EU Referendum: Energy and Environment — House of Commons, 2016-07-12
Topic: Energy
Roderick James Nugent Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me begin by paying a huge tribute to the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) for an extraordinary maiden speech. It contained five elements that, I think, encapsulated the heart of this debate. First, there was her extraordinary sense of history, and the commitment that she showed in talking about Nye Bevan and the Clean Air Act 1956. Secondly, there was her sense of responsibility, and of the scale of the challenge that we face. Thirdly, there were her energy and optimism. Fourthly, there was her sense of place: she said she thought people who said that Tooting was becoming a fantastic place were missing the fact that—as she felt—it had been a fantastic place all her life. Finally, there was her sense of the importance of humans in the history of the landscape, whether she was talking about the lido at Tooting or about her own community and family. In general, through her rhetoric, through her language and through her love of this place, the hon. Lady—as the Member of Parliament who has entered the House at the moment when we are leaving the European Union—gave us a real reason to be optimistic about Parliament and the sovereignty of Parliament. The five elements that she contributed represent exactly what we hope to bring to the British environment in the future An enormous number of questions have been asked today. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), asked the Government to respond to specific queries on—I think—nine separate occasions. I counted 35 questions posed by him, and a further 117 posed by other Members. I have approximately nine minutes in which to answer those questions, and, with the House’s permission, I will therefore focus on the natural environment rather than on energy issues, with apologies to the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Callum McCaig)—Callum senior. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell), who initiated an extremely erudite discussion of many energy-related issues, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), who drew attention to a number of ways in which domestic legislation underpinned UK energy policy, and explained that some of the references to the European Union were a little misleading I shall not be able to engage as fully as I would like with the forensic speech made by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), although it was an extraordinary speech which raised an enormous number of very important points. However, I shall try to deal with those points in the round In essence, four main types of point were made in this debate and they form the structure of an answer. First, the importance of being deeply optimistic about Britain’s future outside the EU was pointed out, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) and the Secretary of State. That is partly, as the Secretary of State said, because of the very real strengths that exist in this country. As Members on both sides pointed out, we derive immense positives from our membership of the EU, and they have been concisely listed. The hon. Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), for Bristol East and for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr) laid out the powerful progress made over the past 42 years in air and water quality, and that is driven by EU law and EU financial assistance, and by the structures of the EU that protected our landscape. As the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) pointed out, it is important for our international industry to ensure we have uniform standards so there is not a race to the bottom. We cannot simply think about this island as though we were not exposed to environmental factors from abroad; 85% of our birds are migratory, and between a third and a half of our air blows in from other countries—that is the air pollution coming into our country. Indeed, our terrestrial biodiversity is dependent on ensuring there is not acid rain and sulphur dioxide raining on the peat bogs and grasses on which we depend However, as my hon. Friends the Members for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) and for Poole (Mr Syms) pointed out, we in the United Kingdom had a strong tradition of environmentalism long before we joined the EU. Indeed, the history of environmental protection in the UK stretches back almost 1,000 years to the formation of the royal forests in Scotland and in England and the habitat protection brought in place to nearly 23% of our land mass at that period, and it carries on through the contributions of Walter Scott and Wordsworth to ensuring the protection of our landscapes. Indeed, over the next four years we will be celebrating several anniversaries: the centenary of the Forestry Commission, founded in 1919; the anniversary of our national parks, founded in 1947; and the anniversary of the Clean Air Act, passed in 1956 There will be opportunities available to us from leaving the EU. The hon. Member for Brent North pointed out that there have been some advantages from EU funding for flooding, but there have of course been significant challenges too. One way in which we would like to address natural responses to flood management is by planting trees. In order to do that, we need to be able to look at flexible and intelligent ways of moving money between what are currently quite rigid budget structures. If we are dealing with farmers planting trees on their land to slow the flow of water, we need to think intelligently about how the payments we give for agriculture, the environment and flooding can work together, rather than against each other. When looking at laws, we need to ensure we remain flexible with regard to the best of modern science, and there are ways in which rigid legal structures brought into place by 27 member states have in the past made it difficult to respond to recent evidence. Members raised the question of inspections and fines as well, and, again, those rigid inspection regimes have, at their worst, sometimes discredited the very environmental regulations we wish to protect. Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) pointed out, there are perverse consequences of parts of the CAP for the environmental conditions we value so much The principles on which we now need to move forward were laid out very powerfully by this House, and by the hon. Member for Bristol East in her initial intervention, and they seem to me to be sixfold. They are the principles of realism, of humility, of honesty about conflict, of being honest with the public, of confidence and of identity. I shall expand briefly on those principles. First, on realism, we have to acknowledge that leaving the European Union will not mean leaving government behind. People will continue to be frustrated by bureaucracy and they will continue to have to respond to procurement regulations. We will continue to have to operate in an international environment. We will have to make compromises On the principle of humility, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane rightly pointed out that not everyone in this country is always interested in the environment. We have to be realistic about our power and about our capacity as a Government to respond. On the principle of honesty about conflict, land remains a deeply conflicted issue. We must not imagine that simply leaving the European Union will overcome the serious conflicts between different land uses in our constituencies. There are conflicts between people’s desire to build housing, people’s desire to create renewable energy, people’s desire to produce productive food and people’s desire to protect the species and habitats that we value so much. The principles of confidence and identity are perhaps the most important of all. The decision in the referendum was made by one of the most well educated, well travelled populations in the most mature democracy on Earth, and we need to ensure that we recognise the legitimacy of that democratic choice. We need to put our full energy and optimism behind it. We need to understand, in responding to this, that the British identity—this extends to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—is based fundamentally on our land In moving forward, we need to reassure people. As the Secretary of State pointed out, we need to play a full role in all our international conferences. We need to ensure, for example, that we play a responsible and reliable international role in the forthcoming conferences on biodiversity and on the convention on international trade in endangered species—CITES. We could also be far more imaginative.