I welcome the statement. Climate change demands action. The atmosphere has approximately 21 per cent oxygen at sea level. Below 19.5 per cent, the ability to work diminishes; below 17 per cent, things are getting difficult, and, when you get down to 15 per cent, people die. Sea-level rises will flood cities and coastal areas, storms will get stronger—inevitably so, because there will be more energy in them from the additional heat.

Most of the houses that we will inhabit in 2030 and 2050, and even 2100, have been built already and people are living in them now, if you just think about how many houses in the areas that you represent were built pre-1919—to give some idea about how long houses last. We will need to retrofit. This is more expensive and intrusive than creating zero-carbon new builds, but we really do need to go for zero-carbon new builds. We need every political party to sign up to decarbonising housing, if only to give confidence to the industry that a change of Government will not lead to a change in policy. I think that will be the most important thing: to show that the Government might change, but the policy will continue.

What I want to talk about is not just the houses, but the house environs. We will almost certainly not be able to get every house down to zero carbon. We need to plant more urban trees and bushes. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and potentially harmful gases, such as sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide from the air and release oxygen. One large tree can supply a day's supply of oxygen for four people. A tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, and can take in a tonne of carbon dioxide by the time it reaches 40 years old. So, if we can't decarbonise the house, we can decarbonise the house and its environs, and that means planting trees and bushes, and, more importantly, not chopping down trees and bushes. So, I think it is important that we look not just at the building but at its environs as well. Alongside retrofitting, will the Minister commit to a substantial increase in the number of urban trees, bushes and other means of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?