Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I shall be astonished if some of these rehashed announcements and Bills go anywhere in the time left to the Government. In fact, I share the astonishment expressed by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods), but it is not astonishment about the cynicism of the Opposition; it is astonishment about what was not in the Queen's Speech. I find myself—unusually—slightly agreeing with the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg). I am not at all sure that there was need for a Queen's Speech at this stage. From where I am standing, and from the viewpoint of the part of south-west England that I represent, there seems to be little in the speech that relates to us. It is not surprising that, in responding to a recent ICM poll, a sizeable majority—66 per cent.—said that the Government cared more about issues affecting urban people than about those affecting people in the countryside. Everything that I have seen in the Queen's Speech only goes to support that. Given the number of vegans on the Government Front Bench, I suppose I should be grateful that Devon's cow population did not come in for an attack on carbon emissions. I should say in all fairness that, in the run-up to Copenhagen and following the recent tragic events in Cumbria, it is right in a sense that we have concentrated on flooding and flood prevention. However, the debate has been interesting in other respects. In my view, the best contribution so far—I say this in a non-partisan way—has come from a former Minister, the right hon. Member for Croydon, North (Malcolm Wicks). He talked of energy security, which is or should be of real concern to us all. I wonder whether the Secretary of State could let us know when the right hon. Gentleman's report to the Prime Minister will be available to us and whether there will be a copy in the Library; indeed, whether there will be an opportunity to debate what I believe to be an extremely serious issue. The Government have had 12 years—it is difficult to believe some times—to deal with energy security. We have heard that France, by law, must have 125 days' worth of gas holdings. We have less than 15 days. Germany has 99 days; last year we were down to as little as four days. That is irresponsible and clearly unacceptable. We have heard about the energy deficit. Even if we pressed the start button tomorrow, no nuclear power station could be built until 2017. Yet I believe that the Government are not doing enough to explore the finite resources—they are still there but are more difficult to get at now—in the North sea. I would welcome the Secretary of State's comments about whether the encouragement given to drilling companies to explore in the North sea is going as it should be. We heard about alternative energy and tidal wave power. There is a very good project in Plymouth financed by the South West of England Regional Development Agency to have a tidal wave power machine put off Hayle in Cornwall. It has not happened yet and it is a wonderful and exciting piece of technology, but we should not be relying on a piece of technology that remains unproven. We have heard about offshore wind farms. I am very keen on offshore wind farms but I remind the Secretary of State that we have just had the Marine Bill. In Committee I asked how we brought onshore the energy generated by tidal wave power. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) mentioned judicial review in terms of the new generation of nuclear power stations. I think there will be judicial review every single time we try to extend the national grid and bring in these wires to highly sensitive areas. It is clear that the UK is still lagging behind in the use of alternative technologies. We do not have enough electric charging points, particularly in the capital city. We are lagging well behind Japan and the US in investing in new green technologies. We should be doing more to deal with battery disposal. I urge the Secretary of State to go the United Arab Emirates, if he has not done so; I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group. In Masdar, they are seeking to create the first carbon-neutral city and to attract other high technology industries there. They are doing some incredibly good work from which we could learn. I do not want to detain the House as others want to get in, but I want to talk about fuel poverty and flooding. On the Energy Bill, the Government have said that they will give a greater amount of help to the poorest and most vulnerable. But they said already that they would end fuel poverty by 2016. How will they reach that target given that nearly one in four households—16,000 households—in East Devon is currently in fuel poverty? The Government's current schemes give very little help to rural areas. The community energy saving programme has very few designated areas that are in rural England because fuel poverty is so dispersed in rural areas. It is dispersed and disguised and we need to do more about that. On flooding, it is heart-wrenching to hear the reports from Cumbria. I can empathise somewhat; we have had similar problems in my part of the world. Indeed, on the river Dart we had the tragic death recently of the canoeist Chris Wheeler, to whose family I send my condolences. I welcome the Flood and Water Management Bill. The draft Bill needs some attention and there are some things in it that we need to debate and change but it is timely; indeed it is overdue. I was with the Environment Agency a few days ago in Devon where we were looking at maintaining banks. Its representatives were telling me about how it was encouraging farmers and landowners to undertake deeper ploughing—another practice that has gone by the wayside in recent years—in order to try and hold deeper water. Whatever happens, there will be a trade-off between the farmers, the landowners and the EA, because we cannot just flood huge areas without compensation and discussion; that needs to take place if things are to work at all. The south-west has the second highest number of properties at significant risk of flooding, with 86,000 under threat. I agree with the chairman of the EA, Lord Smith, who said:""More people have lost their lives from flooding than have from terrorism in England."" We therefore must take flooding extremely seriously. The emergency services have done excellent work in the last few days, and I pay tribute to them; they do a magnificent job time and again. I am, however, concerned about preventive aspects in relation to flooding, the co-ordination of different Departments, and the amount of money that is spent in different areas. We have heard today, in a completely non-political way from Members on both sides of the House, of the continuing concern about England being concreted over. In my part of the world, there is concern about the proposed new development of Cranbrook near Rockbeare, as that will arguably be built near, or adjacent to, a floodplain. It may not have flooded for many years, but given the way the climate is changing and its unpredictability, is it wise, as part of a regional spatial strategy—something we are committed to getting rid of—to build a brand-new town if there is any question of it being subjected to flooding at any time? We are miles behind other countries in terms of the housing we build. In the low countries, such as the Netherlands, houses on stilts and houses that can float are being built. It is difficult to believe that we might need to look at what other countries are doing, but we clearly do. I would welcome hearing the Secretary of State's views on how far we will need to go down that road to address not the problems of today, but the unpredictable problems of tomorrow. I shall end by making a plea on behalf of my part of the world. This ties in with climate change, and trying to get people around the place in an environmentally sustainable way, and trying to get the local economy going. If I had sufficient time, I would like to address many of the myriad other issues that plague those of us who live in rural areas, but I shall, for now, make a plea about Devon's roads. We have a lot of them: we in Devon have 8,000 miles of roads to maintain—3,000 more miles than any other authority. It is a huge road network. We beat the Liberal Democrats to win Devon county council in the local elections in May. In the run-up to the election, the Liberal Democrats pledged £2 million to fill potholes, but nobody will be surprised to learn that when the Tories won and looked at the books, we found that there was absolutely no provision at all for spending money on filling in the potholes. This is a huge issue for Devon's economy. Almost 8,000 miles of roads are enormously vulnerable to environmental change. They are vulnerable to flooding, for example, as they get washed away on a regular basis. I ask the Secretary of State to bear in mind Devon's special situation when it comes to the maintenance and repair of our vital infrastructure. I welcome certain measures in the Queen's Speech, although some of them have been announced before. However, if we take out flooding, there is very little for the rural communities, who have felt abandoned for so long by this Government. That is the case even in respect of the Bill on communications. At first sight, it looks as though it is legislation""to ensure communications infrastructure that is fit for the digital age"." Some of us thought that might mean that we would finally get broadband access in remote and rural areas, but it transpires that this is in fact a new enthusiasm of Lord Mandelson that is more to do with copyright protection than extending and rolling out the broadband network, which was promised years ago by Tony Blair, but which has not materialised in many areas. Tonight should be about Copenhagen and about flooding, however. Again, I express my sympathies to the people of Cumbria, but please let us not forget that we in Devon have tremendous problems ahead of us, and we need a Government who are prepared to support us.