I regret to have to report to the House the death of David Leslie Taylor, Member for North-West Leicestershire. David was a highly assiduous, principled and independent-minded Member who respected the House and was respected by it. Truly, he was a House of Commons man, and I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will join me in mourning the loss of our colleague and in extending our sympathy to his widow Pam, his daughters Rachel, Sarah, Jessica and Catherine, his wider family and his many friends.

(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary if he will make a statement on the situation in Yemen, including the closure of the British embassy and the position of British citizens in Yemen.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will address all the security issues arising from the Christmas incident immediately after this. I will now address the broader picture. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) knows, the Government have been increasingly concerned about the situation in Yemen and about the number and scale of the challenges faced by the Yemeni Government and people. We believe that the increasing insecurity and instability in Yemen pose a threat to the Gulf region, to the wider middle east and to the UK.

Over the past 18 months, the situation has been a growing concern in the region and to Her Majesty’s Government. Our cross-Whitehall discussions and close working with international partners led, in September 2009, to the development of a renewed UK country strategy for Yemen. This strategy is currently being implemented by Government Departments across Whitehall, including the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence. It covers four areas. The first is support for democratic political structures; the second addresses the causes of the conflict—so-called counter-radicalisation; the third relates to building the Yemeni capacity to tackle security and terrorism issues; and the fourth is directed at helping the Yemeni Government to deliver the functions of the state, onshore and offshore.

To strengthen further the international community’s support for the Government of Yemen in meeting those challenges, the Prime Minister announced on 1 January that the UK would host a high-level meeting on Yemen later this month, and that will indeed take place. The meeting will focus on galvanising international support for Yemen’s fight against terrorism and co-ordinating assistance to address the longer-term economic and social factors underlying radicalisation and extremism.

As a symbol of the Government’s long-term commitment to Yemen, DFID signed a 10-year development partnership arrangement with the Government of Yemen in August 2007. The UK development spend is fully aligned to our Yemen strategy and to the priorities of the Yemeni Government’s national reform agenda. We will spend about £25 million in fiscal year 2009-10; £35 million to £40 million in fiscal year 2010-11; and, dependent on progress on reform of state structures in Yemen, up to £50 million in 2011-12.

The Government of Yemen are embattled on four different but related fronts: first, the tribal rebellion in the north; secondly, separatism and separatist movements in the south; economic decline across the country, which is particularly important in the context of a near doubling of the population of Yemen that is foreseen in the relatively near future; and also the growing threat from Islamist terrorism in the form of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which finds safe haven in Yemen. Urgent economic and political reforms are the only long-term solution to Yemen’s problems, but continued instability distracts from the Government’s short-term efforts to address these priorities.

As a result of ongoing security concerns, the British embassy closed earlier this week on a precautionary basis for two days. The embassy is now open and staff are back at work. Currently, however, the public services sections of the embassy—the visa and consular sections—are closed. This is under regular review and I discussed the issue with our ambassador in a video conference yesterday morning.

I should point out that it is not unusual for embassies to close during times of heightened tension. During 2009, the British embassy in Sana’a closed on more than a dozen occasions. We have different procedures from other nations for assessing the safety and security of our staff. It would not be right to comment on the specifics of this closure, but I assure the House that it is kept under regular review to ensure that services are maintained. The embassy in Sana’a maintains regular contact with the British community through our wardens network and by regular factual messages to the British nationals who have registered with the embassy.

Finally, the overall threat level in Yemen has not changed. As we make clear in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel advice, the threat from terrorism in Yemen is high and remains of concern. We continue to recommend against all non-essential travel to the country.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing the question. I refer the House to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my personal interest, as I was born in Yemen and lived there for nine years of my life.

In welcoming the London conference, will the Foreign Secretary state precisely what additional support has been given to Yemen as a result of this recent initiative? Will he also confirm that all the money pledged to Yemen in London in November 2006 has been paid over? Can we stop referring to Yemen as a failed state? It has the capacity to fail if Britain, America and the nearby Arab states do not support it. Can we also make sure that the Foreign Secretary visits the country as soon as possible?

There are three parts to my right hon. Friend’s question. First, the London meeting will not be a pledging conference, and I do not think that that is what is needed. However, as my right hon. Friend intimated in the second part of his question, some £5 billion was pledged at the London conference in 2006. A small proportion of it has been disbursed, in part because of concerns about how the money would be spent, but there are other issues. I understand that about 40 per cent. of it has been signed and 81 per cent. allocated to different programmes, although only a very small percentage has actually been spent.

In terms of my right hon. Friend’s attempt to send me to Yemen, I cannot quite promise him that just at the moment, but the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), will be on a recce to Yemen next month. That will allow us to take forward the conclusions of the London meeting in an appropriate way.

On behalf of the Opposition, I welcome the calling of a conference on Yemen in London on 28 January. I agree that Yemen is a fragile state—I think we should call it that, rather than a failed state—and that that matters to British security.

I want to ask three brief sets of questions. First, in view of the closure of our embassy, is the Foreign Secretary confident that the right level of consular support can be given to British citizens and officials in Yemen in the event of further closures of the embassy, and that plans are in place to offer them protection?

Secondly, following the announcement of additional US-UK support for a special counter-terrorist police unit and for the Yemeni coastguard operation, may we express the hope that those arrangements will be conducted better than Downing street has conducted US-UK co-operation on related matters in the last 24 hours? Specifically, will the support be purely financial, or will it involve actual assistance on the ground in the form of training? What is the time scale for its delivery, and when is the new unit expected to be up and running? Is this an exclusively US-UK initiative, or does it involve other countries and partners, such as Gulf nations, that may be prepared to work with us?

Thirdly, it should be recognised that Yemen cannot be viewed solely through the prism of an al-Qaeda problem. The Foreign Secretary rightly referred to a mixture of issues. Yemen’s internal conflicts are fuelled by political grievances, poverty, corruption and competition over depleted natural resources, issues that require political leadership from the Yemeni Government as well as assistance from the international community. Can the Foreign Secretary assure us that all those issues will be addressed at the conference in January, and will continue to be treated as a priority by his colleagues in DFID? Will he do his utmost to ensure that there is a focus on the Yemeni Government’s responsibility to work towards a political settlement in the country, and that we look to the longer term as well as to the immediate problems?

I am confident that the right procedures are being followed in terms of consular support for British nationals. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, there is a relatively small number of them, although the Yemeni diaspora in Britain is of long standing. There is a proud set of Yemeni communities, including, in South Shields, the oldest in Britain. There is obviously some need for consular support, but the ambassador has assured me that that is being dealt with in an appropriate way. The network of wardens that operates in many countries is there to alert us to any problems, but has not yet been notified of any.

The work that is taking place with the Yemeni authorities is more than paying out. The money includes finance for training, which has been an important part of the co-operation that is taking place. We will be discussing with a range of those attending the London meeting whether there is a way in which they could support the UK-US effort, and we will seek appropriate ways in which to use the skills and expertise that other countries can provide.

I was glad to hear what the right hon. Gentleman said about the breadth of the British programme in Yemen and the need to maintain it. The short term, the medium term and the long term are related. Most of the grievances that exist in Yemen are local rather than being related to the global jihad, and although al-Qaeda can try to find roots there, the vast bulk of the issues motivating Yemenis are what we would call bread-and-butter issues that a Government should be seeking to address. Certainly it is the prime responsibility of the Government of Yemen to do so.

Of course the actions of the Foreign Office in Yemen in closing the embassy and working with our allies in Yemen and the United States enjoy support across the House, but will the Foreign Secretary reassure us that, in supporting action against al-Qaeda in Yemen and elsewhere in the region, we are ensuring that local people are not inadvertently alienated by our actions and those of our allies? In giving military support and aid to the Yemenis, and in developing the cross-departmental strategy to which the Foreign Secretary referred, are we impressing on the Yemeni Government the importance of avoiding civilian deaths and of building a sustainable coalition against al-Qaeda across the whole country?

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good and important point, which is highly relevant, and let me say two things on that. First, there has been a very wide welcome across the Gulf, as well as within Yemen, for the fact that the London meeting will not be focused simply on counter-terrorism, because that might play into the sort of dangers to which he rightly refers. The incubus that is Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula must not become a rallying point for the people of Yemen, because they become the unwitting or unwilling victims of attempts to tackle the AQAP presence there.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman is also absolutely right to insist that the economic, social and political issues at the heart of Yemen’s development need to be addressed. I think that I am right to say that Yemen’s oil wealth is likely to run out in 2015, and the dangers of water scarcity are very real. Those issues evidently are not amenable to a counter-terrorist solution, and require a much more deep-seated and effective role for government, supported by the international community. That is why the fourth priority that we mentioned—the functioning of the state—is so important to addressing those issues.

The Foreign Secretary mentioned radicalisation; will he undertake also to have close talks with the Saudi Government? They have some programmes that may seem unorthodox to some western eyes, but that nevertheless seem to be working in the Saudi and Arab context. I think that we should learn from that.

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As it happens, the Saudi programme that was featured on this morning’s edition of the “Today” programme is one that I visited last year in Saudi Arabia. It is a counter-radicalisation programme, rather than a radicalisation programme—that is an important point to make—and is extremely innovative. I met a failed suicide bomber—

By definition—

Hence failed, but it is not a laughing matter, as he killed a lot of people in a market by blowing up a bomb in a truck that he was driving. He said that he did not know what its contents were and that he had been inveigled into driving the truck. He and a number of other people were going through that programme, which involved taking a comprehensive look at their lives, including in relation to religious instruction. A large number of innovative products are also available in terms of people’s return to normal life after the programme. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to this matter, and I congratulate the Saudi Government on how they are going about dealing with it. It is certainly something that we work closely with them on.

May I also declare an interest as an officer of the all-party group that visited Yemen a couple of years ago? I found some very impressive Anglophile Ministers there, who think that Britain has a key role to play in that country and who want us to play a key role. I also found that the electoral gains made there by radical Islamists were in the areas of greatest poverty. We clearly need to do more to eradicate the terrorists, but can we also do much more to eradicate and rehabilitate their breeding grounds?

I am sorry to sound like a stuck record, but the hon. Gentleman also makes an important point. I hope that the House can be united in making the point that those who allege in today’s newspapers that we are wasting our money by spending development funding on anti-poverty measures in Yemen are wrong. The figures that I have read out are substantial by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that they enjoy cross-party support is positive. He is right that if Yemen is to be prevented from becoming a more dangerous breeding ground for terrorism, it needs to develop the sort of life chances for people that he and I may take for granted.

At an enormous cost in loss of British human lives, we joined America in its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Before we commit even more human lives to another nightmare, should not we consider the possibility of having an independent British foreign policy?

We should certainly have a foreign policy that is decided independently by the Government and people of this country, but we should not have an isolated foreign policy that attempts to work on its own. I am proud that we are very close partners of the United States, European Union countries and a large number of countries in the Gulf, which are very concerned about the situation. The attention that we have been paying to Yemen in the past 18 months is in significant part a product of the growing concern, from 2008, of countries in the Gulf that wanted British help regarding their concerns about the situation in Yemen. We are not unwelcome helpers in Yemen, and we certainly are not trying to recolonise it. That is an important point to emphasise.

Although I welcome this short discussion about Yemen, we are only having it because of al-Qaeda. Would it not be instructive if the Government were to produce a document about the international strategy against al-Qaeda, or hold a conference in London at which international partners could be invited to talk about that? That would be better than waiting for statements about other countries in which al-Qaeda is operating that may not be in the news at the moment.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, although I think that he would be one of the first to recognise that it is wrong to talk simply about al-Qaeda and not to distinguish between its senior leadership based in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or in the Maghreb. There are distinctive issues related to al-Qaeda’s senior leadership on the one hand and its so-called franchises on the other. They are certainly worthy of study and debate, and the more the better, as far as I am concerned. However, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) made the good point that there was a meeting with parliamentarians on the situation in Yemen before the Christmas incident. The fact that there is a thriving all-party parliamentary group, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, speaks for the close links that exist between Britain and Yemen, and long may they continue.

Given that a significant proportion of terror offenders turn out to have been radicalised towards extremism here in Britain rather than in Yemen or elsewhere, should not the Prime Minister also consider calling a summit on the radicalisation towards extremism and terror that takes place here?

That is exactly what the Prevent strategy has been founded on over a number of years. A large number of meetings—I do not know whether they qualify as “summits”—have been held within Government and around the country to address precisely this issue.

I agree with the Foreign Secretary about the importance of aid in removing what I call the “scourge” of the spots where terrorism can spring up, but my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary described the Government of Yemen as fragile. Will the Foreign Secretary tell the House just how widely supported the Government of Yemen are among all the people, bearing in mind the tribal conflicts in the north and the separatist movement in the south?

Far be it from me to be a lawyer for the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), but in his defence—or at least in explanation of his position—I think that he said that Yemen was fragile, and not its Government. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) will know that President Saleh is in his second term of office, and that the constitution prohibits him from running for a third term. Parliamentary elections in Yemen are due in 2011, and they will clearly be a massive challenge. One issue that will need to be addressed is precisely those democratic elections and people’s ability to express their opinions in them. However, the number of Yemenis who are committed to violence—whether through the Houthi movement in the north or the secessionist movement in the south, and still less through links to al-Qaeda—are a very small minority.

All over the world—in Afghanistan and Pakistan and next door in Somalia, for example—our armed forces and aid budgets are stretched. Why has Britain, or perhaps the Prime Minister, chosen to take a lead in Yemen, when our resources are so stretched? Might it not be time to let the US or our other allies take a lead with regard to Yemen? Is it perhaps not a country too far?

So much for an independent foreign policy. First of all, this country has a long-standing history with Yemen, and I think that that gives us an important role there. Secondly, we are in a group of pre-eminent donors that includes the United States, the Germans, the Dutch and the Saudis, and indeed I spoke to the German Foreign Minister today. In terms of the stretch, we have been careful to make sure that, in our funding in Yemen, we spend only what we know that we are able to spend properly there. The hon. Gentleman is right that there is a range of other problems. In my view, the situation in Somalia is best addressed through the security work of AMISOM—the African Union mission in Somalia—but, on a political level, through the UN Security Council. The meeting that has been called and the other forms of co-ordination that are being established befit the situation in the Yemen rather better. History in Somalia is rather different.

The increase in international aid funding that Her Majesty’s Government have promised pales into insignificance against what the oil-rich Arab countries on the peninsula could and should provide. Should not Her Majesty’s Government make it clear to the countries on the Arabian peninsula that their priority should be dealing with potential problems from the Yemen, rather than spending millions of pounds on half-mile-high skyscrapers?

I am not sure whether it is the Government who are spending the money on the skyscrapers to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but he makes an important point. Some of the largest pledges at the 2006 conference were from Gulf countries, not western countries. It is important that those pledges are fulfilled. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East raised the question of which of those pledges had been paid, and that is a pertinent point.

The point of mentioning our aid programmes is not some vainglorious attempt to say that we have the biggest programme but to explain that there is a British commitment and it is proportionate to the sort of responsibility that we should bear. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is an issue that needs to be raised by countries of the region. I am pleased to say that in the past 18 months they have been doing so, and they have put us on alert about their needs.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the failed attempt to destroy a passenger plane at Detroit airport on Christmas day and its implications for national security. My right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will make this statement in the other place.

On 24 December, Umah Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian citizen, travelled from Lagos to Amsterdam, where he boarded Northwestern Airlines flight 253 to Detroit. As the flight was approaching Detroit on Christmas day, he detonated a device that was strapped to his upper thigh and groin area which resulted in a fire and a small explosion. He was restrained and subdued by passengers and flight crew and he remains in custody in the US.

Authorities in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Nigeria and Yemen are now doing everything they can to piece together Abdulmutallab’s movements shortly before this attack, and are considering what urgent steps need to be taken to prevent further attacks of this nature.

It is an issue of grave concern that the explosive device was not detected by airport security in either Lagos or Amsterdam. As has been widely reported, Abdulmutallab attended University college London between 2005 and 2008, where he completed a degree in engineering. During this time he was known to the Security Service but not as somebody engaged in violent extremism. His family and friends have stated their belief that he turned to this during his time in Yemen.

From the information we have currently, it is not possible to chart with absolute certainty Abdulmutallab’s exact movements after he left the UK in 2008. He is known to have spent several months studying international business at a university in Dubai and in August 2009 he travelled to Yemen, where he is thought to have stayed until December before returning to west Africa. He came to the attention of UK authorities again on 28 April 2009 when he applied for a multi-entry student visitor visa to attend an eight-day course provided by Discovery Life Coaching based in east London. The UK Border Agency refused his visa application because Discovery did not hold a valid accreditation with a UKBA-approved body and was not eligible to sponsor international students.

Since March 2009, only institutions which are either tier 4 sponsors or hold valid accreditation are permitted to bring in short-term foreign students from outside the European economic area. Universities and colleges must be able to demonstrate that they are offering genuine courses that will benefit students seeking to study in the UK. This new regime has reduced the number of institutions able to bring students to the UK from over 4,000 to approximately 2,000. Following the refusal of his application, Abdulmutallab’s name was added to the UKBA watch list.

In the light of the serious questions that this incident has raised, I want to set out today, first, the immediate steps that we are taking to tighten aviation security, secondly, what measures we are taking to prevent radicalisation in our universities, and thirdly the actions we are taking to disrupt al-Qaeda in countries where it is known to be active, in order to prevent future terrorist attacks, and to improve co-operation with our international partners.

It is of great concern that Abdulmutallab was able to penetrate airport security at Amsterdam. The device he used had clearly been constructed with the precise aim of making detection by existing screening methods extremely difficult.

Abdulmutallab underwent a security check at Schipol airport in Amsterdam, as do all passengers transferring from Nigeria to another flight. Although Schipol airport is trialling body scanners, they were not in use for that flight. He passed through a metal detection gate, which would have detected objects such as explosive devices with metallic components, and knives and firearms. However, certain types of explosive, without metallic parts and which can also concealed next to the body, cannot be detected by that technology, which is the reason why airports also search passengers at random.

To defeat the terrorist threat requires constant vigilance and adaptability. A great deal of progress has been made in enhancing aviation and border security since 9/11; but terrorists are inventive, the scale and nature of the threat changes, and new technology needs to be harnessed to meet new threats, while minimising inconvenience to passengers.

Last year, we issued new public guidance to the industry on our technical requirements for screening and the detection of improvised explosive devices. The Prime Minister instigated an urgent review of airport security following the incident in Detroit. My noble friend the Secretary of State for Transport and I have been intensively engaged in the review, and we are today setting out our initial steps.

It is clear that no one measure will be enough to defeat inventive and determined terrorists, and there is no single technology that we can guarantee will be 100 per cent. effective against such attacks. Airport security is multifaceted and needs to adapt constantly to evolving threats. We therefore intend to make changes to our aviation security regime.

Air passengers are already used to being searched by hand, and having their baggage tested for traces of explosives. The Government will direct airports to increase the proportion of passengers searched in that way. There may be some additional delays as airports adapt, but I am sure the travelling public will appreciate the reasons behind this.

The Transport Secretary has brought into force new restrictions that tighten up security screening for transit passengers, and is reviewing the support we provide for security standards in airports operating direct flights to the UK. Passengers will see an increased presence of detection or sniffer dogs at airports to add to our explosives detection capability.

We also intend to introduce more body scanners. The first scanners will be deployed in around three weeks at Heathrow. Over time, they will be introduced more widely, and we will be requiring all UK airports to introduce explosive trace detection equipment by the end of the year. We are discussing urgently with the airport industry the best way of doing all this, which will include a code of practice dealing with the operational and privacy issues involved.

BAA has started training airport security staff in behavioural analysis techniques, which will help them to spot passengers acting unusually and target them for additional search. Beyond that, we are examining carefully whether additional targeted passenger profiling might help to enhance airport security. We will be considering all the issues involved, mindful of civil liberties concerns, aware that identity-based profiling has its limitations, but conscious of our overriding obligations to protect people’s life and liberty.

These measures build on the substantial progress we have made in recent years to strengthen our borders. The roll-out of e-Borders, which will check passengers, including those in transit, against the watch list, will be 95 per cent. complete by the end of this year, and makes us one of only a handful of countries to have the technology that can carry out advanced passenger data checks against our watch list before people travel to the UK. Those who apply for a visa—whether they do so from Bangkok, Lahore or Pretoria—have to provide fingerprints and their records are checked against our watch list, which holds over a million records of known criminals, terrorists, people who have tried to enter the country illegally or been deported, and those who agencies consider a threat to our security.

Through the e-Borders programme and through screening passengers against the watch list, we have since 2005 made 4,900 arrests for crimes including murder, rape and assault. In addition, UK Border Agency staff based overseas, working with airlines, prevented more than 65,000 inadequately documented passengers from travelling to the UK during 2009.

Abdulmutallab’s failed attack highlights the importance of information sharing between the various agencies about people who pose a threat to our security. The UK watch list is managed by the UK Border Agency and incorporates intelligence from the law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies into a single index. Nevertheless, although the integrated approach works very well, we want to see if we can further strengthen it. The Home Office will therefore be conducting an urgent review of the robustness of our watch list. The review will report to me in two weeks and, subject to security restrictions, I will report the findings to Parliament.

The House will no doubt be concerned about the possibility that Abdulmutallab’s radicalisation may have begun or been fuelled during his time studying at University college London. It is important to remember that the values of openness, intellectual scrutiny and the freedom of debate and tolerance promoted in higher education are one of the most effective ways of challenging views which we may find abhorrent but that remain within the law.

However, we know that a small minority of people supporting violent extremism have actively sought to influence and recruit people through targeting learners in colleges and universities, and we must offer universities the best advice and guidance to help prevent extremism. As part of a measured and effective response to the threat, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has published guidance on managing the risk of violent extremism in universities, and is working closely with universities in priority areas to provide targeted support.

Alongside this, each university has a designated police security contact with which university management can discuss concerns. The Prevent strand of Contest, our counter-terrorism strategy, works closely with the higher and further education sectors and funds a full-time Prevent officer at the National Union of Students. As I have said, Abdulmutallab’s family believe he turned to violent extremism after leaving the UK, but we need to ensure that this close co-operation continues in our efforts to stop radicalisation of young people in our colleges and universities.

Finally, I want to say something about our work internationally and the steps that the Government are taking abroad to disrupt al-Qaeda wherever they are active. Our success in tackling the international terror threat depends on strong relationships with our international partnerships. In our efforts to thwart al-Qaeda, we have a long-standing, productive partnership with the US.

I am not prepared to go into detail on this particular case about what was shared with the US and when. It is an established and accepted principle that we do not routinely comment on intelligence matters. Moreover, some of these issues are still current and are highly sensitive. However, I would like to clarify that although we did, in line with standard working procedures, provide information to the US linked to the wider aspects of this case, none of the information that we held or shared indicated that Abdulmutallab was about to attempt a terrorist attack against the US.

This morning, I met Jane Lute, the US Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security. We discussed how over the coming months, in the light of this failed attack, we will work together with other international partners to maintain public confidence in aviation security and deepen our partnership to disrupt al-Qaeda’s activities overseas. Pushed out of Afghanistan and under increasing pressure in the border areas of Pakistan, affiliates and allies of al-Qaeda—such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group claiming responsibility for the Detroit bombing—have raised their profile. With the failed Detroit attack they have again demonstrated their intent to attack innocent people across the world.

The aim of our counter-terrorism strategy is not just to reduce our own vulnerability, but to dismantle those terrorist organisations which pose a threat to the UK, whether at home or abroad.

Al-Qaeda will take any opportunity to exploit ungoverned space and instability. Whether the threat is in the Sahel, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq or Afghanistan, we must support Governments and work with partners to address both the threat of attack and the underlying causes of extremism and instability. We have been working with the Yemeni Government, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary just said, for a number of years, helping to improve their law-enforcement, intelligence and security apparatus, and to disrupt al-Qaeda and deny them a safe haven in Yemen for the future. We are also one of the leading donors on development in the country—our current commitment standing at £100 million by 2011.

We recognise the need to strengthen further our partnership with countries in the region and beyond so that we can co-ordinate our efforts against al-Qaeda more effectively and provide greater support for the Yemeni people to reject violent extremism. International co-operation is critical to meeting what is a global threat, and the coming together of the international community in London later this month to discuss Yemen will be an important step towards security in Yemen and across the globe.

It is important to reiterate that the incident was a failed attack on the US by a Nigerian national—someone who was refused entry to the UK and who, it seems, was radicalised after he left this country. However, there are lessons to be learned by the international community, and the measures that I have outlined will provide the UK with greater protection from terrorist attack. Along with our work overseas and with our international partners, enhanced airport security and more thorough collation of intelligence, we will be able to strengthen our efforts to tackle the root cause of violent extremism and reduce the threat of future attack.

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for providing me with an advance copy of his statement. I shall start with airport security.

We all accept that as we learn the lessons from the recent plot, happily an unsuccessful one, additional security measures will have to be taken. The use of more sophisticated scanning technologies is inevitable, although we will have to make sure that sensible measures are taken to protect privacy. However, the Home Secretary’s statement is ambiguous about scanners, so will he clarify whether he plans to make full-body scanners compulsory at all UK airports? He talked about e-Borders, so will he also clarify the situation with the European Union over the use of the e-Borders project? Will there be European legal restrictions on the use of the e-Borders database?

We believe that it is necessary to take a more intelligence-led approach to airport security, as well as to watch carefully for suspicious behaviour by passengers, so the Government will have our support in taking prudent measures to protect passengers. Those matters of judgment must be kept under constant review, even if there is public attention only when the security measures are challenged.

However, the person who should be before the House explaining himself this afternoon is not the Home Secretary but the Prime Minister. Twice in three days the Prime Minister has been caught out making false claims about the contacts that have taken place between Britain and the United States over the airline bomb plot and the security threat to our airports. On Sunday he admitted to the BBC that supposed discussions between himself and President Obama about the bomb plot and the situation in Yemen had not actually taken place. Then, yesterday, he claimed that Britain had supplied to the United States in 2008 intelligence about the bomb suspect and his links to extremists—a claim that Downing Street now admits was untrue. This Government, the House will remember, have systematically misused intelligence data over the years, most notably in relation to the so-called dodgy dossier. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is absolutely unacceptable for the Prime Minister—the man who leads our Government—to exaggerate, mislead on or spin intelligence information, particularly when it relates to a terrorist threat?

The Home Secretary told the House this afternoon: “It is an established and accepted principle that we do not routinely comment on intelligence matters.” Why did the Prime Minister and Downing street break that principle this week? Does the Home Secretary agree also that it is damaging to our most important intelligence relationship, with the United States, for Downing street to disseminate information in such an inaccurate and cavalier way?

The entire House will be relieved that on this occasion the bomb plot was unsuccessful. It will serve as a strong reminder to Governments across the world of the ever-present terrorist threat and the fact that we all need to remain vigilant about that threat as well as united in a determination to defeat it.

It is also worth saying that the threat from a small group of Islamic extremists in no way represents the views and beliefs of the vast majority of decent, law-abiding Muslim people in this country and around the world. People of all faiths have been victims of terrorists over the past decade, and we must all stand together against that threat. However, that task has not been helped by the actions of Downing street in recent days.

I regret the fact that the hon. Gentleman uses this very tense time to score cheap party political points. I saw lots of faces among those on the Conservative Benches looking appalled that this situation should be used to make a personal attack on the Prime Minister.

The hon. Gentleman made only three points that I believe are relevant to this issue. First, on the number of full-body scanners, we now need to work with the airline industry to decide how many of these scanners we can have and where we can locate them. As I said, we will have the first ready at Heathrow within three weeks. Thereafter, they will become much more widely available in terms of the capacity to manufacture them and put them in place and the need to get from the various airline companies their authority, agreement and input.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the EU situation. That was clarified just before Christmas when, thankfully, the Commission agreed that there were no Community issues about the transfer of information. That obviously still requires the countries transferring the information to agree their data-processing techniques, but there is no EU issue; that is what the Commission was originally looking at.

The third point was about our use of intelligence and our co-operation with the United States. As I said, the Prime Minister was absolutely right that we did share information with the US. We do not routinely comment on the nature of such information or the information itself. None of that information suggested that Abdulmutallab was planning a terrorist plot. Incidentally, as I mentioned, I met Jane Lute, the Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security, this morning, and she did not mention this matter at all. We spoke about the productive way we can work together to deal with these issues. There is absolutely no relationship in the world stronger than the relationship between the UK and the US, particularly on counter-terrorism, where we work closely together and will continue to do so in the light of this latest threat.

I, too, thank the Home Secretary for early sight of his statement.

The Home Secretary’s announcement that scanners are to be rolled out quickly at British airports is certainly welcome. However, his statement raises several questions. First, can he confirm that such scanners would have been effective in detecting the substances carried by Umah Farouk Abdulmutallab? Secondly, why has it taken him so long to act, given that these scanners have already been trialled and that four are reported to be in storage at Heathrow? Thirdly, will he respect those who may have a deep-felt objection to the scanners by allowing them to opt instead for a body-pat search, for example as part of his code of conduct? What assurance will he give that images of children and others will not be stored?

The Home Secretary opens the door to profiling, but what does this mean? If he means additional searches for those with suspicious travel patterns, then I am sure that I speak for everybody in this House when I ask who could object? But if he means stopping everyone who looks Asian, then I fear that he will alienate exactly those communities whose co-operation we need in the fight against terrorism. Which is it?

Then there is information sharing, which the Home Secretary really cannot dismiss by saying that the Government do not comment on intelligence matters, particularly in the light of recent events in Downing street. Can he confirm the account of a Downing street spokesman that Britain told US intelligence more than a year ago that the Detroit bomber had links to extremists? Can he confirm—this is not an intelligence matter—that the US was informed after that person was placed on a UK watch list? In the light of those contradictions and the open spat with our closest ally, what measures are the Government taking to improve liaison with the United States, or possibly with the Prime Minister’s press operation?

Given that the Detroit bomber transited through Schiphol, were the Dutch authorities notified bilaterally of our concerns at any point? Had we shared our information with our European partners through either Europol or other routes, and what mechanism is there for one EU country to become aware of such intelligence on a suspected radical held or collected by another EU country? Do we routinely share information about our watch lists with our European counterparts even for passengers who are only in transit? In the light of the attempted attack, do those systems need to be improved?

On whether scanners would have been effective in relation to Abdulmutallab, the indications are that given where the PETN was placed, there would have been a 50 to 60 per cent. chance of its being detected. That is the view of most people who operate the scanners, so the scanners themselves are not the magic bullet. A British company, Smiths Industries, is developing the technology all the time, and we need the next wave of technology with explosive detection as well as body imaging to move ahead very quickly.

I do not accept that we took a long time to act. This happened on Christmas day, and over the Christmas period my colleague the Secretary of State for Transport has been discussing with the airlines the availability of equipment. There was one body scanner at Manchester and a number have been mothballed in Heathrow on a trial basis, but whether they are serviceable or need to be updated has been the subject of the conversation. Today’s announcement is the earliest possible time to get moving.

The issue of privacy will be important, but all the images are destroyed immediately and the person responsible for the scanning is in a completely separate room, as anybody who has seen the system in Manchester or the version in Glasgow operating will know, so there is no immediate contact between the person doing the imaging and the person being imaged. Privacy considerations are important, but I believe that we can ensure that those who have concerns can be satisfied. I do not foresee a situation in which people can simply object to a body scan. We need to use the scanners perhaps not as the first line of our defence but as the second line, on a random basis.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the important issue of profiling. I said in my statement that I recognised the sensitivities of that matter. Anyone can examine the case of Anne Mary Murphy in 1986, who was a pregnant woman inveigled by her Syrian boyfriend to carry a bomb on to a flight to London. She would not have matched any profile, and in the case of someone like Richard Reid the name would not have alerted anyone. Nevertheless, whether we can deal with sensitivity issues must be part of our consideration of any defence that we can find to address the gap in our defences that Abdulmutallab found, although he was thankfully unsuccessful. We need to consider profiling while recognising the concerns and civil rights issues involved.

We share information all the time on a routine basis, and the US shares information with us. We did not inform the US that Abdulmutallab was on our watch list having been refused a student visa, because the case was not conducted with any concern that he was coming over to commit a terrorism incident. It was an immigration issue, and we would not share such information routinely with the US. We share other information with the US, and we share it routinely with our European partners, although if there were concerns about terrorism we would not wait for a watch list and for the plane to be taking off. It is outside Europe that we have the problem; as the hon. Gentleman well knows, we have a close relationship within the EU, which means that we deal with such security issues straight away. We do not wait for people to come to an airport and try to get on a plane to another country.

rose—

Order. No fewer than 16 hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. As always, I should like to accommodate everybody, and the numbers should be perfectly manageable. I simply remind the House that there are two further statements to follow, and I reiterate my usual appeal for each hon. Member to ask a single, short supplementary question and, of course, for the Home Secretary to provide us with an economical reply.

The Home Affairs Committee recently visited both Heathrow and Schiphol, and the Home Secretary is right to consult the airlines and be measured in his response. Of course, in principle, we should have the body scanners, but international co-operation is the most important aspect. I accept what he says about sharing information, but are there any more lessons to be learned about how we can improve the situation?

Doubtless there are. I recognise my right hon. Friend’s expertise in the matter. In some countries, there are separate watch lists for security, for policing and crime, for people who have lost their passports and for immigration issues, but an integrated watch list serves us well. With e-Borders continually coming on stream, we can deal with the matter before the person has taken off. That is important, given that Abdulmutallab was not trying to enter a country, but to blow himself up before he landed. Whether he was in transit or his destination was this country did not therefore matter. We need to ensure the tightest possible control. Although it all worked well, I would be the last person to appear complacent. As the Prime Minister said, the incident is a wake-up call—every failed terrorist attempt must be picked to pieces so that we find anything that we can use to strengthen our defences. We intend to do that.

Terrorists watch very carefully the technology that we deploy. Does the Home Secretary realise that the term “scanners” covers a wide range of things? Some use millimetre technology; others use terahertz; some require one to go through a box, and others can scan remotely in airport lounges or railway stations. Will the Government please institute a research programme? Several British companies are involved in such research, but the Government never pull through new technologies. We need to stay ahead of the terrorists, not deploy after an incident.

The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point. I do not accept that we have been slow in dealing with this. We are due to meet Smiths Industries shortly, and the document that Lord West, our security Minister, produced in August 2009 was specifically aimed at the scientific community and innovators to get things moving and find new ways to deal with such matters. It is important to stress that there is a great deal of British technology that we can exploit. We need to ensure that we get the right body scanners—that is one reason for talking to the airlines. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a variety of scanners, and we need to use the most effective.

I refer the House to my interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome in particular the way in which the Home Secretary emphasised that there is no magic bullet for solving the problems. I say that in the light of recent media comments, particularly about full body scanners, which still require standardised procedures, are still in trials and so on. A range of search procedures and technologies is required. Above all, as the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) said, constant innovation in our thinking must be embedded in everything that we do. Will the Home Secretary therefore build on Lord West’s good work and ensure that a partnership of the Government, academia and private industry is given more resources so that we can we stay ahead of the curve and the terrorists’ thinking in introducing new ways of terror?

My right hon. Friend largely makes the same point as the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor). I agree with it. It is perhaps another reason for redoubling our efforts to stay ahead of the terrorists. We will not deal with the matter through body scanners alone. Every day, sniffer dogs come into the Chamber, looking for PETN. Behavioural detection is another method, but even with all the techniques we can use, we can never guarantee 100 per cent. safety—there is no magic bullet. However, a lot of people out there are willing to innovate, work and provide equipment and the technological capacity that can move us to the next level. That is the main lesson of Detroit on 25 December.

The Home Secretary is the lead on homeland security, but will he acknowledge the debt we owe to the Ministry of Defence personnel and the scientific civil servants working at defence science and technology laboratories at Porton Down in my constituency, and particularly at the Counter Terrorism Science and Technology Centre, who are responsible for the day-by-day innovation that goes on in science and technology? Will he talk to the Ministry of Defence, which has tremendous budget problems, to ensure not only that there is no cut in the defence budget as it affects Porton Down, but that quite the reverse happens? Porton Down should have all the resources it needs to counter terrorism.

The hon. Gentleman is a great advocate for Porton Down. I am talking to the Defence Secretary. This is a cross-Government initiative. All the relevant Departments are working together on this, using all the agencies at their disposal, Porton Down being one of them.

Aviation is international. What new steps are being taken to link intelligence information with the best attainable system of security at individual airports?

My hon. Friend is the Chairman of the Transport Committee, and I know that she has taken a great interest in this issue. I talked to Jane Lute this morning—she is the US Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security—about the best way to have an international gathering to discuss the lessons emerging from this and we are still talking things through. There was a view that we should perhaps get a gathering of Ministers together next week in Brussels. Actually, the opportunity under the Spanish presidency, which is very interested in this matter, comes up in a few weeks’ time. More and more we are centring on that as the opportunity to get Transport Ministers, homeland security Ministers and perhaps Defence Ministers together to talk about an integrated programme as to how we can act internationally.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this will not be solved by us nationally, by its very definition—a Nigerian coming from Nigeria through Holland to bomb Detroit has ramifications for a much wider set of countries. We need to deal with this matter internationally, which is what we intend to do.

Who authorised the Downing street spokesman to brief so emphatically that information about the Detroit bomber had been passed to the Americans before the bombing?

I am not getting into who authorised whom to say what. What the Prime Minister said about us exchanging information with the US was absolutely right. As I said in my statement, none of that information remotely suggested that Abdulmutallab was planning an attack on Detroit.

One resource we could use better is the eyes and ears of the travelling public. Will my right hon. Friend consider creating a central reporting point for members of the public who spot lapses in security in airports from which they are travelling to the UK?

I will consider my hon. Friend’s suggestion. Of course, there are plenty of opportunities for people to report such things. There was a programme over Christmas about the 999 emergency service being used spuriously, but certainly for anyone who has the slightest fear that there is a security problem, that is one course of action, and there are others. He makes a good point, and we will look at whether we can make it easier for the travelling public to report any suspicions they have.

As the Home Secretary is no doubt aware, the only UK airport to be subject to terrorist attack is in Scotland—Glasgow airport. Can Scottish airports therefore expect to be among the first in line for full-body scanners? Will he assure me that he will be working hand in glove with the Scottish Government to ensure that Scottish airports are as safe as possible?

I can assure the hon. Gentleman on both those points. We need to talk to the airlines about which airports are first. I believe that Heathrow will feature, given the huge amount of transit—we are talking about transit passengers as well because, as we should remember, Abdulmutallab was a transit passenger in Holland and was not searched properly—but other airports, including Glasgow, will be very much part of the discussion. Indeed, I believe discussions with the Scottish Government have already started.

We are obviously concerned today with the immediate threats, but may I pass on a warning to the Home Secretary from constituents of mine who have worked their whole lives in Heathrow airport, and the Unite union, that there has been talk of introducing competition between terminals? Will he ensure that security always comes before competition?

I can give that assurance, although I am not sure what my hon. Friend means about competition. Security, whether at terminal 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, is the absolute priority, not competition between terminals.

In the wake of the failed bombing, many in the intelligence community have expressed concerns about the activities of schools—or karatus—in northern Nigeria and the role that they play in radicalising young men and preparing them for jihad. In the international strand of the Home Secretary’s work, which he mentioned in his statement, can he confirm that those schools will be swept up in that and that he has had discussions with his counterparts in the Foreign Office to ensure that those schools are properly addressed?

Again, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Of course, Abdulmutallab himself went to a British school, but it is an important issue that I need to discuss with the Foreign Secretary to ensure that we are doing everything that we can, not just on airport security, but—as I said in my statement—to prevent radicalisation taking place in the first instance, whether in this country or abroad.

There have been some interesting proposals about investing in research on the technology required to detect terror. Although the Home Secretary acknowledged in his statement the risks of identity-based profiling, I am concerned that we will not have sufficiently robust research into the effects of such profiling on young Asian or Muslim men who think that they are expected to behave in a certain way and therefore think, “Why don’t I?” Can he assure the House that robust research will be done on the potential consequences of identity-based profiling before any such proposal is introduced?

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance, but behavioural detection is different from profiling. Behavioural detection is used by British Transport police, who are trained in it, to observe individuals and how they act around uniformed officers as a preliminary to a possible search or questioning. On profiling, I recognise not only the sensitivities and civil liberties issues that were raised by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, but the possibility that the terrorists—who, as we have said, are one step ahead—will use our main weapon against them to their advantage by using people who do not fit the profile, such as pregnant women or old gentlemen like me. That is the other danger of profiling, and we need to be very careful. I am acutely aware of that, but it would be strange if, in response to Detroit, we did not thoroughly explore all the different elements and options—some of which may be discarded.

This is a bit rich from this Government who year on year have cut the research budget that allowed our law enforcement agencies to stay at least one step ahead of the terrorists. When I developed the millimetre wave with the team at QinetiQ, before I came into this House, we had to go to the Americans to get the funding because the Government cut it. What concrete extra resources will the Home Secretary put into the further development of technologies and manning at airports to ensure that our borders are more secure?

I know that the hon. Gentleman has some experience in this field, but I just do not understand the criticism of this Government for what we have invested in science. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) is no longer in his place, but he has continually praised the Government for the 10-year science and innovation project and the fact that, when I was Secretary of State at the old Department of Trade and Industry, more than half of my budget was for science. It was also ring-fenced, which was frustrating at times because I could not touch it for other things. Criticise this Government for many things, but do not criticise us for our investment in science.

How will my right hon. Friend consult on and communicate any changes that are made in profiling? It is very difficult, because changes need to be made in a way that does not trigger people’s knowledge that we are doing such things, but it is also important to avoid unnecessary community tensions.

I take my hon. Friend’s point. There would be no benefit in even studying the use of profiling if we were not talking to groups representing different ethnic minorities in this country. We have to take them along with us on this. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) actually supports the use of profiling, and there will be different views in different communities and ethnic minorities. All I am saying is that it would be irresponsible not to look at whether profiling can play a part in strengthening our defences.

If we are to search people more thoroughly and introduce body scanners, we will need far more space and personnel at our airports. Given that most of our airports seem to be crammed full of duty-free boutiques, will the Home Secretary make it clear to airport operators that security matters have to come first?

I see an advantage for our alcohol policy coming up here. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is inviting me to change the use of space at airports. This is one of the important discussions that we have to have with airport authorities and airlines: physically how we can do this properly with the minimum of inconvenience to the public and ensure that people can go about their daily business. That is an important part of these discussions.

May we have stronger action to deport immediately those people in this country suspected of promoting extremism and of becoming radicalised? May we include in that list those who would hold offensive marches?

We always keep such issues under review. As I said in my statement, it is important that we do not take action simply because people have views that we find abhorrent but which are not illegal. We are a democracy, and there needs to be proper debate on our university campuses. It would be totally counter-productive for us to be heavy-handed in that respect. Through the Prevent strategy we are strengthening institutions, helping individuals and providing information, facts and advice to those who want to counter some of these radical views. As part of that, of course, we deport, and seek to deport, lots of people; many are queuing up for deportation at the moment. However, in a democracy, they have their right to judicial review and to go to the European Court. All of that, of course, is important, but at the end of the day they will be deported, providing we have done our job properly.

Given the strong links that Umah Farouk Abdulmutallab had with Britain, can the Home Secretary tell us whether, in due course, the British police will have an opportunity to question him, particularly with a view to ascertaining any continuing links that he might have with Britons and what those links are all about?

All I can say at this stage is that two Metropolitan police officers are working with the FBI in America on the case. As the hon. Gentleman will have seen on his television screen over Christmas, the police took immediate action in this country. We do not comment on current police operations, and we will have to wait for them to come to a conclusion. That might well involve the British police wishing to ask questions, but we will have to see how the operation goes.

I have had e-mails from constituents expressing concern about health risks and dignity as a result of the use of the scanners. Can the Home Secretary say anything on the public record to reassure people about such matters?

My understanding is that there is less radiation from a body scanner than from the flight itself. On privacy, as I have mentioned, we can probably think and do more, but at the moment all the images are destroyed immediately and the person operating the machine is remote from the person being scanned, which means that there is no face-to-face contact—they are anonymous while being scanned. However, it is difficult to get around the privacy issues, given where Abdulmutallab was trying to hide his explosives. If that is how terrorists seek to get around such issues, obviously we might have to be a little less delicate about privacy if we are to counter the threat effectively.

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement about December’s Copenhagen climate change conference, at which I represented the United Kingdom alongside my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Today I want to report back to the House and set out where we go next in the global battle against climate change.

Let me say at the outset that the outcome of Copenhagen was disappointing in a number of respects. We are disappointed that Copenhagen did not establish a clear timetable for a legal treaty and that we do not yet have the commitments to cuts in emissions that we were looking for. However, I also want to report to the House the significant progress that the accord agreed at Copenhagen marks and explain how we can build on the progress that was made.

The Copenhagen accord, which is available in the Library, was agreed by a group representing 49 developed and developing countries that together account for more than 80 per cent. of global emissions. The key points of the accord are as follows. It endorses the limit of 2° C in warming as the benchmark for global progress on climate change. Unlike with every previous agreement, not just developed, but all leading developing countries have agreed to make specific commitments to tackling emissions, to be lodged in the agreement by 31 January.

Also for the first time, so that we can be assured that countries are acting as they say they will act, all countries have signed up to the comprehensive measurement, reporting and verification of progress. On finance, significant commitments have been made by the rich world to developing countries. They include fast-start finance worth $10 billion a year by 2012, with a total of up to $2.4 billion from the UK, and specific support to tackle deforestation. In the longer term, the accord supported the goal, first set by the Prime Minister, of $100 billion a year of public and private finance for developing countries by 2020.

By any measure, those are important steps forward, but we know that the world needs to go much further. We need more certainty and a greater scale of ambition. So the urgent task ahead is to broaden, deepen and strengthen the commitments that were made in Copenhagen, drawing on the large coalition of countries that wanted more from the agreement. Broadening the commitments is vital. Forty-nine countries signing up to the agreement is not enough. To tackle the global problem, we need a wider group. The United Nations is seeking to persuade all countries to sign up to the accord, and the UK is determined to play its part in making that happen.

In addition, we must act to deepen the commitments on emissions made by countries across the world. Lord Stern has shown that if nations make the biggest emissions cuts in the range that they have put forward, we can be within striking distance of the two-degree pathway that we need, including with the peaking of global emissions by 2020. We know that that is in our economic as well as our environmental interests. Greater certainty about emissions is necessary to provide the strongest incentive to business, including through the carbon price. So we will work to persuade other countries that we all need to show the highest levels of ambition on emissions as part of the commitments that we make. For Europe, provided that there is high ambition from others, that means carrying forward our commitment to moving from 20 to 30 per cent. reductions by 2020 compared with 1990. We must also act to strengthen the accord, including by continuing our efforts to secure a legally binding framework. In taking on clear commitments and actions, we should recognise how far major developing countries have come in the past year. However, we must also seek to allay their concern that they will be constrained from growth and development by the demands of a legal treaty.

We must draw on the coalition between some of the world’s richest developed countries and some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable developing countries, such as Ethiopia and the Maldives, all of which want a legally binding structure. Strengthening the accord also means that richer countries must make good on the promises made on fast-start finance and show that we can fully fund the longer-term goal of $100 billion, one of the tasks for the high-level panel on sources of revenue that was agreed in the accord.

Those efforts to make progress on substance must, in our view, be accompanied by reform of the process of decision making. The conference was held up by disagreements over procedure: which text negotiators should look at and whether, as in Kyoto, a representative group of countries could be formed to avoid having to discuss everything in a plenary of 192 nations. Those disputes about process meant that it was not until 3 am on Friday, the last day of a two-week conference, that substantive negotiations began on what became the Copenhagen accord. By then there was simply too little time to bridge some of the differences that existed. We need to find better ways of running the process of negotiation, so I welcome the UN Secretary-General’s decision to look again at those issues.

We also welcome the decision by Chancellor Merkel to host a conference as part of the mid-year negotiations in Bonn, and we will work with the incoming Mexican presidency, which will be hosting the next conference in November. But dialogue and negotiations need to restart before June—something I made clear to Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the convention on climate change when I met him in London just before Christmas.

In looking back at Copenhagen, we must bear in mind that reaching agreement would inevitably be tough because we were seeking consensus among 192 countries. Like most ambitious efforts, it was always going to be difficult to succeed the first time round. However, we should not let frustration with the two weeks at Copenhagen—albeit justified—obscure the historic shift that this past year has marked.

I want to pay tribute in particular to the enormous effort of those in the UK, from the scientific community, civil society, British business and the general public, who have mobilised on climate change. Their ideas and energy helped to drive us forward over the past 12 months and during the Copenhagen conference itself. Let me assure them and the House that we are determined to strengthen and sustain the momentum behind the low-carbon transition in the UK. Building on our low-carbon transition plan, our world-leading policy on coal and our plans for nuclear, we will be making further announcements in the coming weeks and months on energy generation, household energy efficiency and transport. Following Copenhagen, as part of the work already ongoing on the road map to 2050, we are looking at whether further action is necessary to meet our low-carbon obligations, and we will report back by the time of the Budget. This will include looking at the advice of the Committee on Climate Change published last autumn.

Internationally, thanks in large part to the deadline of Copenhagen and the mobilisation behind it, every major economy of the world now has domestic policy goals and commitments to limit its greenhouse gas emissions, including the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, South Africa and, of course, the EU. Throughout the world, policy is now set to improve energy efficiency, to increase investment in low-carbon power, to develop hybrid and electric vehicles and smart grids, and to reduce deforestation.

So although Copenhagen did not meet our expectations, 2009 did see the start of a new chapter in tackling climate change across the world. This global shift might not yet have found international legal form, but scientific evidence, public opinion and business opportunity have made it irreversible. In 2010 and in the years ahead, this Government—and, I am sure, the vast majority in this House—are determined to ensure that we redouble our efforts to complete the unfinished business of Copenhagen.

Climate change remains the biggest global challenge to humankind, and it requires a global solution. We owe it to our children, their children and the generations to come to find it. The work has started, it will continue this year, and I believe that it will succeed. The fight against climate change will be won. I commend this statement to the House.

I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his statement, and for the briefing that he kindly gave me in advance of the Copenhagen summit. It is disappointing that the Prime Minister is not making this statement, however. He missed questions in the House in order to go to Copenhagen early, and it is surprising that he has chosen not to report to the House on what he accomplished there. The Secretary of State and I share the view that we need to see global action on climate change. If Copenhagen showed one thing, it was that the discussions should not end there, and that they must continue.

Before Copenhagen, we said that a rigorous deal should achieve three things. The first was a commitment to limiting warming to 2° C. The second was a clear focus on adapting to climate change and on finding a dependable mechanism to finance that. The third was urgent action to preserve the rain forests. On the first, the 2° C proposal was noted, as the Secretary of State said, but the accord is completely unclear about when emissions should be cut, and by how much. On the second, it is welcome that adaptation was so prominent in the discussions, but there is no clarity on the sources of finance. On the rain forests, there was once again discussion of the issue, but nothing that could be meaningfully described as a political deal, let alone a legal framework. By any objective assessment, therefore, Copenhagen was a flop.

The question is: how do we move on from here? I wonder whether the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, in this statement today and their remarks before Christmas, have reflected deeply enough on the implications of the outcome of Copenhagen. The Prime Minister has volunteered to lead a global campaign to make the Copenhagen accord legally binding, but what precisely is it that he would make legally binding? The accord is essentially an agreement to disagree, defined chiefly by what is absent from it. It contains nothing to indicate the scale or the timing of the carbon reductions required of the world, or indeed of any particular country. Is it still the Prime Minister’s intention to lead such a global campaign for ratification?

In the days after the conference, the Prime Minister said that the negotiations had been held to ransom by only a handful of countries, and that that must never be allowed to happen again. The Secretary of State clarified that this included China, but has he not missed a big point here? Does he not see that Copenhagen requires us to face up to what I think is an uncomfortable reality, so to blame China, India and other countries for wrecking a deal is futile because no meaningful global deal can be done without them? Do we not need to understand why these nations considered a real deal to be against the interests of their own people? This view is reflected in their insistence on including in the final text the declaration that

“social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first and over-riding priorities of developing countries”.

In other words, the implication is that attacking climate change ranks, for them, below these priorities.

This revealed preference on the part of India, China and other parts of the developing world cannot simply be overlooked or assumed away. The People’s Daily reported that the Chinese Government would treat talks in 2010 on a binding global deal as a struggle over “the right to develop”. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that the central issue is now how cutting current and future emissions can be shown to be compatible with development? Does he agree that for developed and developing countries alike, becoming less dependent on fossil fuels, using energy more productively and damaging the environment less is a pathway that can enhance the prospects for economic development, for prosperity through trade and for the reduction of poverty? If he does, will he accept that we now urgently need a new politics of climate change—one that can convince both around the negotiating table, as it failed to do in Copenhagen, and in the court of public opinion that the action we must take to guarantee the stability of the climate in the long term is also in the interests of both rich and poor in the short term?

Does the Secretary of State agree that three shifts from how Copenhagen was conducted are required—first, the case for action should always be based on practical rather than ideological grounds; secondly, action must not be presented in sacrificial terms, but as a set of economic and wider opportunities; and, thirdly, leaders and Ministers must see it as their mission to persuade and to unify rather than to denounce and divide?

I slightly regret the tone of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. I welcomed the cross-party support for the Government’s work at Copenhagen, from the hon. Gentleman himself and from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches—and, indeed, from the Leader of the Opposition and from the leader of the Liberal Democrat party. All of us who went to Copenhagen sought to get the best agreement we could and I believe that we can build on the accord that was reached. Petty and partisan remarks about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and others, however, really do not become the hon. Gentleman.

Let me deal now with the hon. Gentleman’s specific points. On the question of the accord and whether there should be a global campaign for it, I believe it is necessary to seek to encourage more countries to sign up to it. It is not just me that thinks that, as the President of the Maldives, Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia and a coalition of developing and developed countries signed up to the accord. It is not an agreement to disagree. I said clearly in my remarks that it is a matter of regret that the emissions reductions were not lodged at the time of the agreement, but they will be lodged by 31 January, and I hope that those will be targets. I mentioned all the countries that have targets and we can build on that, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not understand that these will be lodged as part of the agreement by the end of January. As I say, it is something on which we can build. That is my first point to the hon. Gentleman.

On the second point, of course developing countries emphasise the overriding importance of development. Indeed, the words that the hon. Gentleman cited were taken either from the Kyoto treaty or the Rio convention, which both emphasised the overriding priority of development for developing countries. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of how we talked about Copenhagen. When he or I talked about Copenhagen, we did not talk about it simply in sacrificial terms; we talked about it as being good for our economies. We did not talk about it simply in ideological terms either; we talked about what countries could gain from it and we talked about how it could unite rich and poor nations alike.

I am all for slogans about the need for a new politics of climate change and all that, although I will have to talk to the hon. Gentleman at some point about what that means. I think it best to build on the progress made at Copenhagen—although it was disappointing—and, more important, the progress made over the last year, and to use the opportunities that we shall have in the coming year to secure the agreement that we did not secure at Copenhagen.

I attended the Copenhagen conference in my capacity as the Council of Europe’s rapporteur on climate change. May I offer my congratulations to my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister—as did many people at Copenhagen—on the leading role that they played in bringing about the Copenhagen accord? The Opposition clearly do not understand that, as at Kyoto, an agreement was reached in principle and the details will come later during years of negotiations. That is called the process of the United Nations. We did not secure a legal UN agreement because—as the House knows, and as I have constantly said—it was never possible to secure a legally binding agreement at Copenhagen. The matter will be decided in the negotiations.

May I ask my right hon. Friend, who will be involved in those negotiations, to take into account, as one of the criteria relating to burden-sharing, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities? May I also ask him to recognise pollution as measured per tonne? In America it is 20 tonnes per person; in Europe it is 10; in China it is 5; and in India it is 2. If we take those issues into consideration, we shall be able to combine social justice, the eradication of poverty, and growth and prosperity, along with a greater chance of agreement.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the former Deputy Prime Minister on the role that he played at Copenhagen through the Council of Europe, and, of course, on the role that he played at Kyoto. He speaks with great wisdom on these questions. Just as it would be wrong for Government not to admit the disappointment that was part of Copenhagen, it would be ridiculous for anyone in the House to deny that any achievement has been made in the last year. That, I am afraid, was the problem with what was said by the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark).

I agree with what my right hon. Friend said about burden-sharing and common but differentiated responsibilities. Many of us believed that we had already incorporated that principle, and indeed it is incorporated in the Copenhagen accord. I remind the House of the commitments that must be registered. In the case of developed countries, the commitment is to cuts in emissions; in the case of developing countries, including China and India—as is clear from the annexes to the agreement—it relates to actions that they are taking. However, my right hon. Friend is correct to say that common but differentiated responsibilities must be at the heart of both this accord and any future agreement.

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and commend his efforts and those of the Prime Minister before and during the Copenhagen conference. However, is not the honest truth that many of the efforts made at Copenhagen were too little too late, and that the Copenhagen agreement will probably go down in history as one of the only occasions on which so many world leaders came together in one place to discuss one of the most important issues and came away with so little to show for it?

Do the Government not accept that there is no excuse for not having sorted out the procedural issues beforehand, and that there clearly was not enough political leadership during the months preceding the fortnight in Copenhagen? To ensure that there will be no more disappointing conferences and no more setbacks like that of last month, will the Secretary of State commit himself to ensuring that political leaders here and in the European Union will be engaged in all the steps of the process—all the interim meetings—rather than just leaving it to a glamorous, or in this case rather unglamorous, summit? If the United Nations Security Council can sit in permanent session, why cannot a United Nations climate council do so as well? If this is indeed the biggest crisis, there really ought to be a mechanism for dealing with it.

As a supporter of the EU, I am sad to have to ask why it appeared to be so ineffectual on this occasion. Why did it not play the card that it had promised, and say that it would raise its target to 30 per cent. at Copenhagen? That might have triggered a much better response elsewhere. Given that it did not do that, is there not now an opportunity for the United Kingdom to propose—and for Baroness Ashton, in her new role, to propose—that the EU set a 30 per cent. target for the new decade this month? That proposal could either be contained in the accord annexe submissions that must be in by the end of January, or be submitted at the first EU summit this year.

Why did the Commonwealth not play a more significant role? I am a huge supporter of the Commonwealth, whose fantastic diversity—ranging from the Maldives and Tuvalu to Canada, Australia and other countries—surely presents a great opportunity for countries to share their experience and be a real force for influence in the world. I hope that the Secretary of State will undertake to ensure that it plays a much bigger role in future.

What about the US and China? How are we going to get them to sign on a dotted line and be more ambitious?

Lastly, rather than what has been suggested in some of the post-Copenhagen comments in the British press—that measures on climate change response and emissions targets will make us uncompetitive in a competitive world—will the Government make it clear, as I know that the Secretary of State is committed to doing, that unless we get an agreement that binds everybody, we will miss the chance to have a sustainable future for all countries, not just ours? We will also miss the chance to have the sustainable jobs and sustainable, safe and secure energy on which the security of the world depends.

The hon. Gentleman asks serious questions that deserve serious answers. Let me go through them. On his question about process and why we got to the stage that we did, the mess of process partly represented big disagreements about substance, because there was concern among a number of developing countries about the notion of Denmark tabling its own text. Why did it take until 3 am on the Friday for the leaders’ representatives from a group of 27 countries—representing 49 countries if the EU is included—to get together in a room? It was because the Danes were systematically prevented from tabling a text, because people kept saying, “We are not ready yet to go into a smaller room.” The same thing happened at Bali and Kyoto. That was one reason why we did not bridge some of the divides—because by 3 am on the Friday there were less than 24 hours of the conference to go.

The hon. Gentleman’s other points about procedure are important and correct. The notion that negotiators should be left to negotiate, even though they take instructions from Ministers, is insufficient. His notion that there should be some kind of permanent session is also an option that should be considered. It is very important that we do not leave it until June and the mid-year negotiations in Bonn to restart the whole process. The EU needs to use its commitment to going to 30 per cent. with comparable action from others. We need to build more of a consensus than we have in the EU at the moment to move to 30 per cent., but I think that the process of 31 January commitments is an initial stage in which the EU should seek to push others to higher levels of ambition, and should itself seek to be as ambitious as possible.

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman slightly about the Commonwealth, because it issued and pushed an important set of demands and requests regarding finance, some of which came through in the final agreement.

On the US and China, we want the deepest cuts from all countries, including the United States, but that is dependent on its legislation. It was willing to make an initial offer before making legislation, but the legislation that went through the House of Representatives was more ambitious than the offer that was made, so there is some hope there.

On the legal treaty and the attitude of certain developing countries, a process of persuasion is partly needed. They need to be persuaded that they have nothing to fear from the legal assurance that is, in my view, necessary. That argument has not yet been won, but there is a broad coalition of developing and developed countries that want the legal framework. That coalition is important and could help us in the months and year ahead.

I, too, was in Copenhagen, and it seemed to me that one issue behind the problems that emerged from the conference was the concern about where the relevant finance should come from and go to. The Government have rightly said that not more than 10 per cent. of our official development assistance budgets would be spent on climate change finance, but may I press my right hon. Friend to go further? Will he make a commitment that that 10 per cent. will not make up the whole of our climate change finance? Perhaps it should not, at any point, make up more than 10 per cent. of our total climate change finance. The people of Bangladesh want to know that we are not simply robbing Peter to pay Paul.

My hon. Friend speaks with great authority on these issues. He is completely right to say that we have made an important commitment to ensuring that the finance that we give will be no more than 10 per cent. of official development assistance, especially after 2013, and that there will also be additional sources of funds. He is also right to imply that we need to find revenue sources to meet our commitments. We know that promises have been made in the past: although the British Government have a good record of keeping promises, it is also necessary to find the revenue sources that can provide the flow of finance, and this is where the high-level panel that I said was being set up by Ban Ki-moon is important. In particular, we need to ensure that the $100 billion goal is not just set out but is actually met. We want the panel to report back by the time of the Mexico meeting, but we hope that it will do so earlier, for example by the middle of this year.

The Secretary of State was right to say that the meeting was disappointing, and that is fundamentally because we do not have the confident arrangements in the world that would enable business, countries and companies to make decisions to promote mechanisms to reduce emissions. Britain’s leadership in the industrial revolution means that we are responsible for a good deal of the climate change that is happening at the moment, so does the right hon. Gentleman accept that this is the moment for us to firm up on the commitments that we have made to green technology and a green future? Europe is also very responsible for today’s problems, so should not Britain take the lead in ensuring that Europe firms up on its 30 per cent. pledge? More than that, should we not seek to create, as far as possible, the most encouraging atmosphere for business to do what it has to do? The leadership of business is crucial in this matter.

Lastly, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that winning people’s hearts and minds means that we have to be very clear about the advantages of doing what is being proposed, and that we should not talk in puritanical terms about sackcloth and ashes? Only by showing people that this is a remarkable opportunity for this country, Europe and the world will they come and support us.

Let me take this opportunity to say that I know that the right hon. Gentleman has announced that he is leaving this House. We will miss his expertise and passion on these issues of climate change, and we wish him well in what he does next.

The right hon. Gentleman asked several specific questions, and I agree that the argument that we need to make is that there is much to gain from the transition to low carbon. We have made that argument already but we can do so more often, because the benefits include the jobs for people in this country and the new industries that will be created. That is true of what we in this country are doing with carbon capture and storage, and it is true in the renewables sector and across the board.

I also agree that Europe must demonstrate its leadership role by pushing others to do more. Part of the task that we face in the accord’s pledging process is to ratchet up the commitments that people make. That is something that we will be working on intensively, including in Europe this month.

I commend my right hon. Friend for the very critical role that he played in the wee small hours, when the world’s media had largely gone to bed, in ensuring that we came away from Copenhagen with something rather than nothing. Does he agree that one of the key areas in which progress can be made over the next 12 months is at national Government level? Should we not aim to align national Government policy and legislation with the GLOBE legislators forum principles set out in Copenhagen in November, before the main conference?

I agree with my hon. Friend, and thank him for his remarks about the role that I played in this difficult process. I think that GLOBE has played a very important role over the past 12 months, and that it will do so again in the future. Moreover, he draws attention to the fact that many of the targets that countries will enter into the accord will be domestically binding. Those targets will have gone through national Parliaments, and the new Indian Environment Minister has said that he wants to take legislation on India’s so-called six national missions through his House. That is a big step forward, and it is important to emphasise the crucial role of legislators in this process.

Why are we in the northern hemisphere having such a very cold winter this year? Which climate model predicted that?

I can hardly believe that question, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The weather fluctuates, as anyone knows, and the notion that a cold spell in Britain disproves the science of climate change is something that I believe not even the right hon. Gentleman believes.

Was the delegate from Sudan right when comparing the failure at Copenhagen to a holocaust? Will not many millions be killed in this century as a result of higher temperatures and increased natural disasters including flooding and, indeed, in wars? Although the United States, China and, in my opinion, the developing world were at fault in not getting an agreement, why did the EU not put its best position on the table? What is that best position? Why is the money commitment to get the developing world on board so soft and unreliable? What are the Government going to do to strengthen that arrangement?

The remarks of the Sudanese delegate were reprehensible, as I said at the time. As I said in an earlier answer, there was not yet consensus in Europe that the commitments made by others were sufficient for Europe to move to 30 per cent. We think that Europe does need to move to 30 per cent. in the context of proper commitments from others. The process of people putting their targets on the table by 31 January is part of the process of Europe moving up.

My hon. Friend is right to refer to the commitments on finance. I would not quite describe them as soft because they are clear commitments from leaders in the accord, but we need to have extra confidence in them by establishing the vital revenue sources. That is why the high-level panel set up by the Secretary-General is so important.