10:10 in Parliament (Fylde Liberal Democrats)

Fylde Liberal Democrats <info@fyldelibdems.org.uk>

10:10 in Parliament

October 28, 2009 8:46 AM

Houses of Parliament The Government, including the military, is responsible for about 10% of the UK carbon emissions. As befits Liberal Democrat political leadership on environmental issues, on 22nd October the Commons debated for some three hours a LibDem Bill which would have committed the Government estate to a 10% reduction next year. Arguing against the Bill, Joan Ruddock, Climate Change Minister, said this did not allow enough time for planning "If the whole of the public sector were to try to put in place a 10 percent cut with in a single year, we would have projects that would be absolutely useless and chaos in planning," she said. That is THE most worn out excuse for doing nothing. A 10% cut can be achieved just by encouraging every one to think about what they are doing & even if it falls short a bit, it is an improvement on "planning" & "projects" and inertia. The Bill was defeated by 226 in favour to 297 against. The 10:10 campaign, as it is called, was launched by film maker Fanny Armstrong in September. The idea was that every individual, business, institution, that signed up would strive to cut 10% off their carbon emissions in 2010. To date the initiative has some 140000 signatories.