21:30 Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)

The statutory duty that new clause 2 seeks to introduce would address those shortcomings by securing a resilience objective, promoting measures by developers and those responsible for utilities infrastructure to further that goal in building homes in communities that are sustainable in the longer term. This is an important point. By promoting action to respond to pressures on the environment—be it from climate change, population growth or changes in behaviour—a statutory duty of resilience would encourage long-term planning and investment, and support measures to manage development sustainability and reduce demand on resources. That would represent a positive movement towards securing the continued viability of the infrastructure, on which new developments rely. I am clear that the proposals to speed up the planning system must not come at the expense of sensible design.

Although the Government must commit to long-term investment in maintaining flood defences to provide stability and certainty, it is high time that Ministers dropped their complacency about the need for climate change adaptation and actively put measures in place to increase resilience. David Rooke, deputy chief executive of the Environment Agency, recently echoed this thinking, saying that we need a “complete rethink” in our approach and suggesting that

Building higher walls will not, on its own, provide the protection that our towns and cities need. Such an approach has been well and truly debunked in the past month alone. Instead, we need measures aimed at prevention as well as at defence. Achieving this, as the floods Minister acknowledged only a few weeks ago, means more trees and woodland in the hills, functioning ponds and bogs, allowing rivers to meander, and constructing buffer zones around their banks. The Government’s own climate change risk assessment lists the various risks resulting from climate change to which our homes and communities need to be resilient, including damage to property due to flooding and coastal erosion, and energy infrastructure at significant risk of flooding.

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12:00 Mr Marcus Jones (Glasgow Central) (SNP)

(e) contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change in line with the objectives of the Climate Change Act 2008;

(e) contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change in line with the objectives of the Climate Change Act 2008;

New clauses 35 and 36 represent a significant step forward in the transparency of performance on the sustainability and efficiency of the public sector estate. They extend requirements contained in section 86 of the Climate Change Act 2008 to provide an annual report on progress made towards making the estate more efficient and sustainable. New clause 35 provides for similar reporting requirements to apply to local government in respect of each local authority’s estate. Schedule 5 sets out local authorities in England that are subject to this new duty. Applying reporting requirements to the local government estate will strengthen accountability to local taxpayers and support local government’s drive to be more efficient and make effective use of their assets, as the best local authorities are already doing.

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12:45 Chris Philp (Conservative)

The new clause would also remove the curtilage catch-all and deter homeowners who can afford to turn up the heating but must not. Instead, they could do better things to help fight climate change and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. It is only a tiny amendment, so, not surprisingly, it is opposed by Historic England, which fears that the odd feature it has forgotten to list might be, what—insulated? It knows that things have to change and that we need to follow the success of the climate talks in Paris with practical changes. If the Government have a better way of delivering the curtilage removal, I will gladly withdraw the amendment and thank them on behalf of all our children and grandchildren.

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