20131110_AM

Source: BBC1: The Andrew Marr Show

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24887994

Date: 10/11/2013

Event: Shirley Williams: Climate change means "huge increases in the number of devastating weather crises"

Attribution: BBC1: The Andrew Marr Show

People:

  • Andrew Marr: Journalist and political commentator
  • Fraser Nelson: Editor, The Spectator
  • Shirley Williams: Baroness Williams of Crosby

Andrew Marr: Okay. Let's move on to another story - green taxes. Well, there's two stories around - there's a huge, huge storm in the Far East, utter devastation and there are so many [?] pictures of it -

Shirley Williams: And here is this terrible picture.

Andrew Marr: I think the worst ever, worst recorded in human history.

Shirley Williams: With 10,000 already found dead, and many more to come. It's a great - it's a huge cli- now it showed that, really, um, one of the things I want...

Andrew Marr: I was going to say, you connect this with climate change -

Shirley Williams: That was what I was just going to say.

Andrew Marr: - the newspapers, by and large, don't.

Shirley Williams: Right. Let me put this one out - the Sunday Telegraph, its top story: "New Green Tax Threat". And let's be quite direct about this - we know that where there are [sic] climate change, one of the effects of it is huge increases in the number of devastating weather crises. And that's exactly what we see here.

Fraser Nelson: Well, the science shows the opposite, actually - there have been fewer intensities of storms, recently. I mean you're right, the two are related but it hasn't been the case that in the last [inaudible] years we've had more storms - the opposite, actually, has been the case.

Shirley Williams: First of all, I disagree with you, because it's a -

Andrew Marr: I can see a big argument [inaudible] go on for a very, very long time -

Shirley Williams: Okay, let's say, very quickly -

Andrew Marr: - and I'm going to close it off, now. But you're -

Shirley Williams: I just want to say, I think that Ed Davey is absolutely right to say we have to have green taxes, and I think green taxes have got to come out of income tax in the end - we can't hit people with big families and not much income, and treat them as being people who should not be protected.

Andrew Marr: Right. We're now going to move on...