Contribution
Last week, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and I were invited to see a play called “Kyoto”. [Interruption.] It looks like other Ministers were also there; I did not spot them. The play tells the story of the international climate negotiations in Kyoto, including the pivotal role that the late great John Prescott played in working collaboratively to forge a binding agreement between countries with vastly different politics and that agreed about very little. I found the play so moving and inspiring, and I thought I saw that the Secretary of State did, too. The next morning, I wrote to him, asking if he would be willing to have a call with me about this Bill and how we might be able to work together. I did that because this crisis is too big and too existential to leave to a party machinery whose prime motivation seems to be simply to be seen to win, as we saw reported in the news yesterday.
This Bill was first tabled by the first Green MP, Caroline Lucas, four years ago. It is and always has been a chance for collaborative, cross-party endeavour. It is supported by many of the Government’s Back Benchers, and the Labour party itself pledged agreement with its principles not long ago. If the Government support it today, they will share in the credit of its success. We will all win if the Bill goes into Committee and emerges as strong as possible, supported across the House.
I understand that the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) has agreed not to push it to a vote today, in exchange, it seems, for just a meeting with the Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero and a video, with an agreement to work together but with no specific commitments. That is her decision. [Interruption.] Let me continue, please. That is her decision. I am sad about it, but I wish her well and hope it works out.
However, Madam Deputy Speaker, I cannot tell you how disappointed I was, and how disappointed millions of people will be, to learn how the Government have behaved. They ignored the CAN Bill campaign for months, only finally agreeing to meet its promoter 10 days before this debate—coming to the negotiation table with almost nothing new, demanding a promise not to push the Bill it to a vote in exchange for no regulation, no legislation, no new targets. That is peanuts. After 10 days of negotiation, incredibly, the offers got worse—until, late last night, the best that the Government could offer was a meeting with the Secretary of State, a non-specific offer to work together, and a video.
The climate is why I got into politics and I am not giving up that easily, so I have stood up today to say to the Government, “Please, give us real commitments, binding decisions, legislation, timetables and consequences.” The existing legislation to which the Government are working is based on science that is out of date, taking us back to a time when we thought that 2°C was a safe level of warming. It takes no account of the emissions from products and services that we import, no account of emissions from aviation and shipping, and no account of emissions from other greenhouse gases such as methane. In other words, it chooses not to count the tricky stuff and then slaps itself on the back for doing so jolly well at the easy stuff, and, as we have heard over and over again today, it does not join up climate and nature legislation or policy in any way.
So I say to the Government again, “Please, please commit yourselves to real, binding, bold legislation that reflects the way in which the science has evolved since the Climate Change Act 2008, which was groundbreaking in its day but which has now been superseded by the climate science.” If they will not do so, I, as one of the Bill’s sponsors, will take this Second Reading to a vote. If they really think that they can look their constituents and their children in the eye—