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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I certainly share the view that that is a priority, and it is an improvement that we can make now, rather than in 2019 or whenever. To draw together the threads of my speech, my priority is to stress the urgency of the situation. There is a mismatch between the grave tone of the rhetoric and the scale of the problem on the one hand, and the extreme modesty of the measures on the other. I want to mention one other thing that can be done now. We know that even sober-suited organisations such as Ofgem have said that there is a £9 billion windfall for energy companies in the second round of EU emissions trading. It is a huge opportunity to spend money on the things that we have been talking about—home energy insulation and encouraging renewables—without increasing the tax burden. As the hon. Member for East Surrey says, we do not have to wait until the third round of EU emissions trading in 2012; the windfall in the current round could be used to encourage renewables through feed-in tariffs, which we support. The windfall could also be used for investment in carbon capture, which is another part of the mix. That would have been so much bolder, so much more effective, and so much more in line with the scale of the problem. We have had a huge disappointment. I hope that in years to come we do not rue the fact that we failed to take action now, and do not, as Nick Stern says, have to take much more expensive and dramatic action.