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11.26 am
Mr. Dennis Murphy (Wansbeck): At the outset of my maiden speech, I thank the people of Wansbeck for allowing me to represent them in this House. It is indeed an honour and a privilege.
I was born in the constituency of Wansbeck and have lived in it all my life. I believe that I understand the problems of the area and I have never wished to represent any other constituency. My predecessor, Jack Thompson, represented Wansbeck for 14 years. He was a hard-working, diligent Member of Parliament who never forgot either his background or his roots. It is to his eternal credit that, whenever I speak of him in the House or outside, people refer to him as a genuinely nice man. Not many people can manage that delicate double of being well liked and an effective politician.
Another of my predecessors was Thomas Burt, Member of Parliament for Morpeth, who was elected to the House in 1874. He was a great man who served his people and this place with great distinction for 44 years. He was also the first miners' Member of Parliament. I mention that because the near closure of the mining industry means that I will probably be the last miners' Member of Parliament to represent my constituency.
Wansbeck is situated north east of Newcastle- upon-Tyne, squeezed between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Blyth Valley--so it is a veritable rose. The main town of Ashington owes its existence to coal mining. It was the original company town, where the coal owners built and owned everything--including, for a time, the miners themselves. Apart from coal, Ashington is a famous footballing town. It is the home of Jackie Milburn, the famous--and, some would say, the very first--Newcastle United striker in the 1950s, and of Bobby and Jackie Charlton, who both had brilliant individual careers, culminating in their playing in the 1966 World cup final.
The constituency boasts two beautiful ancient market towns: Morpeth to the west, which is home to the Northumbrian pipes, and Bedlington to the south which, among other things, is famous for its breed of dog, the Bedlington terrier. It is completed to the east by the seaside village of Newbiggin, which operates one of the last fishing coble fleets in Britain.
In my view, the constituency is a microcosm of the industrial north. It is a classic example of the aftermath of colliery closures in a single-industry area.
Mining underpinned the local economies and the speed of the decline and ultimate demise of the area industry dealt an economic body blow from which the local authorities have not yet recovered.
Our people, however, have not sat back and whinged. They have worked in partnership with local government and the private sector to expand and broaden the base of the local economy. Much work has been done to clean up the environment, to rid ourselves of the legacy of 200 years of coal mining. Award-winning country parks and lakes have replaced slag heaps. High-tech business parks with global telecommunication links now stand on colliery sites. Two major employers in the constituency have invested heavily in environmental improvements.
Through skilled management and a dedicated work force, the Alcan aluminium smelter has weathered two recessions. The company is now investing heavily in the future in opening the new aluminium-producing pot line with state-of-the-art emission controls. The fact that the company is able to do so is a personal tribute to the managing director, Mr. Frank McGravie, who never gave up hope. When complete, the plant will provide 150 much needed new, permanent jobs.
Synpac is a local Taiwanese-owned company. It manufactures in Wansbeck 10 per cent. of the world's supply of penicillin G. It has invested in new plant to turn effluent into high protein animal feedstock. We should applaud those industries that invest to protect our planet.
Also in the constituency is a unique project called Earth Balance. As the name implies, the project works in harmony with the environment. We have on site an organic farm and an organic bakery. In keeping with the finest traditions of the north-east, we also have an organic brewery. Electricity is produced on site by wind and hydro power, with solar energy also available. It is a community-based sustainable development and we are justly proud of it.
Air quality and the physical environment are clearly important and so, too, is our quality of life. Being in employment improves our quality of life. We have had
many successes recently in the area in attracting new jobs to it, but, in reality, we have hardly scratched the surface. There are unemployment rates of more than 30 per cent. in some wards.
For the first time, I am meeting third generation unemployed people. Who do these young people look to for an example? Who is at home to teach them the value and discipline of work? Who is there in the morning at six o'clock each and every day to get them out to work? Who is there in the evenings at the dinner table to share their day's experiences and to encourage them after an especially bad day? Sadly, many of these young people have no one to fill those roles. I am pleased, therefore, that it is one of the Government's priorities to offer hope and place an investment in the future of 250,000 young people. I hope that the training will be both relevant and wide ranging and in some way will compensate for disadvantaged backgrounds.
I was made redundant three years ago. I was fortunate because, within a few weeks, I regained employment. I did, however, sign on the dole along with many colleagues with whom I had worked for more than 25 years. Part of the team with which I worked signed on with me, including three highly skilled miners. They were proud, hard-working, diligent men, who genuinely contributed a great deal to society. They signed on as unskilled. They are still out of work. What a terrible human waste.
Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro and St. Austell):
I send a warm welcome to the new hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Murphy) and congratulate him on his maiden speech. He gave the House a thorough tour of his constituency. I am sure that he will return to the important theme of unemployment in his constituency and the need to look forward to developing the future. That ties in with the wider issue of sustainable development because we cannot unlink the environment from social and economic sustainability.
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) on securing the debate and allowing the House the opportunity to discuss some of the key issues to be raised by Earth summit 2. The first so-called Earth summit took place almost five years ago in Rio. It was the most significant meeting held by the United Nations on sustainable development. The challenge is to ensure that the global desire for a more sustainable existence, so clearly expressed at Rio, maintains its momentum.
Much has already been achieved, but there is a great deal still to do and Britain needs to be setting the lead. The Government have stated that they want to put the environment at the heart of their administration, so they must work to put the environment at the heart of international negotiations. They must also ensure that the United Kingdom has a leading role in those negotiations.
The most pressing environmental challenge that we all face has already been taken up in the debate. The framework convention on climate change looks set to agree binding greenhouse gas emission targets at the Kyoto meeting on climate change in December. I have no
doubt that that should be seen as a concrete achievement in international regime building. I look forward also to the Government's climate change action plan. The new Government have set themselves a welcome and ambitious target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the main greenhouse gas, and they will require imaginative solutions for their targets to be met.
I would welcome an assurance from the Minister on comments reported in The Independent on 5 June, which were attributed to the new Green Minister. The article states that
Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal):
Will the hon. Gentleman add to his question the very tough supplementary that if other nations are seriously to follow us, we must show them in advance precisely how we are to achieve our targets? If we fail to do that, they will not believe in the targets and we shall be worse than useless as a leader in international negotiations.
Mr. Taylor:
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that the Government will give the House the opportunity, in Government time, fully to debate the actions that they propose. I hope that they will outline in detail how they plan to achieve their objectives, not merely state their objectives. There is a great gap between the will and the how, which has not been properly outlined.
The special session must provide the momentum for the Kyoto conference and remove blockages for negotiation so that legally binding targets can be agreed by industrial countries for the short term. I should also like to see an evaluation of the effectiveness of the measures that have so far been taken on all greenhouse gases. If we cannot identify where we have succeeded and where we have failed, it will be difficult to meet the tougher targets that will be necessary to prevent a serious threat to human life.
Other agreements at Rio, such as the convention on biological diversity, have failed to achieve the same focus, and there has been little progress in implementing or funding the desertification convention. Once species and habitats are lost, they are gone for good. Too many have already been lost. Urgent action is needed to ensure that a comprehensive and effective global biodiversity plan is in place, so all countries should be urged to ratify the convention on biological diversity and should work to produce national and international strategies to conserve biodiversity.
Crucially, neither the framework convention on climate change nor the convention on biological diversity has agreed a programme of action or mobilised sufficient
financial resources to implement their aims in developing countries. As a result, their financial mechanism--the global environment facility--has been left largely without any clear strategic direction.
The greatest and potentially most intractable challenge has been financing our commitments to achieving environmental sustainability. In fact, the GEF budget amounted to under 0.004 per cent. of gross domestic product in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development--about 50p per person per year in the UK. The UK should commit itself--I hope that the Minister can give some indication on this--to increasing its contribution to the GEF, and work to ensure that GEF activities are properly monitored.
We should also increase the proportion of our bilateral aid devoted to biodiversity. At the moment, it is just 1 per cent., which is far smaller than our major partners' allocations. We should show our international colleagues that we are serious about looking after our environment and encourage others to follow suit.
How we finance our international environmental commitments is likely to be at the centre of debate at next month's special session and is, I believe, fundamental to its success. Poverty around the globe is on the increase and, what is more, the disparity between rich and poor is growing. The need of developing countries for funds is at least as great now as it was in 1992. Since Rio, forests have continued to be cleared, wetlands have been substantially destroyed and the Earth's biodiversity further eroded. In many cases--most cases, probably--that is not through deliberate or wilful neglect, but because many developing countries simply do not have the resources to pursue more sustainable forms of development or to police effectively rules designed to protect the environment. One cannot tell a hungry family that they must stay hungry for the sake of protecting the global environment.
The developed countries have simply not fulfilled their commitments made at Rio to provide new and additional resources. Official development assistance fell from a peak of $62 billion in 1992 to around $53 billion in 1995, far outweighing the $3 billion in the GEF since 1992.
It is imperative for all our futures that poorer developing countries remain committed to the ambitious agenda and targets of Rio. If they are to do so, developed countries such as ours have to demonstrate at the United Nations special session that we are prepared to live up to the financial promises that we made, and that means ensuring that adequate financial resources are made available.
The UK Government can take a lead, ensuring that developed countries meet their aid targets of 0.7 per cent. of gross national product within 10 years. The UK does not meet that target at present, and in past years our commitment has fallen. Those cuts should be reversed, and I hope that the Government can announce a clear timetable for doing so. Without such a timetable, any vague promises are pretty much meaningless and certainly will not be believed in the developing world, which has bitter experience of what has gone on so far.
At the same time, the quality of aid must be improved. Although some progress has been made, too often aid continues to focus on large technology intensive projects rather than smaller sensitively planned projects that will yield environmental and social benefits. That is not good
news for those countries, and it is not good news for global sustainability. Although some things that Britain has done on this front have been good, much is poor.
"the Environment minister told the conference Britain would not deliver on its new target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010 if other European Union nations did not go further in curbing greenhouse gas emissions."
If we believe that the climate change threat is real--I think we all accept that it--it would be wrong to refuse to take action ourselves simply because other countries would be slow to follow our lead. Is the Minister able to assure us that the report in The Independent is inaccurate, and that the Government will press ahead with meeting their election commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent., irrespective of whether other EU countries go further, although maintaining pressure on them to do so? The best pressure to bring to bear will be that of showing a lead.
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