12:56 Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)

Today’s debate specifically relates to the coalition’s proposals for energy and climate change as well as for environment, agriculture and rural affairs. What is striking about the coalition document is the number of things it contains that the previous Government had done, planned or set under way and that are now claimed to form the coalition’s targets and aims for environment and rural affairs and, indeed, energy and climate change. In a sense, that is reassuring because a key observation that should be made is that the arguments about climate change cannot call upon the Greek defence. A similar argument cannot be made that less should be spent on countering it because particular circumstances have arisen recently. The timetable for the measures that need to be put in place to ensure that we can move to a low-carbon economy and reach the targets that have been agreed universally in the House for reducing carbon emissions remains in place. The time available to make those changes also remains the same. Superficially, therefore, having the aims in place is an important part of the recognition of the urgency of the matter.

We need, however, to ask questions about the detail of the targets and consider whether the commitments in the coalition document provide the reassurance that we will move with the speed that we need on not only climate change but on renewing our energy sources, ensuring that energy efficiency is uppermost in the conduct of our building and refurbishment programmes and progressing with the energy economy.

The previous Government gave key undertakings on feed-in tariffs, small-scale generation and, as important, the renewable heat incentive, which will ensure the rapid development and deployment of renewable heat sources in this country. My eyebrows were raised by the statement in the coalition document about a full roll-out of a feed-in tariff in electricity. That might have been a mistake, but if it was deliberate, the suggestion is that there is no commitment on renewable heat, which is a way in which to ensure that renewable energy moves forward rapidly in the domestic sector. I will be delighted to be proved wrong, either in an intervention from someone on the Government Benches now or later in the debate. I hope that it is not the Government’s intention to change or resile from renewable heat arrangements and underwriting, and that the finance and commitment are in place. I hope that I am told later that my suspicions about what the document includes will not be borne out.

Finally, I come to the curious statement in the coalition document on nuclear power. I have considerable sympathy for the position in which the Energy and Climate Change Secretary finds himself, because I too do not think that new nuclear power is a good idea for the future, as I have said in the Chamber on a number of occasions. However, I am clear that there should be a new nuclear programme and that will need to be planned, because it is no longer good enough simply to leave the replacement of aged energy supply and the development of new energy to the market. Left to its own devices, the market will probably ensure that we have a new generation of gas-fired power stations, which will ensure that we go way off our climate change targets. If the sole contribution of the Secretary of State to the nuclear debate is simply to say, “Well, someone may come along and build a nuclear power station,” they may well not do so. Without other plans, we will simply get a new generation of gas-fired power stations, which would be catastrophic for our approach to climate change.

Following that logic, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary must take positive action on new nuclear power. If the national planning statement is to be rewritten, he must agree on sites for new nuclear power stations. If he does not do so, there will be no such power stations. His position urgently needs to be made clear to ensure that when it comes to planning the new energy economy, there is clarity rather than muddle and chaos.

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13:08 Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)

As someone who had, and has, no visceral objection to nuclear power, I became increasingly aware that far from being the cheap option that we were promised, nuclear power was economically unaffordable and we had been lied to big time by the industry. However, the problem of trying to develop alternatives was made much worse by the fact that the Atomic Energy Agency was put in charge of supporting and evaluating alternative renewable energy. I might say to the shadow Secretary of State that that too was like putting a vegan in charge of McDonald’s, because the result—predictably—was that if anything looked as if it might become remotely commercially viable, the plug was pulled on further development. So, although Britain developed the first large-scale wind turbines, in shipyards on the Clyde, we had no policy for deployment. It was therefore left to the Danes, who did have a policy for deployment, to become world leaders in that technology. I do not know if Salter’s ducks would ever have generated electricity commercially from marine sources, but I know that the technology was never allowed to prove that it could, because the AEA was determined to ensure that there was no alternative. I wonder whether we are being subjected to the same propaganda today.

At the time it was also argued that we needed large generation stations to power the national grid and, given its format, we probably did. But even then it was clear to me that we should be thinking of moving to smaller-scale generation. Over the years, high-energy manufacturing—of which we have less in any case—has increasingly provided its own power generation as an integral part of its operation, requiring only top-up flows in and out of the national grid. So when I was first elected to this House in 1983 I joined what was then known as PARLIGAES, the parliamentary group for alternative energy studies, and I am currently a vice- chair of its successor, PRASEG or the parliamentary renewable and sustainable energies group. They are not very snappy acronyms, but they are important all-party groups.

All of this predated any inkling of the threat of climate change. It was about reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and finding cleaner, more diversified and more sustainable ways to generate energy. We have wasted at least 30 years getting to this point. As a young researcher in 1972, I compiled the first directory of oil and gas operators and supply companies in north-east Scotland, which included an estimate of the number of people employed and a forward job projection. Interestingly, at the time there were several dozen companies employing a few hundred people. I projected that the number could rise to as many as 5,000, with the same number of jobs indirectly generated, and I was accused of gross exaggeration. Today, the Gordon constituency sustains more than 65,000 oil and gas-related jobs. They are not all based in the constituency, but they are payrolled out of it, and the industry employs an estimated 450,000 people across the UK.

As I said in my intervention on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I was very pleased that last week, in his first week in office, he visited the All-Energy exhibition in Aberdeen, covering companies engaged in all aspects of renewable energy technology. He saw for himself the impressive emerging technology for offshore and marine renewable energy, and the useful overlap between the technology and systems required by oil and gas and those required by renewables in an offshore environment. Installing a platform, sub-sea connectors, pipes or cabling requires the same equipment and engineering expertise, and there can be a crossover. The important point is that if we can run the second generation of North sea development—which probably has as much oil and gas again to be extracted, although in much more challenging conditions—alongside an expanding offshore renewable industry, we could benefit from huge economies of scale and efficiency by using the same equipment.

My hon. Friend is, as ever, making a powerful speech. Not only do we have renewable energy and oil and gas, but carbon capture and storage. We have the skill sets and the ability to store carbon, and I hope that the failings of the previous Government will not mean that we lose the opportunity to be a world leader in that area, because it could produce jobs and wealth if we can sell that technology instead of having to buy it from others.

I would like to address the international dimension. I am a vice-chairman of GLOBE UK and GLOBE International, which played an invaluable role in testing potential policies and negotiating positions in the run -up to the various climate change summits. In fact, in advance of Copenhagen, GLOBE clearly identified China’s concerns, through the climate change dialogue that we run.

It is unreasonable for developed countries to tell developing economies that they cannot enjoy the same development opportunities that we did—development that led to the climate danger. It is also realistic to recognise that China will not give up its commitment to double-digit growth, which after all has helped 400 million people out of poverty, although hundreds of millions are still left behind. It is also right to acknowledge, however, that China knows the damage that pollution and climate change are causing for its people and environment, and wants all the help it can get to grow sustainably. That is why I and the International Development Committee, which I previously chaired, do not want an abrupt end to the UK’s aid programme for China. It is on the climate change front that we can work together most constructively. We have to give China space, share technology and innovation and recognise that many of the poorest countries are the victims of climate change, not the perpetrators. As the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has already acknowledged, China may well get ahead of us if we do not participate in initiatives with it, so it is in our interests to partner it as much possible.

Poorer and developing countries must be helped to adapt and mitigate the impact of climate change, be given the means to grow sustainably and not find the anti-poverty aid hijacked to fund climate change measures. The previous Government put in place a 10% limit on money being diverted in that way, and I hope—I will hold them to account—that the current Government will not weaken that commitment. Britain can lead the world on climate change policy, and in many ways, despite the criticisms that have gone back and forth across the House, it is fair to say that we have made significant progress, although it has been more about ambitions than delivery, so we now have to deliver.

Only if our targets are turned into policies for practical action can we demonstrate by our results and developing technology what we can offer the world. I would suggest—if I can put it constructively—that we should build on the initiatives of the previous Government and recognise that we can take them forward. If we do that, we will deliver credibility and prestige abroad, and jobs and exports for our domestic economy, and it will give us a new dynamic sector to take up the slack left by the abuses that damaged so much of the financial services sector, which I suspect will never make as big a contribution again. The lesson is quite simple: we can help save the world from climate change disaster, but only if we first save ourselves.

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14:02 Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)

Let me also pay tribute to the former, now shadow, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). He undertook his duties with rare passion, commitment and insight, and I believe that all of us, in the House and in the country, are the better for it. In Copenhagen no one worked harder to secure a deal, and at home I expect the heavy lifting represented by the last Government’s energy policy to bring substantial relief to the new Government. I urge them to build on what we achieved. I certainly hope that they will do so, especially when it comes to nuclear energy, on which I declare my usual interests.

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14:12 Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)

I draw the attention of the House, and those outside, to the huge number of policy commitments made in the areas of energy and climate change and environment, food and rural affairs; 24 specific commitments of policy made under the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and 18 made under the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That shows the seriousness of intent of both coalition partners to the enterprise of changing the way in which we do business in Britain.

Secondly, as I indicated in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, it is a real challenge, but a real opportunity, to make every home in Britain that is practicably able to be a warm home. More than 25% of the emissions in our country come from the domestic sector, or badly insulated homes. The programme that the Liberal Democrats put in their manifesto was ambitious; it granted people up to £10,000 to be spent in a home that passes the test and worked that through the devolved Administrations and local government in England. I hope that the new programme will allow a programme to start in 2012 for 10 years. That would make a fantastic contribution, not just to reducing fuel bills for people, to preventing untimely deaths of the old and vulnerable and to reducing our emissions, but it would produce huge numbers of jobs and apprenticeships in the building and construction industries. It is a win, win, win, win agenda item. As a postscript, let us not forget the homes that are off the mains, because they need assistance too.

“The target agreed by the world’s Governments in 2002, ‘to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth has not been met…Species which have been assessed for extinction risk are on average moving closer to extinction…Natural habitats in most parts of the world continue to decline in extent and integrity…Extensive fragmentation and degradation of forests, rivers and other ecosystems have also led to loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services…The five principal pressures directly driving biodiversity loss (habitat change, overexploitation, pollution, invasive alien species and climate change) are either constant or increasing in intensity.”

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14:46 Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)

I welcome the green investment bank, which was also in our election manifesto, but it is a matter of real concern that £34 million of the cuts to the Department of Energy and Climate Change seem to be from business support schemes, which would help to start some of the work that we need to do to improve the way in which we produce energy. The cuts to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills also seem to endanger regional development agencies and the consequential funding for the equivalent bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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15:05 Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)

I was concerned when the Secretary of State opened this debate by talking about consensus. I have been involved in the energy industry for almost 40 years, and if we had had some consensus over those decades we might not be in the mess we are in today. How can we have consensus when the Secretary of State opposes nuclear power, and his party is cautious—to put it mildly—on the use of coal? The Liberal Democrats in my area are completely anti-coal, no matter where it comes from or how it is burnt. Some of the partners in the new coalition are climate change deniers, so confusion is more likely than consensus.

The Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change spent the last year and a half going through some of the many issues, and making good progress with little partisanship. However, we must face up to certain problems. For example, there is a huge skills gap across the energy sector, partly as a result of the privatisation of the industry in 1990s, with companies focusing on shareholder profits and driving costs down, not on investing in training and skills. Another question is where the finance will come from. It is estimated that we need £200 billion in 10 years if we are to meet the challenge facing us. If we compare that with the fact that in the past 20 years £100 billion was spent on upgrading the water system, we can see the scale of the challenge.

I want to raise another matter with the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change: the increase in fatalities and injuries in the UK. Over the past 10 years, as the number of mines and miners has decreased, major injuries have almost trebled and fatalities have risen fourfold. I hope to take that matter forward with the new Secretary of State and energy Ministers.

I appreciate that. I realise, from the work that the Minister and I did together on the Energy and Climate Change Committee, the genuineness of that offer, and I will certainly pursue it with him, interested colleagues and people in the mining industry.

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15:30 Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

Finally, I wish to touch on the subject of today’s debate. I have worked on the causes and consequences of climate change for most of my working life, first with Oxfam, for the effects of climate change are already affecting millions of people in poorer countries around the world, and more recently for 10 years in the European Parliament. If we are to overcome this threat, we in this Chamber have a vital role to play. We must take the lead. We must act so the United Kingdom can meet its own responsibilities to cut the emissions of carbon dioxide and the other gases that are changing our climate, and we need to encourage and support other countries to do the same.

This House has signed up to the 10:10 campaign— 10% emission reductions in 2010. That is very good news, but the truth is we need 10% emission cuts every year, year on year, until we reach a zero-carbon economy, and time is running very short. If we are to avoid irreversible climate change, the current Parliament must meet this historic task. That gives all of us in this Chamber an extraordinary responsibility, but also an extraordinary opportunity, because the good news is that the action we need to take to tackle climate change is action that can improve the quality of life for all of us: better, more affordable public transport; better insulated homes; the end of fuel poverty; stronger local communities and economies; and many more jobs. I look forward to working with Members of all parties to advance these issues.

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15:53 Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

What we need to do, as we move out of recession, we hope, is to generate a green recovery out of the global downturn. In the past four or five years, I have been leading Wales’s adaptation to climate change in respect of flood-risk management—investing in flood defences for the Welsh Assembly Government through the Environment Agency—so green issues are very close to my heart. I know, as other Members know, that we face a critical time in the world with shrinking land masses caused by rising seas, alongside shifting habitats and with the spiralling global population lifting from something like 6.8 billion to about 9.5 billion by the middle of this century. With less land and more people, there will be food and water shortages and, obviously, there will be issues with migration and possible conflict.

We all want clean fuel. We heard earlier about nuclear fuel and clean coal. I also call for international co-operation on green energy, which is crucial. The Desertec project in the Sahara is progressing, and people may know that it connects solar power to a network grid at a place where the sun is probably at its hottest. That could provide 15% of Europe’s future energy needs.

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16:02 Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to make my maiden speech. I will start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) for his passionate, detailed and knowledgeable speech on climate change. Indeed, it has been marvellous to listen today to some great speeches. We heard the speech of the new hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), whose brother is a minister in my constituency, Waveney in Suffolk. We then heard the speech of the new hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), who listed some films that had been made in the famous Ealing Studios. She actually missed out the most famous, “Kind Hearts and Coronets”, where the star had a particular way of getting into the other place. I think that constitutional reform will put an end to that.

I chose this debate to make my maiden speech because energy and offshore renewable energy is vital to the future of my constituency—Lowestoft and the surrounding area, which have suffered from industrial decline for the best part of 30 years. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Mr Bob Blizzard, for the work that he has done over the past 13 years. He has been a passionate advocate for Waveney and a hard-working and diligent MP. I thank him for all the work that he has done.

We need a new and radical energy policy. If we do not have it, the lights will go out. We need to be in control of our own destiny. We need energy security. We owe it to future generations to take a major step towards a low-carbon economy. We need a mixture of energy sources—green energy sources. To me, nuclear has a vital role to play; so, too, does clean coal, and micro-energy is also of great importance, but it is offshore renewables on which I want to focus. We have to get 15% of our energy supply from renewables by 2020. We have a lot of work to do, being at just over 5% now. There are great opportunities for green jobs; I see that it is estimated that there will be 1.2 million by 2015. If we do not do the work, we will fall a long way short.

I am here to represent Waveney, but I must not be parochial. To deliver green energy, and get the renewables that we need, I have to think outside my constituency, and think about the surrounding constituencies. In East Anglia, we have great opportunities. There is a deep-sea port in Yarmouth; that will help us to bring opportunities there. There is land elsewhere in other constituencies, too. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) is not here at the moment; in the past, Lowestoft and Yarmouth have spent a lot of time fighting each other. We fought on opposite sides in the civil war, and we had the herring wars, but we are united now in seeking to deliver the renewable energy opportunities.

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16:24 Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)

We need only look at the facts. We can argue about climate change and our exact contribution to it, although I will not do that now, because other people have already done so today. The world’s bread baskets are being eroded. That is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of fact. There is the destruction of the world’s forests, the loss of species and habitats and the collapse of the world’s great fisheries. These are real issues, and they are not subject to debate; they are matters of fact. They are not niche problems, but fundamental problems. I hope it also goes without saying that as we undermine the natural world and natural systems, we eventually undermine the basis of our own existence.

“Many of the precautionary actions that we need to take would be sensible in any event. It is sensible to improve energy efficiency and use energy prudently; it's sensible to develop alternative and sustainable energy sources; it's sensible to replant the forests which we consume; it's sensible to re-examine industrial processes; it's sensible to tackle the problem of waste. I understand that the latest vogue is to call them ‘no regrets’ policies. Certainly we should have none in putting them into effect.”

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16:35 Nia Griffith (Labour)

I am concerned that the cuts announced in the business budget this week could stifle the very types of manufacturing that we wish to encourage. We need to encourage that manufacturing now, otherwise we will miss the boat and other countries will take the opportunity to develop the new techniques that we need to make more sustainable cars and more useful devices that will produce renewable energy or be more energy efficient. There is a real danger. For example, one company in my constituency, Filsol, which makes solar panels, relies heavily on knowing not only what the situation will be for the individual private consumer, but what will be done through the public purse.

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16:45 John Glen (Conservative)

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to speak for the first time in the House. It is a great privilege to follow three excellent speeches by the hon. Members for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who I am sure will contribute much to Conservative Members’ understanding of issues around the environment and climate change.

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17:05 Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)

I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this important debate. I congratulate all hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches, but my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) raised the bar even higher with his speech. Not only was it entertaining, but it had depth and content, and I warmly congratulate him on that. I also congratulate the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on leading today’s debate on the Gracious Speech, which represents a triumph of localism over centralisation and prescriptive government. That will be particularly welcome in my constituency, as I shall explain a little later.

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17:16 Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)

The 2006 energy review estimated that up to 25 GW of new generating capacity would be needed over the next two decades to fill the gap. That is 25 GW out of a current 76 GW generating capacity—a huge gap by any estimate. The UK is, quite rightly, committed to a renewable energy target of 15% by 2020, and renewables have an important role to play in the sustainability and security of Britain’s future energy supply. But, as the Secretary of State told us earlier, Britain currently generates only 6.6% of its energy requirements from renewable resources. The 15% target by 2020 is extremely challenging and will require a massive step change in the development of renewable supplies if it is to be achieved. Even if we do achieve that target, we will still have a gap of more than 10 GW of generating capacity to fill. As a Member of Parliament with a key part of the UK’s nuclear infrastructure in his constituency, I ask the Secretary of State and the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), to look favourably on the use of new nuclear power generation to help fill the gap.

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17:25 Hilary Benn (Labour)

We have had a good debate, opened on our side with a spirited contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). We saw today the outstanding leadership that he has shown in creating the Department of Energy and Climate Change and in fashioning it into a formidable and practical advocate in the fight against dangerous climate change, and it is the kind of politics that has a great deal to offer us in future.

In a forensic speech, my right hon. Friend laid bare the inconsistency that is the Government’s policy on nuclear power. If I may say so to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, his replies on the subject were anything but convincing; one could indeed say that no greater love hath a man for his new friends than to lay down his lifelong views on nuclear power.

On reducing waste, I am glad to see that the Secretary of State, having spent far too long trying to blame Whitehall for every decision on waste collection, has finally acknowledged what I have gently tried to tell her for some time: it is, and it should be, for local authorities to decide how to collect waste and organise recycling. In other words, they should decide on the means. However, it is the Government’s responsibility to set the vision, and we should stop putting into landfill a range of materials for which there is demand and other uses. I hope that she will do that, and we should turn food waste into clean energy, rather than leaving it to rot and create greenhouse gas emissions.

Listening to what science has to tell us is extremely important in everything we do, and never more so than in fighting climate change and ensuring that we live within our environmental means. Anybody who read the recent Joint Nature Conservation Committee report on biodiversity, or who has seen the work of the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project, which is so ably led by Pavan Sukhdev—I have long believed that that has the potential to do for our understanding of the economic benefits of biodiversity what Sir Nick Stern’s groundbreaking report did for our understanding of the economics of climate change—will know that what humankind has taken for granted for so long with barely a thought of the consequences can no longer be taken for granted. Why? Because the natural environment, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), gives the soil, clean air, food, fuel and medicines from plants on which we human beings rely for our very existence.

At times of economic difficulty, we cannot and must not forget that the environmental crisis presses upon us too. Whether on the emissions of CO 2 that we must reduce, the way in which we use the natural resources and the natural gifts of the earth, or on the task of growing enough food for a growing population in a world where tonight, 1 billion human beings will go to bed hungry for want of enough to eat, choosing sustainability has to be our future. It has to be the future for farming as it seeks to grow more while impacting less, and for the common agricultural policy and the much-needed reform of the common fisheries policy. It must be the future for water supply, which we must learn to use much more wisely, for adapting to climate change and improving our flood defences, and for changing the way in which we use and dispose of resources. Every one of those things is essential to our future well-being.

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17:43 The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) is another new Member who comes here from the European Parliament, where he was chairman of the agriculture committee, so he brings a particular expertise to the House and we welcome that. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) mentioned the ports of Lowestoft and Yarmouth, and their potential as a centre for the development of new offshore renewable energy capacity. I have seen that with my own eyes, and his zeal on environmental issues will be very welcome to my team.

I hope that hon. Members who have been in the House before will forgive me if I move on to make just a few remarks. When I slipped out briefly, I had the opportunity to clarify points with some Members outwith the Chamber, and I am always available to any Member who wants clarification on any of the subject areas we discuss. It is clear that Members on both sides of the House feel strongly—and rightly so—about protecting our environment, growing our food and fisheries industries, ensuring our energy security and mitigating and adapting to climate change. The coalition agreement is clear on the issue of fox hunting and tuberculosis. The former will be subject to a motion on a free vote, but it is not an immediate priority for the Government. Our immediate priority is to tackle the deficit—that is the No. 1 priority set out in the coalition agreement.

We know, too, that climate change and the global race to industrialise are reducing the biodiversity and ecosystems of our planet at an unsustainable pace. We must act now to reverse that trend, so the Government will be offering and seeking firm commitments to address the global loss of biodiversity at the UN General Assembly meeting on biodiversity in New York in September, at the Nagoya biodiversity summit the following month in Japan, and at the meeting of Environment Ministers in Cancun at the end of the year. There is no “either/or” when it comes to climate change and biodiversity; they are interdependent and interlinked. We must act together at those conferences, because to do otherwise would be to rob future generations not only of the infinite variety of landscapes and species that we have been lucky enough to enjoy, but of the natural resources on which we depend for the quality of our lives and, indeed, our very livelihoods. We will act as a Government, with the publication of a White Paper on the natural environment to promote just that.

This debate was elegantly opened by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. His Department proposes an energy Bill explicitly linking the threat of climate change to both the need to ensure that our energy supplies are secure and the opportunities that a green economy can provide. I believe that the Bill will be welcomed by all, particularly after a winter that brought home the realities of the current cost of energy to the economically vulnerable. All too real, too, has become the threat of floods, which destroy homes, businesses and tragically, as we saw last November, even lives. We will therefore maintain an increase in the money that taxpayers spend on flood defences this year, with no impact on the number of households that we protect.

For too long, families have been exhorted to do their bit to drive down greenhouse gas emissions without being offered any support to do so. “Pay as you save”, a central part of this Government’s green deal, will directly help householders to benefit from greater energy efficiency, saving money and cutting emissions. In its current form, the Bill is unprecedented in its domestic impact, and we are also exploring how businesses can benefit from it. The Bill proposes the most significant energy framework yet, to bring about our green recovery and build our low-carbon future. That is something to which we surely all aspire.

The energy Bill will be presented by my right hon. Friend, clearly demonstrating this coalition’s commitment to be the greenest Government in the country’s history. For the first time, we are developing an integrated strategy across Government, and across the public, private and third sectors, to tackle the loss of biodiversity, address the way that we use resources, adapt to climate change and grow a greener economy that provides the clean, green jobs and industries of the future. The Gracious Speech looks to that dynamic future, and I commend it to the House.

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