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Mr. Anthony Colman (Putney): Does my hon. Friend agree with and support the views of local government world wide that the United Nations General Assembly special session should take two actions? First, it should adopt global targets for local Agenda 21, as only 20 national Governments, including our own, have gone ahead with national programmes. Secondly, before the sixth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development in 1998, it should set up a study to investigate the barriers to local sustainable development that are created by central Governments.
Mr. Corbyn: I strongly endorse my hon. Friend's two points, and I pay tribute to his work in promoting Agenda 21 across London.
Will my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary give us a commitment that the Government will seriously consider harnessing all the good work of local Agenda 21 groups around the country to give them a regional and national focus, and providing those groups with the funding necessary to enable them to continue the valuable work that has been achieved thus far?
Ms Debra Shipley (Stourbridge):
Mr. Deputy Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech during this important debate. As an executive member of the Socialist Environmental Research Association, and, as the new Member for Stourbridge in the west midlands, I am keen to highlight for my constituents the important link between global initiatives, which we have discussed today, and the environment that they experience daily.
Stourbridge is an attractive and once thriving town. It is completely encircled by a busy ring road, which many people believe blights its regenerative potential. Roads throughout the constituency are choked with traffic fumes. The area is characterised by urban villages, such as the black country communities of Lye, Cradley and Quarry Bank. They are proud communities with a strong sense of industrial heritage and a strong work ethos, and I am proud to represent them.
Nowhere is the work ethos more apparent than in our schools, where teachers work hard to provide a high standard of excellence. I recognise and value their contribution. Throughout the constituency, teachers are well supported by not only parents, who recognise that
we have a good education service from Dudley council, but an army of behind-the-scenes staff--caretakers, dinner ladies and secretaries--who all care very much about our children's well-being.
As a candidate, I stood outside school gates giving out leaflets to parents. I was approached time and again by lollipop ladies who told me about traffic pollution. They care about children's health, and they want me to do something about it. They care about the traffic fumes that the children breathe in every day.
Many schools in my constituency are situated on busy roads. Children breathe in polluted air on the way to school, in their classrooms and in the playgrounds. One in seven children suffer from asthma: the figure is one in five if they live near a major road. Earth summit 2, which reviews Agenda 21, is, therefore, important to the lollipop ladies of Stourbridge. I welcome the Government's commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. on 1990 levels by 2010: that is a welcome start to deal with a difficult problem.
Pensioners in Stourbridge are also affected by the summit. Like pensioners across the country, they often survive on pitifully small incomes, and often have to struggle to heat homes. Local Agenda 21 can touch their lives: insulating homes, saving fuel and lowering bills would substantially affect the quality of their lives.
Young people can also gain from the summit through local jobs created by environmental initiatives. I am pleased to say that, in my constituency, a new cycle path has just this week been created along a canal tow path. The canal is a major and much-loved recreational facility enjoyed by anglers, walkers, families and now cyclists. Our new environmental task forces can open up more facilities, rejuvenate our parks and turn some of our neglected and vandalised cemeteries into wildlife havens. Plenty can be done at local level to improve our environment, and plenty can be done by government at national and international level.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank the Churches of Stourbridge. Through public meetings, they have raised issues of global environment. Congregations in Wollaston, Amblecote, Pedmore and Norton have discussed the vital issues of sustainable development, such as forestry, drinking water, fish stocks, as well as energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy. I sincerely hope that Britain will take a lead on those matters during Earth summit 2, and will make them a high priority.
Earth summit 2, which focuses on sustainable development, should also set a target for the climate change convention to be held in Kyoto later this year. To bring about change we must have vision, and we must have action. I have a vision of a renaissance for my constituency, and it is now a real possibility. Proposals include the pedestrianisation of Stourbridge town centre, the opening of more pathways and cycle routes, creation of new jobs, rejuvenation of open spaces and investment in urban industrial architecture and heritage.
We already have plenty of good things in Stourbridge: most notably food and drink. Many people who come to the black country for the first time remark on our excellent, small, local pubs. Well, that is not surprising, as the local brew is the best.
It is tradition in a maiden speech to make positive comments about one's predecessor. He did two things well: he held regular constituency surgeries--I give him
full credit for that, because it is important for Members of Parliament to do so--and, I am told, he was a keen customer of the excellent balti restaurants in Lye. I shall be only too happy to carry on his good work.
Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal):
I congratulate the hon. Members for Wansbeck (Mr. Murphy) and for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) on their maiden speeches. They both showed great knowledge of their constituencies, and brought the importance of the global issues with which Earth summit 2 will be concerned into local focus. That is essential if we are to make the great issues of climate change and biodiversity real to all our population, which is crucial.
I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) for her comments. She said that there should be a bipartisan approach to these issues. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), and her right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister for their kind comments about the environmental steps taken by the previous Government in general and by me in particular. I assure the hon. Lady that the Opposition will support the Government in every way possible to promote our joint environmental ends.
I cannot resist reminding the Under-Secretary from time to time that it would have been nice to have that bipartisan approach, for which I sought hard, when we were in power. However, I shall remind her of that only occasionally, winsomely, when I wish to do so. On the other hand, I must tell the hon. Lady that I shall press her--and, I am sure she will be pleased to hear, her colleagues in other Departments--to provide the "how" for the "what" that we share. She must therefore take it as helpful, rather than as in any way destructive of her position, if I constantly press members of the Government to tell us what they are doing to make a reality of the targets that have now been set out.
It is well known that we signed up to the target of a 15 per cent. reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union and that, for 10 per cent., it was clearly worked out how that reduction would be achieved, country by country. I have always felt that it would be difficult to provide an equally accurate statement of how we could achieve a 20 per cent. reduction inCO 2 emissions, which is a tough target.
The Government have accepted the target and I shall support them in reaching it, but they really must say how they intend to do so. I shall give three examples of the sort of "how" that we shall need. First, we shall need an assessment of what extra will have to be done to make up for the changes in taxation proposed by the Government. I shall not argue about those changes. I simply say that changes are proposed, that if they take place they will have an effect and that we shall have to estimate what that effect will be. We want to know precisely what steps will be taken to replace what is lost.
Secondly, the House will not put up with arguments that simply say, "We shall do a lot more about energy efficiency." No one could be more enthusiastic about energy efficiency than I am, but an example of one of the problems is that, as we all know, if we insulate the home of a pensioner, energy savings may not result; instead, the home may become warmer. People may spend the same amount of money, while living in conditions that they feel are more comfortable. It is not for us to say whether that judgment is right, but we must properly assess the real effect of such measures on emissions, and I submit that we have not yet done so. We shall press the Government on that subject.
Thirdly, among the details that we shall have to pin down are the rather frightening proposals that the non-fossil fuel obligation should, rather curiously, be spread to fossil fuels. In both logical and linguistic terms, I find that difficult to understand. The Government have made a commitment that so-called "clean coal" will be subsidised, but the House knows that "clean coal" is not clean; it is one of those fake phrases. "Clean" coal may be less dirty in terms of sulphur, but it is no less dirty in terms of CO 2 emissions. The idea that we should increase the amount of power that we generate using that dirty coal, pretending that it is clean, and without understanding what we are doing, runs wholly contrary to the Government's policies. I do not say that because I wish to score points in any sense. I want to win for us all. I want to win for the Department of the Environment against those who do not have the same things at heart.
That leads me to my next main point. We need not only a tough bipartisan approach, pressing all the time, but the kind of personal commitment that alone will carry such changes through, not only in government here but in the European Union and beyond. That being so, we must recognise that climate change is a reality, and we must be more than missionary in demanding the alterations in our life style that alone will meet the challenges involved.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) attacked all the international oil companies, because there are some remarkably good ones that are taking the matter seriously. We should distinguish between those that are trying, and those that are still manifestly wrongly supporting the American coal industry in their antagonism to the science.
I shall continue my battle to insist that aviation fuel should be taxed in Europe as a whole. I sought to bring that about when I was Secretary of State for the Environment. We have to start in Europe. The Under-Secretary will find that we have to start everything there; the European Union is crucial to the future of the environment.
No country can do on its own what needs to be done. We produce only 3 per cent. of the overall pollution, so the European Union has to deal with the whole subject, and set an example, because the Americans are way behind. Our actions within the EU are therefore crucial.
The Under-Secretary will also find that she has to do something about the United States. It takes the work of 120 people to provide the energy that each American uses, whereas it takes the work of 60 people to provide the energy that each European uses, the work of eight people for the energy that each Chinaman uses, and the work of one person for the energy that each Bangladeshi uses. That tells us a great deal about who grabs most and who wastes most.
The fact that the United States cannot meet even the meagre targets that the EU has set, although it uses twice as much energy as we do, and certainly does not have a standard of living twice as high as ours, shows how wasteful the Americans are. Anyone who has visited the United States knows what that means. One has to put one's coat on in the summer because the air conditioning is so high, and take it off in the winter because the heating is so high. We must raise such issues, so I thank the House for allowing my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) to raise the matter in a short debate.
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