Environment Bill — House of Commons, 2020-02-26
Topic: Environment
Abimbola Afolami (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow some excellent maiden speeches. The themes of this debate are clear, with a general acceptance that this is a good Bill. Some like it a bit more than others, but in general it is seen as a good Bill. Some Opposition Members seem to want the EU or certain other non-Westminster bodies to have more of a say, whereas some Conservative Members want them to have less of a say, but I think the balance has been struck reasonably well by the Government and I commend Ministers for that. This is a landmark piece of legislation, and not just for this country, as we see if we compare it with what is in place in other countries. It is important for us in this House to look sometimes to see what other countries are doing. What we are doing here is admired, not just in this country, but outside it. We should commend the Government for being so forthright. That does not mean we cannot improve the Bill and improve what we do, but let us call a spade a spade and say where we have done a good job—this Bill is a good Bill The OEP has rightly attracted a lot of attention because it is one of the most significant things established by the Bill. We will find out in the coming weeks, months and years how the OEP develops and interacts with this House, DEFRA Ministers and devolved Administrations, and how that all works. However, it strikes me that we have almost set up a sort of environmental National Audit Office. That is how the OEP could end up developing—[Interruption.] I see the Minister nodding on the Bench, so I hope I am right about that and that she will address it in her remarks. As a former member of the Public Accounts Committee, I know that, if there is anything like the professionalism that we see in the National Audit Office, we will be very well served We all need to be a bit more realistic. We need to wake up because the Bill is actually more significant than we realise. The enabling powers in the Bill give us the foundation to start to deal with the huge changes that are coming across our economy, society, Government and Parliament as a result of the action taken to combat climate change. Earlier in the debate, I intervened on the shadow Secretary of State to talk about the target of net zero by 2050. Yes, some people want it to be net zero by 2040 or 2030, and I understand that, but until we can get a handle on what we need to do to get there by 2050—which may seem like a long way away, but it is only 30 years, and in policy terms that is not a huge amount of time—we need to get our arms around this subject. We need to realise the number of levers we have to pull to get there by 2050. The Bill will allow us to do that Let me give a couple of examples. We all know that we cannot solve climate change in this country alone. It is an international effort. To accompany this Bill, the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill—a whole framework of how to look at the environment—the Government need, in the run-up to COP26, to set out an ambitious international strategy that includes not only spending from our aid budget, as the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), mentioned, but diplomacy and high-level Government commitment around the world. Frankly, if we cannot convince other countries to take the sort of action that we are taking, none of these problems will get anywhere near to being solved Another word I wish to mention is incentives. Let us not forget the power of incentives and, indeed, subsidies. The Bill gives us the framework within which we can remember the positive impact that incentives can have. Look at what we have done on wind and solar power over the past 10 or 15 years; there will be other areas in which we can use incentives. Let us use the Bill as a springboard, in the run-up to COP26, so that we can use more incentives and subsidies in the right areas to make the technological changes that we need and help our economy. The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) talked about the economy of the environment; the economy needs to flourish in order for the environment to flourish—they are intertwined—and using incentives in the right way can help us to do that Another word I wish to mention is honesty: a lot of this is going to cost this country a lot of money. Let us be straight about that. It will cost public sector money and private sector money, and not all of that money will be in this country. We are going to need international inward investment in the technology, in the ways we do things and in research and development, so that we can develop the technology, whether it be carbon capture and storage, battery technology or whatever, so that we have a chance of achieving the target. We all need to be a lot more honest with ourselves and, indeed, our constituents that this is going to cost a lot of money. Let us now start to have the bigger conversation about how we pay for it. I suspect that those on the Government Benches may want to do things differently from those on the Opposition Benches, but we have to agree that we have to do it. Let us have that bigger conversation; the Bill gives us a framework and basis on which to do that I wish to conclude with two local issues that illustrate a wider point that has already come out in the debate. The first is Luton airport, which is next to my constituency. Many of my constituents are concerned about the air pollution impacts of an airport that is so near to a rural area; the Bill gives us the ability to look at air quality and hopefully to impose binding targets in a localised way. The second issue is chalk streams. We have many unique historic chalk streams in my constituency; the Bill allows us to deal with abstraction in a smarter way. It is a good Bill, but let us make sure that this is the beginning, not the end, of the process.