Clause 13
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
David Maclean (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
I have listened carefully to the debate and I am not convinced that the Minister has spelled out a good, sound British definition of sustainable development, as I had hoped initially. The hon. Gentleman’s heart is in the right place, as is the Government’s, but I do not know where their head is. Perhaps the cause is my thick head. I do not understand fully what the hon. Gentleman was attempting to say and I am not sure that has he cut through the confusion of the plethora of definitions of sustainable development that exist throughout the world.
The Gro Harlem Brundtland Commission was a good starting point. When we were in Rio, the definition,
“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
was quoted about 10 times a day. It is simple and straightforward, but applying it to every aspect of business and industrial development, agriculture, farming, mining, quarrying, building and our lifestyle, and then to the lifestyle of other countries with completely different economic systems, takes us into severe trouble.
I do not want to prolong the debate. I want the phrase to stay in the Bill, so of course I shall not press the amendment to a Division. I will conclude by trying to shed some light on the Home Office windows and HFCs. I did not intervene in the debate—it might have been regarded as facetious—but I spent four years in the old building, where we were not allowed to open the windows because the top half was heavier than the bottom half. They were hinged, almost in the middle, and the top half could swing round, hit someone on the back of the head and knock them down seven storeys on to the Scots Guards’ parade ground below. The answer to the problem is not whether the gas is an HFC or another one, but to let us just open the windows in future, rather than use millions of pounds worth of air-conditioning. The same may apply in this Room in future.
At times, when we are looking at such highly complex subjects, we ought to get back to a bit of simplicity. The concept of sustainable development is simple. It is important. It is something to which Parliament will return again and again, not necessarily in the Bill, but on other occasions. It should stay in the Bill, but I hope that in future the Government will be clearer about what they mean by sustainable development. I beg to ask leave to withdraw my amendment.