Hughes , Williams, Reid and George quiz Benn on Climate Change

11.08.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 23rd Jun 2009

• [Jun 18] Simon Hughes (North Southwark & Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat): I THANK the Secretary of State for his statement and for today's early briefing … .

. . and I welcome the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change back to the House after his paternity leave and send him best wishes for his new responsibilities.

We are grateful to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and ask him to pass on our thanks to the Met Office scientists, who have done a fantastic amount of work. They have produced what is probably one of the most significant pieces of scientific work to influence the debate for decades. We owe them great respect-they are hugely well regarded.

We are also grateful to the Government for being honest about the conclusion, which the science backs, that we will experience a 2° rise in temperature. According to assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that might mean that between two and three species are at further risk of extinction. We must face up to the biodiversity implications.

Does the Secretary of State accept that the statement predicts the fastest and most dramatic change in our environment that has ever been witnessed in such a short time? Today's projections probably mark a watershed in how we consider the future. We now have the evidence at home as well as abroad to show that we must change the way we do things in this country and plan our future differently.

I have some questions about the specifics. Does he accept that we must rethink food production in this country so that we are more self-sufficient in different parts of the country, avoiding the areas that have been most at risk from flooding and might be at more risk in future? Will we not have to rethink how we ensure access to clean water at all times, when more storms and unexpected global events are likely, with the consequent risk to the water supply? Will we not need to think carefully about our housing and planning? We will have more people to accommodate and many more houses to build, but we need to be much more careful about where we build them, given what we know about the risks in Gloucestershire, parts of Yorkshire, places on the east coast and, indeed, along the Thames estuary.

I have a different view about energy policy from that of Dr. Howells. Does the Secretary of State accept that we need to boost, not reduce, the opportunity for renewables as a result of the report because climate change means that we need to reduce emissions and move to other more dependable supplies? In London and the south-east, does the report imply that the Thames barrier may not be enough and that we need to start planning much earlier for further protection?

Does the Secretary of State accept that we need the same accuracy of prediction continentally and globally as we now have nationally and that we should work at Copenhagen and elsewhere on that basis?

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that what he has told us today, based on the science, means that the Government may have to rethink some of their policies for the best of reasons-for example, the third runway at Heathrow, the plan for coal-fired power stations and the general balance of the energy mix? None of us can afford to avoid the implications of today's announcement, and we must all realise that Britain and the world need to act pretty quickly or we will risk not only future generations but this generation's ability to maintain a planet on which we can continue the sort of life that not only we but people abroad need and expect.

Hilary Benn (Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Leeds Central, Labour): I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words about the Met Office scientists, who have worked so hard to give us the benefit of the projections. He is right to talk about the fundamental changes that we could face. We cannot absolutely predict the future, but we can try to plan for it. That is the message that we must take from the report.

The changes outlined in the report will unquestionably affect the way we produce our food. I spoke earlier about trying to garner the water that we have got. Blue tongue is a disease that travelled up Africa, swept through Europe and arrived in the UK. That is an example of a change in climate affecting our farming industry. We found a way of dealing with that-we funded a vaccination programme, which farmers strongly supported.

Of course, the changes will affect the provision of water. That is why the water companies have to think 25 years ahead in their plans about how many houses they might serve, what the population will be and so on. It is also why we changed planning policy statement 25-the guidance on housing and planning-to provide that the Environment Agency, which has most expertise in the risks of flooding, must be consulted. It is encouraging to see that many planning applications against which the Environment Agency advised have not been approved. That shows that the change that we have made to the system is working.

I agree that we need to boost renewables. The current assessment of the Thames barrier is that it will see us to 2070. The important point about the projections is that, because they give us the probabilities, all a sun hat manufacturer needs to know is that the weather will be warmer, while those responsible for protecting London from flooding want to know what the 10 per cent. probability at the upper range is so that they can plan accordingly. The Thames barrier is a result of adaptation after the 1953 storm surge, which killed 300 people.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need such projections and information to be available globally. Anyone who examines what the scientists have to say to us cannot fail to understand the importance of responding, reducing emissions and adapting.

• . . Roger Williams (Brecon & Radnorshire, Liberal Democrat): Agriculture has a large part to play, through improved land management, increasing carbon sequestration and mitigating flooding by improving the permeability of the land, yet the Government have reduced research into agriculture over the years. Tomorrow I will visit Aberystwyth, where a lot of good work is being done along those lines. What plans do the Government have to increase the amount of money that they commit to agricultural research?

Hilary Benn: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the funding that goes in from DEFRA or the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council-in the end, it does not matter where the funding comes from; it is all public money going into research-he will see that the amount has increased. I draw his attention to the LINK programme in particular, which funds a range of practical projects that are near market and tries to turn our research understanding into practical applications that farmers can use. As we learn about what works, it is important that we have a way of translating it into action on farms. In truth, the way research projects have been conducted in the past has perhaps not paid enough attention to that onward transmission of the knowledge, because in the end, the purpose of the research, if we find something better than what we are doing at the moment, is to get people to use it.

• . . Alan Reid (Argyll & Bute, Liberal Democrat): Agriculture depends on a finely tuned climate balance, and the projected changes in the climate will have severe implications for agriculture in this country and throughout the world. What is the Government's strategy to ensure that farmers here can cope with climate change and that we have the flexibility to increase production in this country if climate change should cause natural disasters resulting in a drop in food production elsewhere in the world?

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about the interdependence of world food supply. Some have argued for self-sufficiency, but we cannot be self-sufficient because some of the foodstuffs that we eat cannot be grown here. Furthermore, if a country were self-sufficient and something happened to affect its agriculture, what would it do? We need a combination of domestic and other production, although we are more self-sufficient now than we were in the 1930s and the 1950s. We also need to try to get production up, and to work with farmers to help them to adapt to the changing climate. We have been doing that with the industry; that is what part of the research programme is seeking to address. We have been giving guidance and encouraging people to think about the changes that they can make. I visited an apple farmer on open farm Sunday a week and a bit ago. In the corner of his field, there was a new water storage tank that he had built, because water supply is really important for growing the Cox's apples that he is so proud of.

• . . Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat): I represent an area of west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, where there will be growing anxiety about the impact of the projected changes on the rise in sea levels. What impact will the Secretary of State's announcement have on the timetable for the publication of the Environment Agency's coastline management plans? How will it affect our assessments of coastal defence and future developments affecting the coastline?

Hilary Benn: Tomorrow will see the publication of the long-term investment strategy for flood defence as part of a sequence of steps that we are taking. On Monday, we made an announcement about the help that we are giving coastal communities to prepare them for adapting to the impact of coastal erosion. It is right that the next stage should be to ask what we shall need to spend to continue to protect people from flooding, given the information in today's projections.

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