Treaty of Lisbon (No. 8)

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). I say to her and to the House that many distinguished people from the Environmental Audit Committee are speaking with great distinction in the House today, especially on environmental issues. It is great to see so many past and present members. During the past 10 years, that Committee has played a key role in pushing forward the environmental debate. One former member of the Environmental Audit Committee spoke for the Opposition—the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), and I agreed with much of what he said. He talked, however, about the need for action; the Conservatives can dream up all the action that they want, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) said, if we do not have the institutional framework, the mechanisms, the procedures or a way of being able to co-ordinate matters to get a joined-up approach, we will not get the action that is needed. That is why the key word—never mind the six words we are looking at today concerning climate change—in the opening remarks of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was leadership. It is critical to use the debate to show how the leadership that the Government have shown in Europe, at so many international conferences and in so many treaties is what we need to take the issue forward. I have received, as have many other hon. Members, a great deal of correspondence on the amendments that the treaty of Lisbon makes to the treaty on the European Union. I shall use the brief time available to set out why it is so important that we ratify the treaty and why the misinformed view that we are simply giving away power to Europe does not add up when it comes to the pressing need to secure urgently an international climate change regime. My starting point is article 174 of the treaty on the European Union, which states:"““Community policy on the environment shall contribute to pursuit of the following objectives: preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment; protecting human health””" and the fourth indent will be amended to read"““promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems, and in particular, combating climate change.””" That is the core—the heart of the matter. Moreover, article 174.4 already establishes a duty for members to co-operate with the wider international community in combating climate change. It states:"““the Community and the Member States shall cooperate with third countries and with the competent international organizations.””" I believe that that is essential in combating climate change, which is fundamentally an international issue. There is no more important challenge facing the international community and the people whom we represent than climate change. It faces people everywhere, from those who have written to me asking us to go further than the 60 per cent. target in the Climate Change Bill—I was pleased to hear the leadership shown by the Prime Minister at Prime Minister's questions last week, when he said that the new climate change commission will be asked to see how we might move towards an 80 per cent. target—to the people in China whom members of the Environmental Audit Committee met, including the ambassador on climate change. As we arrived, we experienced extreme temperatures and climate change—the worst snowstorms that that country has experienced. It faces the people of Australia, and I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt), who was in the Australian Parliament only last week. The new Government of Kevin Rudd was elected on the back of the climate change election commitment that he gave. The challenge faces people in developing countries all around the world. Only today we read in the press that they face shortages of grain. We need to have regard to the United Nations and other agencies that recognise that the stiff increase in grain prices is linked to extreme weather conditions, which lead to devastating effects such as flooding and drought. People who are experiencing that desperately want policies now. They want policies that will urgently reduce carbon emissions, which means that we can tackle climate change only by being at the heart of Europe. The new arrangements will assist us in that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe referred to the change in voting on climate change matters and environmental legislation from unanimity to qualified majority voting. I thought that he made that point very well. With the expansion of the European Union we have to change the way in which we administer matters and do business. We need the institutional framework that Conservative Members do not seem to want this Parliament and this Government to have. I welcome the new parliamentary role for MPs announced this week by my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House. Having looked closely at the new arrangements, I have found that there will be greater transparency of scrutiny and increased expertise made available in European Committees, through the inclusion of members of the European Scrutiny Committee and of relevant Select Committees. Those changes to parliamentary procedure will allow us better to scrutinise and contribute to what Ministers are doing to take environmental policies forward in Europe. We have to have checks and balances, and this House has to find a better way of giving its views so that Ministers going to Europe do so on the basis of taking into account Members' views. That will give us the more effective framework that is so urgently needed. Many of those who have spoken have listed at great length the various strategic policy issues that have already been advanced in Europe, but which desperately need to be increased much more quickly. I agree about all of those, but want briefly to touch on the work of the Oxford Research Group, which has urged us to look into ways of making foreign and global security policy into a more sustainable policy. The issue of foreign policy is at the heart of Europe, too. Finally, I should like to end by referring to Mr. Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, who will be in Westminster next week. Last year he published a book—