Environment Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

I am delighted to be back debating the Environment Bill on Report and not least to be able to do so in person. I thank noble Lords for continuing to meet me and my officials over the Summer Recess.

Off the back of much of that engagement, as well as the many insightful contributions in Committee from right across this House, noble Lords will have seen that we have secured and tabled some significant amendments to the Bill. I outlined these in a letter to your Lordships last week and I look forward to discussing these in more detail as we progress the debate.

Moving on to the important issues at hand, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his Amendment 1. He described an emergency; I reassure him that the Government fully recognise the seriousness of both climate change and biodiversity loss, which, as a number of noble Lords have said, must be addressed in tandem if we are to protect the planet. There is no credible pathway to net zero that does not involve the protection and restoration of nature on an unprecedented scale. Indeed, there is no pathway to meeting our sustainable development goals—any of them—without massive efforts to protect and restore nature. We know that those people who depend most on the free services that nature provides, and which have been described by a number of speakers today, are in the most vulnerable and poorest communities. As we destroy nature, we destroy those services and plunge people in huge numbers into base poverty.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed out that of total global climate finance, less than 3% is invested in nature-based solutions to climate change. An attempt to shift that balance and get that 3% much closer to 50% is at the heart of our ambitions as the president of COP. In addition to committing to double our own international climate finance to £11.6 billion, we have committed that nearly a third of that will be invested in nature-based solutions, including forests, mangroves, seagrasses and more. As part of our diplomatic efforts in the run-up to COP, we are talking to other donor countries on a regular basis to try to persuade them to do something similar. There has been some progress and I hope that, by the time we reach COP, I will be able to present significant movement in that area.

My noble friend Lord Deben, who I too am very pleased to see here and who is an authority on climate change, quoted the Pope; I am not sure whether it was the current or previous Pope but he quoted a Pope. The point he made was absolutely right. Climate change has been described by others—perhaps from a less theological point of view—as a fever caused by decades and generations of our abuse of the natural world. The more we can see it in that way, the more likely we are to deliver appropriate solutions. COP will be a nature COP; this is at the heart of what we are attempting to do with our presidency.

I take issue with one suggestion that the noble Lord, Lord Deben made: that we need to make it clear to others where the UK stands on these issues. I would not pretend that there is a country in the world, including the UK, that is doing enough. The gap between where we are and where we need to be is vast; that is true of every country on earth, and that is why we are having this discussion today. But where the UK stands on climate change and nature already sends a pretty powerful message to the world. I think we are regarded internationally as leaders: we were the first major economy to legislate for net zero by 2050; we have committed to ending taxpayer support for fossil fuel projects overseas, which the noble Lord has been urging for many years; we are the first to make our land use subsidy system conditional on environmental outcomes; we have doubled our international climate finance, as I said; and we have committed to a third of investment into nature-based solutions. As COP president, we are all engaging in intense diplomacy to try to raise ambition across the world.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I think my noble friend misunderstood my point. My point was that, given the opportunity to declare this simple thing in an Act, the Government, if they do not take it, cannot avoid the fact that many will say they do not want to. The Government have the opportunity. I do not want the rest of these amendments; I just want the statement, and then no one can argue. If he cannot give that, I merely say that people outside will think we are not willing to do so.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention, and I will address his question directly.

The Environment Bill contains numerous world firsts as well—for example, legislation to move illegal deforestation from supply chains, which we are trying to persuade many other countries to emulate, and with which we think we are making some progress. Biodiversity net gain is, I believe, a world first. I am delighted to introduce a legal requirement, which we will debate later today, to everything the Government can do to bend the curve of biodiversity loss by 2030. The Bill will enable us to improve air quality, address nature’s decline, deliver a resource-efficient economy, tackle the scourge of single-use plastics and ensure we can manage our precious water resources in a changing climate. All climate change legislation in England will be part of the enforcement remit of the office for environmental protection, including enforcement of the net-zero target. The OEP will work closely alongside our world-leading Committee on Climate Change on these issues, ensuring that their individual roles complement and reinforce one another.

Through the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan, the Government set out steps to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. This innovative programme outlines ambitious policies and includes £12 billion of government investment to support up to 250,000 green jobs, accelerate our path to reaching net zero by 2050 and lay the foundations for a green recovery by building back greener from the pandemic. The Government have also published their energy White Paper, transport decarbonisation plan and hydrogen strategy, and we will bring forward further proposals, including a net-zero strategy, before COP 26—a strategy that all government departments, without exception, are working on. We will continue to tackle these interrelated crises in an integrated way, internationally, as hosts of COP 26 and by playing a leading role in pushing for the development of an ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework to be adopted at the CBD COP 15.

Briefly, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who talked about the need for action alongside this but questioned the action taken during the passage of the Bill, most of the examples I gave earlier are things that have happened during the passage of the Bill but, in addition to that, the Government announced a few months ago the £3 billion green investment fund to create thousands of green jobs and upgrade buildings; a £2 billion green homes grant; the England peat action plan, produced by my honourable friend Rebecca Pow in the other place; the England trees action plan, which was part of my portfolio; and a £5.2 billion fund to better protect properties from flooding, increasing amounts of which will be invested in nature-based solutions to try to deal with numerous problems using the same investment. We are taking action.

In response to the amendment, but also to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben: it is clearly the action against which a Government will be judged. Any Government can make declarations, as we have seen. As we approach COP, every declaration made so far in relation to deforestation globally has been missed. The Aichi targets were missed catastrophically. I cannot think of a single grand statement about the environment, biodiversity or climate change that has in fact been met—not a single one. It is the steps—the actions—that Governments take against which they should be judged.

A number of noble Lords have described an environmental crisis, a biodiversity crisis and a climate crisis. I have, in the short time I have been in this place, described those crises myself. Indeed, the reason I am in politics is to tackle those crises. It is hard to talk about the scale of the crisis. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, gave the example that the populations of key species have declined by nearly 70% in my lifetime, and that would not even qualify as a nano-blip in evolutionary terms. One more nano-blip like that and we are in very serious trouble. Of course this is an emergency; there is no doubt that we are describing, combating and tackling a biodiversity and climate emergency. But adding this proposed new clause to the Bill would not, we believe, drive any specific further action. It does not change the nature of what we need to do or of the action we are already taking. While I agree completely with the sentiment behind the noble Lord’s amendment—and I think the Government have demonstrated, in the steps they have taken, that they share that sentiment—respectfully, we do not see that this amendment would have any material impact.

Amendment 21 was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, but he has not spoken to it, so I hope it is okay if I address it. I am not sure what the protocol requires, but I will do so unless I am told not to. I firmly believe that environmental risks are already accounted for under the Bill—in numerous ways, such as the environment improvement plan and annual reports that will consider risks related to improving the natural environment and be actively managed through ongoing performance management. These reports will be published and scrutinised by Parliament and the office for environmental protection. Furthermore, the Government report publicly on specific environmental risk, including long-term environmental trends and high-impact environmental risks, through Defra’s annual reports and accounts and the outcome delivery plans for each government department. These are all available online.

Regarding youth engagement, a point raised by a number of speakers, we have consulted the Youth Steering Group and are exploring new approaches to youth engagement as part of the EIP review due to take place in 2022. In addition, the emphasis being placed by the COP president-designate on the value of youth engagement and youth involvement cannot be overestimated, and that is demonstrated through the actions he is taking and the plans he is making.

The Bill and the actions we are taking elsewhere will deliver on the sentiments behind both amendments. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down: if the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, or anyone else for that matter, brought back at Third Reading proposed new subsection (1) of Amendment 1, which is merely a headline, would my noble friend pledge to accept that it does not detract one iota from the Bill? Yet headlines can be useful—they can be pointers—and I would urge my noble friend to do that. It is a pity to start on a Division when we all agree that that is the one thing on which many of us feel particularly strongly.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention and his earlier comments, but the reality is that I, the department I work for and the whole of the Government will be tested and judged against the actions we take—actions and commitments we make in the run-up to COP and alongside the Bill. My view, and that of the Government, is that accepting this amendment and writing these words into the eventual Act would have no material impact on policy whatever. The reality is that securing changes to a Bill requires a great deal of heavy lifting. There are areas where I hope noble Lords will see that the Bill has improved considerably in recent weeks as a consequence of arguments put forward by noble Lords in this House. But those are material changes that will have a material impact on our stewardship of the environment.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, if my noble friend is not prepared to give the very simple assurance that at Third Reading he will have some form of declaration, he is being politically most unwise. What is more, he is setting himself up to have a great deal more trouble with this Bill than he otherwise would.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I simply say to my noble friend that I am not in a position to accept this amendment. If the House feels strongly on this issue, then it is important that it tests the amendment in a Division. Accepting it is not something that I am able to do or, frankly, that I think would make any material difference to government policy.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I do not want this to start off so badly, but the fact is that many of us do not want to have various bits of this amendment and it is not our fault that my noble friend has been offered the opportunity to make this statement. I have to ask him: is he really going to stand up and say that, if just that bit were put in at Third Reading, he would whip his side to vote against it? If he did that—and that is the only way in which he could stand behind refusing such an amendment—then that seems to open up the reality of the question that he has been asked.

I agree with him about statements. I am constantly attacking the Government for not doing the things that are necessary to achieve the ends that they have so nobly accepted, so he must not accuse me of being in favour of declarations. However, when he has been asked to make a declaration and he does not do so, that seems to me to be a very different circumstance.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Perhaps I have misunderstood my noble friend. If he is asking me to acknowledge, as I have done many times in this House and outside it, that we face a biodiversity and climate emergency then I believe I have already done so. However, it is not for me to unilaterally accept an amendment on behalf of the Government that would have no material impact. As my noble friend says, we have made some big commitments; accepting the amendment would not change our commitment to net zero or to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030, or indeed in relation to any of these issues. I am afraid I have to come back to my noble friend and others by saying that if the feeling is strong then this issue needs to be put to a Division.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

I would just like to get clarification on this. Since it is now so difficult to table an amendment at Third Reading, it needs my noble friend to say that he would consider it before Third Reading. As I understand it, that would allow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, to bring it back at Third Reading. If my noble friend is point blank saying that he will not even consider it, then the noble Lord has no alternative but to divide the House.

As I said, I like subsection (1) of the proposed new clause but not the rest of the amendment, which puts me and indeed quite a lot of us on the Benches behind my noble friend in an extremely difficult position. I think it is essential, as my noble friend Lord Deben said, that we get subsection (1), but we would have to vote for the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in order to get it into the Bill.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid the noble Baroness cannot summarise. The rules in the Companion are quite clear that interruptions on Report are solely for points of clarification. I think we should let the Minister move on with this.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I have been told to finish but I am not sure how; this is the first time I have been asked to finish in these circumstances. I will repeat what I said earlier: all I can suggest to the House is that if feelings are strong then this question should be put to a Division. I do not see an alternative to doing so.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, in all my time in this House, this is the first time that I have got to a point where the Minister is calling for a Division on an amendment that he does not agree with. We have perhaps made history this afternoon.

This is a very serious matter. I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. If subsection (1) had been accepted by the Government then I would have been in a great dilemma, because it does not quite say what I wanted to say but gets pretty close to it. The reason why it is written as it is, I have to say, is partly because of the Public Bill Office. I would have appreciated the Government’s help in getting it right and we could have done that at Third Reading, but we are not in that position.

I want to be quite clear about this. These are key issues where what we say matters as much as what we need to do. All of us here believe there is no difference between saying what we want and actually doing it; we all know that we need both of those, not just one. The Bill goes on to do a lot of what we need in some of those areas.

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her in-depth look at biodiversity. As the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Bennett, and other Members have said, biodiversity has to be brought into greater focus. The point is that, in public life as in private, there is a big difference between acceptance and public declaration. That is why the amendment is so important for the Bill and why I, like the Minister, would like to test the opinion of the House.

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16:36

Division 1

Ayes: 209

Noes: 179

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has spoken eloquently on this issue, both in Committee and during this stage of the Bill.

By failing to list soil health alongside air, water and biodiversity in the Bill, the Government have missed the opportunity to list the important aspect of monitoring soil health as a means of improving the environment. I hope that they can address this and show that they mean business by giving the important issue of soil health the attention it requires. We are all aware of the firm commitment to improved soil health in the new Agriculture Act, yet, to reverse the degradation of our soils and return them to a healthy state nationally, we need a long-term commitment to monitoring at both the farm and national level.

The simple truth is that, without a functioning monitoring programme, we are being kept in the dark over the state of our soils. A freedom of information request made by the Sustainable Soils Alliance revealed that, unlike for water and air, no single policy instrument exists to improve and protect them, and they are suffering as a result. As a BBC article states, the alliance discovered that

“just 0.41% of the cash invested in environmental monitoring goes on examining the soil”—

a point also made by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. The article goes on:

“That’s despite the fact that soils round the world—including in the UK—are said to be facing a crisis. The figures are startling: £60.5m goes to monitoring water quality, £7.65m to checking on air—but just £284,000 to auditing soil … Its director … told BBC News: ‘This figure is staggering—but not surprising. It reflects the widespread under-investment in soil health compared to air and water. We could be actually saving money—and the environment—by investing in soil monitoring because understanding soil would tell us a great deal about the health of our water and air too.’ … A report by the Commons Environment Audit Committee in 2016 warned that some of the UK’s most fertile fields were losing so much soil they could become unproductive within a generation … The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told BBC News”—


this was in March last year—

“it was planning to design an indicator for healthy soils, and to establish a new national soil monitoring scheme. It says powers in the Agriculture Bill could be used to support the monitoring.”

What is the update on this? Currently, we see no evidence that Defra will commit to funding soil monitoring.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made the point that we just have not heard enough from Defra. My noble friend Lord Whitty said that there can be no time for excuses from Defra. What does the Minister plan to do to address the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and noble Lords across the House regarding the lack of references to soil health in the Bill, and to ensure that soil health is not left as an afterthought? I know that he will refer the House to the power in Clause 1 to give the Government the ability to

“set long-term targets in respect of any matter which relates to … the natural environment, or … people’s enjoyment of the natural environment.”

However, this power must be used actively to focus government action on environmental improvement in areas where the need is greatest.

We urge the Government to address the clear desire for stronger action on monitoring soil health through the target development process that the Bill will establish. This must be done holistically and transparently with early and effective stakeholder engagement. The Government should publish a timetable and plan for how they intend to progress targets. On current performance, they are failing soil health and, ultimately, the environment.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this important debate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, in particular, for tabling Amendment 2 on soil health. She made a compelling speech, as she did in a previous session, describing soil as an ecosystem in its own right: an ecosystem—or ecosystems—that we are plundering and destroying at an extraordinary rate of millions of tonnes every year.

It is often cited as an example of extraordinary human progress that we have managed to treble food production in the past 40 years, and that is true, but we have done so at the expense, undoubtedly, of many future generations. It is the case, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, pointed out, that many of the bread baskets of the world have been pretty rapidly converted into deserts. According to the latest data that I have seen, at least 500,000 small farmers in the world are currently having to deal with diminishing yields as a consequence of their impoverished soils. As a Minister in the FCDO with some responsibility for part of our ODA budget, this is something I am trying very hard to shift the focus towards, so that it is a problem that, I hope, the UK will be able to have a positive impact on.

Bringing this back to the domestic, I would like to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, that we are working out now how to develop the appropriate means of measuring soil health. It is complicated but we are doing that work and its results could be used to inform a future soils target. However, as I outlined a number of times in Committee, long-term targets set under the framework of the Bill have to be capable of being objectively measured. If we commit in the Bill to setting a target by 2022, without the reliable metrics needed to set a target, and then measure its progress, we could be committing to doing something that ultimately we cannot deliver or might not even know whether we have delivered it. We therefore cannot commit to set a soil target in the Bill, but I can assure the noble Baroness of a number of things.

The first is that we are focusing our efforts already on developing a soil health measuring and monitoring scheme, which will produce a baseline assessment of soil health against which change can be measured. This, as I said, could inform a future long-term soil target. Secondly, we are currently identifying soil health metrics as the basis of a healthy soils indicator. This will complement a future soil health monitoring scheme by providing a straightforward measure—

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

Does the Minister accept that under Clause 1(2) we need to set only a single metric? Is he saying that there is not a single metric that Defra can set that would impact soil? Is that correct?

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I was coming to the point made by the noble Earl. As part of the soil health measuring and monitoring scheme, we are developing methodology to enable visual field assessments of soil health to be carried out by farmers and land managers across all land uses and all soil types. That will be supported by the development of field protocols and the production of field guides instructing land managers how to do the sampling. That work will, we hope, be a user-friendly and relatively easy way of measuring long-term trends, which I think is what the noble Earl was getting at—trends that can easily be understood by those on the ground who actually manage the soil. Data collected by land managers will then provide a baseline for an informal, non-statutory target, which in turn could inform the future, robust and well-evidenced soil health target that will be established under the Environment Bill. The data from the soil structure scheme would feed into future soil health monitoring.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, we are also proposing additional actions that support land managers and farmers to achieve sustainable soil management. For example, the sustainable farming incentive scheme—she referred to it as ELM, but I think it is now referred to as the sustainable farming incentive scheme—includes practices such as the introduction of herbal leys, the use of grass-legume mixtures, cover crops and so on.

I make two additional points. The first, very briefly, is that by setting, as we are committing to do in the Bill, a 2030 biodiversity target, and having already set, on the advice of the Climate Change Committee, a net-zero target by 2050, in addition to all the other targets that are either in the pipeline or already committed to, it is inconceivable that we could achieve either of those headline targets without addressing soil, for all the reasons mentioned and explained so well by noble Lords today: we cannot get to net zero without addressing soil.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, mentioned peatlands, which are particularly important for the reasons he described. Although I think we shall debate this issue later—potentially today in response to the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness—I just mention that earlier this year we published the England Peat Action Plan, setting out the long-term vision for large-scale management, protection and restoration of our peatlands, which are critical carbon stores but, when mismanaged, can become a source of carbon. This will enable them to deliver a huge range of benefits for people, wildlife and the planet. It sets out a number of policies to achieve that vision: the announcement of a nature for climate peatland grant scheme, through the Nature for Climate Fund; an immediate commitment to restoring 35,000 hectares through that fund; a commitment to end the use of peat in amateur horticulture by the end of this Parliament; longer-term plans that we are setting out, as all departments are, in our net-zero strategy—peatlands will be a critical part of getting to net zero; and a new spatial map of England’s peatlands to enable us to make more robust estimates around the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands and to prioritise investment in restoration.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

I thank the Minister very much for allowing me to intervene briefly. I want to wind back a few moments in his response to this debate, in which he said, as I heard it, that we will not be able to achieve the biodiversity target without improving soil health. I want to clarify what was meant by that. Does it mean that, in the indicator species that will be part of the biodiversity target and halting species decline—the billion bacteria to which my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington referred, as well as the tens of thousands of protozoa and fungi in a single teaspoon of soil—they will be part of the species abundance target and therefore soil health will be folded into that objective?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. We will talk in detail about the target shortly—perhaps even next—but my point is less about the individual fungi or bacteria; it is that you cannot deliver a reversal of our catastrophic biodiversity loss without tackling ecosystems and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, make plain in her speech, soil is the basis of so much of our biodiversity and ecosystems, so it is logical that you cannot do one without the other—and likewise with net zero, for all the reasons that my noble friend Lord Deben pointed out.

So, as I have outlined, we are very much on the case. We are developing a metric and prioritising soil health in numerous ways, through this Bill but also other actions. The amendment would undoubtedly pre-empt the process of developing that metric and, for that reason, we cannot accept it—but, with the assurances I gave, I hope that the noble Baroness can be persuaded to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I think this has been some of your Lordships’ House at its finest and I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate. It is extraordinarily striking that, from all corners of this House, we have seen overwhelming support for Amendment 2.

I do feel I must address the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, who signed the amendment and then expressed some concern about it. I do not believe that there is any form of conflict or competition between this amendment and Amendment 18 from the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. This amendment sets out that there must be a target; Amendment 18 sets out a process, scheme and operational activity. So they are not in competition. I strongly urge your Lordships’ House to support the noble Earl’s amendment. Indeed, I attempted to sign it, but, as with a number of others, it was already oversubscribed.

I should love to go through so many contributions—each has added something to the debate—and acknowledge them all, but I know that some of the people who are keen for the Bill to progress would be right on my case if I did that, so I will not. But I shall pick out just a couple of contributions, because I think they are particularly important. They are from two members of the Climate Change Committee: the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge. This is the expert view saying that the amendment needs to be in the Bill; that is the independent view, in all senses. The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, made a point that no one else has made in our long discussion of soils, about the way in which climate change is putting pressure on soils: drought, flood, fires and all the extra damage to what has already been done.

I also want to note the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. She has been a particularly fervent supporter of this amendment, and I thank her for that. I also thank her for counting the number of times that soil quality appears in the 25-year plan; I confess that I had not done that. That shows that the Government kind of see the issue but are just really not engaging with it in the Bill.

So I will address a couple of points that the Minister made. He talked a lot about what Defra is doing operationally and what it is setting out, but he did not really address my point that the 25-year plan says that we will have sustainable management of soils by 2030. How can we do that without having this long-term target to progress towards—without, indeed, having the noble Earl’s strategy? It was particularly telling that one of the other chief points of the Minister’s argument was, “Oh, well, we deal with these other things—biodiversity and water—and that will fix soils”. That is making soils a second-order issue, which is putting it in profoundly the wrong place. This amendment puts it in the right place: in the Bill. As we have discussed in so many other areas, whatever the department might be doing under one Secretary of State, there is no guarantee that it will continue under another Secretary of State. Issues must be put in the Bill.

I well understand the pressures in your Lordships’ House against calling votes; I understand the desire to progress the Bill. But, having listened very carefully to the Minister and having heard the very strong support for the amendment from all sides of your Lordships’ House, I must ask to test the opinion of the House.

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17:51

Division 2

Ayes: 209

Noes: 166

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, has made important and eloquent points in relation to light pollution throughout the passage of the Bill. Not only is this crucial for our insects and wildlife, but it is important that we can see the stars and better understand our place in the universe.

The 25-year plan for the environment states:

“We must ensure that noise and light pollution are managed effectively.”


However, no indication of how existing light pollution will be reduced has been proposed by the Government and, as the noble Lord, Lord Randall, indicated, the Environment Bill does not currently offer a suitable location for this form of pollution. The Minister needs to acknowledge and deal with this important area, as encouraged by the Government’s draft environmental principles, encompassing both precaution and prevention.

The briefing from Buglife, which, to be honest, the noble Lord might have authored himself, stipulated that light pollution is a real contamination of our environment. It affects not only human, animal and bird health but insect health—not only how they function but how they can act as pollinators. There are serious environmental consequences of light pollution.

In Committee, the Minister’s response did not acknowledge the overwhelming evidence of environmental and health damage, focusing narrowly on uncertainty about whether it has been proven that light pollution is a main driver of insect declines. I know we cannot vote on everything we care about, as we will never finish the Bill, but I use this opportunity to ask the Minister again what action the Government will take to reassure us and provide clarity on how they will reduce the impact of light pollution on nature and people’s enjoyment of it.

Existing UK law and regulations relating to light pollution do not provide sufficient guidance and are not strong enough to tackle its increasing impact. There are now several examples of countries that have introduced a national policy on light pollution, such as Germany, France, Mexico, South Korea, Croatia and Slovenia. Will the UK also produce a national plan intended to prevent, limit and specifically reduce light pollution, including a series of targets and a programme of monitoring?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, for his Amendment 3.

As my noble friend campaigned for, the Bill requires the Government to set a legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030, and we will talk more about that shortly. But to meet a species abundance target we will need to address the multiple interacting causes of nature’s decline, including light pollution. This does not mean that we need to or should set targets for each and every cause of nature’s decline. The species abundance target will drive the right mix of policies and actions. For light pollution, this includes measures such as planning system controls for street lighting improvements. Through the designation of the dark sky reserves that a number of noble Lords mentioned, we are also working to protect exceptional nocturnal environments that bring great natural, educational and cultural enjoyment to members of the public.

The noble Lord, Lord Randall, made a compelling case, as he did in Committee. I should start by saying that if I appear to play down the importance of light pollution, the seriousness of the issue or its impacts on a whole range of things, including biodiversity, that certainly was not my intention. I say that in response to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Khan, as well. The noble Lord powerfully summarised the impacts of light pollution. He gave the example of insects in Germany, the turtle hatchlings which a number of us saw on that powerful Attenborough programme, and bats. I also saw the Buglife briefing, which was full of examples as to why this is such an important issue. I thank the noble Lord for bringing some of those recent papers to my attention. I can tell him that my officials are already in touch with many of the academics and researchers behind that work, as well as with the NGOs that have been cited by him and others. That work is happening.

Although I cannot accept the amendment, I can commit to the noble Lord that we will continue to take action both to minimise risks and to improve our understanding of the impact of light pollution. We will continue discussions with PHE—Public Health England—and DHSC, focusing on the impact of light pollution on human health and the best approaches with which to tackle it. I am also happy to relay the noble Lord’s points on the planning system and light pollution to ministerial counterparts in MHCLG, and I will ensure that his remarks both now and from a couple of months ago are conveyed to them.

It is probably worth noting that the National Planning Policy Framework includes consideration of the impact of light pollution from artificial light on local amenity, intrinsically dark landscapes and nature conservation, but I do not think anyone pretends that this is an issue that has historically received the attention that it should. I hope that, using his powerful words, I will be able to move things a bit in MHCLG. I am also happy to confirm that we will continue to work with our academic partners to keep emerging evidence under review, and the Government can set a target in secondary legislation if it is judged to be the best way to deliver long-term environmental outcomes and subject to this review.

I hope this has reassured noble Lords that the Government are taking serious action to act against light pollution and that they agree that these amendments are therefore not necessary. I hope this reassures noble Lords and I beg the noble Lord, Lord Randall, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to thank my noble friend the Minister very much. He has gone a lot further than he was able to in Committee, and for that I am very grateful. I am also extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have lent their support and spoken in this debate. It is a very important issue and something that we will continue to hear about. While the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, is looking for UFOs, I tend to look for the drones from the Whips’ Office to keep an eye on me at these crucial stages of Report. So far, they have managed to keep away from me.

As I said, I am extremely grateful; we have had a good debate. I think the things my noble friend has said about the other departments are also very important, particularly planning. I have attended many planning meetings over the years, and I am not sure that that has ever really come up. Perhaps that is another tool that some people, when they are having big developments, should look at. So there are some good things. As the noble Lord opposite said, we cannot vote on everything. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I think the later contributions have shown that it is vital, in this connection, for the Government to focus on changing the materials that produce this. It is one thing to say, for example, that we want to go to zero carbon by a certain date. Well, surely we should have that kind of system applied to the way this development arises. Nobody wants to kill people, yet there is a substantial amount of this trouble arising in our country, and the remedy must be focused on getting rid of the particulates as far as possible. That is a very high aim, which is not always made prominent in the literature and the policies.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I would like to thank all noble Lords for another important debate and to reassure the House that the Government view this matter as one of the utmost seriousness. As I have set out in previous debates that we have had on this issue, we are committed, through this Bill, to set at least two air quality targets. They will complement each other to fundamentally reduce air pollution in the worst areas, while driving continuous progress to benefit the health of all citizens across England.

Turning first to Amendment 4, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, I would like to thank her for the time she has given me over the past few weeks, discussing this and other issues. I know she has also met with my officials and Professor Alastair Lewis, chair of the Air Quality Expert Group, to better understand all the other work we are doing on PM2.5. I thank her for her time in all those meetings.

I will start by reiterating the assurance provided in Committee, first, that the Government want stretching and ambitious targets, like everyone who has spoken in the House today, and, secondly, that the Government are following a robust and evidence-based process to set those air quality targets, which will focus on delivering the greatest possible public health benefits.

The Government are committed to working with internationally renowned experts to deliver evidence to inform air quality targets. We regularly engage with independent expert groups, such as the Air Quality Expert Group and the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, to ensure the process is informed by their advice and reflects the latest evidence, which includes WHO air quality guidelines.

In July, advice from the Air Quality Expert Group and the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants was published. This showed that both groups support the proposal to set a concentration target and an exposure reduction target for PM2.5, though both acknowledged the difficulty in setting targets in this area. The Air Quality Expert Group highlighted the substantial challenges associated with modelling future PM2.5 concentrations, a point made by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, including the many uncertainties and significant unknowns. For example, as our climate changes, the potential to reduce PM2.5 concentration also changes, because climate and weather strongly influence pollution levels. We may experience more rain and wind, which disperse pollutants and clean the air, or conversely more heatwaves, which lock in and exacerbate pollution. Some sources of pollution, such as shipping in the English Channel, require work with international partners to reduce emissions. This point was also made earlier.

As we take action to reach net zero, policies such as active travel will have co-benefits, but others may create tensions, as we see with anaerobic digestion and biomass burning. Many of these issues are not easily resolved or modelled, and this demonstrates why we should not be pre-empting or short-cutting the evidence required to underpin long-term target-setting decisions. While it is absolutely necessary to continue to achieve reductions in key pollutants in the air we breathe, the inherent complexity and diverse range of sources of PM2.5—both natural and manmade—means that significant reductions are much more difficult to achieve in practice.

Before setting these targets, it is vital to ensure that both the Government and the public understand the kinds of actions needed and the restrictions which may be required for them to be achieved. This is why we will be consulting on proposed targets and actions required, which may include significant changes to how we heat our homes and travel within towns and cities, early in 2022.

I will briefly respond to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about the timetable slipping. On the assumption that the Bill becomes law in its current form, or even in an amended form, allowing the timelines to slip would be a breach in law. We would be breaking the law and that is not something the Government could do, so we will not see this timeline slipping.

We are still working to understand the full mix of policies and measures that would be required to meet the WHO guideline of 10 micrograms per cubic metre, but we know that a range of restrictions on activities are likely to be needed in urban areas to meet any ambitious target. Meeting 10 micrograms would likely require policies, as I said in previous debates, including

“reducing traffic kilometres across our cities by as much as 50%”

and

“a total ban on solid fuel burning”.

As I said in Committee, I do not think it is

“right for us to set a target … that would impact millions of people and thousands of businesses”—[Official Report, 23/6/21; cols. 306-7.]

without first levelling with people about what would be needed and ensuring that we bring them with us in understanding the health benefits of achieving that target. Without fully understanding the policies needed to meet such a limit, we cannot know where the burdens of these policies will fall.

To date, this debate has focused primarily on the concentration target but, again, I remind noble Lords that we are setting two targets that will work side by side. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, we have to set a long-term target under Clause 1 and the PM2.5 target under Clause 2. It is not a choice we have; it is inherent in the Bill. This dual-target approach is strongly supported by experts.

In addition to the concentration target, we are developing a new type of target that focuses on reducing people’s exposure to pollution. The population exposure reduction target will be a more important driver for achieving health benefits, both at national and local level. Experts tell us, and a number of speakers today have made plain, that there are no safe limits for PM2.5.

The long-term exposure reduction target will drive a process of continuous improvement to reduce people’s exposure across the whole country, even in locations where the concentration target has been achieved. It will inform how local interventions need to be targeted, particularly where the most people are exposed to elevated levels of pollution. The concentration target that we have spent much time debating serves to provide a general minimum standard and will focus on reducing levels where concentrations are highest, but it is not by any stretch the whole story.

As I have repeatedly set out in debate, in letters to the House and in meetings over the past year, we are working at pace on this. But it would not be right for us in this House to set a target without understanding the measures needed to meet it and bringing the public on board. The Government are therefore not able to accept this amendment.

Amendment 12 was also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I assure her that, as air is part of the definition of the natural environment, it already falls within the scope of the significant improvement test. In future EIP reviews, we expect new evidence—including updated WHO guidelines, emerging scientific evidence and the like—to be relevant to an assessment of whether further measures are needed to meet interim and long-term targets. The intent of the noble Baroness’s amendment is therefore already delivered by the Bill as drafted and I ask her not to press it.

On Amendment 54, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, I thank him for meeting me and Rosamund Kissi-Debrah the week before last. I can say only that if I was not already convinced of the urgency of the case, I certainly would have been by that conversation. Rosamund is an extraordinary campaigner and speaks with huge authority; of course, what happened to Ella is heartbreaking on every level.

In setting these air quality targets, it is as crucial to have a scientifically reliable understanding of the pollution sources and their dispersion as it is to have in place sufficient means to monitor progress and assess compliance. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that the Government are working extensively with experts to seek advice on this and that the details of the targets, including monitoring requirements, will be set out in secondary legislation following a public consultation.

Making sure that information about air pollution is publicly available is clearly important; we already have legal obligations to do so. We do this through a range of channels, in particular the UK-AIR website, which carries an air quality five-day forecast and live information about pollution levels around the country. We are committed to improving the accessibility and usefulness of that information to a wider range of users, and we will undertake a thorough and comprehensive review of the UK-AIR website and the daily air quality index to ensure that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

In addition, the Government are funding work with health professionals in a number of therapeutic areas to develop advice for patients about air pollution. They are also looking at working with relevant health charities in longer-term campaigns aimed specifically at the most vulnerable groups.

The amendments tabled by my noble colleagues are hugely important contributions to this debate. I think we all agree that air pollution, particularly fine particulate matter, needs to be reduced urgently to protect the nation’s health. We know that, in setting both the concentration target and the population exposure reduction target, we need to be ambitious. Indeed, we are determined to be ambitious; that is a view shared right across government.

However, we also have to be realistic in how we set that ambition and consider the practical challenges and costs before enshrining new targets in legislation. It is so important to bring society with us and therefore consult properly and meaningfully on the measures that we are likely to need to implement to achieve those significant reductions in air pollutant levels in the future; that is something we will have to do.

I hope that I have managed to reassure at least some noble Lords of the seriousness with which we take this issue, and I beg them not to press their amendments.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, could he confirm that I understood him aright that the current situation, where we do not know the origin of 80% of the particulate matter, is not satisfactory and that the Government will fund more and better research so that we have a grip on where this is coming from?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

That is a really important point. In this debate and previous debates, I have said that our knowledge base is not complete, and it needs to be much more complete. It may not ever be totally complete, but the Government—particularly Defra, working with the Department for Transport and Public Health England—are researching the issue exhaustively, with a view to informing the targets that we are obliged to set in the short term.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I will be very brief because I know that we are all looking forward to a break. I will not go into any detail about individual contributions, but I thank everyone who has spoken in support of my amendments—it is very much appreciated, and it has demonstrated that there is a lot of very strong feeling in the House about the concerns that we have raised.

I come to the points that the Minister made. Having met Defra officials on a number of occasions, I do not doubt at all that they are working extremely hard on this issue—for example, the planned exposure targets are extremely important—but that does not alter my frustration, and that of many others, that the urgent action that we need now is simply not happening and is being put off yet again. We have heard time and again that this is a health emergency, and I do not believe that the Government are treating it as an emergency. If that was the case, these amendments would be accepted, in my opinion.

We believe that our amendment is critical to drive the progress that we need. We also believe that a lot of existing evidence and information is already available in order for the Government to start taking action. On that basis, I would like to test the opinion of the House on my Amendment 4.

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19:30

Division 3

Ayes: 181

Noes: 159