Letter: Labour lacks concern for the environment

Labour lacks

concern for the

environment

Sir: It is because of my real anger at the almost total exclusion of the environment from the Labour Party's draft manifesto that I write this letter. In a week when we have published a report on the effects climate change will have on the UK, it is almost inconceivable that the major opposition party should be so careless of our future that it could dismiss environmental concerns with mere throwaway paragraphs.

Governments like this one with a strong environmental record still need oppositions who can press them on important concerns. When such pressure is lacking, it is all too easy to become complacent.

To have produced a document designed to chart the route of a future government in which the environment plays no central part, and the concept of sustainable development or biodiversity no part at all, beggars belief.

JOHN GUMMER, MP

Secretary of State for

the Environment

House of Commons

London SW1