I beg to move, That the House do sit in private.

Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 163 (Motion to sit in private):—

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has asked me to apologise to the House on his behalf for his inability to be here today to resume his Third Reading speech. As some hon. Members may know, he has not been very well over the past few days. Indeed, he has been under the weather, but he assures us that it has nothing to do with climate change.

I am not sure whether that is a matter for the Chair or not, but I am sure that we all wish the right hon. Gentleman well; his presence will be greatly missed this Friday.

I am sure that we all miss my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and wish him well in his speedy recovery.

I rise to support the Bill. It is commendable and long overdue, and most people who believe in the need to address climate change can support it. I welcome the language used by the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the "Today" programme this morning. He said that at the heart of the Government is a series of Ministers who are all committed to addressing climate change. That is very welcome language, but the difficulty that we Opposition Members have is that such language has been used for many years—the real issue is delivery. We must focus on delivery and if the Bill goes some way toward achieving that, it will be very welcome. The truth is that that issue should have been addressed in the last energy review, some three years ago. The review was a complete cop-out, however, because the various divisions within the Labour party were unable to agree on the central issues of the day. They could see an election coming, so they parked the issue and as a result, for three years absolutely no progress has been made.

I point out in particular to the Minister for Energy, who is in his place, that his energy review has to find a way to finance new power generation plants. For the first time, we will have a completely new series of power generation plants built by the private sector. Be they nuclear, gas, oil, coal or clean technology plants, the finance will have to come from the private sector. However, there is no framework in place to give the private sector the confidence to build, invest in and deliver the power generation that we want. Producing such a framework is a pressing issue for the Minister to consider in his review.

So far as I can see, no new power generation is going on whatsoever outside the renewable energy sector, for the simple reason that the payback on a large power station could take 15 to 20 years to realise. An investor will not invest unless he can see that he can get a return on his money; he has to have some assurance that he will see a return before building a power station that, hopefully, will reduce emissions. That is a fundamental policy issue, and I hope that the Minister will take account of it in his energy review.

My final point, which the Minister and I have discussed before, concerns co-firing. Co-firing is the process by which a biofuel is put into the mix and burned in, say, a coal-fired power station. Such biofuel qualifies as a renewable energy. Under current rules, however, co-firing is to be phased out. To be fair, the Minister has said that he will review that policy. I wish him well in doing so, because the net effect of phasing out co-firing will be an increase in carbon dioxide emissions, not a decrease, and at a time when we are all committed to reducing CO2 emissions. Moreover, I urge the Minister to restore the cap, set currently at10 per cent., to its original level of 25 per cent. That way, we can achieve a much better energy mix.

All those points are important. I will not go on any longer, as there are plenty of people here today who want to put in their two penny-worth. I wish the Bill well and give it my full support.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on introducing the Bill and on successfully piloting it to Third Reading. It is clear that much time and erudition has gone into the Bill, which addresses a concern of vital importance to local communities and our nation as a whole.

As a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, I declare a special interest in the Bill. It is good to see that some points that had been for only theoretic discussion are now ready for implementation. It will also delight thousands of my constituents who have raised with me the threat of climate change on the doorstep, in letters and e-mails and at local meetings. I am more than happy to represent their concerns here today not just because I share them, but to make real decisions in order to act against that man-made danger.

In my speech, I shall address two very important points that are included in this Bill. First, I wish to talk about microgeneration. Then I will come to the parts of the Bill tackling sustainable housing, inserted after Second Reading in November, namely clauses 12 to 14. Microgeneration has a particular relevance to the fight for a sustainable energy policy. That is particularlytrue of section 4, which covers national targets. Microgeneration has been sadly neglected in public discourse, which tends to favour the big projects of renewable energy like wind farms, large solar panels and hydroelectric plants. However, microgeneration has the potential to contribute not just to people's energy needs, but to the way in which a community perceives and interacts with our power generation process.

In the Committee's recent report, called "Keeping the Lights on: Nuclear, Renewables and Climate Change", we stated that our electricity generating network was based on a relatively small number of large generating plants situated in remote locations.

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is all very well setting targets, but if the Government do not take the decisions to give us the chance of hitting them, it is a completely pointless exercise? Is not that what has happenedwith the target to cut carbon dioxide emissions by20 per cent.?

The right hon. Gentleman makes avalid point. However, the targets for cutting carbon emissions are still there and the Government are doing all that they can to reach them.

The Committee found that electricity losses on the UK grid system are in the order of 10 per cent., while the efficiency of coal power stations can be as low as 35 per cent. We suggested that there should be more intelligent solutions. Flows of electricity could be in both directions, depending on local demand. The Committee suggested that microgeneration offered potentially huge improvements in energy efficiency, particularly in the case of combined heat and power.

Another recent report by the Sustainable Consumption Round Table produced some pertinent findings. For example, microgeneration vastly increases people's awareness of the entire energy production and consumption chain. The result of that awareness is that people tend to become much more concerned not only with the production of energy, but with the conservational aspects, and that is surely a good thing. It would be a mistake to underestimate the significance of those educational side effects of microgeneration. It is surely a regret of many hon. Members that successive Governments have been unable to instil into the public consciousness the urgent need for energy conservation, and the fact that individuals really can make a difference.

I acknowledge the significant contribution ofthe co-operative movement to developing and implementing the technology in many innovative ways that will surely benefit our society as we learn more about the potential of those systems. Microgeneration eradicates the gulf between energy producers and consumers, and that can only be a good thing, as today most people have no idea at all where their energy comes from. In an age when Governments around the world and every significant scientific body are urging a shift in energy production techniques to safeguard our very existence, that is simply unacceptable.

Given all those benefits, the Committee came to the conclusion that support from the Government was not overwhelming. We found that the technology was reasonably well developed and only needed to be scaled up to industrial production in order to reduce unit costs. Investment was needed, as well as physical and regulatory issues surrounding installation.

Yes, there has been progress: the Energy Act 2004 put an obligation on the Government to come up with a microgeneration strategy. The Department of Trade and Industry published a microgeneration strategy a few weeks ago. In his Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer committed a further£50 million to the low carbon building programme for offices and social housing.

Obviously, I welcome those initiatives as good steps in the right direction, but there is still a lot more to be done, and I have to agree with my colleagues on the Committee who complained about a lack of urgency on the Government's side, especially when it comes to private housing. The Bill's provisions for national microgeneration targets are therefore the best way forward. I am not a great fan of targets, but in this case I see no alternative that would provoke the scale and swiftness of response—

I know that the hon. Lady plays a distinguished part in the proceedings of the Committee, and she is right about the importance of the contribution that individuals can make. What contribution can the Government make with their estate? Some recent disturbing figures have shown that the Government, who have a huge buying potential that could transform the market, are not pulling their weight in terms of installing combined heat and power or micropower systems in their own buildings.

As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Committee—which he chaired until his recent promotion, on which I congratulate him—has done a lot of research on that issue and the evidence suggests that we should put more effort into combined heat and power, especially in new buildings. The regulation in place at the moment amounts to guidelines, and it would have a huge impact if they were to be made compulsory.

I have spoken to the House Builders Association, and it would not object if planning legislation were to require that insulation be fitted as houses are constructed, as long as it is a fair, competitive market. We could argue for a much higher standard to be laid down by planning authorities, if we give the lead here and in the Scottish Parliament. Does my hon. Friend agree?

We accepted evidence from several house building organisations. They are willing to put such provisions into practice, but purchasers appear to prefer to put their money into facilities such as power showers, which are themselves damaging to the environment.

My constituency has a major school building programme. Will the Bill cover the installation of microgeneration in schools in my constituency and across the country?

The Bill does address the issue, butit would only assist my hon. Friend in promotingthe installation of microgeneration, not make it compulsory.

I was also pleased that many of the propositions put forward in a private Member's Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) have been transferred to this Bill. I believe that we have a huge untapped resource for reducing carbon emissions from residential homes. I am talking not about symbolic gestures like installing a windmill on the roof, but about a serious approach that tackles the opportunities for installing microgeneration facilities and solar panels, complemented by better insulation and energy conservation measures. That is why I support the Bill's proposition to oblige the Government to report regularly on progress in promoting energy efficiency in homes.

Once again, I draw the attention of the House toa report published by the Environmental Audit Committee, in which we examine sustainable housing. The new homes due to be built are welcome, and I fully support the Government's plans; no one will deny that there is great housing need, especially in the south-east. However, the construction of more than 1 millionnew homes in five years is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to implement new standards for environmentally friendly residential dwellings.

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is not environmentally sustainable for all those new homes to be built on back gardens, as is the case owing to the current definition of gardens as brownfield sites?

In my constituency, not all new homes are built in back gardens.

In the report, the Committee expressed concern that houses have already been constructed and will continue to be built without sufficient regard to strong environmental standards. We believe that too much reliance has been put on developers' good sense to do the right thing of their own volition. The report spoke of a fundamental lack of urgency in the Government's approach to ensuring that new housing and new communities are truly sustainable. Although I believe that the Government are sincere in their commitment to better environmental standards, they cannot be left to chance and voluntary or private initiative. I reinforce the Committee's conclusion that it is for the Government to provide strong leadership for developers and for local authorities.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I am anxious to make progress.

We need clear guidance to introduce strong standards for sustainable homes. Even when that is achieved, there will be a yet bigger challenge—improving existing housing stock. The Budget contains many measures to tackle climate change at local level and to promote energy-efficient homes, but all those individual initiatives cannot compensate for lack of policy to promote better insulation of private homes and replace an overhaul of the building regulations for existing housing stock and new construction projects.

The Bill requires the Government to promote the availability of microgeneration in new homes. I commend the measures to encourage local authorities to contribute to energy efficiency. My local authority, Brighton and Hove city council, has already started many initiatives, but I will describe only a few. Since October 2003, the main council buildings have been serviced by electricity from 100 per cent. renewable sources. Yesterday, the local authority carbon management programme was launched, in conjunction with the Carbon Trust, through which the council will undertake an extensive audit of all its activities and services and the carbon emissions associated with them, and then take action to reduce them. Today, the council's climate change action plan will be published, containing 100 actions to raise awareness of climate change.

I could mention many more ideas being pursued by my local authority, but as many Members want to take part in the debate, I shall not. All those initiatives show that local authorities are ready to take responsibility and to make their contribution.

The possibility of over-burdening our local councils was raised on Second Reading. I argue the opposite. Across the country, there are many schemes similar to those in Brighton and Hove. It is our responsibility to provide leadership and resources for those schemes so that they will be taken up locally. I am pleased that the Bill promotes community energy, as it is vital that such sustainable energy generation methods be promoted with the enthusiasm they deserve.

The Government have a manifesto commitment to reduce the level of carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. from the 1990 level. Members on both sides of the House want that achieved. I was heartened that on11 November on Second Reading there seemed to be great cross-party consensus to pass the Bill, as the vast majority of my constituents and the vast majority of people across the nation want, so I urge in the strongest possible terms that planning regulations be amended to allow community and renewable energy generation to flourish across our nation. I also urge communitiesto embrace such schemes whenever they can.

We all need to adapt and act so that we can bequeath to future generations the wonderful opportunities that we enjoy. We need to celebrate schemes that are already working and we need to show that the Government are on the side of communities that want to take advantage of those innovative and much needed schemes. For that reason, I once more commend my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith on his Bill.

Our thoughts are with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) at this time. He and I served on Edinburgh city council for many years, and although we were on opposite sides of the fence I wholeheartedly support the Bill and commend him for his work to bring it to this point. He would probably agree that there has been enough talk on previous occasions, so I shall keep my remarks brief.

Many people in Edinburgh support the Bill. A number of the hon. Gentleman's constituents from the Craigleith area were formerly my constituents, before the boundaries were redrawn, but they will all appreciate the support being expressed for the Bill today. I have had many e-mails and correspondence from constituents in its support.

The environment is too important to be a political football. We have all watched the issue of climate change climb up the agenda, but people expect more than targets or reports. They want action. Under one of the Bill's provisions, it will note whether action has been taken. It may move us in the right direction, but Labour came to power in 1997 on a manifesto that promised to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. from 1990 levels by 2010, yet last year the Government said that the 20 per cent. target would not be met. The latest figures suggest that the UK is veering well off course from meeting its much more modest Kyoto protocol target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12.5 per cent. from 1990 levels. If the Bill brings the Government and the country back on target, it will be a good thing, but I fear that the targets may not be met.

I support the Bill's provisions on greenhouse gas emissions, microgeneration, energy efficiency and renewable energy investment. They all show why further building for, and investment in, nuclear power is not the way forward.

We often see television programmes about species endangered by the destruction of their habitat and are aware that action could have been taken to avoid that destruction. We should look to ourselves; we have been directly involved in destroying much of the natural habitat of our planet. We have caused much of the damage so we must do what we can to reverse it. If the Bill plays some small part in that process, it will be well worth supporting, but we want more than reports and targets—we want action.

I associate myself with the comments made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) about my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), to whom the whole House extends its deepest sympathy.

There needs to be acceptance in this debate that the people of this country do not want the lights to go out. They want to carry on watching their TVs, chilling their lager, freezing their pizzas and grilling their steaks. We have to ensure that our discussions do not result in a "holier than thou" solution that only ageing hippies such as me, or tree-huggers, will sign up to. We have to be hard-headed, practical and bold, if we are to square the circle between keeping the lights on and saving the planet. We must continue to develop the use of renewables and extend incentives to encourage more development and innovation, and ensure that the people of this country can access new technologies easily.

We have had experience of massive technical change—for example, the changeover to North sea gas—that has been carried out successfully with relatively little inconvenience. We should take a similar view of enabling people to maximise the use of solar and wind power and microgeneration. However, we must accept that there is a need to utilise present energy sources better, and nuclear power may have to be included, but it is no use using nuclear power to prevent global warming while risking the lives of ourselves and generations to come because we are unable to dispose of the radioactive waste produced safely. The industry must ensure, and we must verify, that any resurgence of nuclear energy is based on verifiable and safe disposal. Public acceptance of nuclear energy might be more probable now than in the days of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but we need proof that we are not swapping one evil for another.

We must not ignore the role that coal can play in delivering energy for the people of Britain. Despite my eternal optimism, I accept that there is unlikely to be a return to the days of king coal in this country, but we must not reject coal out of hand. There are massive coal reserves in the country, and we should encourage research and development into innovative ways of claiming that very precious resource. Even if we do not have the nous, the bottle or the will to pursue a return to the deep-mining, indigenous coal industry in this country, we must still develop ways of burning coal in an efficient and environmentally sound way.

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. In the Science and Technology Committee we have been doing a lot of work on carbon sequestration, which will play an important part in keeping a sustainable coal industry in this country in an environmentally friendly way, and I hope that the Government will consider that.

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I agree entirely, and he has mentioned one of the things that I want to come to.

It is sad to reflect that in the Conservative party's drive to destroy the coal industry 20 years ago, as a way to destroy organised labour in this country, we also destroyed what was then the best and most modern clean-coal technology anywhere in the world. Thankfully, people are now starting to realise that that is something that we must grasp. We must develop the technology if we are to continue to have a decent energy supply. There is now a real acceptance that the reduction of CO2 must be the key determinant in future coal-fired power stations.

Using well-placed investment, we can improve the performance of existing and new plants. Co-firing—blending coal with renewable biomass—is emerging as a credible way forward. As an extra, it will help the development of the UK energy crop market, enabling farmers to produce renewable energy crops that will help to reduce carbon emissions and provide employment in agriculture. Developments in boiler technology, using pre-heaters and fitting advanced supercritical boilers can increase thermal efficiency. If we introduce them properly, those measures could bring UK coal plants into line with the performance of today's gas plants. With the ongoing research, as has been said, we can promote carbon capture and storage, and coal can make a real contribution to our energy needs once again, but there is more to be done in terms of trade.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have huge coal reserves in this country; unfortunately, they are high in sulphur, but equipment can be placed in coal-burning stations to capture carbon dioxide and sulphur. Does he agree that the Government should underwrite the cost of that equipment to promote such energy production?

I certainly accept that the Government should play a major role, but I am not too sure whether they would underwrite it. I would like them to underwrite it totally and return to a nationalised coal industry, but even I am not hopeful about that happening in the next few years. The new technology could be used to tap into the reserves that people are refusing to use in open-cast sites. People in my area are adamantly against open-cast sites, which would destroy the environment, but if the mining could be done in a way that is not harmful to the environment, surely we could look into that.

I now come back to trade. Whether we use indigenous coal or coal from abroad, there is a clear message—we need to get it right; we need to get it clean—but we cannot allow cheap coal from China to dominate our markets while, at least officially, 9,000 miners are killed in incidents in their mines, most of which are avoidable. It is believed that at least as many again are killed in privately owned, unregulated mines. Let us just think about it. Every day—yesterday, today, tomorrow—more people are killed at work there than we lost in the 7 July tragedy last year. We cannot accept that cost. The world will not accept dirty coal, and the world should not accept coal that is covered in blood.

We in this country showed that deaths in coal mines are not inevitable. We moved from a position in the 1930s where a miner was killed every six hours in this country to a point, 50 years later, where that figure was down to one a month—one too many, but that is still a massive change. That change did not just happen by accident; it happened because the people of this country insisted on safety as a prerequisite in coal mining. We developed quality machinery and safer working practices, and we engaged with the men who actually put their lives on the line, day in, day out, on the real coal face of life. The world should accept that form of protectionism. I make no apology for saying that, because it is real protectionism: it protects the environment, it protects the economic interest of all trading nations, and it protects some of the most exploited workers on the planet.

I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) the very best with the Bill. I am sorry that he is not here today. I hope that we, as a country, take up the challenge that could deliver a cleaner world for our kids, and also a rebirth of the engineering and entrepreneurial skills for which this country is rightly famous.

I, too, wish my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) a speedy recovery.

I speak in support of the Bill because it represents another valuable attempt to focus our collective attention on the most important issue of our day, but it will also achieve practical results. I want to speak about just one of those results: the duty imposed on local authorities to have regard to information on energy measures when exercising local functions. That provision will help to ensure that public bodies are better at sharing best practice, co-ordinated by the energy measures report from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Clauses 3 and 20 are not unduly onerous, and many public bodies are already making energy efficiency a priority of their own accord. My own district council in Braintree is a good example. I was delighted thatmy hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey(Mr. Ainsworth) visited us recently. Braintree district council has been participating in a pilot scheme that offers a council tax rebate in return for the installation of cavity-wall insulation, and 15 other councils have so far followed Braintree's example. I congratulate the council on that initiative.

As the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee heard in evidence from the director of corporate affairs at British Gas,

"it is that sort of compelling offer which begins to shift this market... Braintree do not seem to have to market this very hard for people to actually come forward and say, 'that's a very interesting proposition and I would like to know more about it,' because it is framed in a compelling way."

We must change the perception that the promotion of microgeneration and energy efficiency to tackle climate change is somehow radical, or even unusual. Instead, it must be compelling and practical, and it must also make good economic sense.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on introducing the Bill, and I am sorry that he is not here with us today. He has already succeeded in raising public awareness of these issues, and I have no doubt whatever that his success will continue once the Bill receives Royal Assent.

I, too, extend my sympathies to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) and condolences to his family.

I am delighted to support the Bill, which has received support not only in Parliament, but from hundreds of our constituents, who have written to us to express their hope that it gets through Parliament during the current Session. I commend my hon. Friend for his hard work and dedication to passing the Bill through the House of Commons. It marks an important step by Parliament in ensuring that energy efficiency and the increase in renewable sources remain high on our political agenda.

The reasons for that priority have been well stated, and they include the effects of climate change and the increase in energy costs in the past few years, particularly for oil and gas. I welcome the proposals as part of the important effort to ensure that the gains we have made in the past few years to eliminate fuel poverty are not lost. A recent report by Energy Action Scotland highlighted the scale and complexity of the task in future fuel poverty schemes. Scotland faces unique problems. In 2003, average earnings were12 per cent. lower than in England. As a result of the difference in climate, it has a much longer heating season: a home in the north of Scotland may spend68 per cent. more on fuel a year than an equivalent property in the south of England. In London we are basking in unusually high temperatures for May, but this weekend, temperatures in the north of Scotland are predicted to drop to minus 5° C at night,which demonstrates the difference in temperatures throughout the United Kingdom.

Scotland has many properties that are not on the main gas grid, and they are not likely to be connected. Although gas central heating is the most effective measure in removing a house from fuel poverty, 33 per cent. of homes in Scotland do not have any gas, because either they are located in remote rural locations or they are high-rise accommodation, where it is not appropriate to use gas. The nature, type and design of housing is different from housing in England. Although about 70 per cent. of houses in both countries have cavity walls, in Scotland, 23 per cent. are traditional sandstone or granite houses, with an additional 10 per cent. classified as non-traditional. All of those are hard to heat.

Energy Action Scotland has identified three main factors that contribute to fuel poverty, and we should not find any of them surprising. The first factor is domestic fuel prices; on average, a 5 per cent. rise in fuel prices results in a further 30,000 households being pushed back into fuel poverty. Secondly, disposable income is important. The third factor is energy efficiency.

The hon. Lady is right. The problem of fuel poverty has been exacerbated by the increase in energy prices, which have risen by 37 per cent. in the past year alone. Does she share my distress that in the Budget the Chancellor did not extend the £200 council tax rebate, which was needed by many pensioners in fuel poverty?

I remind the hon. Gentleman that we have retained the winter fuel payment, which is specifically designed to tackle fuel poverty. We have also lowered the barrier for the additional hardship payment. When the Opposition were in government, the same guide temperature was used for Brighton as for the north of Scotland.

The hon. Lady makes an extremely valid point. However, the winter fuel payment did not increase substantially, and this year pensioners lost the £200 that they received last year, even though fuel prices went up by 37 per cent. There was a double whammy—fuel prices went up, but pensioners' council tax rebate was £200 lower.

Order. The hon. Gentleman should not pursue that point too far.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am pleased to say that in Glasgow there was a zero increase in council tax this year. In the previous five years there was only an inflation rise, so we benefit from good Labour authorities in our area.

Energy efficiency schemes have made significant progress, both in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom, but recently there has been a rise infuel prices, as the hon. Member for Braintree(Mr. Newmark) rightly pointed out. That is probably a permanent trend, and it threatens progress, which is why we urgently need a step change in the energy-saving initiatives that the Bill tries to foster. To achieve that, we need to make sure that all levels of government are firmly committed to improving current regulation and practice. In The Guardian on Wednesday, there was an article on the possibility that the parliamentary estate may introduce measures to increase renewable energy sources. We must wait to see whether that happens, and whether wind turbines or solar panels will be installed on the House, although progress tends to be slow when we make changes to the parliamentary estate. Parliament can make practical suggestions to achieve quick changes, but we must also address systemic issues.

This is a significant cross-cutting issue, so does it not merit a Cabinet Minister for climate change, whose responsibilities cut across several Departments? May I cheekily suggest that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister take on those duties in the interim until there is a full-time—

Order. That is another road that we will not go down.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Deputy Prime Minister has responsibility for our commitments under the Kyoto treaty, and has an excellent range of experience.

Electrical appliances are increasingly left on standby. Amazingly, in some countries, that represents up to5 per cent. of total electricity consumption. Reducing standby consumption to 1 W is a simple change, but it would make a substantial difference, enabling us to close down one or two power stations. Tackling the often bureaucratic arrangements to sell excess energy from renewable sources to the national grid would improve matters. The Bill's modification of Ofgem's statutory duties to take into account available information on microgeneration is a step in the right direction. We must improve the investment climate for renewable energy technologies and provide additional long-term funding, both for those technologies andfor insulation, which is important in hard-to-heat buildings.

Training must be improved to meet current demands—anyone who has tried to find a central heating engineer will know that they are in short supply—and we must also greatly increase capacity and the range of skills, so that engineers can deal with the new technologies that are likely to come on to the market.

The hon. Lady is making a thoughtful speech on the impact of the Bill, whose measures many of our constituents support. She has made an important point: skills and knowledge are needed not just to install the new equipment but to give customers the reassurance and confidence to take the step of acquiring it. Until they are willing to do that, we cannot achieve those targets.

I fully accept that important argument. Consumers need to be confident that new technology will work. I recently had a conversation with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) about new types of central heating boiler and their propensity to break down compared with the old-fashioned, less energy-efficient boilers that worked remarkably well. Over the years, new technology has made cars much more efficient and reliable. They may not be as exciting, but consumers are much more likely to buy them, because they are reliable. Throughout manufacture and production, there should be an emphasis on reliability, consistent standards and clear labelling. As has been said, this is a cross-cutting issue that covers all areas of consumption.

Finally, as a report by the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs recommended in the last Session, we must carry out a comprehensive analysis of the sources of renewable energy in the UK, including wind, solar energy, biomass and geothermal energy, so that we can inform the choices and decisions of local communities and make sure that further major developments are as energy-neutral as possible. We should aim to generate energy in such developments, to reduce the demand on the national grid as much as possible.

Again, I welcome the Bill, which plays an important part in taking the debate forward in Parliament, throughout government, among the electorate and in the country, where there is a huge question mark over how we should proceed. The energy review later this year will play an important part in trying to focus that public debate, and I very much hope that the Bill will complete its passage through Parliament later this year.

I am particularly pleased to be called to speak on the Bill, because it does an awful lot to make us all more accountable for solving the problems of climate change. The Bill talks about the need for the Government to report to Parliament annually on greenhouse gas emissions, and that will be an extraordinary help in addressing the problem in a meaningful way. I am also pleased that the Chancellor will be put in a position in which he would need to have a tax policy to promote microgeneration. That is another important move in enabling us all to have an opportunity to get involved in the issue.

I know from talking to my constituents that many people find it difficult to engage in, or talk about, the issue of climate change. When we look at the facts, we see that 42 per cent. of the CO2 emissions come from China and the United States. It is very easy to say that we cannot control that, that it is a matter for other people and that the problem will be dealt with by international policy. However, it is important that, through this debate, we say to all our constituents that climate change is not somebody else's problem. We can all address the problem and make a meaningful contribution towards solving it.

The Bill goes some way to making us all more accountable, but does my hon. Friend not agree that it will also cheer the hearts of anyone listening to the debate today? They will see that Members on both sides are joining together to put in place legislation that will have a real impact.

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. All too often the perception among my constituents and those of many other hon. Friends is that we spend a great deal of time in this place arguing with each other rather than working together to come up with practical tangible solutions.

As I said earlier, the debate provides us with an opportunity to reiterate to all our constituents the need for all of us to take personal responsibility for climate control and then, on the international stage, to have a little more moral authority when putting pressure on countries such as China and the United States, so that they see that a lead needs to be taken on these issues.

One aspect of the Bill on which I would particularly like to focus is the role of local authorities. To return to the issue of increasing accountability, giving them a role is an excellent way of our trying to take the policies to our communities so that we can all play a role. I particularly welcome the inclusion in the Bill of new clause 28, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker). It requires local authorities to consider microgeneration and energy efficiency in planning applications. That is especially pertinent at this time when the Government have such ambitious house building policies. Some 140,000 new houses are being built every year, and the figure will go up to 260,000.

To pick up on the hon. Lady's point about local authorities and planning changes, the relaxation of the permitted development guidelines will be tremendously helpful particularly in the rural areas that do not havea good gas supply. Enabling people to put up microgeneration projects within the curtilage of their property will also undoubtedly be a significant change.

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. The Bill works in many ways to give local authorities far more control and input into the issue. If we do not approach it as a national Government issue, we will make many others accountable.

Does my hon. Friend not agree that many microgeneration projects are becoming almost economically viable? However, the cost of planning permission is prohibitive. For example, planning permission for a wind turbine on a house costs £265. If we want to encourage microgeneration projects such as wind turbines on people's houses, surely we should encourage local councils not to have such prohibitively expensive charges for planning permission.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and perhaps I can illustrate why I support what he says with an example from another area. Not that long ago, unleaded fuel was not widely used. However, through the use of fiscal measures and cuts in taxation, we were able to promote its use. He suggests that we should consider measures such as cutting the cost of planning permission to promote microgeneration, and I agree that we need such tools to promote the behaviour that he described.

My hon. Friend is being most generous in giving way. On the subject of local authorities, does she agree that councils and constituents are keen to use their imagination to take innovative measures and that we need to create the climate through legislation that allows councils to innovate and to take decisions locally so that they can drive measures forward?

I agree, but I was about to come on to the fact that there is an awful lot that we could all do now. Rather than merely relying on legislation to cut CO2 emissions and deal with climate change, we should all consider at a local authority and, indeed, personal level what we can do to address the issues. My hon. Friend is right to suggest that this place should set the tone and allow things to take place locally, but we should also remind people that there are practical steps that they can take now.

Let me return to the effect that house building has on climate change. I said earlier that the Government's policies mean that there will be a significant increase in house building if the Barker report is adopted. In my constituency, about 800 houses are built every year and that is in a part of the south-east which, as many hon. Members know, is under drought orders and hosepipe bans. Furthermore, many housing developments in my area and throughout the south-east are being built on floodplains. How environmentally sustainable is that policy? Although we are debating what we can do about climate change, we must not forget the broader issues when we discuss house building with the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

As I said, 800 houses are built every year in my constituency and one of the consequences is that our local electricity station, Bramley Frith, will have to increase significantly in size, with substantial impacts on the local environment that are being dealt with. There is a planned 1.5 per cent. increase in electricity demand in my constituency in the near future. Yes, there is a lot of house building going on, but surelywe should be looking at how we can reduce consumers' demand for electricity and not just accept as afait accompli that electricity demand will go up exponentially. We must consider that point more closely.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Part of the process of reducing demand is to ensure that new houses are built with minimum quality criteria for insulation. One of my concerns about the Deputy Prime Minister's initiative for more low-cost housing—I believe that it was a good initiative—is to ensure that builders do not cut corners by building houses without the necessary insulation. Through the sensible insulation of housing, we will have warm homes, reduce costs for the poorest in society and consume less energy.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I would like to look at some of the other aspects of house building and the things that we can do to our current housing stock to reduce CO2 emissions. Half of UK CO2 emissions come from buildings. Indeed,30 per cent. of them come from houses. Three quarters of those CO2 emissions come from the generation of heating and hot water. We need to look at ways of making our current housing stock, as well as our new housing stock, more energy efficient. There are many different ways to do that. In my hand, I have a piece paper entitled "Reducing personal emissions"—something that I am sure that we could all think about. My hon. Friend has talked about insulation, which reduces heating bills. CO2 emissions from heating equal 1 tonne a year from each house. There are many different ways in which we can try to address that on a daily basis. I have even seen one example of adopting natural insulation—from wool. We can also lag boilers and use energy-saving light bulbs.

As I know that my hon. Friend is a parent, perhaps she will join me in saying that one thing that we can do is to get our children to turn off the lights.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. A point was made earlier about the issue of stand-by. Under a year ago, I moved into my office in the House of Commons and was told that I could not turn the television off because that was not the way in which the system worked in the House of Commons. That is quite extraordinary when one thinks that there are more than 600 of us here, all having to leave our televisions on at night when we go home—albeit that we do not leave that early, so perhaps there is not that much to be saved.

I wonder whether the hon. Lady would accept that the Government are doing quite a lot to encourage individuals to be more efficient in their use of energy through the warm front scheme. It has certainly helped a lot of people in my constituency who are on low incomes to use energy-efficient measures, including insulation, in their properties.

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. I am a great supporter of that scheme in my constituency. However, there is so much more that we could do and, as I have outlined already, there are measures that are easily put in place—measures that local authorities can assist with.

Everybody in the House acknowledges that local authorities can play a major role in saving energy by introducing guidelines and by encouraging and providing incentives to individuals. Would it not be a good idea for every Member who is present to make sure that we give every councillor in our local authorities a copy of the Hansard for this debate?

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I will leave it to hon. Members as to whether they wish to follow that through. Certainly, I will talk to my councillors in Basingstoke—on the new Conservative-controlled council—who take this issue very seriously. The issue was at the top of the agenda during the local elections in Basingstoke. The council in my constituency has been controlled by the Liberal Democrats and Labour for the past 10 years and, as a result of that—perhaps as a result of other measures, as well—we have achieved only a 17 per cent. rate of recycling in my borough. I am not that pleased about that. Our neighbours in East Hampshire achieve a recycling rate of 34 per cent., so it is not an overall problem. There are others achieving better rates. The issues need to be taken seriously on the ground.The hon. Gentleman made an interesting point.

Perhaps my hon. Friend will join me in congratulating Guildford borough council in my constituency? It has the highest recycling rate in the whole of Surrey. Perhaps she would also agree that it is tremendous to see Conservative councils throughout the country making such huge strides in addressing things such as recycling and other energy-related and sustainable measures that they can put in place.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As a Hampshire Member of Parliament, I am not as familiar with what is going on in Surrey—albeit that Surrey is a neighbour—and I thank her for bringing that to my attention.

Perhaps I can make a bold statement and encourage the new leader of my hon. Friend's council to visit the council of my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) to see their recycling initiative and to come to Braintree to see how we do insulation.

I will, of course, bring that to the attention of the leader of the council. I am very pleased to be able to offer him the opportunity of visiting my hon. Friend's constituency and I am sure that he will consider that.

I had a public meeting with local residents in my constituency recently. We had a range of speakers talking about the issue of climate change. I was pleased that residents had taken the initiative to set up such a meeting because it is through such meetings that we can try to highlight the issues in our communities and explore what people can practically do today to address them. One of the speakers at the meeting raised a point that I want to share with the House. He raised the issue of whether we are all in denial about climate change—in other words, we talk about it, we debate it, we try to put measures in place to address increasing CO2 emissions, but we do not truly believe that there is an issue. Perhaps we can all think individually about whether we truly believe that climate change is an issue. As Members of Parliament and representatives of our communities, we have to be leaders on this issue and take the message back to our communities that climate change is not a figment of the media's imagination or the climatologists' imagination. It is a real issue that will affect not just people living in other countries, but us, our children and our future generations. As I said, I was pleased that the residents of Basingstoke felt strongly enough about the matter to have a public meeting where the issues were debated in full.

The Bill is another signal to communities such as mine that the House is not in denial, that it takes the issue very seriously and will do all that it can to try to promote a change in consumer habits on this matter. I find it unacceptable that UK CO2 emissions have risen, not fallen, since 1997. We should not accept that; we should fight against it. The Bill increases all of our accountability on this matter. It drives the issue of climate change not just upwards into international Government and national Government, but down into our communities. At the end of the day, it is down to all of us to address this issue if we are really to see change.

I, too, am very sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) is not here and I send my condolences to him and his family. I congratulate him on the excellent work that he has done, which has brought the Bill so far in its passage. I am pleased to have the opportunity to support the Bill and to have been able to contribute as a member of the Standing Committee.

My main reason for supporting the Bill is my consciousness of the urgency of the problem. The chief scientist has made it absolutely clear that we have a short window of opportunity in which to avoid the most damaging effects of climate change. For example, it is not widely understood that it is possible that there will be a reversal of the Gulf stream, which would make this country much colder, not warmer. It is possible that countries such as Bangladesh could be flooded, and although people are worried at the moment about refugees and asylum seekers, if that happened, the current problems would pale into insignificance.

I agree with the hon. Member for Basingstoke(Mrs. Miller) about people being in denial. We must not move from denial to despair when we contemplate the problem. Action now will be much easier and more economic than action later. The key to achieving our target and tackling climate change effectively is a change to our culture.

In 1973, when I was a schoolgirl, I went to a summer fair in Ashbourne. I entered a competition about the environment that was run by Friends of the Earth, with a prize of membership of Friends of the Earth. I won the prize because I was the only person who had entered the competition, but I think that consciousness has been raised since then.

Fifteen years later, I was a Treasury civil servant when John Major was a Treasury Minister. We were having the annual round of spending cuts and he was thinking about cutting the home energy efficiency scheme, which was the forerunner of Warm Front. When I pointed out to him that the scheme was good and that it tackled fuel poverty, benefited the environment and created jobs, he agreed not to cut it. That is a good example of the way in which people are prepared to act once they understand the issues.

The hon. Lady says that people will act, but is sheaware that under her Government, according to a Government document on microgeneration, the number of people in fuel poverty rose by 1 million between 2003 and 2006?

I am not aware of those statistics. I must say that I am slightly sceptical about them, given our excellent Warm Front investment scheme, which is running at record levels.

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the reason for fuel poverty is that the fuel companies are overcharging low earners, so the reason is not necessarily any Government legislation or programme?

It is true that there are problems due to the charges of several of the intermediaries, but I will not go down that path because we are not considering that today.

When we examined the Bill in detail in Committee, it became evident that some of the old thinking still exists in small pockets of bureaucracy. In general, they are quite obscure, but planning and building regulations are absolutely vital to the situation. The fact that many of our constituents have contacted us to say that they want the Bill to get through shows that the tide has definitely turned with the general public.

Our constituents are extremely worried about the impact that climate change can have on communities and globally. My constituents have written me many e-mails and letters to ensure that I support the Bill. Why are the international community and developing nations not taking the problem seriously? What more can the Government do to exert maximum pressure on the United States and other nations to ensure that they put climate change at the top of the international agenda?

My hon. Friend anticipates one of my points. It is important that we take action and set a good example because although the UK's emissions are not especially significant in global terms, because we have higher standards of living and consume much more than other countries, our carbon dioxide emissions per capita are higher. That is driving the position of India and China, which is why it is important that we pass the Bill and take practical measures.

The Bill is now in a better state than it was before it went into Committee and its provisions are now easier to implement. I especially welcome the accountability clause at the beginning of the Bill because if we are accountable and have to report annually, we will have an incentive to take more action. There are practical measures in the Bill on microgeneration, building regulations and combined heat and power.

The hon. Lady talks about taking more action. Does she agree that we should take additional action on air transport? We all know that24 per cent. of CO2 emissions come from transport in general. Emissions due to aviation represent an enormous part of that, but there is no tax on aviation fuel, which grossly distorts the cost of flying in environmental terms. Does she agree with the Environmental Audit Committee that we should consider introducing an air passenger duty tax that better reflects the environmental effects of emissions from planes?

As it happens, I am a member of the Standing Committee that is considering the Finance (No.2) Bill. We had such a discussion earlier this week. The hon. Lady is not right that there is no duty at all, but it is about half the level of the other duties. When we asked the Treasury Ministers about the matter, they said that they would not be able to take action until they had renegotiated international treaties. My feeling was that they should energise—

Order. I appreciate that it is not the hon. Lady's fault that she has been led astray, but perhaps she can come back to the Bill.

Ultimately, climate change is a justice issue between the rich and the poor and between us and future generations. As the great economist Amartya Sen said, we should not abuse the environment to the detriment of future generations

"simply through the accident of being born first".

I hope that all hon. Members will support the Bill.

On behalf of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru, I offer our condolences to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). It is sad that, due to tragic circumstances, he cannot be here to see his Bill progress. Both parties strongly support the Bill as an important step forward on tackling climate change.

It is true that the UK Government have set targets on climate change under Kyoto, but they have slipped somewhat. The Scottish Parliament has set somewhat more ambitious targets. It is important that we have cross-party consensus on climate change, and we must start by recognising that climate change exists and that it is a man-made problem—even getting there would be an important step forward.

I was pleased that earlier this year, five Opposition parties got together to announce common principles on climate change and to recognise those basic points. That was important because although it is all very well for us to agree, when we get into the cut and thrust of an election campaign, such agreements often break down because it is politically expedient to attack a Member's support for a wind farm, higher fuel duty, or anything else in their constituency. That affects all parties, so we need to agree common aims and not use the matter as a political football. All too often, a Government come up with an idea to tackle climate change, but if their policy is changed at the next general election when another Government come in, we will have no long-term stability on tackling climate change, which we all must seriously examine.

There will be disagreements. The current energy review may recommend new nuclear power stations. There are some who argue that such stations can help to deal with climate change. I strongly oppose that approach. However, it is a legitimate argument about a particular issue. My view is that the use of nuclear power is putting one problem in place of another. There is no solution to dealing with nuclear waste, as shown by the recent Quorum report. However, there are many things that we can do. Wind, for example, seems to cause so many problems, and we are not confined to wave energy.

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a strong advocate of renewable energy. Applications are submitted to local authorities and there are pressures from local communities. Planning permission is not granted and then the matter goes to the Scottish Executive. The process takes a long time. A greater problem stems from the hon. Gentleman's party activists. What is his message to them when a planning application is made to a local authority?

The hon. Gentleman has given a graphic demonstration of the problem. There are communities throughout the country which, sometimes for good reasons, oppose particular developments. These are cross-party matters. Labour party members, Tory party members, some of my party members and even some Liberals will oppose specific developments. That is understandable. We are lacking an overall review of what we need. The Scottish Affairs Committee, on which I and the hon. Gentleman served, made that point, which was included in the Committee's report. We said that we needed an audit to set out the energy sources that were available. We said also that we needed an overall view of what was needed. The Scottish Executive have been under a great deal of pressure to take that approach in respect of wind farms. There is a massive number of wind farm applications, and far too many given the number that are needed. Whenever there is an application there is chaos in the local community. We need an overarching view of what is needed and where these developments go. That would be an important way forward.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a proper and effective planning process for wind farm applications? Without that, we will be left in the dark about what is intended. There is no systematic approach and theend result is frustration for communities and local authorities.

That is correct. The issue is not confined to wind power.

The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) made a good case for coal. Scotland and the rest of the UK have huge coal reserves. There is, of course, the problem of emissions. However, there are technologies available for carbon capture and carbon sequestration. However, the coal industry needs a clear signal from the Government that it has a future and that there will be investment in such technology to ensure that we can use Scottish coal and UK coal.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we can talk as much as we like about the potential of new technologies and new alternatives? Access to research grant goes through framework 6 from Europe or the Department of Trade and Industry, and is an incredibly complex and slow process. That being so, the market will not be stimulated to produce new technologies. We can all agree in the House that we want them but they will not be delivered by the universities and research bodies.

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I think that the Government need to give a signal. We all expect the energy review to give a signal for nuclear power, but there needs also to be a signal for coal. What will the Government do to help the UK in future?

Agriculture has gone through some pretty bad times in recent years. There is huge potential in biomass energy generation, and a mixture with coal. That could give a boost to the farming industry in areas such as the one that I represent. It is an interest that I have pursued. The process is beginning to happen. E.ON, for example, has proposed a biomass generator in Dumfries, I think. There needs to be a signal that this approach has a future. That needs to be on a cross-party basis. We must try to come to an agreement on how we go forward. The Bill is important in that respect, and it has cross-party support.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the public, industries and those undertaking research want a signal, that signal will have been given today? There has been a sensible and intelligent debate. That is exactly what the hon. Gentleman was talking about. It has been a cross-party debate. If we want to tackle climate change and other environmental issues, the only way is to proceed with cross-party support.

The hon. Lady is right. As I have said, it is easy in this place to talk and reach agreement on a cross-party basis. The problem is leaving this place continuing to agree on a cross-party basis on what needs to be done. Until we can get past our political problems with that, we will not make progress.

Parts of the Bill do not apply to Scotland. Separate legislation is passing through the Scottish Parliament, and that reflects many of the provisions in the Bill that do not apply to Scotland. During the passage of the Bill one good change was made by the Minister in respect of the charging regime for renewable energy on the islands off the Scottish coast. He did not go as far as I would like. There have been many debates about changes in the mainland and offshore. I will not rehearse those arguments. I am sure that the Minister will not delight me by making the announcement that I would seek. I live in hope that some day he might do so.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) made an extremely good point about the report from Energy Action Scotland. It was an excellent report. There are difficulties with energy in rural areas. In my constituency, many houses in rural areas still have old-style oil-fired central heating. It is an expensive way to heat a house. We need to tackle the problem. As has been said, there is a difficulty with alternative sources.

We face increasing energy costs, something which pushes many people into fuel poverty. That is the reason for the increase in fuel poverty over recent years. Action needs to be taken. On many occasions, I have raised the issue of prepayment meters. Often, the poorest in society are discriminated against by energy companies. Again, that is an issue that the Government must consider.

There is the complexity of new technologies, particularly with new-style boilers. Another problem is the cost of new technology. It is all very well telling someone that he or she needs a combined heat and power boiler, but such technology must be available at an affordable price so that people will invest in it. In that way, we will ensure that we reduce consumption.

I was interested in what the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) said about natural insulation. Will we all be asked to put on another jumper in the winter? The hon. Lady did not go quite that far. I was interested also by her remarks about televisions in the House. In my five years in this place, I have faithfully switched off my television every night. I have not yet been carted off by the Serjeant at Arms. Perhaps I will be at the end of the debate.

We all have an individual responsibility to reduce our energy consumption. We must be serious and have a cross-party agreement. It is imperative that we adhere to it outside the House. I urge everyone to support the Bill. Let us give it a fair wind and a good start.

I am grateful for the opportunity to put on record my support for the Bill. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) for successfully steering the Bill through the parliamentary process thus far. I extend my sympathy to him and to his family at this time.

Reacting powerfully to climate change is essential if we are to meet the challenge of cutting global greenhouse gas emissions. It is necessary to expand the availability and development and, one would hope, ultimately the use of renewable energy sources as the major means of our energy supply.

I am fortunate in having a research centre in my constituency at the university of Durham, which concentrates on enabling renewable energy to make a full contribution to society and to the environment. It undertakes fundamental research into renewable energy technologies, including solar and photovoltaic research and wind and wave energy. Critically, in respect of the Bill, it also undertakes research into the technology that underpins microgeneration. I should like to say in passing that the north-east is ideally placed to lead the UK development of the production of renewables, as wind and waves are in plentiful supply there.

If the Government are to meet their long-term targets of reducing CO2 emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050, and of producing 10 per cent. of our electricity supply from renewables by 2010, it is essential that we make renewable sources, including microgeneration, more efficient, to bring down their costs and give them a wider application. The Bill will play an important part in contributing measures that will help the Government to achieve those targets.

It is worth highlighting the fact that the use of microgeneration is important if we are to encourage individual householders, small groups of households and communities to adopt an energy supply based on micro-renewables. All the clauses in the Bill are very welcome, and especially those relating to permitted development and to support for community energy schemes, as they will help to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions and assist us to meet our targets. Critically, the measures will empower individuals and communities by giving them the tools to get directly involved in the use of renewable energy sources. Many people are very keen to find out what they can do personally to use energy more efficiently in their homes. Clauses 7 to 10 are important in encouraging that, and in helping to cut the fuel bills of those who install and use microgeneration systems by making them more efficient and more widely available.

The use of micro-combined heat and power could also contribute to ending fuel poverty. Clause 21 will require the Secretary of State to consider what steps he considers appropriate to promote the use of heat produced from renewable sources. I hope that this measure will help to stimulate the demand for renewable heat produced by solar, thermal or photovoltaic sources.

Does my hon. Friend agree that clause 21 is vital for developing a low-carbon economy in the UK? It will help to raise awareness of what individuals can do to achieve that aim.

I agree with my hon. Friend. One of my reasons for highlighting that clause is that I believe that it is essential in helping us to develop a low-carbon economy. We need to take the opportunity to make the use of renewable fuel for power and heat more widely available.

The Bill could contribute to sustaining a secure energy supply for the UK. Recent reports from Sussex and Southampton universities and Imperial College London suggest that micro-renewables hold great promise, provided that the uneven playing field on which they are fighting is removed. So promoting the use of microgeneration using renewables will require some Government intervention and up-front investment. The Bill is also important in reducing the barriers to promoting microgeneration, especially at local level.

The role of local authorities and parish councils outlined in clause 3 will be important if we are to enable individuals and communities to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. Many local authorities are involved in regeneration schemes involving the building of new houses and office blocks, and it is important that they take the lead in ensuring that those buildings are as energy efficient as possible. We must also bring parish councils back on board, because they are the best placed bodies to respond to local demand andto promote schemes locally so that individuals can become involved directly.

There is a great deal in the Bill to be welcomed if we are to take climate change seriously, and I hope that the House will support it today.

I, too, rise to support the Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on his tenacity in building consensuson it. However, the House should be honest in acknowledging that it is a quite modest measure. It will certainly not transform the landscape of domestic climate change policy. For that, we need to look to the bigger beasts: the outcome of the energy review that the Minister is conducting and, critically, the decision taken on the national allocation to the second phase of the EU emissions trading scheme this summer. A recent report by the National Audit Office to the Environmental Audit Committee highlighted the latter as the policy decision that would have the greatest impact on carbon emissions reduction in the short term. Those will be the real tests of the appetite of the Government and the House for reducing carbon in our economy.

The Bill is welcome, however, because it takes a small, positive step in the direction of promoting greater accountability to the House on the progress made in tracking carbon through the economy and the progress of the Government in reducing it, as the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) rightly pointed out. A second important step will beto force central Government—and, to a lesserextent, local government—to think more about microgeneration and energy efficiency.

The increase in accountability will be hugely important, because the lack of accountability is undermining the effectiveness of the international process to reduce carbon. Many countries will not meet their Kyoto targets, yet they will suffer very few penalties for that failure. This country probably will meet its Kyoto targets, although, as the Government now acknowledge, there are significant doubts about the 2010 target, and there is complete uncertainty about the 2050 target. It is very difficult for the House and all other interested parties to get to grips with the reality of how carbon tracks through the economy, and with the probability of success for the various policy measures that the Government are implementing. That makes it difficult for us to hold the Governmentto account.

The desire for greater accountability, transparency and rigour in the review process underlies the cross-party consensus—on the Conservative Benches, at least—in suggesting the creation of an independent body, which could add tremendous value to the ability of the House to understand what is really happening with emissions and to assess the probability of success in meeting the longer-term targets. I suspect that that would have a much greater impact than the measures introduced in the Bill, but I welcome what is on offer today.

I echo the sentiments on microgeneration expressed by the hon. Member for Hove (Ms Barlow), with whom I had the pleasure of serving on the Environmental Audit Committee. Microgeneration has the potential to play three important roles at a time when energy policy must necessarily shift from focusing only on the cost of energy to considering the more complex set of issues with which the Minister is wrestling, including security of supply and the impact on climate.

The sources of energy and technology that we are considering under the banner of microgeneration will have three important benefits. The first is reducing carbon. The second is reducing the waste of energy in our system. It was pointed out in Committee and in the debate that, if we are to believe the reports, two thirds of our energy is wasted between the point of production and the point of consumption. If it is true, that statistic ought to be a matter of considerable concern to the House in a new energy age in which security of supply, efficiency and affordability will become increasingly pressing issues. The third benefit, as the hon. Member for Hove pointed out, is that microgeneration will bring people closer to their source of energy. The evidence is that, where that happens, it is successful in changing attitudes to demand and to energy conservation.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am happy to give way to a fellow member of the Environmental Audit Committee.

I indeed have the pleasure of serving with the hon. Gentleman on the Environmental Audit Committee. Is there not a fourth benefit that arises from some of the other benefits that he mentioned: reducing fuel poverty? He said that £5 billion-worth of domestic energy is wasted each year. Surely, if some of that money was saved, it could be put into fuel poverty measures, making life better for everybody.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making an extremely valuable point that I had not thought of.

The point that I was trying to make is about the importance of energy efficiency to this debate, because it is surely the low-hanging fruit in climate change policy at a time when concerns about the costs attached to reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change are a drag on the international process, not least in the United States. Like other economies, it is concerned about the implications for economic competitiveness. Rigorous pursuit of greater energy efficiency in producing, distributing and conserving energy must be the ultimate win-win approach to ensuring that we reduce carbon emissions and improve the efficiency and competitiveness of our economies.

I welcome the Bill, but I want to conclude myspeech by expressing one regret, which is aboutthe cautiousness with which it engages local government—a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) pressed vigorously in Committee. He was right that the Bill raises an interesting debate about centralism versus localism, which the Minister enjoyed in Committee, but the fact that recycling is arguably the one green activity that has been successfully transformed from a niche activity to a mainstream one has come about because local authorities have played a critical role in making it easy for people to do—they have made it simple for people to do the right thing. I see an opportunity for local government to perform a similar role in the space that we are discussing.

We have heard both in the Chamber and in Committee about beacons of excellence. We have heard today about Brighton and Braintree, and Croydon was mentioned in Committee. If the Government are not prepared to engage more with local government on the Bill, they should be doing more to promote best practice across the country. I hope that the House,and certainly Opposition Members, will hold the Government to account on that opportunity.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) not only on introducing the Bill, but on seeing it through to this stage. I also join other hon. Members in offering my condolences to my hon. Friend and his family at this time. It is a tremendous credit to him that the ideas in the Bill are so widely accepted across the House that—I hope—we will be able to see it through, even though he is unable to join us today.

It is now almost a year since the ballot for private Members' Bills was held. At that time, very few people had any idea of what microgeneration was. Perhaps they thought that it was some new form of computer. Simply in their efforts to get the necessary 100 Members here on a Friday, my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh, North and Leith and for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) have raised awareness of microgeneration across the whole House and in the country.

Everyone is now talking about energy-efficient buildings and microgeneration, everyone accepts the idea of microgeneration and many people are very excited about the idea of making their own energy within their communities rather than depending on a centralised system that loses so much power just in transmission. As a gentleman in my constituency says, it is always either windy, sunny or raining. We know a lot about how to harness the wind and sun, but he is now thinking about how to harness the rain as it gushes down the gutters on the roofs of our steeply terraced houses in the Welsh valleys. That is just one example of how people are thinking about where energy and heat come from and how we generate them.

I welcome the announcement in this year's Budget of an additional £50 million that the Chancellor has pledged for the low-carbon buildings programme, with the specific aim of boosting the market for microgeneration equipment, working on the principle that an increase in the volume of equipment produced will help to bring down prices.

My hon. Friend mentioned improving access to microgeneration equipment. Does she accept that until such equipment is readily available—at the moment, most members of the public would not know where to go to obtain it—and heating and other engineers advise the public almost automatically on where to get such products, as opposed to other forms of fuel generators, we will still face long-term energy efficiency problems?

I agree absolutely. The key point is that we need to put in subsidy now in order to make the market more viable. By spending now, we will help to bring down prices and to make the possibilities more viable.

I hear what the hon. Lady is saying about subsidy, but does she accept that a much more effective way to promote microgeneration than trying to pick winners and impose subsidies—we should recognise that in the scheme of things, £50 million, however welcome, is a tiny amount in an electricity industry that generates billions of pounds—would have been for the Government to have supported the new clause that I tabled in Committee, proposing a local authority planning regulation requirement to fit microgeneration as standard in developments of a certain size? The estimates are that, if that had happened, it would have transformed the market from about £50 million to about £800 million.

rose—

Order. Before the hon. Lady responds, may I tell her that we should be talking about the contents of the Bill, not what it does not contain?

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to enlighten the hon. Gentleman: the Bill now contains a clause that refers to large buildings. I cannot immediately refer him to the clause, but it does feature in the Bill, even though it may not appear in the exact format that he suggested. Obviously it is important that we get on with pump-priming the process and enabling people to move forward with the technologies, as well as with supporting our fledgling industries, so that we do not end up importing products when we could be making them here with the right demand and subsidy.

After the hon. Lady's exchange with the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), does she accept that the important message in this debate is that although the Bill sends a signal about a direction in which we want to proceed, the actual delivery still very much depends on the Government taking the actions that will be necessary to achieve the Bill's aspirations?

Absolutely; that is why it is so important that we have pledged another £50 million to taking a step in that direction.

My hon. Friend may be aware that clause 11 entails adding to the building regulations a particular category on

"the production of heat or the generation of electricity by microgeneration".

That provision incorporates the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle. (Gregory Barker).

I thank my hon. Friend for finding the right clause.

For clarification, I may say that the amendment that has been made to the Bill is permissive. It allows things to happen, but the question is whether they will happen. I was talking aboutan imperative for local authorities to include microgeneration provision in all developments, ensuring an immediate transformation in the size of the market. Under the clause that now features in the Bill, it may or may not be incorporated in new build.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that the provision is at least a step in the right direction.

As I understand it, the aim is that the £50 million will be available for use on public buildings and for housing association homes, but I would also ask my hon. Friends in the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry to make it available for private households. Some Ministers may have reservations about making grant money available to the public. Others see some in the microgeneration industry as perpetually demanding grant funding, with no model for reaching viability without it. However, evidence from fellow northern European member states shows that medium to long-term grant programmes help to build critical market mass, which then offers the prospect of reaching a sustainable large market without grants. All we need is a few years with steady growth conditions in the market, and the rising price of fossil fuels is likely to increase demand.

In the UK, as in Germany, the home owner sector has been and continues to be the cornerstone of the growing solar-thermal market. Purchases by home owners encouraged by the availability of small incentives provide businesses in the sector with the market conditions to invest in growth. Through either subsidy programmes or fiscal incentives, a meaningful market stimulation programme for renewable microgeneration is essential, and it is crucial that that incorporates stimulation of the home owner sector.

Investment in a meaningful market stimulation programme for renewable microgeneration will offer strong returns and will lead to a self-sustainingmarket, which will not require Government incentive. That will significantly reduce UK demand for expensive new power stations, and it will help tofoster an internationally competitive UK renewable microgeneration industry, which is important if we are to get ahead of the game. It will also create jobs in the design, manufacture and installation of renewable microgeneration technologies.

I thank the Minister for Energy for his patience in dealing with the Bill and for producing the microgeneration strategy this year. However, I ask him to re-examine the criteria on spending the £50 million, which is an important practical issue.

I, too, extend my sympathies to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz); I regret his absence today. I also extend my best wishes to theright hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst(Mr. Forth)—but I cannot say that I regret his absence, and it is nice to participate in a private Member's Bill debate in which other hon. Members can get a word in edgeways.

The Bill is important, and it includes many imaginative measures, although it is slightly less imaginative now than it was when it started. Personally, I regret the loss of the clauses on renewable heat obligations, which would have formed an important incentive to technologies such as heat pumps and solar-thermal microgeneration. Nevertheless, the Bill will make a significant contribution to microgeneration and other forms of renewable energy.

Does my hon. Friend recognise that the loss of the renewable heat obligation will also damage the introduction of biomass heating, which could be used in rural areas where there is no gas main, and electricity is often used for heating? Renewable heat is an important way of reducing our carbon emissions.

Yes; biomass remains an area that needs to be explored more fully.

Some hon. Members are inclined to dismiss the potential of microgeneration for UK energy supply, which is enormous. Microgeneration can contribute 30 to 40 per cent. of a household's energy bill. If such percentages were applied to the whole UK energy bill on a national long-term basis, that would dwarf the current contribution made by, for example, nuclear power. Microgeneration is an incredibly important part of the overall UK energy supply.

This is about more than reducing carbon emissions. Promoting microgeneration will avoid dependence on dangerous and expensive alternatives, and thereby make an important contribution to UK energy supply resilience. We have only to compare microgeneration with nuclear power, which is now being discussed more often than it used to be, to see some of the advantages of microgeneration. Where nuclear power depends on a centralised energy supply system, microgeneration is more efficient and works on a decentralised system. The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) has referred to the equivalent of 73.5 million tonnes of oil being lost in the distribution and conversion of energy. Nuclear power would not tackle that issue, but microgeneration would.

Nuclear power is inherently risky not only in the short term, but the long term. Some cases involvewaste hanging around for millenniums, whereas microgeneration is inherently safe and efficient. Microgeneration is inherently diverse, because it involves more than one form of energy production—heat pumps, combined heat and power, micro-hydro, solar-thermal, photovoltaics and wind power. If any one of those sources were to prove to be less valuable than we currently hope, there would be many other sources to take its place, which makes it an inherently more secure form of energy supply than one that relies on a few major, large-scale, centralised sources.

Does clause 21 cover some of the areas to which the hon. Gentleman has referred? It states that the Secretary of State should consider the steps and report back to the House.

I am not sure whether it does. The hon. Lady has drawn attention to the very clause that originally contained the renewable heat obligations—a concrete measure that would have provided the market with a specific stimulus. Clause 21 is a limp alternative to that provision, but its inclusion is nevertheless welcome.

I was comparing the advantages of microgeneration with the disadvantages of nuclear power, and re-examining the need to subsidise nuclear power. The new Finnish nuclear power station is not an exampleof clean green technology. It may require enormous guarantees from the Finnish Government on the funding of the power station's eventual decommissioning and long-term waste disposal. The Energy Policy Act was introduced in the USA last year. It provided some $14 billion of subsidies to the nuclear industry. A microgeneration-led approach would not require such subsidies.

One of the welcome aspects of the Bill is that it uses imaginative incentives and the easing of red tape to encourage renewable generation and microgeneration without large-scale public subsidy. That will encourage private sector enterprises such as Solar Smart in my constituency, which offers a pioneering integrated approach to solar-thermal power. The approach involves the integration of solar panels into the supply of not only hot water, but domestic heating, which is an innovation. That is an example of how the microgeneration industry will reveal more potential than we now realise, if it is stimulated, which will enable a safer and more efficient energy supply industry.

I recently engaged in a debate with the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) in which he suggested that energy supplies, green issues and tackling climate change were a gentle, quality of life issue. As other hon. Members have pointed out, we must remember that climate change is a real threat to not only our quality of life but to the existence of our economy and, in many cases, to our society as we know it. I have tried to find some sources to persuade even the sceptics on the Conservative Back Benches of the urgency of this matter.

Sceptic!

Sceptic, on this occasion. I found a good commercial case from the Association of British Insurers, which reported in 2004 that weather risks are already increasing by 2 to 4 per cent. a year on household and property accounts due to changing weather. Claims for storm and flood damage in the UK doubled to more than £6 billion between 1998 and 2003 compared with the previous five years, with the prospect of a further tripling by 2015. Last year the ABI reported that in the UK climate change could increase the annual cost of flooding almost fifteenfold by the 2080s under the high emissions scenario, leading to potential total losses from river, coastal and urban flooding of more than £22 billion. There is clearly a serious commercial and economic risk to climate change.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the recently produced Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, which says:

"Even if greenhouse gases level off now, warming will continue at about the current rate for several decades."?

I am not aware of that particular report. If it is dated 2007, that is interesting, because it appears to be a year in advance.

It is a draft.

Okay. Obviously, global warming will continue for several decades. The question is really what we do when we are standing on the edge of a cliff. It does not matter how we got there; the question is whether we step forward or backwards. We have to start resisting and trying to ameliorate the trend towards global warming; otherwise, catastrophe will result. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who is no longer in her place, mentioned the possibility of rapid climate change resulting from changes in the thermohaline circulation. That might make the issue even more urgent.

If the ABI is not a sufficiently robust source for the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), perhaps consultants commissioned by the Pentagon might persuade him. They recently reported to the Pentagon the possible consequences of rapid climate change, including the changes in the thermohaline circulation. They speculated:

"As famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to the abrupt climate change, many countries' needs will exceed their carrying capacity. This will create a sense of desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression in order to reclaim balance...we can expect conflict over access to water for drinking, irrigation and transportation. The Danube touches twelve nations, the Nile runs through nine, and the Amazon runs through seven."

Climate change is a very serious issue, not a simple, fluffy, quality of life issue, and I am very pleased that it has become a mainstream political concern. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland indulged in a little nostalgia about her early days. I nostalgically remember the manifesto on which I joined the then Liberal party in 1979, which talked about the very great importance of environmental protection. In those days, only the Liberal party among the mainstream parties was even talking about that issue, and we were regarded as bearded loonies for doing so. [ Interruption. ] I am not entirely sure that I would have been capable of growing a beard in 1979.

It is very welcome that this is now a mainstream political issue and that there is a growing and strong all-party consensus that has been demonstrated today in this House. For that reason, this Bill is very important and deserves all our support.

I start by adding my condolences to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). I congratulate him on the success of the Bill so far. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), who has been a vigorous contributor to the Bill. Its current state reflects the great deal of attention that he has paid to it during recent weeks and months.

I will keep my remarks short, because I am keen for us to get on to other business, which includes my own contribution to tackling climate change, or at least halting the deterioration of our environment—my Bill on protecting back gardens. I am sure that the Father of the House is keen to get on to his Bill, too.

This time last week, I visited the home in my constituency of Mr. Paul Norris of High Brooms, who has installed a series of solar panels of his house. He has already had remarkable success. In recent weeks, he has managed to produce more solar energy than he is consuming. In addition to the savings that he is making, which he estimates will be in the order of £300 a year, he is saving about 1,000 kg of CO2 emissions. That stands as an example of how rapidly the technology is moving. It is already at the point of being economically viable. When we have beautiful days such as we had this morning in Tunbridge Wells before I left, Mr. Norris finds great satisfaction in the knowledge that the sunshine is contributing to energy that goes beyond his own requirements and is powering the houses of his neighbours.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out the contribution that the sun can make to helping us to deal with climate change. The example that he mentions shows the contribution that can also be made by technological developments. Does he agree that economic growth need not be the enemy of dealing successfully with climate change, and that when we welcome growth, we need to ensure that it comes with an environmental component? In particular, when it comes to dealing with the whole question of how we protect our garden space, is not his own Bill an admirable recognition that housing growth must go hand in hand with respect for the environment, particularly the gardens that play so much of a part in cooling the atmosphere in urban areas and fighting climate change?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the shadow housing Minister, and delighted to have his support. He is right that technology, far from being the enemy of progress on climate change, offers the potential to help. As anyone who cares to visitMr. Norris's house in High Brooms will see, it is a living example of how technology can offer us hope and allows us to step back from the cliff edge that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) mentioned.

Is my hon. Friend aware of roughly how much Mr. Norris's solar panel installation cost, so that we can work out roughly over how many years there will be a payback for someone thinking of doing similar?

My information is that it cost in the order of £15,000. However, one of the features of new technology is that once it goes into mass production, prices fall very rapidly. If it is that price today, I would expect that next year it will be much less, and so on. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) said, technology, particularly innovation in technology, can make great strides very quickly.

Does my hon. Friend agree that cost is absolutely crucial in getting widespread take-up of these technologies? Some years ago, I lived in a house with solar panels that provided hot water. They were fantastic, but when they broke and we looked into replacing them, the cost put us off. If we really want to get everybody on board in installing new technologies that will save energy, we have to ensure that the market is right.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I completely agree that we should not be put off by the cost. If we had been put off by the cost of early computers and concluded that they would never make a contribution to business or to the consumer, we would never have engaged in the research and development that has resulted in their being so indispensable today. I am absolutely certain that the costs will fall. We should take a dynamic view of the state of technology. It is evolving very rapidly. The example that I cited uses solar power to generate electricity rather than to heat water, which is much more flexible, as my hon. Friend will appreciate, and allows it to be transferred, in effect, from the house in which it was generated to the national grid and to other houses in the vicinity.

It is particularly admirable that the constituent to whom I referred is the deputy head of a very good junior school, St. Paul's in Rusthall in my constituency. I know from my postbag, and I am sure that other hon. Members find, that young people are among the most interested in the technology of new sources of energy and the concerns about climate change that we all address in our correspondence with them, and it is particularly good to have a role model.

I now turn to some specific aspects of the Bill, which I welcome. It was watered down in Committee to a regrettable extent. Nevertheless, it represents progress. It takes a step forward in energy policy by recognising the contribution of microgeneration.

Microgeneration makes a contribution in several ways, which I commend to the House and which the Bill reinforces. First, it contributes to the heating of space and water, as we have seen in the case of the gentleman in my constituency whom I mentioned. That contribution is tangible, immediate and it is not years away from development. Given that the heating of space and water accounts for a considerable proportion of national annual energy consumption—higher, indeed, than the proportion accounted for by electricity consumption—that is important. Secondly, the model of microgeneration has the potential to overturnthe centralised approach to electricity generation,which, as we know, involves enormous costs in therunning of transmission and distribution systems. Microgeneration is taking us into a new paradigm, and it is good that the Bill recognises the progress that we are making here.

Thirdly, combined heat and power, although it has not had the full support that we hoped it would have, is recognised in the Bill. The great advantage of microCHP is that it is ready to go, it is non-intermittent, which is important, and it requires no planning permission or special infrastructure to be established. Solar panels are, of course, all very well and wind turbines can make a contribution, but they are intermittent. If we are to make a step change in renewable energy, we need to be able to generate a base load of dependable energy generation, on top of which we can add the intermittent sources. The great advantage of CHP and microCHP is that, because they are non-intermittent, they can provide the foundation on which some of the solar and other renewable energy sources can build. Finally, it is important to recognise that microgeneration may have a vital role to play in the eventual emergence of a hydrogen economy. We know that there are problems with the electrolytic production of hydrogen and its distribution. That may mean that the best model for hydrogen power is local and decentralised. The microgeneration initiatives that the Bill supports open a new paradigm that may be instructive.

We all know that energy policy is subject to constant change, not least because of the rapidly developing technology. It is important that we keep pace with that. I hope that this will not be the last Bill that comes before the House and brings us up to date. I commend the Bill for taking the first steps in that direction. It signals perhaps the end, notwithstanding the current energy review, of what we may call the Jurassic age of energy policy, when massive decisions about massive generating plants and distribution mechanisms were taken by a small number of people, including the Minister for Energy and his predecessors. With the greatest respect to the Minister, I hope that it will not be possible for our energy policy to be determined by a single individual, but that it will be determined, in effect, by the individual decisions of millions of consumers of energy across the country.

May I first congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on introducing the Bill and express my condolences to him and to his family on their recent sad loss? I am pleased that, despite him not being with us, the Bill will, I hope, be able to progress.

The issue at hand is, of course, important and fundamental for the wellbeing of mankind. We have had a considerable amount of rhetoric on the subject but it is fair to say that action has been limited. I hope that, with this Bill, that will change and that action will progress. I echo the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway), who is not at present in his place, when he agreed with the comments of the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the "Today" programme earlier today. The right hon. Gentleman said that he hoped to see greater co-operation between Departments, particularly with the new Secretary of State for Transport and the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. That, of course, is in stark contrast with previous experience, when DEFRA has always taken second place in a debate with another Department.

I am keen to emphasise that I am not in the business of point scoring, particularly in this very important debate, but I think it important to recognise that there has been considerable opposition to the Government's approach to this issue, if only in recent weeks. The closure of the four centres of ecology and hydrology, which were engaged in research on the environment and climate change, is a case in point. They were closed, so it was said, in order to save money. Some£45 million was supposedly saved, a figure with which I disagree. But even if one accepts that there are savings to be made, we have to recognise that in the scheme of things—

I admire my hon. Friend for making this very important point about centres of academic and scientific excellence. Did not the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), who used to be the Minister with responsibility for biodiversity, himself write to the Prime Minister pointing out that the closure of one such centre in Dorset would be a strategic error? Notwithstanding the fact that the hon. Gentleman has been promoted, is it not ominous that he has been promoted out of DEFRA and away from his biodiversity commitments? So one guardian of biodiversity and the fight against climate change—

Order. I counsel the hon. Gentleman not to be tempted too far away from the content of the Bill.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a very valid point. Indeed, one such centre of excellence that was engaged in climate change research— Monks Wood, which I have visited—is in my own constituency. It is worth recognising the enormous opposition that these closures have generated. I hope that the Government will take that point on board, because those voices spoke out not only for preserving jobs and other such issues, but for the need to deal with climate change.

The Government must set an example and lead from the front. It is all very well accepting the minimum standards for building regulations and the like, but it is important that, where the opportunity allows, the Government go one step beyond. A perfect example is the recent procurement of the new Home Office building, in respect of which the minimum standards of environmental protection have doubtless been enforced. I am minded to say that the Government should have taken the lead and gone further. The general public criticise the Government and politicians for simply talking about making changes, and such criticism is merited. When the Government have the opportunity to make such changes, they confine themselves to only the minimum statutory ones.

Local authorities also have a major role to play; indeed, several Members have referred to the role played by their local authorities. I congratulate my own—Peterborough city council and Huntingdonshire district council—on their sterling work in ensuring that there are environmentally friendly projects throughout the constituency. Local authorities can also play an important role in encouraging developers and builders to go beyond the statutory minimum. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) said earlier, the provisions in clause 11 are not mandatory. It is important to recognise that writing something down is one thing: ensuring that developers and others abide by such legislation is another.

Schools have a vital role to play. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) referred earlier to schoolchildren being told to switch off lights. I was recently heartened, on visiting one of my local schools, to be told that the children go home and tell their parents about recycling and other such beneficial measures. We must not underestimate the influence that schoolchildren can have on the older generation. If this generation are taught in school about looking after the climate, we will find that in due course half of the battle has been won. But that is not to say that we should leave it for the children of today to do the work for us in the future, because we have an important duty to act to preserve the climate ourselves.

Aviation pollution has been mentioned, and it is an important issue that must be addressed. Motor cars can be modified to run on hydrogen or electricity, but it is not so easy to modify aeroplanes to use those fuels. We will have to wait very many years for that to be possible. I recognise that aviation companies are making sterling efforts to reduce pollution, but the industry is still a heavy polluter and, where possible, the Government must work with the companies, not against them, to ensure that we reach a satisfactory solution.

We must also learn from the experience of other countries, and of companies that operate in them. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, of which I am a member, recently visited San Francisco. We are all aware that leadership on environmental projects is lacking at the top in the US, but in San Francisco we saw that many worthwhile initiatives are being undertaken locally, and we can learn from them. One example is the way in which utility companies are proactive and work with the San Francisco authorities to try to persuade local businesses and domestic householders to adopt energy-efficient technologies. If an individual householder is paying $200 a quarter for electricity, the utility company will go into the house and change the lighting and heating system, at its own cost, so that it becomes more energy-efficient. If the subsequent bill falls to $150 a quarter, the householder continues to pay $200 until the utility company's costs have been covered. Thereafter, the householder receives the benefit of the savings, having paid nothing at the outset. We should consider that or similar measures in this country.

The Committee has also considered the present concentration on onshore wind projects. I am mindful that the hon. Member for City of Durham(Dr. Blackman-Woods) also mentioned this point earlier. I agree with the Committee's findings, and we need to do more to ensure that alternative renewable technologies, such as wave, tidal and solar power, are examined and encouraged. I am encouraged by the work that is being done in countries such as Holland, which have a considerable number of offshore wind turbines, generating a significant amount of energy. In this country, whenever wind turbines are mentioned, they provoke opposition and obstacles. People claim to find them unsightly—in Holland, they are called visual pollution. I have to say that there are many things that I would put in that category before wind turbines. Perhaps if we went offshore, there would be fewer such problems. I accept that offshore wind turbines and the use of solar, wave and tidal energy will cost more, but we are talking about the well-being and the very future of mankind. In the greater scheme of things such investments are worth while, because in the mid to long term they will become cost-effective.

I am mindful that other Members want to speak so I shall conclude my comments. I very much welcome the cross-party consensus that we have found on the Bill and I hope that there will be no more obstacles to its passage into law.

I, too, extend my condolences to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) and also my congratulations on the successful progress of the Bill so far. In fact, I am feeling so magnanimous that I shall even extend my sympathy to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), although not quite to the extent of wishing him such a speedy recovery that he emerges on the Conservative Benches before the end of the debate, given the precedents on Report.

Does not the hon. Gentleman understand that as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has already contributed to this debate it would not be possible for him to make another speech?

I fully appreciate that point and am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making it. However, I have noticed that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has a certain influence on other Members, to which the hon. Member for Christchurch may be particularly well able to attest.

Climate change is an urgent issue. I was especially pleased that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) mentioned the gulf stream or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, the thermohaline circulation. The UK faces not the advantageous outcome of gentle global warming in the south of England that allows us all to grow vines in our gardens but, were the gulf stream to switch off, a fall in average temperatures of between 4(o) and 6(o), and perhaps as much as 10(o) in the winter. Recent research by Harry Bryden and his team at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, Europe's largest and pre-eminent marine research centre, found that there had been a substantial fall in the strength of the gulf stream since 1992. I very much hope that it is being affected by short-term considerations, but it certainly underlines the urgency of tackling climate change and the importance of addressing it politically.

The Bill contains useful measures. It sets targets and asks Ministers to report on them, and it enables Ministers to take action on a series of measures, including microgeneration and energy efficiency. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, I regret that some provisions have been dropped, especially those on renewable heat obligations. I hope that some of what remains, including some of the elements introduced by the Government with a degree of caution, will not be used; for example, I urge the Minister to tell us that he does not intend, in current circumstances, to use subsection (2) of clause 4. It provides that subsection (1), which allows the Secretary of State to set national microgeneration targets,

"does not apply unless on 1st November 2008 the Secretary of State considers that it would be appropriate to designate one or more targets under that subsection".

It is an all-purpose let-out and I hope that it has been included only for emergencies—genuine cases where the Government are not able to proceed, rather than something that they intend to trigger early on.

Generally, there are some useful measures in the Bill. I particularly hope that the Government will avail themselves of the powers that they would be given under clause 7, to enable the buy-back of surplus electricity from microgeneration schemes, because that would make an enormous difference to the incentives, about which we have heard from a number of hon. Members, for households to install such equipment. It would make a lot of sense for the Government to encourage energy efficiency. We know, and I hope that it will be properly reflected in the Minister's energy review, when it is published, that energy efficiency schemes are possibly among the most efficient ways to fill any gap in the supply of electricity.

I think that there is only one source of energy for the generation of electricity that is even more economical than the National Audit Office has found energy efficiency schemes to be: onshore wind power. I therefore hope that that is firmly in the mix, and the Bill would indeed allow that. For example, it would also allow the Government to designate, under the permitted development order powers, the installation of wind turbines automatically. Given the importance of this issue, it seem nonsense that we can install Sky television dishes, but not wind turbines under existing powers.

Clause 19 is also excellent, and I commend it to the House because it deals with community energy schemes. It would be particularly important in ensuring that local communities are in favour of onshore wind schemes and that they can participate sometimes in the benefits and certainly in the process of consultation before the construction of such schemes. An example of that is the Gigha scheme in Scotland, which has gone very smoothly. We have heard a lot from hon. Members on both sides of the House about the difficulties that occasionally arise about specific schemes, and those provisions could be one of the ways to resolve them.

A central theme of the Bill is the possibility of proceeding rapidly with decentralisation. We have also heard from hon. Members about the amount of waste that occurs in the generation of electricity from fossil fuels. Roughly a fifth of energy actually reaches the end-user and can be used usefully, once waste heat during the generating process, waste in transmission and waste in end-use are taken into account. The localisation and decentralisation of electricity generation makes an awful lot of sense. Of course the problem is that it is not the sort of solution that naturally appeals to civil servants sitting in Whitehall who like a big bang and who like to be able to wave a magic wand and say that they have the magic bullet and the magic solution. It is inevitably a solution that involves the activity of many millions of people, but given the technological progress that we have made, it is a very important solution, and I welcome the powers granted in the Bill that would help to achieve it. That brings me to my final point, as I am also aware that other hon. Members want to speak and that time marches on.

There is a growing recognition throughout the House, shown by the signatories to the cross-party agreement of five parties on climate change and evident among Government Members, that action is needed urgently. Certainly, the recent remarks of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggest that there is a growing realisation that we need to act urgently on this issue and that the Government and we as legislators must set a clear framework in which people can operate. This is a classic collective action problem. If someone stands up when watching a football match, the person behind has to stand up, and before we know it, everyone is standing up and no one has a better view. If we can reach a genuine assurance that everyone should continue to sit down, that everyone should save energy and that everyone should be prepared to charge their behaviour in most ways—not by disporting an excessive hair shirt—we can make real progress on climate change, albeit in a country that is responsible for only about 2 per cent. of carbon emissions globally.

Our standing in the international community and our ability to argue in the European Union and more widely for radical international measures depend on our ability to set a clear example. There is an enormous advantage both for consumers of energy and for people who are developing the new technologies of our being the first mover, recognising and adjusting to a new world where climate change is taken extremely seriously. With those thoughts, the Liberal Democrats very much support the measure. We congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith on its progress, and we very much hope that it will reach the statute book in short order.

I, too, pass on my condolences to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on the sad family bereavement that he recently experienced.

Like almost every hon. Member who has contributed to our debate, I very much welcome the Bill, particularly the fact that Members of Parliament can hold Governments of whatever party accountable for progress on carbon emissions. That is tremendously important: just as we will be held accountable by the electorate on the issue, the Bill gives us the power to hold the Government of the day to account. In time, that welcome power will lead to a much-needed reduction in carbon emissions. However, it has been pointed out that the major initiatives that will effect reductions in CO2 emissions in this country are the energy review, which is currently on the Minister's desk, and the full implementation of emissions trading. Sadly, on current projections, the Government will miss the 2010 and 2050 targets. Although we all welcome the Bill with enthusiasm, we are right to temper that enthusiasm with a great deal of concern about the wider picture.

Just over a year ago, the general election took place. Contrary to advice, I made climate change a major feature of my election literature, but I was disappointed that it was little noticed by the constituents whom I met during the campaign. Afterwards, I asked a young man why that was the case. He said that many people of his generation did not fully understand climate change, which had connotations of a warmer Mediterranean climate creeping on to British shores, thus preventing the need to hop on an easyJet plane from Luton for a summer holiday. That is a measure of the challenge that we face as parliamentarians—we must explain the issue in clear and simple language, and show why it is important. We should aim to do so in this debate. Weather patterns in this country will be disrupted, and we must consider the future of our planet. However, it is not just our children and our children's children who are affected, as climate change is killing people today. That point is not made often enough. According to the World Health Organisation, 150,000 people a year die as a result of climate change-related illnesses. It is important to stress that it is not just a future threat but an issue that is taking the lives of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. Does he agree that climate change may well have contributed to the historic situation in the past 10 to 20 years in the horn of Africa? The heat wave in Europe only a couple of years ago, which may have killed 20,000 to 30,000 people, was probably a consequence of global warming.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the horn of Africa, because I was briefly going to give an example from that part of the world before returning to the substance of the Bill. He is absolutely right. As climate change affects less-developed nations, people are forced off their land—because there is no productive agricultural capacity—and that leads to war and conflict. Farmers in Ethiopia and elsewhere have found that they simply cannot grow what they grew 20 years ago. That is directly related to the climate change that the Bill rightly seeks to do something about.

My hon. Friend refers to climate change, but is he asserting that it is all the result of man-made climate change?

The vast mass of the scientific evidence is that carbon emissions produced from buildings and transport are the primary producers of the carbon that goes into the atmosphere. I find the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence such that none of us can dispute it. One of the candidates who stood against me at the last general election denied the existence of climate change. By the time that I come to defend my seat if my local party should choose to pick me as its candidate at the next general election, I very much hope that none of the candidates will dispute the existence of climate change. We must move beyond asking ourselves whether the problem exists. We will not make progress unless we accept the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence from this country, the United States of America and elsewhere.

It has been pointed out several times that the UK produces only 2 per cent. of the world's carbon emissions. If we are to take the issue seriously—welcome as the Bill will be in holding the Government of the day to account—it is essential that we have an international framework with real teeth to consider the issue on a global basis. The United Nations is the only possible organisation that could take that role and provide a moral lead.

I return to points that are closer to home and more relevant to the Bill. Several hon. Members have quite properly mentioned the role of local authorities, of which I would like to mention three. We have heard about Braintree and its excellent scheme of giving council tax reductions to the local residents who have cavity wall insulation of a certain standard. That is practical and results in a meaningful financial gain to people and helps to reduce climate change emissions. Why are the Government and the Local Government Association not rolling that out across the country? If it works in Braintree and is sensible there, why is it not happening more widely? Perhaps the Minister could let us know if there are any moves to extend the measure to other local authorities.

I also wish to comment on the local authority in Woking. Coincidentally, and like Braintree, it happens to be Conservative run, and it has been highly innovative in producing the first commercially operating combined heat and power station of its kind in the country. I understand that it is up to 90 per cent. efficient and produces very few serious emissions. Fuel poverty has been mentioned in the debate and it is covered by the Bill, and I note that pensioners in social housing in Woking have made savings equivalent to6 to 7 per cent. of their income. Owner-occupiers have made savings of between 7.5 and 10 per cent. It is a win-win situation. People who are often on low incomes and in need have money taken off their fuel bills and something is done about the carbon emissions produced in this country.

Many hon. Members may know that Ken Livingstone, having seen what happened in Woking, pinched Woking's borough engineer, Allan Jones, who now heads the London Climate Change Agency. Ken Livingstone has made the point that the great cities of the world produce about three quarters of carbon emissions globally. So there is a real opportunity for great cities, both in this country and around the world, to do something to make a difference as far as climate change is concerned.

That relates to the points that several hon. Members have made about the inefficiency of the national grid. I hope that we will move away from the concept of a national grid in time. We know that, on average, coal-fired power stations are only 36 per cent. efficient, gas 46 per cent., and even nuclear only 38 per cent. Some 70 per cent. of carbon emissions from London are wasted in the transmission of power from centralised power stations to buildings in London. We will all be watching with interest as Allan Jones rolls out what he has done in Woking in London. That is very welcome.

A great deal of new housing, across the country and particularly in the south-east, is planned by the Government. It is true that the Government have brought in new part L building regulations, which are compulsory, and which will, I believe, lead to a 40 per cent. increase in energy efficiency. That is good and welcome as far as it goes. However, I do not understand—perhaps the Minister can enlighten us today—why the Government have been so reticent in not enforcing the Building Research Establishment standards, which are known as BREEAM—the Building Research Establishment environmental assessment method. For domestic housing, the term is EcoHomes. Those standards are voluntary and frankly there is not the will and they are ignored by developers at the moment. If the Government are really serious about the issue and about making progress, why are they not bringing those much higher standards into force?

In my county of Bedfordshire, there is a firm called Agrifibre Technologies. I have no financial link with it, but its managing director is one of my constituents. He tells me that he is able to produce £40,000 affordable houses to extremely high environmental standards—in fact, they are all made from renewable materials. However, he gets pushed from Government agency to Government agency and is unable to roll that scheme out to the extent that he would like.

I have seen recently from my constituency mailbag that the first wind turbine will be going up on a house in my constituency. I welcome that. However, as other hon. Members have said, the £265 planning fee for those domestic wind turbines seems excessive, as does the fact that one has to have planning permission at all. Sky dishes and antennae do not require planning permission, so that seems curious.

Luton airport is close to my constituency. We know that the current Government projections for aviation growth show the entire quota of CO2 emissions being taken up, as far as this country's international targets are concerned. There is a large issue in relation to aviation growth that is not being remotely squared. We wait to find a proper answer.

Many hon. Members have referred to the issue of leaving electronic gadgets on stand-by. That seems to be yet another example of the House of Commons telling people to do as it says, but not as it does. I hope that moves can be made to ensure that more of the equipment in Members' offices, and particularly the television monitors, can be turned off when we arenot here.

I have managed to turn off the television in my office—there is actually an on-off button. I am surprised to hear that Opposition Members have not been able to do so.

I am not sure when the hon. Lady became a Member, and perhaps hon. Members have different generations of equipment. I am not sure that it is possible to do that with all the monitors, and certainly the advice from the Serjeant at Arms Department is to leave them on. The issue needs to be examined, but I am delighted that the hon. Lady is setting a personal example.

Biomass can make an important contribution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. It is especially sensible for the UK to go down that route because biomass could provide us with our own safe supply of energy. We would thus not need long transport routes to bring energy to this country and, additionally, we could provide a lot of help to our beleaguered farming community.

Like many Conservative Members and, indeed, hon. Members on both sides of the House, I welcome the Bill. I join them in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) and expressing my condolences for his inability to be here today. I am sure that we all send condolences and best wishes to his family, too.

There is widespread consensus across the House on the specific dangers that we face as a result of climate change. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) pointed out, that consensus now includes the Pentagon. It is a remarkably wide consensus that can embrace both Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesmen and the Pentagon, but I am glad that it has been reached.

While we all recognise that climate change is occurring, there are others, many of whom are mainly well-intentioned sceptics, who argue that the man-made contributions to the process of climate change have been exaggerated. Two things must be said to that. The balance of scientific opinion—from David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, down, up, or across—is that man-made contributions play a significant role in accelerating the process of climate change. I would not like to put my judgment in balance against the huge weight of scientific evidence that suggests that man-made contributions play their part.

More than that, however, we should broadly apply a prudential principle when considering something as immense as climate change. While I absolutely believe that we need to balance risk and prudence in many areas of life, we are considering something as momentous as our planet's climate, its impact on the environment, its impact on biodiversity and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) pointed out, its impact on international development. When we weigh all those considerations in the balance, we need to step carefully—to ca'canny, as we say in my native Scotland. That means that by erring on the side of caution, we should give the Bill a fair wind.

The Bill will achieve much more than simply a step change in our national contribution to combating climate change because it will also lead to welcome developments in the energy field. By promoting microgeneration, it will play a part in helping us to achieve greater national energy security, and it will help us to embrace the principle of decentralisation and competition in the provision of energy supply.

As I am sure that we are all aware, there have been ominous developments abroad, not just in Russia but in the middle east, that put at risk our over-reliance on fossil fuels. Oil and gas, for a variety of reasons, are overwhelmingly located in countries in the middle east or the former Soviet Union that are either fundamentally politically unstable, or in the hands of regimes that, to put it mildly, do not have our best interests at heart. Anything that we can do to encourage domestic energy generation, especially microgeneration, is welcome.

I reflect again on the speech made by the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson). We have a huge supply of coal in this country, so we should not throw fossil fuels right out of our thinking. We should think about harnessing new technologies. The hon. Gentleman talked about carbon capture and carbon sequestration, which mean that no CO2 is released into the atmosphere. We must be creative in our thinking and ensure that the Government give the necessary economic stimulus to our fossil fuels, as long as those fuels do not chuck out loads of CO2 intothe air.

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I know that he has a long-term commitment to the north-east and therefore has the interests of mining communities and former mining communities very much to heart. We on the Opposition Benches would stress the vital importance of pluralism in energy supply. I do not think that any of us would contemplate the disappearance of fossil fuels in playing a part in the generation of energy tomorrow. I think that we all recognise that the imaginative use of fossil fuels in future, particularly in harness with new technology, can play a significant role. I pay tribute to some successful energy companies, not least BP and Shell, that have been pioneering new ways to ensure that fossil fuels can play an appropriate part in a balanced energy strategy.

As Members may or may not be aware, there is the threat by UK Coal to shut down 70 to 75 per cent. of the mines that it has remaining. There is urgency in stimulating and doing what we can to harness new technologies to save the coal industry, which is a strategic resource and part of our debate, in terms of providing sustainable energy for our country.

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Minister with responsibilities for energy is in his place and I am sure that he will take into account in his deliberations the future of energy policy and my hon. Friend's passionate commitment to coal mining communities.

Not only should microgeneration and diversity of supply play a part in securing our national interest in energy security in future, but encouraging microgeneration is a way of embracing the principle of pluralism, which has been alluded to, to create the right sort of energy market. My hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) referred to the Jurassic age of energy policy in the past, and we all know what he means. It is the man in Whitehall knowing best and taking decisions about the future of energy in a way that was Gosplan-ish at best. We need to ensure that we have genuine pluralism and that people are encouraged to play their part in providing energy to the grid rather than being passive consumers at the behest of decisions that are taken at a strategic level that provide insufficient diversity to ensure that we have the right energy structure in future.

In that respect, the Bill should be welcomed,and not only by those people who are natural environmentalists. It should be welcomed also by those people who take our national security seriously and by those who believe in competition, diversity and pluralism in markets.

There is another reason why the Bill should be commended, and that is new clause 28, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker). The clause enjoins local authorities to take account of climate change and microgeneration when they consider planning development. The clause is important because, as some hon. Members may know, housing is dear to my heart. I and my party accept that there is a pressing need for new housing development. Unfortunately, there is a need to expand supply to meet the growth in households. Over the past 10 or 15 years we had a mismatch between the growth in the number of households and the provision of new homes. Between 1991 and 2000, according to figures from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, about 500,000 new households were created for which no new homes were supplied. We need to provide new homes for those people for reasons of social justice. We must also do something about the runaway rate of house price inflation.

As we accept the need for new homes, we must recognise that there is resistance to new development. We need to analyse why that new development is resisted. The Secretary of State—

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman now relate his remarks to the contents of the Bill?

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

One reason for the resistance to new development is that people recognise that new housing development contributes to CO2 emissions, and that new housing development can have a detrimental impact on our environment. New clause 28 directly addresses that well-founded fear, which exists among my constituents and throughout the south-east, as well as throughout the country.

We saw recent evidence of the concern that many communities have about the impact of development on the environment in the response of the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to a series of developments literally in her own backyard. The right hon. Lady made an admirable plea for more housing when, recently, she was on the "Today" programme. The reality of the situation in her constituency is that she has been the ally of those resisting development. Why? The answer is that the system under this Government does not provide people with the necessary assurances that they need to welcome new development.

People need assurances that infrastructure will be funded, that their wishes will be heeded and that local government will play a vital role in shaping new development. People need to know also that the environment and environmental considerations will play a part in new development. My hon. Friend's clause will enshrine in law a requirement for local authorities to take that into consideration, and therefore play a part in building the new consensus that we need on genuinely sustainable development.

I alluded earlier to the consensus stretching from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench to the Pentagon on the need to tackle climate change. I would like a consensus to emerge across the House on the need to understand why there has been resistance to housing development in the past. That consensus should include an appreciation of the vital importance of ensuring that new homes are eco-friendly and play their part in the battle against climate change. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire has talked about practical examples of that trend, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has put the matter at the heart of Conservative housing policy.

I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument with great interest. He seems to be putting forward a hypothesis that nimbys are essentially eco-warriors demanding that new housing development should have higher standards. Has that heroic hypothesis been tested empirically in his own constituency?

Yes, it has. During the general election campaign, and in the course of carrying out my duties as a constituency MP, I have found that one of people's prime concerns about new development is its impact on the environment. There is a direct relationship between them. The Minister uses the term "eco-warriors". Most of us remember that the most famous eco-warrior, Swampy, found himself operating arm in arm with tweedy Conservative ladies in Berkshire and elsewhere in the home counties in resisting development. He was resisting transport developments. Whether we use the dismissive term "eco-warriors" or the term that I prefer, "conscious environmentalists", we must acknowledge the direct link between concern for our environment and resistance to development. Unless we address that link and ensure that people realise that development can be environmentally conscious, we will continue to stoke resentment towards new development.

The hon. Gentleman seemsto be questioning the commitment of some members of his party to transport development. Will he joinme in condemning Conservative councils such as Gloucestershire county council, which has shifted money out of climate-friendly integrated transport and into road maintenance?

The hon. Gentleman tempts me, literally, to go down a road that I have not travelled before. As I am unfamiliar with what the admirable and enlightened leaders of Gloucestershire county council have done, I shall not comment on that matter. I also notice that Madam Deputy Speaker is suggesting, with a flutter of her eyelashes, that this is perhaps slightly off topic.

I wish to see the Bill pass on to the statute book, not only because it tackles the issue of climate change but because it makes a contribution to energy security and to competition. I particularly want to see it pass on to the statute book because my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle has made a direct contribution to building a durable, eco-friendly consensus in favour of matching new development with a sensitive concern for the environment.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), with whom I agree absolutely that there is a good bit in the Bill about energy security. There is also some important stuff about diversity of supply and the promotion of competition. I disagree with him, however, on whether there is a balance of scientific opinion to show that clause 1(1) makes the correct assumption on which to base the Bill. The clause states:

"The principal purpose of this Act is to enhance the United Kingdom's contribution to combating climate change."

Having looked at quite a lot of evidence, it is my considered opinion that the case for that assumption has not been made. Indeed, I would say to my hon. Friends the Members for Surrey Heath and for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), and to other hon. Friends who have spoken so ably in the debate, that they should look at the article by our noble Friend, Lord Lawson of Blaby, which was published in The Spectator in March this year.

I find the hon. Gentleman's remarkson the weight of scientific evidence slightly curious, given that the world community has set up the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Since the 1980s, the panel has generated a succession of documents drawing attention to the overwhelming evidence. There is no other example of such a structure or precedent for it in the scientific community. I wonder whether he should at least be reassured by that, and give a little more weight to the deliberations of the intergovernmental panel on climate change than to the no doubt excellent deliberations of Lord Lawson of Blaby.

Following that long intervention, I hope to have the chance to refer to issues such as those that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I thought that a good starting point for colleagues in my party would be the assessment made by a former very distinguished Chancellor of the Exchequer and indeed Secretary of State for Energy.

I hope that my hon. Friends will look at the article, which covered three pages in the 11 March edition of The Spectator and was headed "Deep thought: Climate of superstition". The byline was:

"Nigel Lawson says that the only way to deal with global warming is to reject the religious zeal of the green lobby".

I shall not refer to the article at great length, because hon. Members can read it.

Nigel Lawson was a great reforming and pioneering Chancellor of the Exchequer who did many great things for the British economy, but I am slightly mystified as to why he should be quoted as a great guru on climate change. Will my hon. Friend tell me what it is about the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer that prepares and trains Nigel Lawson to lecture the rest of the world on climate change and the specific science about it?

Our right hon. and noble Friend Lord Lawson has experience as not only Chancellor of the Exchequer but Secretary of State for Energy. He also has been serving on a Committee in the other place considering the economic effects of global warming and the best cost-effective measures that can be taken. As my hon. Friend will know, the conclusion from the Committee's report is that we should be investing in dealing with the consequences of climate change and global warming rather than trying to spend all our resources on fighting global warming on the doubtful premise that it is all man-made and that by changing our behaviour in this country we can change the planet. That is what our right hon. and noble Friend has been considering in depth in the other place. It is with reference to the report and to the evidence taken by that Committee that he writes his article, which I commend to the House and to my hon. Friend.

I hope that we will have a chance to reflect on what has happened since 24 March, when this debate began. We are now in a position in which neither my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst(Mr. Forth) nor the promoter of the Bill is present, and I join others in sending both of them our best wishes.

Other things have also happened since 24 March, however. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) has been to see the Norwegian fjords, and I hope that he will find time in his speech to give me a line to take on a letter from Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the university of London. He states:

"Norwegian glaciers are especially complex, some advancing and others retreating, depending on the balance between winter snow and summer melt. From 1930 to 1990, most retreated. However, from 1963 to 2000, maritime glaciers tended to grow significantly, like the Nigardsbreen, which has advanced 280 metres in two decades."

He concludes that

"the climate changes and...influences glaciers in complex ways".

I will deal specifically with my hon. Friend's point in my winding-up speech. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and I did not visit the Norwegian fiords, and we did not take a little cruise around the coastline. We were several hundred miles north of the Norwegian mainland at Spitzbergen in the high Artic. My hon. Friend's geography, rather like his science, is out.

Well—

Order. Having had that point clarified, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will look at the content of the Bill and address his remarks to it rather than whatever did or did not take place in Norway or wherever else.

Absolutely, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall move on to that subject straight away, which means that I will not have to respond to the attack on my intellectual capabilities. When I refer to the balance of scientific opinion, it does not mean that I have conducted research—it means that I have looked at other people's research.

The hon. Gentleman is undoubtedly right that some glaciers have extended and some have retreated. However, he must recognise that the balance of evidence—for example, recent studies of west Antarctica—indicates that glaciers have been in retreat overall. There is firm evidence for the hypothesis, which the intergovernmental panel on climate change has resolutely supported, that we face a serious climate change problem that has been generated by man.

Again, the hon. Gentleman has made an assertion based on the work of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Since he places such emphasis on that organisation's work, I hope that he therefore accepts the findings of its draft 2007 report, which is available on the internet, which states:

"Even if greenhouse gases level off now, warming will continue at about the current rate for several decades."

That is new information since we started this debate on 24 March. The consequence of that statement is that warming is inevitable and unavoidable for several decades, which surely makes the case stronger for investing in combating the consequences of warming rather than engaging in a futile attempt to prevent it in the first place.

A second change since 24 March was the publication of a letter from 41 distinguished international scientists in The Sunday Telegraph on 23 April, which is St. George's day—perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle was celebrating St. George's day on 23 April and did not see it. The letter stated:

"Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise'".

The scientists also noted:

"observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future."

rose—

I shall give way to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), who has attacked my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst for taking up so much time in this House. I remind the hon. Gentleman that when this debate started on 24 March, my right hon. Friend was the only Member to rise in his place. If the hon. Gentleman had been present then, he would have been able to rise in his place and be called.

The hon. Gentleman seems to be very dismissive of some of the climate change models that attribute anthropogenic source to global warming, which presumably includes the model recommended by David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser. Last year, David King said that the 0.6 per cent. increase in atmospheric temperature was exactly as would have been predicted from the increase from an historic range of 200 to 220 parts per million of CO2 to 379 parts per million. That model seems to suggest that the link between emissions and climate change is spot on.

The model is based on an heroic hypothesis, to quote a phrase used by the Minister.

Another change that has come about since our previous debate on 24 March is the publication on1 May of an article by Ruth Lea, the director of the Centre for Policy Studies.

I suspect the hon. Gentleman's science, as well as his geography. He is also wrong about the date of the beginning of Third Reading, which was 17 March.

If I recollect correctly, Report started on 17 March and we did not move on to Third Reading until 24 March. However, that point is of little import, except that the hon. Gentleman uses it to attack my knowledge.

The hon. Gentleman is not going to prevent me from referring to the excellent article by Ruth Lea, which is headed, "The idea everyone agrees on climate change is a fallacy". Many hon. Members will be unaware that she is a trained statistician and therefore in a strong position to be able to comment on the statistics of the issue. She says that the 0.6° C increase in global average surface temperatures is within the limits of natural statistical error and that global average air temperatures have not changed over the past 20 or30 years.

My hon. Friend is making it admirably clear that he is sceptical about the scientific consensus on the arguments for an anthropogenic source of climate change. May I put it to him, however, that given that he agrees that the Bill serves admirable energy security and competition ends, it is worthy of his support notwithstanding that scepticism?

Certainly, I shall not be objecting to the Bill's Third Reading; nor will I seek to take up so much time that we do not have a chance to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle and the Minister. That is very much in the spirit of the way in which the Bill has been debated. I accept that it is not wholly bad, but it is based on a false premise, and that is the purpose of my remarks. Nevertheless, I hope that there will be an amendment in the other place to get rid of parts of clause 13, which I do not like at all.

The Prime Minister has rightly said that

"there is no serious answer to climate change except at an international level."

He exemplified the importance of international agreement by pointing out that

"as a result of the growth being experienced by China, we estimate that even if we shut down all the emissions in this country, it would take the Chinese economy about 12 months to make up the difference."—[Official Report, 3 May 2006; Vol. 445, c. 966.]

He probably had in mind the fact that China is producing 562 large coal-fired power stations between now and 2012 and producing a new coal-fired power station every five days for seven years.

Even the most enthusiastic supporter of the Bill would not say that it is about shutting down all carbon emissions. At its most ambitious, it is about shutting down 4.5 per cent. of total UK carbon emissions by 2050—about 45 years hence. That figure is gleaned from the microgeneration strategy report that we asked about during the earlier parts of our proceedings, which was eventually produced by the Government just before the expiry of the 18-month deadline. That report refers to the study by the Energy Saving Trust commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry which suggested that by 2050 widespread installation of microgeneration could be reducing household carbon emissions by approximately15 per cent.

We already know that household carbon emissions make up about one third of total UK carbon emissions. Fifteen per cent. of 30 per cent. is a 4.5 per cent. reduction in carbon emissions in the UK over that 45-year period. To use the example quoted by the Prime Minister, in the time between Report in March and today the Chinese economy has already made up the difference. That is the scale of what we are debating. Just in the past six weeks, China has already increased its carbon emissions by more than the amount by which UK emissions would be reduced if all the microgeneration proposed in the Bill were to come about, which would only reduce UK emissions by4.5 per cent. by 2050. UK emissions are at the moment only 2 per cent. of global emissions. Therefore the Bill, and clause 1 certainly, grossly exaggerates and oversells the ability of individual householders or Government in this country to deal with the "problem" of climate change and global warming.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept the moral principle that one should act in such a way that if everyone else acted in that way, the result would be acceptable? If everyone acted in the way that he suggests—all ignoring the fact of global warming because no one else can act efficiently or effectively enough to solve the problem—the result would be a disaster. Does he not accept that the moral imperative is to set an example to the rest of the world?

The hon. Gentleman obviously bases that moral imperative upon his reading of the science. I remind him that the UK has set, in his own terms, a very good example to Europe and to the world. Between 1990 and 2003, CO2 emissions in the UK fell by some 6 per cent. The fact that they have risen since this Government came to office is not a debating point that I want to make now, because I think that the overall picture is that the UK has done well. However, in that same period Spain increased its emissions by 32.9 per cent.; Portugal, where so many of us enjoy holidays, increased its emissions by 92.2 per cent.; Ireland, whose economy is booming—no one seems to be suggesting that that is a bad thing—increased its emissions by 38.5 per cent.; and Finland increased its emissions by 65.3 per cent., although, as we know, it is trying to deal with that by introducing a new generation of nuclear-generated electricity, which I think is a sensible response.

I do not think anyone would suggest in their wildest moments that the UK has not been setting an example. The point is that that example is not being followed by even our friends in Europe, let alone further afield, so is it wise that we should be legislating to encourage the desecration of our townscapes, landscapes and "ruralscapes", with a lot of windmills as a gesture towards dealing with the problem of climate change? Would we not be much better off ensuring that we preserved our environment—the built environmentand the landscape environment—for future generations in a similar form?

My concern about the Bill, which I ventilated during the discussion of the microgeneration strategy, is that public opinion is being softened up to relax planning controls over windmills, in the name of the necessityof our contributing to reducing global warming. Unfortunately, the Chinese have other ideas. When the Government implement parts of this Bill—if it ever becomes law—I hope that they will put this policy in context, and will not try to dupe the general public into thinking that they have to put up with the desecration of our countryside in the name of addressing climate change.

The figures that I quoted earlier—I modestly say that they are unarguable—show in stark terms that the Bill is utterly irrelevant to global climate change, yet it threatens to cause a lot of damage to our treasured urban and rural landscape. I hope that we will have a chance later today to debate the Bill dealing with town gardens, which provides another way of addressing a problem that this Government are making substantially worse.

The Bill before us also threatens to impose a substantial economic burden on electricity producers by forcing them to buy back surplus microgenerated electricity at an uneconomic price. Electricity producers already provide a service in this regard, in that they allow householders to install microgeneration equipment, which they will buy back, but at a price that is economic to them. E.ON UK, for example, whose representatives I met not long ago, does just that. However, the Bill could result in the electricity industry being required to buy back microgenerated electricity at an uneconomic price, which, as economists, we all know will result in extra costs being imposed on all consumers, including, ironically, those in fuel poverty.

I do not want to spend a lot of time correcting the hon. Gentleman, but I should point out that the Bill does not set the price. That is another thing that he is wrong about.

Exactly—the Bill does not set the price, but it enables the Government to do so, which is my worry. The microgeneration industry's argument is that at the moment, the market is insufficiently active and needs a bit more subsidy—in other words, taxpayers' money to prop it up. If the Minister assures us in his closing remarks that no such subsidy, or cross-subsidy, will go into the microgeneration buy-back, I shall be delighted, but I shall also be extremely surprised. My understanding is that the Bill's whole purpose is to facilitate cross-subsidy of, and taxpayer subsidy of, the microgeneration industry. So the Bill could add to the cost burden on those who are least able to bear it. I hope that the Government can allay my concerns in this regard.

I turn to one or two specific issues arising from the Bill. Clause 10, which was clause 9 before Third Reading—I am glad that the Bill was reprinted following its amendment—deals with an issue that we debated at length on Report: permitted development rights. I am pleased to say that the Minister at the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), wrote to me on 10 May, saying that concern had been expressed on 17 March that this clause might allow the installation of very large structures, such as 50 kW wind turbines, in people's back gardens.

The letter states, helpfully:

"The Bill requires the Secretary of State to form a view as to what provision should be made in secondary legislation to further facilitate the installation of microgeneration equipment by removing unnecessary planning controls. The aim will also be to ensure that planning authorities and householders have a clearer idea of the situations in which microgeneration equipment can be installed without the need for a planning application.

In conducting the review ODPM will consider carefully the impacts of possible changes. We want to ensure that sufficient control is retained over permitted development to protect the reasonable interests of neighbours, the environment andthe wider community. We will, therefore, have regard toamenity considerations for the permitted development of microgeneration technology, including the impact on visual appearance, and the implications of any potential nuisance, such as noise, vibration and 'flicker'."

That is an important concession by the Government and I am glad to get it, even though it took the best part of two months to provide.

The letter continues:

"Consideration will also be paid to how permitted development limits should be varied for development in sensitive locations including National Parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and conservation areas, works affecting listed buildings and their setting, and developments in Green Belts. A key part of the review will be a full public consultation on what might be permitted. Once responses...have been considered the Secretary of State will report to Parliament on the recommendations of the review and set out any proposals for change."

That will allay much of the concern that has been expressed about the possible implications of clause 10.

The other specific issue that I wished to raise is the time limit for prosecutions in clause 13. I mentioned earlier my hope that the other place would amend the Bill, and I had clause 13 specifically in mind. The clause would allow prosecutions for contravention of certain building regulations to be started within two years, beginning on the day on which the offence was committed. It would also allow the relevant date for assessing that to mean

"the date on which evidence sufficient to justify the proceedings comes to the knowledge of the person commencing the proceedings."

The sole judge of whether and when sufficient evidence is known will be the local authority, which will also be the very body charged with bringing the proceedings.

Clause 13(5) states that

"evidence is to be regarded for the purposes of subsection (4) above"—

which I have just quoted—

"as sufficient to justify the proceedings if in the opinion of the proper officer or an authorised officer it is sufficient to justify the proceedings".

That is a dangerous precedent, and when my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst(Mr. Forth) expressed his concerns to the shadow Attorney-General, he said that he had not previously been aware of it, but he also thought that it was a matter for concern. I hope that that concern will be articulated in the other place and result in amendment of the Bill.

One of the advantages of the changes in procedure is that we will have the opportunity to consider Lords amendments to private Members' Bills in October, which should allow this Bill to be considered in depth in the other place. If the Minister wishes to try to justify the draconian powers in clause 13, let him. The Bill is based on a fallacy, or at least an unproven hypothesis. We cannot lightly dismiss the views of a host of international scientists who are not self-serving like the scientists of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, who consider only their own model, which is based on various hypotheses. It is rather as if we were to say that the Treasury economic model must be right because it was produced by the Treasury, when we know very well that on many occasions the Treasury model has turned out to be wrong.

Many other scientists, who are not involved with that self-serving organisation, have looked independently at the data and reached different conclusions about the impact of man-made contributions to climate change and about the consequences of global warming. It is disappointing that the Bill's main purpose is based on a fallacy.

As a result of the debate, I hope that many more people will make the sort of challenge that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said that he had received during the general election campaign. They will wake up to what is happening and realise how certain pressure groups are trying to use climate change to delude the public and justify new regulations and burdens on our people, resulting in deprivation of liberty. Many people are involved in that sinister process, and many who should know better are being caught up by it.

I can best conclude my remarks by drawing the House's attention to the quotation from Schopenhauer at the beginning of Lord Lawson's article in the Spectator:

"There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted."

I hope that many Members who have already spoken will reflect on the danger of falling into a cosy seductive consensus trap.

I am sorry that the debate has finished on that rather disconsolate note. I could not disagree more with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on these issues, but he has every right to air them. It always does one good to hear one's views tested by argument, so perhaps he has performed a service in that regard.

The debate has been constructive and we have seen the House of Commons at its best, with some insightful speeches from both sides of the Chamber. If I had to pick out only one thing from them, it would be the welcome emerging cross-party consensus—not a love-in but a challenge to each other to go further, to drop our preconceptions and think outside our party boxes when tackling climate change. That has to be a good thing.

There is widespread concern across the House about the need to mainstream many of the new technologies that are still in their infancy but which clearly have much to offer us in tackling the effects of climate change and steering us away from a carbon economy. In particular, there is widespread support for microgeneration, which offers huge potential, but if we are to realise that decentralised vision of electricity generation, we will need to do much more than adopting the measures in the Bill. We shall need to look in more detail at the remit of Ofgem. We shall need to look at easing restrictions on private wire systems, such as happened in Woking, and at making the renewables obligation more sympathetic to smaller generators and consumers. All those things are very important and very much within the purview of the forthcoming energy review, which, I hope, will not just be a mono-focus exercise on the nuclear industry, but go much wider than that.

As I said, there have been many excellent contributions, which started with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway), who pointed out that the Government's language is very supportive of the Bill, but that they will be judged on their action and how they implement it if it passes on to the statute book, following its passage through the House of Lords. He also raised concerns about the energy sector, with the need for a clearer framework for attracting the long-term investment from the private sector that is crucial in combating climate change.

The hon. Member for Hove (Ms Barlow), who is not in her place now, and who is a distinguished member of the Environmental Audit Committee, also pointed out the huge benefits of microgeneration and CHP. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) spoke of the impact of climate change on natural habitats. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) made an impassioned plea for a new generation of clean coal, threw down a challenge to find effective clean-coal solutions and offered up the possibility of the greater use of carbon sequestration technology.

My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree(Mr. Newmark) rightly championed the pioneering scheme of Braintree district council, which offers council rebates for those householders who install cavity-wall insulation and other energy-saving measures. I very much hope that that initiative will be taken up not just by Conservative councils around the country, but by all councils, as it seems to be an excellent way in which just a small amount of money can trigger widespread changes in behaviour. Energy efficiency is practical and makes good economic sense.

The speech to which the hon. Gentleman has just referred also made a slightly erroneous reference in terms of Woking's excellent environmental record by describing it as a Conservative council. Is he aware that the largest party on Woking borough council is made up of Liberal Democrats, and that they are the most recent party to hold majority control?

I am aware that Woking has a long history of no overall control and that the leadership has ebbed and flowed between the Conservatives and the Liberals, and I stand corrected.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) made a thoughtful and wide-ranging speech and drew attention not only to the colder climate in Scotland, which necessitates much more heating, but to the limited access to gas, particularly in rural areas, and many other factors that make homes in Scotland particularly hard to heat. She rightly drew our attention to the menace of electrical appliances left on stand-by.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke(Mrs. Miller), who made a particularly powerful, lengthy and compelling speech, reminded us that climate change is an issue that we must all address. I am grateful to her for supporting my amendment, which will empower local authorities to consider both energy efficiency and microgeneration when discharging their functions, particularly in relation to planning. She is absolutely right: we must be more ambitious in reducing demand for electricity in new-build houses.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) played a thoughtful and positive part in the Standing Committee on the Bill and rightly pointed out that, on a per capita basis, we are a very significant emitter of global CO2 and that we must therefore play a global leadership role.

The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir), who spoke for the Scottish National party, made a passionate and hard-hitting defence of the cross-party consensus on climate change. He and his party are a very important part of that agreement and helped pioneer that consensus, which we need to strengthen and develop. I welcome his profoundly sensible comments. It is just a shame that, to date, we have yet to welcome the Labour party into that consensus, but I am ever hopeful.

The hon. Member for City of Durham(Dr. Blackman-Woods) made a fine speech, and I found myself nodding vigorously. She is absolutely right to say that we must promote microgeneration to the mass market, to bring down costs and to make those technologies mainstream. I am grateful for her support for the amendment that I succeeded in making to the Bill, which now provides parish councils with the power to promote community energy schemes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), who is a distinguished member of the Select Committee on Environmental Audit, made an impressive and thoughtful speech about the measures in the Bill and in the energy review, and the need for transparency and rigour in auditing progress if the Bill is enacted. He pointed out the tremendous potential of microgeneration both to reduce fuel poverty and to promote renewables, energy efficiency and a culture of responsibility among consumers. The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), too, made a thoughtful speech in support of microgeneration and the need to do more to encourage the rapid expansion of the industry.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) spoke at length about the potential of microgeneration, but he misconstrued my comments last week about quality-of-life issues. I was trying to make the point that we cannot just see climate change through the narrow prism of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or a single Government Department. The policy review instigated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney(Mr. Cameron), which is being conducted with the able assistance of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood, is considering quality-of-life issues and the different implications of climate change—it does not just focus on narrow departmental functions. The hon. Member for Cheltenham was right that the lead must come from the private sector, and that we must not rely just on small amounts of money dripping from the Chancellor.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), in a forceful and articulate speech, reminded us all of the power of technology to fight CO2 emissions, giving a practical example from High Brooms. I, too, have recently installed solar panels on my house, and I was fascinated to hear about his constituent's experience. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) rightly raised the closure of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Monks Wood in his constituency. He is not just a doughty champion of his constituents' interests but of the cause of excellence in research, particularly on the impact of climate change on UK ecosystems. The closure of that laboratory is a huge step backwards in our understanding of the impact of climate change on UK biodiversity.

My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) reminded us of the impact of climate change not just on the UK but on Africa, and our responsibility to take global leadership, particularly through the United Nations. It is not surprising, given his championing of climate change issues, that at the general election there was a well deserved swing in his favour. He spoke, too, about the tremendous pioneering work at Woking. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) drew our attention to the need for consensus. He highlighted the fact that politics makes for strange bedfellows, as the grand coalition on climate change has drawn in both the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) and Donald Rumsfeld—not a combination that one often sees. He weighed up the scientific evidence in a splendid prebuttal of the arguments that were to be made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, and made a compelling case for microgeneration, not just to fight climate change but to enhance the UK security of supply, which is a serious consideration in long-term energy issues.

It is sad that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) is not here to participate in our debate. He showed enormous skill, patience and tenacity in the way in which he has piloted the Bill through the House. I have found him not just professional but a joy to work with during the rollercoaster ride that the Bill has sometimes enjoyed through the House of Commons. It is a great tribute to him that the Bill is now approaching the end of its Third Reading. I send him our condolences on the sad loss that his family have suffered.

About three weeks ago, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney, I journeyed to about 600 miles of the North pole to look at the real and direct impact of climate change on the environment. Nothing more vividly illustrated the dramatic impact of climate change than the vast tracts of open sea that, until last year, were formerly ice. I probably speak for the whole House when I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that I really wish he would go to the North pole.

In Svarlbard, I saw for myself the effects of global warming on the Scott-Turner glacier. At the Ny-Alesund Arctic research centre, I saw three more glaciers, all of them retreating at an accelerated rate. As has already been pointed out, the best overall measure for assessing changes in a glacier is its yearly mass balance. Two of the glaciers closest to Ny-Alesund have been measured for their mass balance for longer than any others in the high Arctic and their results have shown consistently negative mass balance almost every year since 1967—the year after I was born. The last five years have been the most negative and this pattern is being repeated on a far bigger scale all over the Arctic. Temperatures have risen by 2° C already in the past 30 years. Over that period, the average amount of summer sea ice has decreased by 1.3 million sq km. Both winter and summer sea ice are at their lowest levels since all records began.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney asked one of the scientists at Ny-Alesund what was to the north of where we were, and the answer came, "The sea and then the ice of the North pole—this year." My right hon. Friend asked, "Why do you say 'this year'?", and back came the answer, "Until now, it has only ever been ice."

Some have argued that a series of warmings that took place in the 1930s show that the warming we are experiencing is nothing exceptional. I think that that is the argument that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch advanced. It is true that some parts of the planet got warmer in that period, but not all. In fact, a number of Arctic research stations reported a drop in average temperatures in that time, whereas there has been a consistent rise in temperatures right across the Arctic in the current period of warming. The change in temperature predicted over the next 100 years is not2° C or 3° C, but 4° C to 7° C.

The other thing that is lost in the arguments on climate change is that people focus just on the average temperature increase of a couple of degrees in coming years. However, there will be massive variations in different parts of the globe and, in some parts, the increase could be up to 14° C, and that would have quite cataclysmic effects. It is important that we do not get carried away and that we use measured scientific language but, by constantly focusing on the mean figure, we perhaps understate the scientific impact in the coming century.

Climate change does not just affect the Arctic. In the Antarctic peninsula in 2002, an area of ice shelf about the size of the English county of Cornwall or, to put it in an international context, the US state of Rhode Island, disintegrated in just 35 days. Glacial coverage in Peru has fallen by a quarter in the last 25 years, and the famous snows of Kilimanjaro are disappearing before our eyes. Measured right across the globe, the 10 hottest years since records began have all been since 1990.

Perhaps some of these facts, places and statistics seem a bit remote. However, I also refer to hurricane Katrina, water shortages in the UK leading to a hosepipe ban in April and the storm and flood losses in Britain that cost £6.2 billion between 1998 and 2003, double the amount of the previous five years. In London, the Thames barrier, which was designed just a couple of decades ago to be raised once every six years, is now being raised six times a year. The Government's chief scientific adviser has said that if a single flood broke through the Thames barrier, the damage could cost London £30 billion. That is 2 per cent. of our current GDP.

We are witnessing not just gradual warming, but more and more unusual and unpredictable weather events. According to the international insurance firm Munich Re, before 1987 there was just one weather event worldwide that caused an insured loss of more than £1 billion. Since 1987, there have been 46.

Those who say that all this has nothing to do with mankind should check the facts. There is a clear correlation between increases in global temperatures and levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. For billions of years, the world benefited from a natural greenhouse effect, which kept global temperatures about 30(o )warmer than they would have otherwise been, but since the industrial revolution, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen from 280 parts per million to 380 parts per million and, in parallel, global temperatures have been rising fast.

Does my hon. Friend accept that the figures that he has just quoted, which originally emanated from the intergovernmental panel on climate change, were changed two years ago by the IPCC to 335 parts per million from 290 parts per million. Given that some 9,600 years ago, the figure was 348 parts per million, that means that there has not been the huge increase that is being claimed.

I am afraid that I have not seen those figures. Given the reliability of some of my hon. Friend's other statistics, I think that I would like to look at them in a little more detail before giving a considered response. The real issue is not the particular figure. We can debate statistics, but this is not an issue about statistics; it is about the rate of change. Of course, over the millions of years of its very long history, the planet has cooled and—

Order. The hon. Gentleman's comments are very interesting, but they are more relevant to a Second Reading debate and we are on Third Reading.

I take your point entirely, Madam Deputy Speaker. The issue is the time scale and the fact that the events are being concentrated into decades or a few hundred years. That is the real reason why we are so alarmed—and rightly so—and that is why the Bill is so welcome.

In Committee, when I was proposing greater powers for local authorities to take action, particularly in relation to planning, I visited a major new commercial development that was constructed by Gazeley Properties, one of Europe's largest commercial property developers, in Bedford. I saw how business best practice is now way ahead of the Government in responding to the challenges of incorporating new technology and design into new builds in order to reduce CO2 and increase energy efficiency. I was incredibly impressed with what I saw.

Many of the concerns and worries that we heard from the Government in Committee, in relation to why it was wrong to act, seemed totally misplaced. If one talks to progressive businesses, they want to see a higher standard and a more level playing field. John Duggan, the chief executive officer of Gazeley, was recently asked whether he felt that the Government, as a partner to UK business, were providing organisations such as Gazeley with the necessary regulatory and fiscal frameworks or the appropriate advice, support, direction and advocacy, or whether he felt that the corporate sector was being left to fill the leadership void itself. He responded—

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that, at this stage, we are discussing what is included in the Bill, not what is not included in it.

I stand corrected. John Duggan believed that the Government were not filling that void. I am glad to say that the Bill goes some way towards helping to address that balance, but there is a lot more that we need to do. We must not get carried away with the successes that we have today. The measure is very welcome, as is the direction of travel, but we have a lot further to go. It is also important that, in promoting and making the arguments for the Bill, we wrest back the arguments for carbon reduction in the face of climate change from the pessimists, and, in a spirit of hope and optimism, look for real changes that we can make that will benefit our economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath made exactly that point. If properly done, climate protection will reduce costs on business, not raise them. Using energy more efficiently offers a possible economic bonanza, not because of the benefits of stopping global warming, but because saving fossil fuel is a lot cheaper than buying it.

The world abounds with proven ways of using energy more productively. Over the past decade, for example, in contrast with the Government's record on their estate, DuPont has boosted production by 30 per cent., but cut energy use by 7 per cent. and reduced greenhouse gases by a staggering 72 per cent. Companies such as British Telecom, IBM, Alcan, NorskeCanada and Bayer have collectively saved at least $2 billion since the late 1990s by reducing carbon emissions by more than 60 per cent. British BP has cut its CO2 emissions by 10 per cent. on its 1990 levels and saved $650 million in the process.

Although the Bill is not the whole answer, I must not negate the fact that there are many good measures in it. It focuses on national targets for microgeneration to be dealt with in two years. It allows for a review of permitted development with the purpose of making the installation of microgeneration easier. It makes access to renewable energy certificates for microgeneration easier, but we have a lot more to do on that if we are really to empower the consumer. The Bill gives a duty to promote community energy and renewable heat. It also gives the Government a duty to promote dynamic demand.

I particularly thank the Minister for agreeing to two new clauses for which I campaigned. The first gives all parish councils the power to set up new energy schemes, which has been mentioned during the debate. Localism is a key element of any successful promotion of microgeneration. The other new clause puts a duty on all local authorities to consider microgeneration and energy efficiency when discharging all their functions. I thank Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart—now Lord Bruce-Lockhart—for the important support that the Local Government Association gave to the new clause, which it achieved despite fierce opposition from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Talking of the ODPM's opposition, let me raise several of my disappointments. I tried to table a new clause that would have required all planning authorities—

Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that on Third Reading we are discussing the contents of the Bill, not what was unsuccessful?

I stand corrected, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will not mention the trials and tribulations of Cambridge city council.

Although we were able to improve the Bill in Committee, all the way along we found it extremely difficult to deal with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister—or the office of derisory planning measures. I have to say good riddance to the Department in that incarnation. In its new shape and form, I hope that it will be rather more progressive and enlightened about microgeneration and energy efficiency and that it will buy into the climate change agenda properly. However, let us be glad for this important first step and look forward to further measures to promote decentralised energy.

I thank everyone who has been involved with the Bill. The Minister was helpful and constructive in Committee. If I may, although I know that I might be told off by you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would especially like to thank Rachel Crisp, one of the Minister's civil servants. I am told that she engaged with the non-governmental organisations in an unprecedentedly extensive and constructive way—I can see her blushing in the Box.

I also thank the Micropower Council, the team of which has advised me throughout the Bill's passage. I especially pay tribute to that doughty old campaigner, Ron Bailey, who has many fans and supporters throughout the House. The council has represented the interests of the new industry with determination and skill. If and when the industry really takes off, it will be, to a great extent, because of the efforts of its members. Anyone in the industry would be well served by joining the Micropower Council.

Let me return to the question of cross-party consensus. It is important that we agree whenever possible, but that must not mean that we have a cosy love-in and fail to work with rigour or challenge new ideas. We must urge each other to go further if we are really to find answers to the great challenge of climate change.

To give other hon. Members a chance to participate in the debate, and in the interests of energy efficiency, I shall make a brief speech.

The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) has thanked many people in a courteous manner and has acknowledged the contributions that have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber. I thank him for that. He thanked so many people that I thought he had received the microgeneration Oscar, such was the fulsomeness of his tributes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), and the House has offered him its sympathy at this difficult time. He was dedicated to getting the Bill to this stage in its consideration, and it has been a great pleasure working with him. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) has also played a major role.

I pay tribute to those who served in Committee and to the Opposition spokesmen for the constructive engagement that has characterised the debates. I believe that together we have turned a good and well-intentioned Bill into an important measure. We have had a good debate today. It stands in contrast to the slightly foolish filibustering that we experienced on two Fridays, which does the reputation of the House no favours.

Perhaps I mentioned this in Committee, but I should declare an interest. Currently I have a planning application for a micro wind turbine for my own home before my local council.

By supporting the Bill, the Government have shown our continuing commitment to tackling climate change. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said on many occasions, climate change is without doubt the major long-term threat facing our planet. We have heard about melting ice caps and violent weather extremes. These are no longer possible future events; they are happening now. Every week, authoritative scientific studies warn that without urgent action we may be having a taste for the future. In terms of rhetoric, it is difficult to exaggerate the issue.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) asked, "What do you do when you are standing on the edge of a cliff?" I am glad that at that stage he resisted the temptation to urge our nation to take a giant step forward.

Combating climate change is one of the UK'stop priorities. It has been so during our recentpresidencies of both the G8 and the European Union. It is why we continue to work with the international community to take real action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable energy has a key role to play in reducing emissions. Big renewables, large-scale wind developments and tidal wave power are growing parts of our energy mix. However, the Bill is about microgeneration, which as a group of technologies has the feeling of a sector that is on the verge of becoming part of the mainstream. All it needs is help.

We have supported these technologies through a variety of measures, not least the £53 million in capital grants since the year 2000, to be followed by a further £80 million over the next three years for a variety of projects, but with some emphasis on getting microgeneration into our schools. That is not only for the energy supply that it can bring to schools, but because of the educational value.

The publication of our microgeneration strategy at the end of March clearly demonstrates our view that these technologies have the potential to play a significant role in the energy future.

At times this has been a wide-ranging debate, encompassing nuclear energy and many other things. It has been so wide-ranging from time to time that the Bill itself was even mentioned. The debate was that wide in scope. We know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister launched the energy review at the end of last year, and ministerially he asked to lead it. Contrary to what many have read in the press, the outcome is not yet settled. I can assure the House that we have an open mind on many of the big issues. There is no one question facing our energy strategy. There is certainly no one answer or silver or uranium bullet.

Achieving our energy objectives requires action at all levels. We all have a responsibility for safeguarding our planet. The action that we take as individuals can make a real difference. That is why the Bill is important. Some important duties are given to Government in reporting terms. More significantly, the Bill opens doors for action at individual and community level. By enabling microgenerators to access more easily the rewards that they deserve for generating their electricity, by giving parish councils an important improvement to the Bill, by giving powers to promote microgeneration and energy efficiency, and by giving Government the duty to promote renewable heat and community energy schemes, we are setting out the sort of measures that can make a real difference.

At the end of a good and important debate, I commend the Bill to the House.

May I join the many hon. Members who have spoken in the debate in expressing my condolences to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) on his family loss? It is unfortunate that he is absent from the Chamber today as a result, and that he has not been present to see the Bill through to its Third Reading. I congratulate him on his tenacity in pushing it through to this point, and it now falls to me to speak to it in his place, which I do with great pleasure.

The Bill has probably been scrutinised more closely than any other private Member's Bill in recent years—

And many Government ones.

Indeed.

The number of provisions in the Bill has expanded, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith for accepting a numberof clauses from my private Member's Bill, the Management of Energy in Buildings Bill, which unfortunately did not reach this stage. We now have a Bill that is comprehensive, wide-ranging and far-sighted in its proposals for the development of microgeneration and for the role that microgeneration might play in our domestic and commercial energy supply, and in the vital task of combating climate change while ensuring that the lights stay on.

There is an alternative way of expressing the statistic in the Energy Saving Trust report, which the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) regrettably underplayed. The report says that 40 per cent. of the UK's energy supplies could be provided by microgeneration within 40 years, which is an enormous amount to contemplate. I hope that the Bill will pave the way to that kind of development, through targets, community developments, changes in planning regulations and a variety of other devices.

A large number of important contributions have been made to this Third Reading debate and, importantly, most right hon. and hon. Members across the Chamber have agreed on the direction and content of the Bill. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is, unfortunately, also unable to be here today. In his brief contribution to the beginning of the debate on 17 March, he said, with what I might call an air of foreboding, that there was

"a cornucopia of important issues that we can and should explore on Third Reading".—[Official Report, 17 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 1778.]

I am sure that hon. Members will agree that we have explored a cornucopia of important issues, and that we have done so in a way that has united our endeavours on the Bill rather than divided them.

It is fair to say that, just a few years ago, the subjects covered by the Bill would have been regarded as unfashionable, unfamiliar or outlandish. Terms such as "dynamic demand", "sustainable buildings", "community sustainable energy", "renewable heat"and "green certificates" have come into thepublic consciousness—and, indeed, legislative consciousness—only relatively recently. As my hon. Friend the Minister has said, however, they are now moving into the mainstream, and I hope that the passage of the Bill will aid the process still further. These technologies and processes can make a real difference both in keeping the lights on and in leading us to a new, sustainable low-carbon economy. They also change the way in which people see their energy use. Through such technologies and processes, people really take ownership of their energy use and generation.

In considering that climate change is a global challenge and an individual obligation, as the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) reminded us, perhaps hon. Members will consider the role of microgeneration in helping to deal with a challenge that I hope all of them will take up—that of reducing their own personal carbon dioxide emissions by25 per cent. over five years. That can be achieved by, among other things, the domestic installation of microgeneration.

I commend the Bill to the House, and I hope that I am not too optimistic in expressing the view that it will receive unanimous support in the Chamber.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you may be aware, the Bill was amended in Committee. One of the major amendments was the removal of the word "assault", so the Bill now deals with obstructing or hindering emergency workers. However, the titles of clauses 1 and 2 have not been amended to reflect that change. I appreciate that the titles are not part of the legislation, but I point out that the titles of clauses 1 and 2 still refer to "assaulting", whereas I would argue that they should refer to obstructing or hindering, because they are otherwise misleading. I wondered whether the promoter of the Bill, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), the Father of the House, had given you any indication that he intends to change the headings.

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believe that there was an omission on the part of the people who produced the new Bill, and an oversight in following through the change in title that is included on page 1. I gather that it is a relatively simple matter—I am not that good on procedure—to make the follow-up amendments automatically.

In responding to the points raised, I accept what has been said, but I see no obstacle as to why we cannot continue with the new clauses and the Bill in its present form, although clearly the relevant changes will need to be made.

New Clause 1 — Defences

'It shall be a defence for any person accused of an offence under this Act to show that—

(a) the emergency circumstances took place in or on a property let, leased or owned by him,

(b) the emergency circumstances or risk of serious injury or harm related only to him or to property, plants or animals owned by him, or

(c) he was only a passive observer.'. — [Mr. Greg Knight.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:No. 13, in page 1, line 3, clause 1, leave out 'without reasonable excuse'.

No. 7, in page 2, line 8, clause 1, after 'there', insert

'in a vehicle displaying a flashing blue light'.

No. 8, in page 2, line 9, clause 1, leave out

'or preparing to do so'.

No. 10, in page 2, line 41, clause 3, leave out 'ormay be'.

The new clause stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope).

I congratulate the Father of the House on getting this far. Private Members' Bills are indeed fragile vessels, and he has done well to get his Bill to this stage. I also congratulate the Minister on his recent promotion. I hope that he stays on the Labour Front Bench for a very long time, although I also hope that he will shortly be sitting on the Opposition side of the Chamber.

New clause 1 would introduce a statutory defence for anyone who faces a charge under the Bill. I accept that the Bill now contains the words "without reasonable excuse" with reference to someone who may have committed an offence. The new clause, however, seeks to remove any doubt about what is a reasonable excuse in facing a charge under the provisions. We have all encountered someone in uniform who behaves inan over-officious manner. When we are framing legislation, we need to ensure that prosecutions will not be brought in unreasonable circumstances. If the Bill is enacted without new clause 1, it may lead to the prosecution of people who were seeking only to defend their own property or, indeed, who were merely observing an emergency incident.

There was a recent case in which a person who was seeking to remove valuable property from his own house was restrained by the police. I do not know all the circumstances of the case, but I am concerned lest an aggressive and unreasonable fire officer dealing with an incident decides without cause to order the owner of a house to remove himself from the property, when the owner may only be seeking to retrieve what can be retrieved from an incident. If someone on their own property seeks to defend their chattels or their animals—they may face the trauma and loss of a building and of many of their belongings, which may not be insured—they should not thereafter find that they are facing court proceedings under this Bill for obstructing or hindering an emergency worker. I hope that the Father of the House will consider adding new clause 1 to the Bill or reassuring me that my concerns can be met in some other way.

I will not say anything about amendment No. 13, because I have not appended my name to it, although I do not agree with its thrust and think that the Father of the House is right to include the words in the Bill.

Clause 1(3) states:

"a person is responding to emergency circumstances if the person is going anywhere for the purpose of dealing with emergency circumstances there",

and amendment No. 7 would add the words

"in a vehicle displaying a flashing blue light"

to the end of that provision. The emergency services sometimes use vehicles that do not display the traditional flashing blue light, and my concern is that an innocent motorist will unwittingly hinder or obstruct such a vehicle and not be aware that he is doing so.

I was recently driving home in the middle lane of the M18, where I encountered a queue of traffic travelling at 60 mph, so I decided to exercise my right to travel at 70 mph and pulled into the offside lane. As I was overtaking the long queue of commercial vehicles travelling at 60 mph, I was approached from behind by a car which was travelling very fast—it was certainly travelling faster than me—and flashing its lights. I assumed that it was an emergency vehicle seeking to attend an emergency, so I pulled over. When the vehicle overtook me and accelerated to regain its speed, which was well in excess of the legal maximum, I was astonished to see that the driver was a yobbish-looking person with a shaved head and earrings—it was clearly not an emergency vehicle, and the driver was just impatient because I was in his path. That incident means that I will never again pull over for a vehicle which flashes its lights at me when I am driving in a proper manner, unless I can see a flashing blue light. If we do not add amendment No. 7, an injustice may occur in which an innocent motorist is prosecuted for unwittingly hindering the progress of an emergency vehicle.

Amendment No. 8 is essentially probing in nature, and I will welcome hearing what the Father of the House has to say about it. Under what circumstances would it be right and proper to charge someone with hindering or obstructing an emergency worker who is not actually attending an emergency or travelling to it, but preparing to do so? When does the right hon. Gentleman envisage that this provision would be used? If someone is putting on his coat to go and attend an event and some carol singers knock at his door and wave a collection tin for the local church, are they hindering him because he is preparing to go out? I hope that that is not what he has in mind.

Amendment No. 10 would delete the words, "or may be" from clause 3(2). Again, it seeks to narrow the circumstances whereby an offence might be committed. With those words in the Bill, a person could be prosecuted even when no emergency had been taking place, but the emergency worker thought that there might be. That provision seems too wide.

I welcome the Minister and congratulate him on his new job. I also welcome the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight). They are both new to the proceedings on this Bill. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the friendly and co-operative spirit in which he expressed his point of view.

New clause 1 and amendment No. 13 offer contradictory approaches to how we deal with defences. The original Bill included a series of listed defences that was not all-encompassing, so on Second Reading we made a conscious decision to go for a term that the Home Office lawyers assured us was a common term which would enable the court to take reasonableness into account instead of having to look for defences in the Bill. If we were to take the route of new clause 1, we would reinsert all the defences that were deleted in Committee, without any opposition, in order to go for the catch-all reasonableness excuse. The advantage of that is that it provides a legitimate defence for someone who obstructed a person without realising that they were an emergency worker.

The problem with amendment No. 7 is that many ambulances do not have flashing blue lights. That also applies to coastguards and lifeboat crews deploying to undertake rescue work. The amendment would preclude them from the protection of the Bill.

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire said that amendment No. 8 is probing in nature. I am glad to reassure him that preparation to respond to an emergency covers only immediate preparations such as putting on protective gear, opening garage doors and so on. It does not mean training sessions, as I suspect that he fears. I hope that allays his worries.

On amendment No. 10, the offence would not apply where it was not an emergency. Again, we would prefer not to include such a provision because it would be an absolute defence. If it were an absolute defence, the nature or the extent of the offence that may have been committed would not be taken into account. We believe that it is better, therefore, to stay within the encompassing protection of reasonableness of excuse. I oppose the amendments.