Climate Change and SustainableEnergy Bill

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.