What a Walley

Here she is, Joan Walley. The nigh on invisible Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee. This committee was set up after special pleading by Friends of the Earth, so you can guess what it is like.

The Committee was established in November 1997 reflecting a manifesto commitment on the part of the incoming Labour government. The proposal for a single committee to look at the environmental impact of all government departments can be traced back, through the 1994 Labour party policy document In Trust for Tomorrow, to a submission to the Procedure Committee from Friends of the Earth in 1990.

So what is it doing, well it is terrified lest we drop our frankly mad 80% carbon reduction target.

"The long-term carbon-cutting commitments set out in the Climate Change Act are supposed to provide certainty that Britain is determined to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050.

"Unfortunately, the Government's somewhat schizophrenic attitude to climate change seems to be undermining that confidence.

"The Chancellor's comments last week show that five years on from the Stern report, the Treasury still doesn't get climate change - or the risk it poses to global stability and economic prosperity.

"While the Prime Minister is to be commended for not faltering when setting the fourth long-term carbon budget, he risks throwing the UK's climate targets off course by instigating a review in just three years' time that could overturn the commitment.

"Backtracking on the Government's green promises now would be a big mistake."

It would be a big mistake to drop the most damaging legislation ever passed by a British government, the most expensive, the most job destroying. Oh brother, cannot this government just quitely do away with a Select Committee designed by a lobby group, and rather concentrate on getting this country out of it's defecit crisis?

Please?