Norman fights back on tar sands

2011 press releases

2nd Dec: Norman comes out fighting on tar sands legislation

Last week, a private business decided to spend thousands of pounds to try to damage me and my reputation, distributing a leaflet to every door in my constituency, and erecting boards attacking me in their retail outlets in Brighton and Eastbourne. The leaflet questioned my integrity, represented me in the most insulting way, purported (wrongly) to know what was going on in government, and lambasted me because I am not following the precise policy that they, as an unelected body, have decided I should follow.

I first got into politics because of my concerns about the way in which the environment was being treated. My first campaign ever, in 1987, was about pesticide misuse. I was campaigning on climate change when most people had never heard of it and those who had denied it existed. I have spent my political life arguing for, and winning, measures to protect the environment and bring about a more sustainable future. Only this week, I have succeeded, to take just two examples, in persuading the government to cut rail fares by 2%, and to allocate another £20m for new green buses. I need no lectures from Lush on the importance of the environment.

Let me correct the numerous errors and misrepresentations that appeared on their tawdry leaflet. First, it is not a question of lobbying for or against the Fuel Quality Directive. It already exists. What is at issue is what carbon values the Directive gives to different sources of fuel or feedstocks as they are known. Lush say they have grave concerns about the highly polluting nature of Canadian tar sands. So do I. But unlike them, I am also concerned about other highly polluting crudes, such as those from Nigeria, Angola and Venezuela. Lush want to give a specific value to Canadian tar sands but only a general default value to all conventional crudes, despite the fact that the greenhouse gas impacts vary enormously across conventional crudes. Yet there is at present virtually no fuel derived from tar sands in Europe, and they would be in effect ignoring probably 99% of the fossil fuels we use. I want to use the Fuel Quality Directive to drive down the use of all heavy crudes, not just one source. I simply cannot understand why some environmentalists seem completely uninterested in conventional crudes.

But it is because I am that I persuaded the British government to put to our EU partners a system whereby all fossil fuel sources were placed in either a high, medium or low band, with specific values being advocated as and when the detailed information became available. Under my scenario, such a value would be given to Canadian tar sands right away but within this banding arrangement that captured all other fossil fuel sources from day one.

Lush portray this policy as "attempting to kill this legislation by delaying it for years". Yet my officials at the Department for Transport advise me that a banding system could be up and running within six months to a year. By contrast, if the EU fails to put a system in place now to cover all crudes, it is unlikely that the matter will be revisited for years, and all we will have is a specific value for one source that at the moment barely exists, as far as Europe is concerned.

Incidentally, the only reason we have a specific value for Canadian tar sands is because the Canadians keep proper records in an open way that allows that figure to be calculated. Lush seem to want to penalise transparency and encourage secrecy amongst those heavy polluters who would have no incentive whatsoever to produce accurate data under their preferred approach.

So I want a system brought in as early as possible that covers all crude sources. I have asked the pressure groups for their views on how that might be achieved. So far the only response I have met is silence. It seems the policy they want is clobber the Canadians and to hell with the rest. What kind of an environmental policy is that?

Lush next suggest that I am "a good man being forced to toe the Conservative party line". This appears to be based on the fact (which I found out from a pressure group) that David Cameron has recently met the Canadian Prime Minister. This explanation was then given oxygen by the Guardian, which listed the meetings ministers, including me, have had with oil companies. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. What the Guardian didn't list, of course, were all the meetings, far more numerous in number, that I have had with the green pressure groups, including Lush. And let me make this absolutely clear. I have not had any contact, or any pressure on me, from the Prime Minister or anyone else at No10 about this issue. Nor has any other Tory, bar the then Transport Secretary Philip Hammond, even discussed the matter with me.

However, even if that was the case, which it is not, it seems strange that on the one hand Lush are portraying the Conservatives as pushing me into a corner, yet on the other hand, through their recent drop of 40,000 leaflets, they are helping the local Conservatives by attempting to tarnish my character.

Lush, or anyone else, is entitled to question my tactics. What I resent is the arrogant and insulting assumption they make that because someone has reached a different conclusion from them on the way forward, they must be acting in bad faith and be unconcerned about the environment.

I note that Lush have an outlet in Riyadh but have singularly failed to criticise the Saudi government for their human rights record and their treatment of women. Perhaps they should put their own house in order before attempting to criticise others.

The position now is that discussions are ongoing within the EU on the best approach to the measuring and treatment of fossil fuels within the Fuel Quality Directive. Countries like the Netherlands have made their own creative suggestions. My aim throughout has been, and is now, to use those discussions to get the best deal possible for the environment. I am not going to be blown off course for the sake of an easy life by Lush or anyone else.