The Guardian
Government manoeuvres on energy targets suggest that the way parliament works does voters - and the environment - no favours, says Stephen Tindale
Monday November 22, 2004
Two weeks ago, the government was guilty of yet another climate failure. This time the issue was energy efficiency: it refused to accept amendments to the housing bill - put forward by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats - which would have required the government to meet its own targets of making a 20% improvement in the efficiency of housing and, in particular, increase the efficiency of social housing.
The appalling state of housing in Britain not only leads to higher carbon emissions, but also contributes to the death of some 30,000 people a year who cannot afford to heat their homes. The government had committed itself on numerous occasions to these energy targets, but when faced with amendments which would have forced them to act, it ordered its backbench MPs to vote them down.
This seemed to us a classic example of the gap between rhetoric and reality which is so typical of Blair's approach to climate change. But there was a further twist. Many backbench Labour MPs had signed early day motions in parliament expressing support for these targets, and some of them had issued press releases to their local papers to publicise their support and claim the credit. But when it came to the vote, 123 of them backed the government rather than their previous promise. We find this unacceptable, and believe that voters have the right to know when politicians say one thing and do another.
So we decided, together with the campaign group ACT (Active Citizen Transform), to take out a full page advert in the Guardian highlighting the rhetoric-reality gap, fingering the prime minister as the lead culprit but also naming the 123 backbenchers. After all, name and shame is a technique popularised and legitimised by the government itself. The purpose of the advert was to encourage the House of Lords to re-insert the amendments and pressurise the government to accept them when the bill went back to the Commons.
Two days after the ad appeared we learnt that the government had performed another u-turn and would now accept the amendment on the 20% target, though it still opposed the commitment on social housing. When the housing bill went back to the Commons last Wednesday, the main priority of the housing minister, Keith Hill, appeared to be to convince the world that the government's change of heart had absolutely nothing whatever to do with what he called the "disgraceful" ad.
Unfortunately, Mr Hill rather undermined his attempt to portray MPs as fearless defenders of truth and conscience by adding: "The advertisement also betrayed a total ignorance of the way in which parliament works." This has been a common complaint from MPs who have contacted us since the ad appeared. Don't we know how the system works? How could we be so naive as to expect them to vote in line with their promises? Haven't we heard of the whips?
Actually, I do know how the system operates, having worked both as an MP's researcher and as a government adviser. But what the politicians seem not to accept is that "the system" doesn't work. By requiring backbenchers to put party loyalty or desire for promotion above their beliefs - by requiring them to say one thing and do another - it feeds cynicism and turns people off politics. It certainly doesn't work for the climate or those who can't afford to heat their homes.
So where are we at the end of a turbulent fortnight in our relations with the government and its backbenchers? Most importantly, there is now a legal commitment to increase domestic energy efficiency by 20% by 2010, albeit not for social housing, which will deliver enormous benefits to thousands of households and help protect the climate.
Whether Keith Hill is telling the truth when he says that he would have accepted this without our ad is of much less importance. Suffice to say that we consider the cost as money well spent, and would do the same again.
My only slight regret is that by spotlighting those who had not lived up to their rhetoric we did not give sufficient credit and congratulations to those who stuck to their guns. Thank you to them.
? Stephen Tindale is executive director of Greenpeace UK |
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