from the disease outbreaks themselves but from DEFRA's performance in the regulation and monitoring of the Pirbright laboratory and, most of all, the fiasco of single farm payments. I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) that 25 per cent. of Welsh farmers still have not received their payments. I hope that the Minister will tell us the equivalent figure for England—although I fear that the figure will be much higher. I turn now to DEFRA's role as climate change champion for the whole Government. Again, some praise is due, and I am happy to associate myself with the Secretary of State's congratulation of the chief scientist on his participation in the intergovernmental panel on climate change and its receipt of the Nobel prize. After all, DEFRA is bringing forward the Climate Change Bill, which will put carbon emission reductions on the statute book, following the Stern report and Friends of the Earth's very effective ““Big Ask”” campaign. That is an important achievement, although Ministers know that we on the Liberal Democrat Benches think that the targets contained in the Bill are inadequate, and I have teased them about the amount of time that it has taken us to get to this point. The latest voices to be added to those calling for higher targets include last week's UN human development report, which called for cuts of at least 80 per cent. from the richer countries, and that of Sir Nicholas Stern himself. Speaking to the Royal Economic Society last Friday, Sir Nicholas said:"““For a 50 per cent. reduction in global emissions by 2050, the world average per capita must drop from 7 tonnes to 2-3 tonnes. An 80 per cent. target for rich countries would bring equality of only the flow of emissions around the 2-3 tonnes per capita level. In fact, they will have consumed the big majority of the 'available space in the atmosphere'.””" In other words, if we are to achieve an equitable world agreement on carbon reductions, we have to commit to cuts of 80 per cent. or more, and that should be on the face of the Bill.