Planning Bill

I am a great enthusiast for what the Government and other countries are doing on climate change. I thought that there was virtual unanimity—not just among politicians around the world, but also in the academic world—that climate change was happening and that we have to do something about it. Until tonight, the only exception I have heard was President Bush, but I think that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Reay, is joining his eminence as being somewhat in denial. Climate change is happening and the Government deserve great credit for trying to do something about it. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, persuaded me to talk about transport for a few minutes in connection with this group of amendments. One day we will probably have a carbon trading system that works and means something. It has been a very long time coming, but it is coming. The way in which many European members states have given their most polluting industries a wonderful start-up present so that money can be made from them, and the fact that air and quite a lot of other transport is omitted, means that it is very difficult to apply a cost to each type of transport related to its emissions. That is clearly where we are and where this group is designed to help. On the first day in Committee, we talked about whether it would be necessary or desirable within these national policy statements to look at alternatives. On airports, if the third runway at Heathrow was promoted after this Bill receives Royal Assent, how would one look at alternatives to air travel? Would one look at trains or cars? Would people be told that they should not use planes because the extra carbon cost is too expensive? Or should we say that an alternative site should be in the Thames estuary, as Mr Boris Johnson is apparently suggesting? That will come in a debate on site specificity and the other issues will come in future amendments. This is a useful group of amendments, which remind us that climate change is very important.