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Mr. Gummer: I have only a very short time, because I have promised to finish speaking soon.
It would be good to have a full debate, and I should like it to be in the middle of the week, so that some of our colleagues on both sides of the House, who do not understand how serious things are, may wander in and realise the importance of the subjects that we are discussing. I hope that that will be possible.
I hope that the Under-Secretary will recognise that we must learn not only to live differently ourselves, but to live differently in the world as a whole. The concept of global commons is vital, so long as it really is global and really is commons. If we ask people to accept the importance of intellectual property, we must also ask people in the west to accept the idea that we should pay for the basic materials that we use that come from the biodiversity of the world, and are in the ownership of some of the poorest nations, which do not now get much back for them.
That is a kind of parallelism; it is a question of paying. We have earned what we have by pollution. Our pollution has provided us with riches, so we have an enormous responsibility to help those on whom we now rely to save the planet. The north-south divide, and the north-south dialogue, will be crucial when we come to those negotiations.
I do not have time to do more than refer briefly to two important matters. What my hon. Friends and others have said about the World Trade Organisation is right. If we want the financial advantages of free trade, we must demand the moral advantages of world responsibility in trade. We cannot grab for ourselves merely the money that comes from trade, without recognising that that in turn demands a payment--a moral payment--and a responsibility throughout the world.
Lastly, I shall challenge the Under-Secretary on one of the most difficult subjects of all. Yet another meeting about fishing is to take place in the House, and I know
that many Members from both sides of the House will be holding forth there about fishing. However, they will not be holding forth about the fact that every fishery ground in the world is over-fished, and that Britain over-fishes just as every other country in the European Union does, so we need to do something about over-fishing, or there will be no fish left.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Angela Eagle):
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) on initiating this debate, although I feel somewhat daunted in attempting to answer in 10 minutes the many questions on global and interrelated issues raised in the debate. I hope that the House will bear in mind the time constraints, and I will try to deal as best I can with the issues raised.
The new Government have put sustainable development at the heart of policy making at home and abroad, and this is apparent from the responsibilities of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in bringing together the issues of the environment, transport and the regions. We also recognise that there are other cross-departmental issues that tie in directly with sustainability issues across government. My right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary, in his mission statement for the Foreign Office, and the Secretary of State for International Development have also given a completely new focus to their Departments' approach to sustainable development, which will help in our negotiations.
In the short time since taking office, we have made clear our determination to make faster progress than our predecessors. I welcome the support given by Opposition Members today and I look forward to their probing, as they check that we are planning to meet what we all admit are extremely tough targets. We must meet those targets if we are to protect the future of our planet.
I wish to deal with some of the issues raised in the debate, but, first, I want to congratulate the two maiden speakers who demonstrated once again the high standard of maiden speeches being enjoyed by the House--a record number. My hon. Friends the Members for Wansbeck (Mr. Murphy) and for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) demonstrated their abilities and their concern for their constituents. I am sure that we all look forward to more high-quality speeches from my hon. Friends.
On aviation tax, I am happy to say that the Government believe that we have to tax aviation fuel and we will support the Dutch presidency's attempt to have a look at whether we can do this on a European Union basis only. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Suffolk will appreciate that we have to get international agreement on this important issue; otherwise there is the risk of perverse incentives applying. The Government will continue to press on that issue.
Another important issue raised in the debate is the relationship between the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organisation on
environmental agreements, and the fact that there is often tension between the two. The Government are well aware of the position and believe that international environmental conventions must be exempt from challenge by GATT and the WTO if they are to mean anything--be it the Montreal convention, the Basel convention or the convention on international trade in endangered species, which is currently subject to some trade threats with respect to leg-hold traps.
It is no good the world community putting together important conventions on environmental issues, implying real sacrifices and tough decisions, if they can have holes punched through them by the WTO or GATT. In New York, we will look to ensure that we reach agreement on exempting such conventions; otherwise, the problem is that, the more effective the convention, the more likely it is be to have holes punched in it by GATT in an attempt to dismantle it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raised the extremely important issue of mahogany. As one of the major importers of mahogany, the United Kingdom must continue to work with the producer countries. We agree with my hon. Friend that a ban would be wrong, but we must either unilaterally or internationally reach agreements to prevent the wanton destruction of these very important resources. He can rest assured that we will try to make progress on the issue, which we realise is extremely complex.
The hon. Member for South Suffolk asked what the Government's energy efficiency targets were, and I can confirm that we are seeking a 20 per cent. reduction in energy use in Government buildings by the year 2000. My experience of the new Eland house office block--which is environmentally sound--is that we have had three floods there in two weeks. We could do with it being drier, although that block is good for the climate and for energy efficiency.
The Government have announced our determination to reverse the downward trend of aid from 0.27 per cent.--where it currently rests--up to 0.7 per cent. of gross national product, and a White Paper on development will deal with the issue. I hope that the White Paper will deal with the quality, as well as the quantity, of aid. The Department of the Environment is reviewing the national sustainable development strategy. We have announced new and more stringent targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. We also propose that the House establish a new Select Committee to consider the environmental effects of policies and actions across the whole of government. We hope that that will allow the legislature to give an extra push to our commitment to green the whole of government.
Mr. Matthew Taylor:
Before the Under-Secretary moves on from the issue of targets--I welcome the establishment of a Committee, but that is another matter--I wish to ask her a question. It has been reported that the Government have said that their 20 per cent. carbon dioxide target was dependent on action by other European countries. Can she clarify whether that was correct?
Angela Eagle:
My understanding is that, regardless of what other countries do, we are not going to offer completely unilateral targets. We hope that what we do
In a change of emphasis from the previous Government, we believe that progress on sustainable development--so vital to the future of our planet--depends on issues of social equity and poverty eradication, which require unequivocal leadership from the developed world. From that point of view, I commend almost all the speech of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Dafis) who is a well-known expert on the matter and is going to UNGASS in one of his other guises with my hon. Friends the Members for Putney (Mr. Colman) and for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley).
We believe that poverty reduction is one of the key areas that has been neglected in the process. The first principle of the Rio declaration states that human beings are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. We recognise that; but, in the developing world, 500,000 women die each year in childbirth and 160 million children are malnourished. One quarter of the world's people remain in severe poverty, although it is estimated that the cost of eradicating poverty is a mere 1 per cent. of global income.
We believe that this problem must be tackled if we are to make progress towards a more environmentally sustainable world and we want to put more emphasis on that. We accept that there are difficulties between north and south in this respect and we want to play our part as a Government in putting them right so that we can then take the Earth summit 2 process forward more successfully. We strongly support the plans outlined in the OECD development assistance committee report, which says that the world should set itself targets--including that of halving world poverty--and should reverse the downward trend in natural resource degradation by 2015. We shall push for agreement on this at the special session.
All donor countries should work in partnership with developing countries to achieve measurable progress. After all, it is the poor, not the rich, who are the first to suffer when the environment is damaged. To realise the truth, we have only to think about the way in which rising sea levels could affect coastal communities in some of the poorest parts of Asia, or about subsistence farmers struggling to grow their crops in degraded soil. The Government believe that we need to integrate poverty reduction and environmental protection into mainstream economic and development policies. We need to make the most of opportunities to reduce poverty, and protect the environment at the same time.
There are many issues that I have been unable even to touch on in this all-too-brief debate, such as climate change, forests, oceans, fish stocks and fresh water. I hope that this is the first of many debates on those important matters. I look forward to working with hon. Members of all parties to make progress.
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