15:33 The Prime Minister (Mr. Gordon Brown)

The focus of the European Council last Thursday and Friday was on actions needed to secure growth for the future and on Europe’s determination to bring new impetus and momentum to the international negotiations on climate change. Last week’s Budget set out our proposals for the next stage of economic recovery. It made it clear that the risks to recovery remain real and that we must avoid a premature withdrawal of stimulus measures, instead seeing through our commitment to halving the deficit over four years without choking off the recovery itself. The European Council agreed that

It also agreed to develop a new strategy to deliver higher levels of long-term growth and recognised that the key elements of increasing productivity and growth include action on employment, on research and development, on reducing greenhouse gases to boost low-carbon industries and on education and social inclusion. The European Council will now, once a year through a leaders’ annual economic summit, assess the progress achieved at both national and European level in delivering those objectives.

The Council also discussed climate change, ahead of the first meeting of the advisory group on climate change financing, established by the United Nations Secretary-General, which I am co-chairing with Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia. Our pledge on climate change finance is a vital first test of the commitment of the developed countries to meeting the promises made in Copenhagen. The Council concluded that Europe would rapidly and unconditionally implement its commitment to providing €2.4 billion annually for fast-track financing for developing countries, and to that end the EU

I want to ask about three issues that were discussed at the summit—the EU economy, financial regulation and climate change. First, on climate change, the summit rightly said that we must redouble our efforts to achieve the global deal that we all want and push ahead with practical action to cut emissions. The UK has the lowest contribution from renewable energy of any major EU country—just 6.8 per cent. of our electricity and, in total, 2.5 per cent. of our energy comes from renewable sources. Why has so little progress been made?

Let me also agree with the right hon. Gentleman that climate change is an important issue that Europe and the rest of the world must continue to address, that we must move forward on the Copenhagen summit, and that we must get a worldwide framework for a climate change agreement. He asks that renewables should be at a higher level in this country, and I agree with him that we should have higher investment in renewables. That is why we are making plans for public investment in renewables at the same time as the Conservatives oppose them. If I may say so, that is why we are asking councils to approve wind farms, while just about every Conservative council is trying to hold back that policy.

This was a meeting to discuss two specific things: the economy and climate change. Of course, in the bilateral meetings that I had with President Sarkozy, Chancellor Merkel and others—and with the President of the European Council, Mr. Van Rompuy, and with the presidency, in the form of the Spanish Prime Minister—the issue of terrorism was uppermost in our minds. We have to persuade some of our allies that we need to increase the police presence in Afghanistan, and that we have to increase the number of police trainers to raise the number of effective, trained police there. I believe that President Sarkozy has been meeting President Obama to talk about exactly these issues. We have increased the number of trainers that we have made available for policing in Afghanistan, and we are looking forward to other countries doing the same.

Surely it does make sense to distance ourselves from politicians who support the Waffen SS, who are climate change deniers or who have odd views on what happened to the Jews in world war two. Surely it makes sense to distance ourselves in particular from homophobic Members of the European Parliament. Listening to the Leader of the Opposition reduced to absolute speechlessness while trying to defend them last week was a collector’s item.

The Prime Minister mentioned his pledge on climate change. Why, then, has the UK so abjectly failed to meet its obligations under the landfill directive and failed to follow the lead of many other EU countries in developing energy from waste projects?

The landfill levy has been strengthened over these last few years. It is our desire to make sure that we do everything in our power to use our waste effectively. Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman, again, is so blinded against the European Union that he cannot acknowledge that the way to move forward is through greater co-operation with the EU on climate change issues, that we should be pressing to reopen negotiations that failed in some respects at Copenhagen, that the Bonn summit is the way to do so and that we should support Chancellor Merkel in doing that. We need co-operation on the environment if we are going to move forward in Britain, Europe or the rest of the world. It is global and European co-operation that we need, rather than conflict between us in Europe.

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