Business of the House

I know the Leader of the House has a very strong commitment to the primacy of Parliament, so will he—once again, I am afraid—please remind his colleagues that Parliament, not the press, is the place for policy announcements?

While I am on the subject of the ministerial code, Lord Geidt was appointed in April as the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests, but six months later we still do not have an updated code, which we were expecting. Will the Leader of the House please confirm when that will be published?

We are days—hours now, really—away from what should and could be the most important environmental summit in history. As host nation in Glasgow, we have an incredible, one-time chance to change the course of history. To make the summit a success, the Government need to lead by example. They should be demonstrating ambition for a more hopeful future, a clean environment, warm homes, good jobs and protection for nature. Politicians from around the world are watching this Government’s deeds and words and calibrating their ambitions accordingly, but unfortunately it seems that the Government are treating COP26 as nothing more than a photo opportunity.

Just last week, politicians from around the world will have seen the uninspiring sight of this Government voting for feeble legal limits on air pollution and less regulation for bee-killing pesticides, and just yesterday the Chancellor announced that he was slashing air passenger duty to incentivise short-haul domestic flights. That is embarrassing as we go into COP26. We should be projecting an open, optimistic, global vision to the world, yet the Government—working with the SNP Scottish Government, I am afraid to say—seem to be supporting new oilfields in the North sea. Will the Leader of the House ask the Business Secretary to come to the House and explain why the Government are saying that we must move beyond fossil fuels but meanwhile opening the new Cambo oilfield?

Finally, on COP26, I make this urgent plea, via the Leader of the House, to the Prime Minister and other world leaders in Glasgow: please, get this right. We cannot waste this opportunity to save our climate and save our planet.

The hon. Lady raises an important point, as you have Mr Speaker and as has the Chairman of Ways and Means, about information not being given to this House first. The “Ministerial Code” is absolutely clear that important announcements must be made to the House first. We have a right to expect that, as representatives of our constituents, and that is why we here: to hold the Government to account. There is sometimes a debate about what is important and occasionally, Mr Speaker, you and I have not taken the same view on importance. However, I can assure the House that after every business questions I write to every Secretary of State and other Cabinet Members on the issues that have been raised, so the point the hon. Lady makes will be raised with the Chancellor, as, I believe, Mr Speaker, it has been raised by you. It is a fundamental constitutional right that this House should be told things first, although I would note that there was lots in the Budget yesterday, including the most important announcement of the cut in the withdrawal rate from 63p in the pound to 55p in the pound, which had not been whispered abroad before it was announced here.

The hon. Lady finished on the question of COP26. I set out once again what the Government’s targets are, which I think the hon. Lady will find agreement with: to secure global net zero by the middle of the century and keep 1.5°C, or 2.7°F, within reach; adapt to protect communities and natural habitats; mobilise finance, whereby developed countries must make good on their promise to mobilise at least $100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020; work together to finalise the Paris rulebook; and accelerate action to tackle the climate crisis through collaboration between Governments, businesses and civil society.

The Government’s vision is one based on improving people’s standards of living. That is what the Budget was about yesterday and it is what the green policy is about. It is not about cave dwelling. It is not hairshirt greenery. We are not becoming Adullamites. What we are in favour of is having higher standards of living based on the new technologies. All sorts of exciting things are happening, including with hydrogen, which will make that possible. There is not, I think, a market for going back to the stone age—some hon. Members may think I have never really emerged from the stone age—but we want to ensure that the standard of living of our constituents improves.

The hon. Lady rightly mentions air pollution. One of the great scandals of recent decades is that we promoted diesel in this country. The Labour Government, then in charge, promoted diesel, which led to tens of thousands of early deaths because of particulates. That was done on the encouragement of the European Union in support of German car manufacturers. It is one of the great scandals that has been put right by this Government. We have seen air quality improve since 2010.

As regards air passenger duty, it has gone up on the longest, greatest emitting flights, but of course we should be free to travel around our own United Kingdom, our own country. That is a perfectly right thing to do. We have to remember that the target for net zero is by 2050. We are going to need to use fossil fuels in the interim and it is fanciful to think otherwise. If we are going to use them, we want them to be economic. We need to ensure our constituents have a rising standard of living.