Meg spoke to Women’s Parliamentary Radio following the recent Fabian Society debate on "Green Gloom: how do we win the argument for the planet?". Meg says she's optimistic about our ability to change our habits and that people care deeply about the environmental legacy they hand down to their children and their children's children.
She told Boni Sones OBE, Executive Producer, that it's "vital" not to play party politics with the planet, and reminds us all as the New Year begins that by reducing our energy consumption we are also reducing our domestic household bills.
Meg told Boni:
“We care about what our children will inherit – we want to know our children and our children's children won't be paying the price for our consumption and we all have to address that question now. On the doorstep people often raise concerns about their family, their children and their grand-children. They do care about the next generation and I do think we need to push that issue because it does resonate."
“The devil is in the detail, and I talk a lot to Ed Miliband about this. The Government has said it's not going to junk everything Labour did on the environment but we see them dither and while they dither opportunities are lost. I think we all have to take responsibility and governments should have done something quicker, but I think this Government has got to get cracking as we have to change habits and reduce consumption massively. The "Green Deal" is going through Parliament, which seeks to encourage us to reduce our energy consumption at home, but we have to make sure it matches with human behaviour and gets the incentives right to make sure the stick is right to bite. "
“Broadly we want to support the Government in carbon reduction, we all want to achieve this. I have a role to play in protecting this generation and future generations around the world. It is vital we don't play petty party politics with that!"
“We need to ask ourselves – do we need to turn that plug on, or that switch off? It will also have an impact on our bills, so if we encourage people to do that it will begin to bite. We call 2011 the year the government needs to make decisions and hopefully it will be decisions that we will back!"
The full interview can be listened to on the Women’s Parliamentary Radio website
