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Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD):
As I walked into the Chamber, the hon. Gentleman happened to mention my constituency. We feel that we are in the front line of the impact of climate change in this country, as ours is a low-lying county with crumbling cliffs. At present the only adaptation to the impact of climate change that we see is in shoreline management plans that effectively propose the abandonment of sea defences, which means coastal communities being left with nothing and in a very vulnerable position. What
does the hon. Gentleman feel about that? Does he feel that something must be done to protect those coastal communities through adaptation, or indeed to compensate them if they are to be lost to the sea?
Rob Marris: As I have said in at least two speeches in the Chamber, referring specifically to Norfolk although not specifically to north Norfolk, what we need is polderisation, particularly in East Anglia and other low-lying areas in the United Kingdom. I am no expert, but I think that in some instances we shall need to adopt almost a military approach, and say “So much land is going to be lost. Let us fall back a bit and polderise 30 m inland rather than always chasing our own tails.” However, I suspect that no one knows—even some of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, who will know the area intimately—whether we should adopt that quasi-military fall-back strategy, or whether we should seek to polderise on the existing shoreline.
Mr. Weir: I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. The coastline has a particular problem because it shifts naturally over time. In my area, we sometimes find that erecting sea defences merely moves the problem further down the coast. In many cases we have seen sand shifting back to where it was 60 years ago, and exposing tank traps from the second world war. It is a much more complex business than simply erecting defences to stop erosion.
Rob Marris: I take the hon. Gentleman’s point entirely. At the weekend I saw a television programme called “Coast”, which featured the west coast of Scotland. It made the same point, and also referred to old munitions plants originating from the world wars.
We need to adopt an holistic approach because of the way in which sea currents will be diverted. I have the impression that we, as a country, are nowhere near establishing from the kind of model to which the hon. Gentleman refers—some kind of computer model would presumably be necessary—what the effects of building a sea defence on a particular stretch of coast would be further down the shoreline. Expensive as it would be, I think that we shall have to adopt such an approach to the whole British coastline, which is very long given that ours is a relatively small island.
What I find even more frightening is that this year a report produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that the United Kingdom was among the top five of its 30 member states—the 30 richest countries in the world—in terms of adaptation. We have done stuff on adaptation, but we have not done nearly enough. The July edition of the excellent “Postnote”—No. 267, provided by the Library—gives the example of new housing. It states:
“there are few incentives for developers to climate proof new buildings. Although insurance costs reflect flood protection, future climate resilience is not currently reflected in the price of a new home and there is little legislation that requires it.”
We need more of that legislation. I hope that the climate change Bill will be not simply a Climate Change (Causes) Bill, but a Climate Change (Causes and Effects) Bill.
I have mentioned, twice, the climate impact programme in Oxford. The Government have what they call an adaptation policy framework. Phase 1 was
published only a year ago; I believe that phases 2 and 3 will not be completed until 2008. That is too far in the future. We need to speed up the process, and I hope that the climate change Bill will be broad enough to encompass that. I do not want to rehearse the whole debate about targets, and I do not think that this should be a target for primary legislation, but I do think that we need some pretty robust targets for completing and establishing an adaptation policy framework.
I am pleased that the Government contribute to the global environment facility. Quite a lot of the funds from that facility goes to assisting developing countries. There is a special climate change fund, a least-developed countries fund and an adaptation fund. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West referred to that in his speech. Crudely speaking, the richest countries have messed up the environment and continue to do so—and, as ever, it will be the poorest countries that suffer most. Christian Aid reckons that 182 million people will be displaced in Africa and that the chances of conflict will be much higher as people fight for resources, particularly water.
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, although we are playing an international role, we are not doing enough. The National Flood Forum may have to close due to the Environment Agency cutting funds, losing three jobs. The centre is at the ironically named Snuff Mill warehouse in Bewdley. It may close next April. That may not be the end of the world, but closing flood centres at this time, with the problems we face with adaptation and flooding, seems to be going in the wrong direction.
Norman Lamb: Is it not incredible that the budget this year for flood and sea defences is being cut at the very time when we should be gearing up for the adaptation about which the hon. Gentleman is talking?
Rob Marris: I agree that that is most regrettable, and I will come to it in a moment.
The midlands Environment Agency is running a flood awareness campaign this year, as you may be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, as it is your region as well as mine. Floodline Warnings Direct is to be the UK’s first integrated multi-channel warning system, providing flood warnings and information to the public, professional partners and the media across England and Wales. That is the sort of thing that we need.
We are all aware of the tsunami in the far east today and the warning systems that are being set up there for a much more immediate disaster—with a tsunami 2 m high travelling at 1,000 km an hour across the Pacific ocean, it gets across it pretty quickly. Lives can be saved by having such awareness and warning systems. I am delighted that the midlands Environment Agency is doing that—would that it had happened a little while ago.
To return to the comments of the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), it is regrettable that the flood defence budget has been cut this year. We need to put that in context. My understanding is that the budget is £428 million, that the cut has been £15 million this year and that that is on the back of a Government increase of 35 per cent. Therefore,
generally, we have been going in the right direction. To try to put the £428 million into some perspective for hon. Members, we should all remember that when New Orleans faced Hurricane Katrina, it thought that its flood defences were going to hold—but they did not hold. There was a huge disaster there that cost tens of billions of dollars, let alone the loss of life and the disruption to people’s lives and livelihoods.
Hull has an ageing flood defence barrier that will cost an estimated £20 million to replace. It is big bucks. The national budget, which I think covers just England and Wales, is £428 million, and £20 million of it is just for Hull. Portsmouth is spending £150,000 a year on flood defences, understandably, given that it is, like Hull, a coastal city. It needs to spend £35 million on a new system. We are talking about big figures and a big commitment from any Government. I would rather we started fast now than waited until Hull faced catastrophic flooding, where the cost would certainly be more than £35 million. To do that we need to focus on the effects of climate change and the adaptation strategy.
I will finish with a quote from page 404 of the Stern report:
“Quantitative information on the costs and benefits of economy-wide adaptation is currently limited.”
I will make no comment on Stern and the rectitude of his report, but I find it absolutely shocking that even someone as eminent as Stern, who tried to look into the matter, cannot get quantitative information on how our country should be adapting to the greatest meteorological and climatic challenge that we face. Today, as far as I understand, we are to have a climate change Bill that looks to be very good on the causes of emissions, yet says nothing about effects and adaptation. Our children and grandchildren will rue the day that we focused so much on emissions, which are part of a global issue, and did not focus enough on something entirely in our hands—adaptation.
8.25 pm
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con):
This has been a fascinating day. The conduct of the debate has convinced me, if ever I needed convincing, that the Opposition can win the next general election. Very few Labour Members were present for the opening speeches. The Whips have managed to muster only about six Labour Members to speak in the debate and those who have spoken have effectively conducted a filibuster. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) spoke for 24 minutes. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) and the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) spoke for 17 minutes each. The hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) spoke for 24 minutes. The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) spoke for 24 minutes, too. He was so desperate to filibuster that he went around every single bus route in his constituency. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) spoke for nearly half an hour. Not one of those Members practically has addressed any of the key issues of Afghanistan, Iraq and criminal justice. As my hon. Friend the Member
for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) said, this is groundhog day. It is a Government party hollowing out.
This is going to be a strange parliamentary Session. We are all going to feel like characters in “Waiting for Gordo”. The Government are in limbo. Ministers are preoccupied with which of them will be the next Deputy Prime Minister. Junior Ministers are fretting as to their futures under the next dispensation, and permanent secretaries and officials are uncertain as to which policies it is worth taking forward, and what is going to be changed at the end of the year, or whenever by a new Prime Minister. All that is against the background of the multiple uncertainties of a comprehensive public spending review. That is no way to run a country.
I suspect that normal political life will not start again until the pre-Budget report and the spending review due next year, both of which will be the start of the Brown era. We are about to enter a gap year, a strange parliamentary vacuum, with the Government treading water. That has been clearly demonstrated by the conduct of the debate today.
Of course, until the Prime Minister goes, the Government and, more importantly, the Labour party are not able to discover what they are. The Prime Minister is said to have claimed:
“I have taken from my party everything they thought they believed in. I have stripped them of their core beliefs. What keeps it together is success and power”.
We still have another year of a governing party not knowing what it believes in, dithering and drift, and that is all the more disconcerting as there are clearly a number of important issues that require immediate attention.
On foreign policy, at a meeting of Members of both Houses in another place last week, his royal highness King Abdullah of Jordan observed that, in 2007, he saw the prospect of three civil wars in the middle east: in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. I was one of those on the Conservative Benches who voted against the war on Iraq because, as a lawyer, I believed the way in which the war was prosecuted to be contrary to international law. There has been no pleasure in seeing the situation in Iraq persistently deteriorate. According to a report in The Lancet, the death toll in Iraq since the coalition invasion is now over 655,000. That is one in 40 of the Iraqi population. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died at the hands of coalition troops, sectarian death squads and insurgent bombers. Our troops, through no fault of their own, are failing to stop the sectarian killing. Even the head of the British Army, Sir Richard Dannatt, believes that the presence of coalition troops, far from keeping a lid on the fighting, is making the security situation worse.
One of the epitaphs of the Government will be the Iraq war, an ill-judged invasion fought on misleading and wrong assumptions that gave way to a chaotic occupation. Little wonder that the Prime Minister does not wish to subject himself, and his Government’s policy on Iraq, to the scrutiny of an independent commission. It is bizarre that he is willing to share his thoughts on future policy on Iraq with the United States’ Iraq study group, but not willing to submit those ideas to the scrutiny of this House. The doctrine of unripe time prevails here, but seemingly not in the
United States. It is all sadly indicative of the fact that the Prime Minister has allowed UK foreign policy to be determined all too often in Washington rather than here.
The Foreign Office has been emasculated; “inaudible, invisible, incompetent” was how one Foreign Office official described the Foreign Secretary recently. The reality is that Foreign Office Ministers have been reduced to the role of meeters and greeters and that Foreign Office officials are all too often ignored by the Prime Minister.
What is required is a reappraisal of policy towards the middle east as a whole. The Prime Minister was right in his Mansion house speech earlier this week to acknowledge that there needs to be a renewed effort to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict if there is to be any hope for wider peace in the middle east, including Iraq. The Government have also recognised the need to engage with Iran and Syria. The difficulty with treating countries as pariah states is that it simply encourages them to behave as pariah states. We should never disengage from countries in the world and we need to engage constructively with Iran and Syria.
The failure in Iraq has ramifications elsewhere. It has undermined the moral authority of our intervention in Afghanistan, which was clearly in support of legitimate UN resolutions and a democratically elected Karzai Government. In September, the Secretary of State for Defence was obliged to acknowledge that the Government grossly underestimated the strength of the Taliban in Afghanistan. All too often our armed forces are being asked to do more while being given less; tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are unable to intervene elsewhere.
The Prime Minister this afternoon talked about Darfur. In Darfur, the scene is set for the first genocide of the 21st century. I weep for Darfur; it is difficult for those of us who have visited Darfur, such as myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), to describe the miles and miles of pathetic encampments of thousands and thousands of displaced families, women and children.
Who doubts that, given the opportunity, the combined forces of the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed militia intend to resume their campaign against villages in Darfur that has left 300,000 dead and 2 million homeless? Innocent people are being terrorised and murdered in Darfur with impunity.
There is another dimension to this. The Sudanese Government know that UN motions critical of their conduct are likely to be vetoed by China, which is determined to access Sudanese oil supplies. That reinforces our need to engage more deeply with China. As one of the vice-chairmen of the all-party China group, I am often concerned that we seem to have only two approaches to China; either total criticism, as in Tiananmen, Tibet and human rights, or a sort of sycophancy inspired by a desire to access China’s markets.
We must not forget that the Chinese economy is growing so fast that it is responsible for a third of global economic growth. But as comments by EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson the other day underlined, we have to tackle the trade gap with China and there are a host of issues on which we need a much more sophisticated engagement with China.
One of those issues, on which we have to engage also with India, is climate change. If Britain ceased all carbon dioxide emissions overnight, the benefits would be wiped out in just over two years by the growth of China. At a recent parliamentarians’ conference organised by Globe International, the vice-chairman of the Environment Protection and Resources Conservation Committee of the National People’s Congress observed that
“though China’s economy grows fast, China is still a developing country. In rural China 200 million people live in absolute poverty, defined as having a per capita income of less than US$1 per day. It is only possible to tackle and resist the challenges caused by the changing of the natural environment by raising its own development levels.”
Therein lies an important conundrum on climate change. Developing countries such as India and China see no reason why their development should be frozen, but if we, globally, do not together tackle climate change, it is the poor and developing countries who will suffer most. If greenhouse gas emissions are not checked, as the Stern report makes clear, temperatures could rise by up to 5° C by 2050, an increase on the same scale as between now and the last ice age. This would lead to droughts, floods, water shortages, rising sea levels and declining crop yields, all of which would hurt the poorest countries most, not least because they have less capacity to mitigate the damage of climate change, as the International Development Committee, which I chaired in the last Parliament, set out in a comprehensive report on climate change and development, which the Stern report clearly reinforces and underlines.
Of course Britain must play its full part in tackling climate change and it is very welcome that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has committed the Conservative party to supporting a tough regime of annual targets to cut greenhouse gases. The Opposition today have published a Bill that would hand considerable powers to an independent panel of business people and academics.
I am glad to see that the Conservative party has set out detailed proposals. The Bill will set out overall targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions by at least 60 per cent by 2050. The draft legislation would set up a climate change commission to set annual targets six years in advance and monitor the Government’s progress in meeting them. Additional targets would be set for 2015, 2020, 2030 and 2040. Ministers would be obliged to set out a strategy to Parliament on which MPs would vote, and would make an annual report to the House.
The point of the Opposition draft Bill is to seek to change the mindset of Westminster and Whitehall. By contrast, the Government in the Gracious Speech have not actually published a climate change Bill. They have promised one, but it looks as if it will not be published until next month at the earliest and could well be delayed until early next year, as the Cabinet apparently continues to squabble about how tough the Bill should be.
Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tony Baldry: No. With respect, I know that other hon. Members want to speak.
I am not sure that the Government have got it. They have an unrivalled opportunity on climate change. There is now overwhelming cross-party support for new legislation to cut UK carbon dioxide emissions by at least 3 per cent. every year. We have to hope that Ministers will seize the opportunity presented by this consensus and will make the UK a world example in developing a low carbon economy.
Apart from the Iraq war, the other defining characteristic of the Government has been repressive legislation. I suspect that future students of the Blair Government will see the Iraq war and repressive legislation as their hallmarks. The Government have introduced no fewer than 23 Bills on criminal justice; again, they simply do not get it. People are fed up with the Home Secretary talking tough but changing nothing. My constituents want real police officers doing real policing, and they want the police to have the numbers and resources to respond effectively.
However, one slightly loses the will to live when there is a Home Secretary who trumpets in today’s newspaper that he wants
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