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Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
The Secretary of State is welcome to promote his hidden agenda, but I cannot believe that many Tory Members will be happy to join him tonight. Opposition Members willingly vote against compulsory water metering, because it is expensive, unjust--
Madam Deputy Speaker:
Order. It is clear that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) will not give way; the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) must resume his seat.
Mr. Arnold:
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) promised to answer my question, and tell us what alternative charges he would devise. He has not yet done so, and he has nearly finished his speech.
Madam Deputy Speaker:
I am afraid that that is not a point of order for the Chair.
Mr. Dobson:
If the hon. Gentleman had stayed in the Chamber, he might have been in a position to comment.
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. John Gummer):
I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
Mr. Mike Hall (Warrington, South):
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State has said that the motion says something that is untrue. If it did, would it not be out of order?
Madam Deputy Speaker:
The Chair is not responsible for the accuracy of points made in any motion.
Mr. Gummer:
I have made it clear, not only today but on many other occasions, that the Government are not in favour of compulsory water metering, and that there is no hidden agenda for that. Therefore, the motion is both otiose and as near to misleading the House as is possible within the rules of order.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle):
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Gummer:
I will do so when I have finished the first paragraph of my speech. I want to suggest why it is that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras has put his name to what would otherwise be an inconceivable motion. The reason is simple: he has been the leading Opposition spokesman on the environment for nearly two years, and throughout that period the Opposition have not taken the chance to debate their environmental policies or sought to focus attention on the great global issues that should concern us.
We have had no Supply day debate pressing us on global warming; no Opposition debate on the ozone layer, sustainable development or biodiversity. None of the matters that will really affect our children and grandchildren appear to have touched Opposition Members at all. In two years as Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) has managed to make hundreds of speeches, but only one concerned the environment. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras put his name to the motion because he dare not debate the environment. He has
nothing to say about the environment, and has said nothing about it for two whole years. There has been no debate; there have been no speeches and no commitment.
Mr. Dobson:
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Gummer:
I am happy to do so.
Mr. Dobson:
Do not the Government command the majority of business in the House? If the Secretary of State wants to debate the great environmental issues of the day, he has about 10 times as much opportunity as the Opposition to decide what is to be debated. I am sorry for the right hon. Gentleman: I am sorry that he cannot convince the Cabinet that such matters merit debate.
Mr. Gummer:
The reason is that the Government lead Europe on the problems of climate change, the ozone layer, pollution and every other major environmental issue. We have moved to that position without any help or pressure from the Opposition. My only explanation for the Opposition's behaviour is that, in the face of a Government who are increasingly recognised to be leading Europe and the world in environmental matters, they dare not express their view. I am not complacent about the United Kingdom's record, or about the wider record of the European Union; but I can understand an Opposition view that recognises that the Government have already established so firm a footing on the environment that there is little scope for the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, or any of his hon. Friends, even to raise the issue.
What is incomprehensible is the way in which, in the face of huge environmental challenges, the Opposition turn their back on principle, ignore the dramatically serious world environment situation, throw the future to the winds and seek to win a few short-term votes by adopting fundamentally anti-environmental policies. Let me give an example.
Mr. Skinner:
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Gummer:
I will after I have given my example, as the hon. Gentleman may wish to change his intervention as a result.
All over the country, the Labour party has dropped an appeal for funds through the letter boxes of decent people. It starts by praising itself for its attack on environmental taxation. It makes no positive suggestions in regard to how it would help to counter climate change; it merely makes a crude and undisguised appeal to people's immediate self-interest, with no concern about long-term environmental damage. No wonder that, in its approach to a manifesto last week, the Labour party managed no more than two paragraphs making glancing references to the environment.
When I pointed that out, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras attempted to excuse it by saying that environmental concern was found in every area of policy. Today's debate, however, shows that environmental concern cannot even be found in the shadow Secretary of State for the Environment. Even in his shadow Department, he has no idea--so he advances the idea of a hidden agenda. A shadow Minister has proposed a hidden agenda. It is not, of course, a true agenda; it is contrary
to the truth. That, no doubt, is why the hon. Gentleman will remain a shadow Minister dealing in hidden agendas and shadow views for the rest of his life.
The hon. Gentleman expresses his views; but, in a week that has produced the most detailed report on global warming and the effect of climate change on water resources in Britain, the Labour party can manage only a pathetic motion designed to grub up a few votes rather than grappling with the real issues. [Interruption.] As usual, the hon. Gentleman giggles at global warming, sustainable development and all the real issues of the environment. No wonder every environmental organisation in the country considers him a laughable figure, especially those who were formerly willing to support the Labour party. The hon. Gentleman does not realise that his giggle has become the symbol of Labour's anti-environmental policy, and its inability to come to terms with the real needs of our children and grandchildren.
Mr. Skinner:
Why should anyone believe that the Secretary of State wants to do something about the environment throughout the world? This Government agree with market forces, and implement that philosophy to the nth degree. How on earth is it possible to patch up the hole in the ozone layer with a man, a bike, a ladder and an enterprise allowance? The truth is that that can be done only through co-operation among all nation states. Market forces cannot solve the problem; as a matter of fact, market forces created it.
Mr. Gummer:
The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that this year, as Secretary of State for the Environment, I was given an award by the environmental organisations for being the Member of Parliament who had done most for international co-operation on the environment. The hon. Gentleman has, in fact, reminded us that this Government and this Secretary of State have done precisely what he wants us to do.
The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras must begin to be asked whether he and his party are yet ready for a proper debate on environmental policy as a whole, instead of on some narrow issue on which they detect there is short-term political gain to be had. In every other Parliament in Europe, the Government, whether they be Conservative or Labour, are under constant pressure from their Opposition on global warming and all the other major issues. This Opposition either have decided that the Government are so right on these issues that they cannot attack us, or are so confused on the issues that they dare not expose their policy.
When he intervened on the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) asked a simple question: what was the Labour party's policy? The hon. Gentleman promised, as he always does, that he would tell us what his policy was before the end of his speech. I did not leave the Chamber during his speech. I listened with rapt attention, but he still did not say what the Labour party policy was. He has never said what the Labour party's environmental policy is. Even in its manifesto, he did not point it out, apart from giving a few generalised words.
The issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised, however, is directly connected to the single most important matter that faces the world in environmental policy. At this moment, the parties to the United Nations framework
convention on climate change, the very people that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) suggests should be tackling these matters together, are meeting in Geneva, and I shall join them later, to consider the recent report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. That report is unanimous that there is now a discernible human influence on global climate.
Last week I published a report on the consequent changes to our climate--changes that we know cannot be avoided or deferred. We can ask ourselves only how we can live sustainedly in the light of them. The United Kingdom has set ambitious targets for the reduction of pollution, targets which only two other countries in Europe have begun to meet, but which most of the other European countries are beginning to consider seriously. We have set our face in the clear determination to reduce the impact of climate change, but we have accepted that so much has been damaged that real change is inevitable, however successful our crusade may be.
The report points out that, in the next 50 years, south-east Britain will be hotter and drier, and the north-west of these islands wetter. Our country's most populous regions will have less water to use. At the same time, demand for water is growing and is likely to go on doing so. The major cause of the increase is changing life styles. As we grow wealthier as a society, which is happening, and have more leisure, we have more dish washers and power showers. Most important, we want to water the gardens in which we rightly take so much pride, but, on top of that, demand will increase simply because the climate is hotter and drier.
The Opposition's panacea is to cure leakage in the distribution system. Do that, says the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, and all will be well. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman was invited to give us a comprehensive policy statement. He did not do that and therefore I think I have every right to suggest that, overwhelmingly, his speech was concerned with the suggestion that we did not need to do a number of other things because the one thing that really mattered was leakage, which I will deal with later.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that we shall not need to have water meters or changes to tariff structures. He and the Consumers Association think that all we need to do is invent an alternative charging method that more or less replicates the old system of rateable values, and that we should turn our faces resolutely against payment by volume, even though the rest of the developed world concluded long ago that that is the only sensible basis on which to charge for water.
That is interesting from the hon. Gentleman's point of view because, yet again, he has used a well-known, but wholly unacceptable, rhetorical trick. He quotes about water metering and concludes about compulsory water metering, as if the two were the same. He quotes someone's support for water metering, quotes someone's antagonism to compulsory water metering and then says that that shows that the Government's policy, which is in support of voluntary water metering, is therefore wrong.
'notes that Her Majesty's Government is committed to sustainable development and recently published an assessment of global warming in the United Kingdom with its sharp reminder of the increasing pressure on water resources; further notes that the increasing demand for water therefore requires a long-term approach to the management of water resources and that an important part of that task is to discourage unnecessary wastage of water both by companies and by customers; therefore welcomes the new duty on water companies to promote the efficient use of water and, although the Government has never supported a policy of compulsory metering, notes that metering can also be effective in encouraging customers to use only the water that they need and that this helps to increase the sustainability of water use; and looks to the water companies to use the flexibility available to them to develop their own tariff structures and methods best suited to the needs of customers and to local circumstances.'.
I have been wondering for some time why the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) put his name to a motion that says something that is untrue.
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