10:36 Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)

The Government have blamed waiting times in the NHS on covid, but before the pandemic more than one in six patients were already waiting more than 18 weeks for a routine treatment. Why are the Government letting them down? Climate change has been around for a while; yet the Government are all mouth and no delivery. The Committee on Climate Change is sounding alarm bells. Why are the Government letting us all down?

Will the Leader ask the Health Secretary to come to the House with a plan to give the NHS the resources that it needs? Will he ask the Chancellor to present a funded plan for the essential measures to tackle climate change? Will the Government give us a vote on aid cuts? Will the Leader ask the Cabinet to do the right thing by rape victims and support Labour’s Bill on violence against women? Will the Government stop letting people down?

The hon. Lady referred to climate change. The Government have a most remarkable and successful record on climate change. From 1990 to 2020, there has been a 43% cut in emissions with 75% economic growth. This is the key. We are not going to be Adullamites; we are not going to be cave dwellers. We are not going to make constituents have miserable lives. We are going to improve the standard of living of the people of this country, and make the country greener, too. That is why Her Majesty’s Government is the first major economy to commit in law to net zero by 2050, with the target of cutting emissions by 2035 by 78% on their 1990 levels.

The Committee on Climate Change does not want us to eat meat. I disagree with them. I like eating meat and my constituents like eating meat, and I will not be told by fanatics not to eat meat. Let us be meat eaters. Let us support our agriculture. The Opposition always go on about the need to protect our farmers, then they join forces with the anti-meat brigade. There is a discontinuity in that approach.

I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business, and I hope he will use his best endeavours to give the Backbench Business Committee as much time as he can before the summer recess. We have a range of applications and they are still coming in. Subjects we would like to try to get debates on include: giving babies the best start in life; the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on personal and household debt; the Timpson review and the effect of school exclusions; the failures in the criminal justice system highlighted by the collapse of the trial regarding the Hillsborough disaster; COP26; and progress towards the national ambition to reduce baby loss. And there are many, many more.

The Climate Change Committee’s annual report published today is stark. It mentions serious gaps in policy and strategy, lack of detail around key areas such as planning, decarbonisation of homes, oil and gas and even failing to produce a net zero strategy in the year that we host COP. This is a Government who are quick to promise but fail at every turn to deliver, and the longer that they delay, the more severe and irreversible the damage becomes and the more likely it is that we suffer serious drought, heatwaves and floods, with the immense impact that has on people and livelihoods. To ensure that climate action is at the heart of all policies and all Departments, will the Leader of the House agree to allowing for far more time for this Parliament to debate the report and to scrutinise and properly hold this failing Government to account?

As I said earlier, I am not interested in eating less meat; I want to eat more meat and I want my constituents to be able to as well. The Government’s record since 2010 is formidable. They have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 26% between 2010 and 2019. Renewable electricity generation has more than quadrupled since 2010. The year 2019 was the cleanest on record with more than half of UK electricity coming from low-carbon technologies. As I said earlier, we have cut emissions by 43% since 1990, with 75% economic growth. We are targeting a reduction in emissions by 78% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. We are on the right path to net zero by 2050, but we have to do this with economic growth. We are not fanatics; we are sensible and proportionate in what we are trying to do and we have been doing it with considerable success since 2010.

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