Environmental Protection and Green Growth

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will address the House again at the conclusion of this superb debate. The last comments made by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) amused me greatly. They sounded desperate. They sounded as if he was in complete denial of the 13 years of failure, of which he was part. I, like my DEFRA colleagues, feel that we are in a Department that deals with emergencies. One of the emergencies we are dealing with is the great sense of failure that the previous Government imposed on the countryside and on the environment. We are having to work our socks off to repair the situation, but it is a challenge that we take and take seriously. We look forward to achieving on it in the coming months. The Government can show leadership in protecting our environment, which is exactly what this Government are doing. However, the Government alone cannot protect our environment. We believe that having communities, business, civil society and Governments working together is likely to have the greatest impact on protecting and improving our environment. We are providing new opportunities for local people to play a bigger role in protecting and improving the environment in their areas. We have some of the world's best civil society environmental organisations to help us to protect and improve our natural environment, and we have provided the tools for them to work with us.