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Mr. Chaytor: Is it not the case that the chief scientific adviser suggested some months ago that new nuclear build might be necessary, but only as an interim measure until the full range of renewable technologies had been properly developed, not as a permanent solution?

Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman is exactly right and I am grateful to him for his intervention. However, I am concerned that, by keeping the nuclear option open, as it were in an antechamber to where the main debate is taking place, the Government are setting up a powerful disincentive for investment in other forms of renewable.

The third reason why we need to get to grips with the matter and bring about a step change in the level of investment and political commitment is the biggest reason of all: the threat posed by climate change. I know that some people say there is no problem. When more than 1,000 of the world's leading scientists say there is a problem, we had better believe them or be very lucky indeed. We know that global temperatures are rising fast and concentrations of CO ₂ in the atmosphere are higher than they have been for over 400,000 years. We know that there are forecasts predicting that, on a business-as-usual case, by the end of the century we could see temperatures in the United Kingdom up by 10°C, which would lead to Sahara-like conditions in parts of the south of England. Do we really want to leave that to our children and future generations?

What is worse is that that is happening now. We do not need a crystal ball. We do not need to look into the future or make predictions. Sir David King made an
 
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extremely powerful speech in the Greenpeace business lecture about a week ago, in which he set out some of the ways in which it is happening. I will not rehearse them all. The Greenland ice sheet is melting by about 10 m a year, that water heads into the sea and water levels go up. The Thames barrier, which was opened in 1982, was designed to be operated about once every five years. It is now being operated about six times a year on average. The World Health Organisation reports that 150,000 people die every year around the world directly as a result of the impacts of global warming. There were 30,000 excess deaths in Europe in 2003 during the heat wave.

Much of our infrastructure—pylons, roads, communications networks, rail lines—was built to withstand temperatures of up to 30° C. Kent recorded more than 38° C in August 2003. That is putting huge and potentially massively expensive pressure on all our infrastructure. I know that the Minister for the Environment, whom I am pleased to see in his place, knows this. The worst aspect is that, as Professor King says, even if we found a solution tomorrow, the problems would still be with us for another hundred years.

We may castigate the Government for being timid and inactive and not doing enough, but even if the UK solved all its problems, built wind farms everywhere and radically cut CO ₂ from our energy supply, transport and housing, we would be dealing with only 2 per cent. of total global warming. We are responsible for only 2 per cent. of CO ₂ emissions. The United States, responsible for 25 per cent., has not even bothered to recognise that climate change is happening and has not signed the Kyoto protocol. That is a disgrace, but I welcome the apparent change of heart on the part of the Russian Government recently.

In that context the debate about wind farms looks trifling. It is not surprising that some people argue that the UK's climate change programme is pointless. They say it would place us at a competitive disadvantage without achieving very much for mankind. But if we accept that we have a problem, we have a moral duty to do the right thing. If we go about it the right way, it may not involve too many hair shirts to do the right thing. I said that it would make good economic sense to become less dependent on others for sources of energy. It would be good environmental and economic sense to be at the forefront of cleaner, greener technologies. It would make good economic and environmental sense to ensure that, if we build millions of new houses, every one is built to the highest standards of energy efficiency. It would be good economic and environmental sense to support a far greater investment in offshore wind power, tidal power, wave power, solar power and biomass. It would make good economic and environmental sense to support households that wish to buy into the developing sector of micro-renewables, solar power, micro-wind and micro-combined heat and power.

More and more households need to be energy-efficient, eventually become energy producers in their own right and sell the energy that they do not need back to the grid. They could make money from that. We could do that for, for example, a fraction of the cost of the war in Iraq, an event that was not entirely unassociated with our addiction to fossil fuels. It would bequeath a much safer national and global security situation to our children.
 
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Giant industrial and distant wind farms may be part of the answer, but I believe that they will be a small part. Offshore wind will play a much bigger part. The future may lie in small, local, affordable and surprisingly uncontentious micro-power.

8.56 pm

Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney) (Lab): The original title of the debate, "The Siting of Onshore Wind Farms", suggested a debate about planning policy. It was difficult to understand how there could be much of a debate on that because planning policy statement 22 on renewable energy is an entirely reasonable document. It gives only general guidance and is not a diktat, because it is for regional spatial strategies and local development plans to set out plan-led policies that are particular to an area.

The first key principle of PPS22 refers to appropriate environmental safeguards in planning for renewable energy developments. All the usual planning criteria are contained in PPS22, covering protection of internationally and nationally designated sites, green belts, landscapes and visual effects and noise. Given the challenge of global warming, PPS22 is a reasonable document unless one supports a blanket ban on wind farms.

The debate highlights the nature of the Conservative party's political strategy, or lack of it. Conservative Members look out for any apparent discontent and, in a desperate search for votes, try to jump on the bandwagon. They try to link up with any stop the wind farm campaign. They do not relate that to policy on dealing with global warming and rising sea levels, which are important to coastal communities such as my constituency. They behave similarly on housing and house building by opposing any plan that people do not like. Again, they do not relate that to homelessness or the high prices that keep young and first-time buyers off the property ladder.

Property is relevant to wind farms because I suspect that the real objection of most people who oppose wind farm applications will not be found in the planning criteria—for example, landscape, wildlife and noise—but relates to worries about the possible effect on the value of their property. That is not surprising given the amount of their wealth that most people in this country invest in their home. However, the flood risk from rising sea levels through global warming poses a much greater threat to the value of people's properties than the odd windmill down the road.

Mr. Andrew Turner: The hon. Gentleman can understand that I share his concern about rising sea levels, but does he not believe that it is better to devote some of the resources to insulation, which would save approximately 55 times the amount of energy that the Government's proposed wind farms would generate?

Mr. Blizzard: I do not believe that it is either/or. We must adopt a full-scale energy saving programme and do everything that we can to achieve the 20 per cent. target for renewable energy by 2020. The Government are determined to do that. There is a huge drag factor on onshore wind farm applications. That is why the Government have made a big push on developing
 
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offshore wind. We will achieve those targets only if we make progress now as a matter of urgency, but that seems to have escaped many Conservative Members.

I do not think we should infer, however, that because there are objections to wind farm applications, wind energy is unpopular. Over the past 10 years, more than 50 polls have shown a consistent 70 to 80 per cent. support for it—and, as was mentioned earlier, some of the strongest support comes from people living in areas containing wind farms.

Recent debates on what is now the Energy Act 2004 revealed the Conservative party as the source of a much wider attack on wind energy, not just onshore but offshore. I could spend the rest of my time this evening quoting what prominent Conservatives in both Houses have said about wind in general, but I will content myself with quoting the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), who said that the Government were making the greatest mistake over windmills since Don Quixote.

What have the Conservatives got against wind power? They say that they support renewable energy and the targets, but they criticise the Government for majoring far too much on wind and other renewable sources. I ask them, what other source of renewable energy is more commercially applicable now, on a scale sufficient to achieve the 10 and 20 per cent. targets and to tackle climate change? No such source is available now, on that scale and at that cost. If we do not make an impact now, we shall have no chance of doing so in the future.

Wind energy is the most cost-effective renewable-energy technology available now to generate clean electricity and help combat climate change. People say it is costly, but other renewable-energy sources are even more costly. Labour Members want those other sources to take their place, but they are not commercially ready yet. I think the next will be tidal current, and I look forward to having lots of tidal current—

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