16:27 Douglas Alexander (Labour)

The threats that we in the United Kingdom face today transcend borders—threats to do with global security, climate change, terrorism, and food and water supplies—and they all require international co-operation to an extent that was not previously required. Later this week, as leaders of the G8 meet at Camp David, they will be contemplating the need for international consensus in the face of many of these global challenges. Co-operation requires leadership, and yet we heard little from the Foreign Secretary about what this Government hope to achieve and plan to deliver as a result of the G8 summit that is only a few days away, and even less about what their agenda will be when they take the leadership of that grouping in 2013.

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18:01 Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

I want to take the opportunity offered by the debate on the foreign affairs and international development aspects of the Queen’s Speech to raise again, as hon. Members will have guessed, climate security. I want the House to recognise that climate change is an issue of security and that it should not just be tucked away under the heading of environment and then forgotten about. On that subject, it is interesting that we do not have a day to discuss the environment and energy aspects of the Queen’s Speech, perhaps because there are not very many of them. I was struck by the fact that this time around we do not have a day when those aspects of the speech might usefully have been covered.

I want to place climate strongly in the framework of security issues and to say how sorry I am that ambitious measures to address the climate crisis were conspicuous in their absence from the announcements about the forthcoming legislative programme. That is an extraordinary omission when successive Governments have acknowledged that climate change poses one of the greatest threats to our collective security. Indeed, the coalition Government acknowledged as much in the foreword to last year’s national security strategy, which states:

“The security of our energy supplies increasingly depends on fossil fuels located in some of the most unstable parts of the planet. Nuclear proliferation is a growing danger. Our security is vulnerable to the effects of climate change and its impact on food and water supply.”

I support what the hon. Lady is saying about this being an important international issue. When I was a Minister at the Foreign Office, climate change was seen as one of the key priorities and I found that our missions around the world also took it very seriously. A great deal was being done at that time.

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am pleased to hear that, because at the moment it feels like there is real tension in the Government about where climate change sits, as the Chancellor clearly sees it as an obstacle to his economic development plans and there is not much of a fight back.

Hon. Members will know that climate change is already affecting many of the poorest communities around the world, undermining their livelihoods through changes in temperature and rainfall patterns and through the increased frequency and intensity of floods and droughts. It has been estimated that climate change is already responsible for about 300,000 deaths a year and is affecting 300 million people, according to the first comprehensive study of the human impact of global warming from Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Forum.

Although the impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately on the global south, this argument is not just about poorer people in far flung places. Increasingly, extreme weather events are happening much closer to home as well, such as the 2007 floods in Britain, which saw the largest ever civil emergency response since the second world war. From our riverside location at Westminster, we should perhaps take comfort from the fact that the Thames barrier is being prepared to cope with the sea level rise of 1.9 metres that is being projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the full range of its climate scenarios. Frankly, I am alarmed that we are having to consider such a sea level rise and that such measures are not being planned elsewhere.

The truth is that growing recognition of climate change as a serious threat to our national security, our economy and international development is not resulting in commensurate action domestically or internationally. What in the Queen’s Speech could help us? The new energy Bill, if it were significantly more ambitious than proposed, could play a role. Investment in major power infrastructure today will be with us for decades to come, but there is a real risk that rather than the “secure, clean and affordable” electricity system that we have been promised by the Government, we are more likely to end up with an insecure, dirty and expensive one. To avoid that, we need four crucial elements to be introduced into the electricity market reform proposals.

First, and most importantly, the energy Bill must contain a clear and absolute commitment to decarbonising electricity generation by 2030. That is not a radical green proposal, but is based on the advice from the Committee on Climate Change. I hope that the Prime Minister will ensure that that happens, given his own explanation of the crucial role of the committee. He said that it exists to

“take the politics out of climate change and show our intention to get to grips with the problem.”

A strong emissions performance standard is essential, yet what we have so far from the Government is utterly inadequate. The Committee on Climate Change has also warned that allowing unabated gas-fired generation, as this Government plan, from new plant right through to 2045, carries a huge risk that there will be far too much gas-fired generation at the expense of low-carbon investment.

With fracking, huge questions remain over the impacts on groundwater pollution, health and air pollution, as well as earthquakes. Moreover, evidence from the Tyndall Centre indicates that the exploitation of even just a fraction of the UK’s shale gas reserves would simply be incompatible with tackling climate change.

The hon. Lady might be aware that the chairman of the Committee on Climate Change has said that if there is a choice between a dash for gas and the lights switching off, the committee would support a dash for gas.

“community ownership of renewable energy schemes”.

That is why Professor Hansen and many other experts are calling for a 6% annual cut in carbon dioxide emissions year on year. Others suggest that the figure should be closer to 9%.

The UK’s carbon budgets enshrine a pathway to an 80% emissions reduction by 2050, and the Climate Change Act 2008, to its credit, does at least put in place architecture that we can use to achieve our targets, but that 80% target is simply out of date. When scientific developments indicate that we must go further and faster, Government policy must change to reflect that. The science tells us that global emissions of carbon dioxide need to peak in the current decade and decline steeply thereafter. That means that this Parliament—us here now—has a historic responsibility to rise to the challenge of ensuring that can happen. It is the last Parliament that can take action to avoid runaway climate change.

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20:02 Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)

At a time of great difficulty, it is always tempting to look inwards. However, it is now more important than ever to look outwards, because it is by engaging constructively with the world that we will see growth in our economy and security for our people, and help others to tackle grinding poverty and the effects of climate change. I therefore welcome the Government’s focus on exports, on inward and outward investment, on expanding the UK’s diplomatic network—I should like to echo the praise for the work of our diplomatic missions around the world—and on well-targeted development aid.

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21:28 Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Lab)

This has been a high-quality debate at a time when a strong, intelligent British voice has never been more important, as the world faces a number of complex, high-stakes challenges: the eurozone crisis; the negotiations between E3 plus 3 with Iran aimed at securing Iranian compliance with its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty; enduring poverty and growth inequality in a world where more than 70% of the poorest now live in middle-income, not developing countries; the appalling repression and violence in Syria; the impact of the Arab spring; the lack of political progress towards a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians; continued instability in the horn of Africa; and disappointing global progress on trade and climate change. All these require British foreign, defence and development policies that are joined up and have clear strategic objectives.

I shall turn now specifically to development. Rooted in my party’s DNA is a commitment to social justice, not only in our country but across the world. For Labour, ensuring that the United Kingdom plays a leading role in aid and development is not political positioning or the detoxification of our brand; it is the application of our core values. I am immensely proud of our legacy. Through the political leadership of Tony Blair and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), we led and changed the world. Labour’s international leadership achieved great results by cancelling debt, increasing aid, improving trading opportunities, leading on climate change, creating DFID as a Cabinet-level Department and championing the millennium development goals.

A new global covenant for development must recognise that in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the Arab spring and the new concentration of poverty in middle-income countries, the world has changed. A new covenant must be developed on an equal basis by developing, developed and middle-income countries—not by a settlement imposed by developed on developing countries. It must seek to address the big global challenges of fair trade, sustainable growth, climate change, inequality, social protection, universal human rights and responsible capitalism. Instead of global targets, it may be more appropriate to have a matrix of indicators that enables every country to set its own targets.

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