Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I hope that it will not embarrass my next-door constituency neighbour, the right hon. Member for Croydon, North (Malcolm Wicks), if I say that that was one of the most interesting speeches I have ever heard on the security of energy supply, which is a crucial issue that needs to be resolved and should have been addressed much earlier than when the Government asked the right hon. Gentleman to prepare his report. I recall during my young adulthood in Scotland how we had to deal with the discovery of North sea oil and gas, yet now as I prepare to retire we are looking at how to reduce quantities of oil and gas. It is an issue of which I have been conscious for a long time. Given that I live close to Dungeness power station, I am also conscious of the ageing of our nuclear power stations—I nearly said our nuclear fleet. It is a great sadness to me and to many on the Romney marsh that the Government have so far ruled out the building of a third power station at Dungeness on the grounds of what Natural England said rather than on what I would have thought was the more logical ground of the potential for movement of the shingle. I believe that, engineering-wise, that problem could be solved. It was fascinating to listen to the right hon. Member for Croydon, North. I do not intend to concentrate too much on the Bill that the Government propose to present in the few weeks left to them. Nor do I intend to spend too much time discussing Copenhagen, because we have already discussed it at great length. I will say, however, that whether or not one is a supporter of the science of climate change it is surely common sense for consumers to reduce the amount that they spend on energy, and for that practical reason I am sad that so far there has been little effective action to develop new technologies in the new industries. It is true that we have wind farms. We have a wind farm on the Romney Marsh, although I am afraid that it is not taken terribly seriously because for most of the time its turbines are not turning. There is endless anecdotal evidence that wind farms have not been built quite correctly. There is also a great deal of evidence that carbon capture has been delayed by the Government's dithering. In Kingsnorth, E.ON was prepared to build a new coal-fired power station as part of the original competition for carbon capture and storage, but—fundamentally because of Government dither and delay—it decided that the game was not worth the candle. As we all know, environmental protesters collected at the power station and had a rather unpleasant confrontation with, primarily, the police. If the Government had not dithered over the scheme and the competition, we might have moved much further down the route of developing our own carbon capture technology. Along with the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Chris McCafferty), who is present and whose constituency includes the lovely and literary Hebden Bridge area, I was on the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association's delegation to Australia this year. People there told us proudly that they had created an international centre for carbon capture technology. The bulk of Australia's energy comes from brown coal. The Australians are committed to reducing their emissions under Copenhagen, and they realise that if they are to do that it is essential for them to develop carbon capture. I wonder about the degree to which we in the United Kingdom are trying to reinvent the wheel with our carbon capture schemes. I wonder to what extent there is an international exchange of information about the technologies being developed, about what works and what does not work, and about how we can move from demonstration to production. It would be such a waste of entrepreneurial abilities if we developed in parallel rather than together. I find it fascinating that, apart from passing references, there has been no mention of how solar energy could help to meet our energy requirements. There are Government grants to help people to install solar panels, but they are difficult to obtain. Four or five years ago China set out to develop production systems for solar panels so that they could reduce production costs to a level enabling them to capture the world market. Another thing that I learnt in Australia was that there was considerable resentment because the Chinese were exporting cheap solar panels to Australia which were challenging those being produced indigenously, but we have to live with that. It is not dumping; it is driving the market so that more and more people can use solar panels. I do not understand why we are not doing more in this country to encourage people to use them. I do not think that the Government's proposed Bill will address that question in any way. In household terms, I think that microgeneration is the easiest and quickest way for every one of us, in our domestic lives, to contribute to the reduction of our carbon footprint. Another issue that seems to have been omitted from the debate so far, and does not appear to have been included in the Bill—although I hope that I can encourage the Government to include it—is the production of energy from waste. Local authorities currently spend huge amounts on trying to avoid sending waste to landfill, and we know of the difficulties that that is causing our local communities. There will be one collection in one week and another in a different week; people wonder whether there is a chip in the bin to establish how much waste they have put out, and whether they are allowed to put out six bottles a week instead of five. All those rather claustrophobia-inducing management demands drive many householders demented. But if—or rather when; there is no "if"—we develop the new generation of incineration with scrubbed emissions, we can feed electricity into the local community and into the grid, and when we develop anaerobic digestion we can do exactly the same. Why are we not creating an economy that favours that form of waste disposal? It would mean that waste would not go to landfill but could produce useful heat and energy—and we could stop irritating our fellow residents at the same time. There has been a fair amount of comment about nuclear power. I believe—and the right hon. Member for Croydon, North seemed to agree—that it is the best way in which to generate relatively low-carbon-emission electricity and energy. When the Secretary of State published the draft national policy statement on energy recently, he told me that the public consultation on it would continue until February. He expects it to come to the House in March for consideration by the Select Committees. It does not take a great brain to work out that the consultation will not end before the general election. There is an immediate and built-in delay in the progress of national policy statements. Furthermore, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) pointed out, the system provided by the Planning Act 2008 is completely open to judicial review. According to the 13 November issue of "Planning", the Town and Country Planning Association has said that""the NPSs make the "very profound mistake" of not including carbon assessment for energy projects."" If it is not included in the NPS, there will be an application for a judicial review and we shall see more of the delays resulting from the debate about Sizewell. We shall ensure that there are delays in the building of nuclear power stations. We cannot assume, merely because we have passed the Planning Act, that we will magically secure the nuclear power stations that we need unless we ensure that national policy statements are voted on democratically in the House. That would make it possible for Secretaries of State who no longer wish to make such decisions to make them, and to make them much more quickly than the Infrastructure Planning Commission need do. That is the basis for getting rid of the Infrastructure Planning Commission. We must get democratic legitimacy within the planning system if we are to get the infrastructure built. If we do not, we are unlikely to be able to move forward. The right hon. Member for Croydon, North talked about the target for zero-carbon houses by 2016. I do not whether the right hon. Gentleman noticed—Hansard will tell us whether I am correct—but I thought that the Secretary of State said "near-zero-carbon houses". I notice that there is a written statement from the Department for Communities and Local Government on that subject—I have not seen it yet. Whether the Government are resiling from that commitment—I would not blame them, as it will be next to impossible to achieve it anyway—and are breaking the news gently, or whether it was a slip of the tongue, I do not know. If we are getting a more realistic target for reducing emissions from domestic houses and are moving away from the lifestyle constraints implied by zero-carbon houses, I am glad to see common sense dawn. With a bit of luck we will be able to get more buy-in for reducing carbon emissions from houses rather than banning them altogether. I feel desperately sorry for DEFRA, because nobody has mentioned that Department so far. It is lovely to see the Secretary of State here; he has sat patiently wondering if anyone will mention anything to do with the countryside. I join completely all the messages of sympathy and support sent to everybody who has been affected by the flooding in Cumbria. It is a ghastly thing to happen to so many people in an area where it is difficult to get the help that is needed. I feel very sad and send them all best wishes. There is a reference in the Queen's Speech to a flooding Bill. Its proposals could be implemented by changing who is responsible for what and making it clear which local authority has what powers. The only other thing in the Queen's Speech that might affect the rural community is the broadband Bill, which could bring some economic strength to deprived rural areas. For farmers, fruit farmers, fishermen or environmentalists, however, there is nothing that will in any way, shape or form help them to live a more productive and helpful life. I want to talk briefly about the other Bills proposed in the Queen's Speech. I could not believe that there is to be legislation to halve the deficit. Legislation will not halve the deficit; action will. There is a Bill to ensure good schooling. Legislation will not ensure good schooling; good teachers, good head teachers and good parents will. There is yet another promise to halve child poverty. Legislation does not halve child poverty; the economy and social structure will ensure that children no longer live in poverty. For 12 years we have had a Government who believe that legislation is the answer. For 12 years we have been telling them that legislation is the problem. It is not delivering because the Government believe so often that if they pass an Act, nothing more needs to be done. We must create the circumstances in which we get the outcomes that we want, That is the key to decent legislation. Sadly, this Queen's Speech is probably more an electoral statement than anything to do with achieving the laudable objectives set out in it. There are things that I would have liked to have seen in the Queen's Speech. The scandal of the exploitation of public sector leaseholders needs to be addressed by legislation. The emerging scandal of leaseholders who live in retirement homes needs to be addressed by legislation. Why is there no legislation to get rid of the stigma of the housing estate? People say that they live on a certain housing estate and are immediately pigeonholed and almost stigmatised with failure. Such legislation would help us to move this country towards becoming a positive, forward-looking community. The saddest thing of all—there is nothing in the Queen's Speech to address it—is the statement by Lord Strathclyde that the House of Lords will ensure that most of the legislation does not get through. The House of Lords is a revising Chamber. It is this Chamber that should ensure whether or not legislation gets through. For the House of Lords to be able to claim that it has the ability to stop legislation shows how this House of Commons has been demeaned by the Government, who have taken from it the ability to look properly and thoroughly at legislation and to decide whether or not that legislation is of quality. That is not the job of the House of Lords; it is the job of the Commons. If there is one thing that I sincerely hope my party addresses after the election, it is that the House of Commons regains its primacy and democratic legitimacy.