The government’s green credentials are in tatters

By Meg Hillier MP

This weekend it is one year since David Cameron told civil servants at the department for climate change (DECC) that this would be the ‘greenest government ever’. Twelve months is not long in the life of a government, but it is certainly long enough to get a sense of a government’s priorities. As David Cameron prepares to mark the anniversary of his bold claim, what will he be able to tell us about the government’s green credentials?

The environmental NGOs and campaigners I meet tell me of their growing frustration and disappointment. Leaked letters this week show that, far from being wholly signed up to meeting our targets for reducing emissions, ministers are at loggerheads over signing up to the ‘fourth carbon budget’. This is the programme recommended by the climate change committee (CCC), an independent group of experts established by Labour’s climate change act in 2008. My first challenge to Cameron this weekend is this: sign up to the CCC’s recommendations, in full, and without equivocation, or your green credentials will be in tatters. Ed Miliband has written to David Cameron to press him on this point. We will all await the PM’s response.

The reality is that Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, has been weak in his dealings with the Whitehall big boys. The Treasury and BIS have been calling the shots. DECC is enfeebled and lacking in strong leadership. MPs debated the government’s energy bill this week. This could have been a landmark in environmental protection. Instead, it is impossible to see anything in the bill which a Tory majority government would not have done. If a Lib Dem energy secretary cannot make an impact on something as vital as tackling climate change, then what is the point of him?

My second challenge to David Cameron is: will he beef up the energy bill, so that the measures to improve energy efficiency in our homes are effective. For example, if it is left to the market to determine the interest rates for the ‘green deal’ loans for energy efficiency, the rate may end up too high for most households. That means take up of the green deal with be resisted by the poorest households, even though they have the most to gain from savings on their fuel bills. At present, the energy bill fails this basic test of fairness.

This is a government which has abolished the sustainable development commission, dropped the commitment to ‘zero carbon’ new home building, attempted to privatise our forests and woods, and most incredibly of all, placed the climate change act itself into a review of ‘red tape’. What ministers fail to comprehend is that environmental regulations and targets are not a burden on business: they present a massive opportunity to invent new products, and create new jobs and wealth. Across the UK there are go-ahead green firms harnessing renewable energy, providing new ways to recycle, and investing in research and development. But their CEOs tell me they feel hamstrung by the government’s lack of support. At a time when Britain’s green companies should be leading the economic recovery, they are being held back by ministers’ intransigence. Even William Hague has written to ministerial colleagues stating that ‘uncertainty about the robustness of our climate change policy is one of the principal barriers’ to achieving a low carbon economy. He also pointed out that ‘the UK has already slipped from third to thirteenth place on the global rankings of countries investing in low carbon development and technology’.

This is my third challenge to David Cameron: will he give a clear commitment to the creation of green jobs, backed by targeted action? For example, the government’s dithering and delays over ‘feed-in tariffs’ is costing small-scale solar suppliers dear, and delays over waste policy leave green businesses in uncertainty.

One year on from his ‘greenest government ever’ rhetoric, we need a clear lead and practical action from David Cameron, not another load of hot air.

Meg Hillier MP is shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change.