Treaty of Lisbon (No. 8)

I would advise the hon. Gentleman not to listen to my or anyone else's rhetoric, but to look at the words plus the action and see how they work together. The third part of the treaty text that I want to mention is the addition of sustainable development to the key objectives of the EU, which Members can now find in article 3. I still occasionally hear objections to the whole idea of the EU from one or two constituents who hark back to when we joined it. They say that Edward Heath told them that we were joining only a European Economic Community. In adding the words ““sustainable development”” after the reference to an ““internal market”” in the key objectives, there is a maturing of the EU into something that recognises the importance of sustainable development. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, that amounts to a recognition that it is essential to balance economic, environmental and social considerations to get the right outcome in using the world's resources in a sustainable way so that we do not take out more than the earth can afford. To my mind, that third example of new wording is the most significant of the three when we are talking about tackling climate change in future. Let me provide some examples of where sustainable development applies. Again, the Secretary of State referred earlier to the UK's leadership in Europe in the past. We have had the confidence to lead because we have had such backing behind us. The first example was the negotiation of the Kyoto agreement and the acceptance of legally binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In the end, when we divided out the EU share of those emissions, we took more than the overall 8 per cent. target—and we are on target virtually to double our savings beyond our legally binding target.