Environmental Protection and Green Growth

No, I will not give way. We welcome the ““Nature Check”” report. It is very important that the organisations that took part in it have an edgy relationship with government. They frequently come to the Department and we work closely with them, and we will get green lights on the items as we progress. When that report was produced we had been in government for 15 months, dealing with abject failures created by the hon. Member for Ogmore and the Labour party in government, for which he has to take responsibility. Let me deal with some of the excellent points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) was missing the point. Just dealing with recycling does not deal with the whole waste problem; we need to look at this the whole way up the waste hierarchy. Unlike her Government, we will introduce proposals to ban wood from landfill next year. I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) on a customary visionary speech. The leadership he is giving in his community on broadband, on local housing initiatives and on improving mobile coverage for his constituents is matched by this Government's commitment to do the same for rural areas right across this country. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) again showed that Labour Members just do not get the whole waste issue. I urge him to look at our waste review and see what we are achieving. My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) made an excellent speech in which she pointed out the failure of Labour councils. It is councils that deliver and it is coalition party councils that are achieving.