Treaty of Lisbon (No. 8)

The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) would not give way to me, but she made an excellent speech and it was a pleasure to listen to it. The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) made some interesting comments about the link between climate change and agriculture. I fully agree with him, but he might have mentioned adaptation and the work that we can do through land management to protect against floods and severe weather changes, for example. I also found what he said about genetically modified organisms very interesting. However, I should point out to the hon. Gentleman—he almost gave us credit for this—that it was under a Labour Government that this country achieved the one and only agreement to change the common agricultural policy. Since this debate is about climate change, I hope that he would accept that our change moved things in the right direction, both by decoupling public payments to farmers from production of goods and through voluntary modulation, providing even more money for farmers involved in agro-environmental works. So there are some bright points in Europe on climate change, through a Labour Government, in respect of farming and land management. Let me come back to the words in the treaties. In debating climate change, three sections are particularly relevant and significant. The first is measures for energy efficiency and renewable energy. As was remarked earlier, most of the provisions are a consolidation of the existing text. Secondly, there is wording on combating climate change, which is plainly new. It seems to me bizarre to argue that it is irrelevant to move from saying nothing about climate change to talking about promoting the combat of it. That is very significant. Before I come to the third section, let me say that, taking those two sections together, the treaty texts underpinning the EU bring us up to speed with the agreement that the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire mentioned—the agreement to have 20 per cent. of energy from renewable sources and a 20 per cent. cut in carbon emissions by 2020. In a sense, that shows the two working together: action and the necessary underpinning words to go with it.