Climate Change

May I draw the House's attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests? I wish to return to the theme of the £6 million advertising campaign on the television which shows a father reading bedtime fairy stories to his little girl. I do not know whether it was a Freudian slip on the part of Ministers to plant in viewers' minds the suggestion that these alarmist stories that puppies would die, that baby rabbits would drown and that English towns would be swept away under water were fairy stories, but that is what they seem to have done. I say that because, although nobody in the House seems to wish to reflect on it, the fact is that fewer people in Britain than in any other country believe in the importance of global warming. That is despite the fact that our Government and our political class—predominantly—are more committed to it than their counterparts in any other country in the world. It is right and proper that we should reflect on that detachment between the people of this country and their leaders, and it is sad that those who have spoken in this debate so far have refused to do so. The latest Pew survey—this survey is carried out across the world every year— shows that only 15 per cent. of people in this country take seriously, or are seriously concerned about, the prospect of climate change and almost half believe that nothing can be done. On the latter point, the corresponding figure worldwide is much lower—it is less than 40 per cent.—and on the former, the figure is much higher in most other countries, including the United States of America. Although my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) gave his customary attack on the American people for their obscurantism, he ought to reflect, as we all ought to do, on the fact that the British people rate the issue of climate change less seriously than even the American people do. The second bit of evidence to cite is the exhibition that has been going on at the Science museum, which purports to give people the facts about climate change. At the end, people are asked to sign up; they are asked—yes or no—whether having heard the facts, they want to send the message to the Government that they must take serious action about climate change. People were responding to that survey after they had been through the museum and seen the graphic evidence presented in the most persuasive way possible by the alarmists. By a ratio of almost 6:1, the noes, who said that they did not believe in climate change and did not want to warn the Government, outweighed the yeses. Surely that, too, is something on which this House should reflect; I am surprised that we do not. Above all, the Government should reflect on why they have been so singularly incapable of carrying the British public with them and why their arguments have cut such little ice—I hope that I may use that phrase.