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There will obviously be debates on this and legislation, as the Government have indicated. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, said about Defra’s handbook. It is incredibly easy to read, unlike some of the material put out by government departments that sometimes have a difficulty with material for general consumption. They always want to get it right, so you end up with too much detail and the message gets lost. This Defra handbook is incredibly easy to read and ought to be compulsory reading. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness said about Defra doing that, and also welcoming that it was the Treasury that commissioned the report. This goes beyond the environmental aspects, as the Statement said. It is also about security, energy and finance. The report shows, in summary, that we can deal with climate change without wrecking our economies, provided we move now. If we leave it 10 to 15 years, then, as the report makes clear, we are in a no-hope situation.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, could I—
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I am sorry but I do not believe that, “Before the noble Lord sits down,” is in order on a Statement when the Front Benchers are speaking. We now begin the Back-Bench period, in which my noble friend may try to intervene.
7.22 pm
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, how can airlines, particularly from the United States, China and India, be compelled to enforce the higher levies on carbon dioxide emissions unless there is an enforceable, international agreement? Will the Government adopt an appropriate international initiative, and when will they do so?
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Lord Rooker: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right to refer to aviation, which is mentioned in the Statement. The intention is to get it included in the European emissions-trading arrangement. Yet aviation is international and the issue as he put it can be dealt with only on an international basis by the international aviation authorities. This report gives the lead. Clearly some action is required and it cannot be done solely by the UK or the European Union. It requires international action, and the aviation industry is now on notice.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, on taxation, as raised by my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith, if the Government are going to carry the people with them in their determination to deal with climate change, it is essential that they make it clear that they will not use their response to the threat as an excuse to pile more taxes on an already over-taxed people. It is not good enough to say that once or twice in the past there has been some balancing reduction. This is a good opportunity for the Minister to give an undertaking that necessary green taxes are not going to be used as an excuse to increase overall revenue.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, that is what I said. Where green taxes have been introduced by this Chancellor, they have been off-set. They have not been a means of increasing the total tax take.
Lord Taverne: My Lords, will the Government bear in mind the need for some caution in the Statements they make? This is not the time to debate the Stern report—which is going to be a very important question indeed—but there will be actions which he recommends that will be unpopular. It will be vital to get popular support for such actions. There will not be popular support if the claims made are not supported by scientific evidence and are then found to be false.
For example, it has been widely stated that Hurricane Katrina was the result of global warming. That is something that Mr Gore says in his film—although he also makes a number of statements in his film that I fully agree with. The evidence on this is not yet clear and it is a dangerous claim to make. This year, for example, there have been fewer hurricanes. Many people may say, “If global warming causes hurricanes and there are now fewer hurricanes, then there ain’t no global warming”. It is important that we do not make rash statements.
The Statement says that climate change is the greatest threat faced by humanity. But climate change has always been happening. It is not climate change that is the threat; it is global warming caused by human activity and the effects of global warming, which may or may not be very serious. There is a lot of evidence that it may well be serious, and that would justify action. It is therefore important that the Government are cautious in the Statements that they make. I am somewhat worried that they have appointed Mr Al Gore, or so certain reports say, as their adviser. While there are many good things in his
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Lord Rooker: My Lords, with due respect to the noble Lord, there are a few wild statements there. There is not enough time for me to rebut them. However, less than a week ago, in this House, I read from some scientific literature about the thermohaline current possibly switching off. If it does, it will not switch on again. Those documents are in the Library: it was a Cambridge Press/Defra publication from an international symposium. It is not clear that scientists say it will not switch off. That is a threat.
“Climate change is the greatest long-term threat faced by humanity. It [could] cause more human and financial suffering than the two world wars and the Great Depression put together. All countries will be affected but the poorest nations will be hit hardest”.
This is a banal point to make, but if anybody wants to query whether something is going on out there, then just look at the leaves on the trees.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I welcome this Statement by my noble friend. Perhaps I may concentrate on transport, which is my interest. Does he agree that there is going to be a strong need to change behaviour and the way in which people and goods travel by road, rail, air, sea and whatever? Are the Government thinking of extending emissions trading to all transport, and, if so, how? My worry about emissions trading as it is at the moment is that although we have started in Europe—not on aircraft emissions but on other things—there are many stories about other member states initially giving such a leg-up to companies that may be at risk of having to spend large sums on buying emissions quota that it all becomes pretty meaningless. Does my noble friend accept that some people will get hurt to change their behaviour while others will probably benefit?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the summary makes it clear that if we act now, it need affect only 1 per cent of GDP and will not stop growth of the economy. That is one of the central messages. I heard Sir Nicholas say this morning that if we act now, growth is not at risk. There is a one-off 1 per cent change, so there need not be damage to the economy.
I believe the Statement only referred to aviation in the European emissions trading system. There are many complaints about people flying short journeys when there are perfectly adequate railway networks; the argument against that might be that the railway networks are expensive, but that is because the flights are not paying the full cost of the carbon damage to the atmosphere. That is what this is all about: putting a price on carbon, so activities are charged for the cost they impose on the planet.
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Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, seldom can this House have heard a Statement containing so much fantasy with so little relation to the real world. I have one specific question. It is generally agreed that China will very soon overtake the United States as the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. If the Chinese insist on maintaining their current position of generating their growth on the back of low-cost carbon-based energy, what do the Government propose to do? Will they pay the Chinese to change their ways, or propose trade sanctions against them if they do not? What are they going to do, in concert with our allies and partners in Europe?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Lord made sweeping statements about the whole of the Stern review. I acknowledge his position, which he has held for a long time and expressed in this House, to my knowledge, on more than one occasion. I do not think that China should be put in the dock. I understand that it is opening a coal-fired power station every week. We are working with the Chinese and looking at low-carbon technology for burning that coal. They will carry on burning it, because they want to grow. There is no reason why their growth should not continue, but it could be low-carbon growth. That is the offer. The Chinese will be just as interested as anyone else, by the way, in people being flooded out of their homes, or in having no land to grow crops because it has got too hot. They are not divorced from this and we should not put them in the dock. We have to help. We are all in this together.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, I confess to not having read the report. Will my noble friend tell us whether there is any truth in the report that the Chancellor has refused to allow, and pay for, the printing of the report to make it available for us?
Lord Rooker: I have no idea, my Lords. I went to the launch this morning and picked up a 30-page executive summary and a disk. I have not put the disk in anything yet; I assumed it contained the whole report. As far as I know, the report is available. It is 700 pages long. I understand that it is not available in the Printed Paper Office and I am going to find out about that. I was supposed to be given a line on that before I stood up, but I realise I have not been. I suspect that this issue was raised in the other place, but I do not think that the Chancellor is so mean as not to allow the publication of a report that will have such an impact on all our lives, both economically and socially.
Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, I welcome the report. It is marvellous that it brings to everyone’s attention that there is a problem, because for so long people have been saying there is no problem. However, following the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, it is extremely difficult for us to assess the, I think, 612-page report—but then of course there are lots of appendices we do not even know about, as they are not in the contents—by reading the Statement.
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The Minister said that if we act now, we can stop the problem. Surely that must be naïve. There is not a single mention of the word “USA” in this four-page Statement. There is no mention of China. Aviation is briefly mentioned, but surely most of the aviation in the world is in the US. How much notice will the United States, India and China take of the report? Do we not have an exalted view of our influence? I quote from the Statement:
Honestly, if, as I am told, we only contribute something like 2 per cent of the carbon emissions, is anyone going to listen?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, our contribution of 2 per cent is small. It could be argued that we do not need to do anything; that we are overshadowed, and our contribution would be replaced by some of the developing countries within 10 months. That is not a satisfactory situation when we have taken the position that, if we do not move within 10 to 15 years, the process will be unstoppable. According to the chart shown by Sir Nicholas this morning, the temperature could rise by 5 degrees—well above the 2 degrees that I understand is a turning point. We have to move on this.
I cannot give chapter and verse about what individual countries are going to do. The report has been published today, and we want the rest of the world to have a look at it. It will be discussed in a few days’ time in Nairobi at the pow-wow of environmental and Treasury Ministers, and it was partly discussed during the recent discussions in Mexico. The issue is being dealt with at a world level, not at the UK or EU level, but we are attempting to take a lead. We have a contribution to make.
Regarding the printed report, my note says:
It also says, though, that if the report is on CD, the CDs are more environmentally friendly than 700 printed pages anyway. I do not know anyone who cannot put a CD into a computer and read from it. Grey power gets hold of computers and gets going at them better than the youngsters sometimes. However, I apologise if the noble Lord has not been able to get his copy today.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, the Minister is very good at knowing the reaction of people in the street, and in villages and towns. First, does he agree that, if this is to work, there has to be strong popular support behind it, as my noble friend Lord Taverne said, and that what the people of any country can do is address the subject of energy conservation, on which the UK has a bad record? Does he agree that there ought to be a fifth heading concerning energy conservation, which is crucial if this great aim is to be achieved?
Secondly, does he agree, having referred to the fact that forests are the responsibility of the country in which they lie, that the idea of renting substantial parts of untouched forest land should be looked at
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Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised a practical solution that has very seductive undertones. There is clearly an issue. Sometimes people have destroyed their heritage—that is, the forest—because of money. There is no other crop, as it were. They have to be prevented from doing so, and shown the wisdom of preserving it. But they have to have alternatives. If we can sell this to our people on the basis that we can make all these changes and still grow our economy, the same must apply to everyone else. They will want to grow their economies, because they are far behind us in that respect. This issue has to be dealt with.
I regret that I did not comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, relating to public perception. He is right: if the public are not on side, nothing will happen. Ministers talking, business acting or taxes changing to change people’s behaviour will not work. It will build in resentment. People have to be made to understand that there is a major problem.
We have an outreach programme focusing on the private sector, legislators and broader civil society. I shall briefly give some examples of what was done. In December last year, a new campaign was launched, called “Tomorrow’s Climate, Today’s Challenge”, which included free resources; short films; a website; a communications guide; a £6 million climate challenge fund to support local level communication projects, and we expect to announce winners on 5 June; a European environment day; large-scale national activities allowing local level activities to feel part of a wider government-backed initiative to commence in 2006-07; and a youth competition to help communicate climate change in their region, in which nine regional climate change champions were announced on 11 May 2006. Work has to go on over a whole range of activities. It is not just about the media but about understanding the footprints of normal people’s lives.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am old enough to remember that not long ago we were being warned of a new ice age, so we have to take that into account, too. I have two questions. First, the inexorable growth in world population is estimated to increase by a further 50 per cent over the next 30 years, I believe. Do the Government have any plans to address that problem, because if we do not deal with it, we have no hope of solving global warming? Secondly, will the Government review their policies on airport expansion, particularly at Heathrow and Stansted—and in other parts of the country? Unless the Government do that, aircraft movements will continue to rise and rise and there will be no hope of reducing aircraft emissions.
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Lord Rooker: My Lords, on that last point, I cannot go beyond what I have said, other than that the Statement attempts to bring aviation into the emissions trading scheme, so that the cost of aviation pollution is paid for and will bring about a change in people’s behaviour. As I said, plenty of trains are available for short journeys in this country and between this country and other parts of Europe in which one can probably travel faster than if one used the airports.
As I understand it, forecasts of population growth are taken into account; but is it not also the case that when countries have good economies and economic growth, population growth decreases? This is a serious issue. It is a fact that we are using up the planet at a greater rate than we are creating more planet, if you like—and the planet is finite. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, half joked about a new ice age that has not yet happened, but if the Atlantic Gulf Stream closes down, we will soon know about a new ice age.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, while I welcome the Minister’s assurance that any new green taxes would be matched by reductions in indirect taxation and his acknowledgment that everything depends on growth economies such as China and India buying into this proposal, could he assure us that providing leadership does not mean putting up taxes on business in this country in advance of those countries doing the same? Given the mobile nature of capital, will not business simply switch its investment into countries where there is no such levy or charge, whether it be a tax or a carbon trading scheme? How will the Government deal with that?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Lord has described exactly what has happened in some parts of the world in recent years. Countries have been pillaged environmentally because there has been no international agreement about what happens to their resources. I cannot say any more about what would happen as regards the effects of taxation, because they will be matters for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He commissioned this report, so it is self-evident that there are issues beyond the environment, including social, cultural, energy and conservation issues, as well as the economic issues of climate change, that, clearly, the Treasury will take into account.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Third Reading of the Education and Inspections Bill be now adjourned. In moving the Motion, I suggest that that the House returns to that business not before 8.42 pm. For the convenience of your Lordships, it may be helpful to know that the usual channels have agreed that it will not be possible to begin the Report stage of the Armed Forces Bill tonight.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
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NHS: Community Hospitals and Maternity Units
7.45 pm
Baroness Cumberlege rose to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their policy towards community hospitals and maternity units.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I start by thanking noble Lords for taking part in this short debate and the Minister for answering it. He is after all, according to the Health Service Journal, the fifth most powerful person in the NHS, so I am sure he will be able to answer my questions, of which I have given notice, with ease.
The Minister and I are united in that care should be closer to home. My father was a GP. Patients came to the house and in my home we literally had blood on the carpet. Six miles from where I live we have a much-prized community hospital in which a few years ago I had successful minor surgery. My husband’s great-grandfather donated a similar hospital to the people of Lyndhurst. I have given birth to two of our three sons at home, so I think I know what care closer to home, or indeed in the home, can mean.
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