Ed Miliband

Oh! The hon. Member says it was because Putin invaded Ukraine—excellent, excellent! I congratulate him on his sedentary intervention—exactly, exactly! Why did prices go through the roof and why were we so exposed? Because of our exposure to fossil fuels. And what do the Conservatives want to do? Double down on our exposure to fossil fuels. As the shadow Secretary of State knows, the truth, as the Conservatives used to believe before they went a bit more wacky than they were before, is that there is only one route to energy security in the modern world, which is clean home-grown power that we control. Despite everything they say, the truth is that they have learned nothing from what happened. Let me turn to the questions, such as they were, on the COP. By the way, the shadow Secretary of State complains about the COP being held in the Amazon. I have to say to her that, with the greatest of respect, I will take President Lula’s judgment about where the COP should be held rather than hers. For goodness’ sake, have a bit of respect for the Brazilian presidency! It decided that the right thing to do was to hold the COP in the Amazon to draw attention to the issue of deforestation, and she is complaining about its decisions to make the COP possible—for goodness’ sake! On the point about the TFFF, we are supportive of it, and we will keep under review whether we can make a contribution. It was because of fiscal circumstances that we did not, but we are investing more than £1 billion over five years in countering deforestation. I am proud of what we are doing on that and the Congo basin. On the point about British leadership, the right hon. Lady could not be more wrong about the role of Britain on these things. What people are seeing is an ambitious Government who are leading on these issues, so there is actually some respect for what Britain is suggesting others should do. There is a record under both parties that we need to learn from here, and I say this as politely as I can to the Conservative party: ambition at home is what makes possible leadership abroad. We passed the Climate Change Act in 2008, which she now wants to rip up, and 60 countries followed us. We put net zero into law by 2050, and she wants to rip it up. I praise Theresa May for that, but is it not extraordinary that I can praise Theresa May, but the Conservative party cannot do so? She put net zero by 2050 into law, which the Conservatives want to rip up, and 80% of global GDP has followed us. I will end by saying that there is a truth here, which is that the Conservatives used to aspire to global Britain. Now, they have simply become the party of little Britain, and it really does not look good.