The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for securing what has been an interesting and passionate debate. Noble Lords have made a lot of good suggestions, so I am pleased to be responding for the Government on this important issue.
Resilient, naturally functioning ecosystems provide essential services that underpin our lives. Alongside the intrinsic value of nature, these services, such as pollination and flood management, are fundamental to our economy and future prosperity and crucial for our health and well-being. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, clearly demonstrated, the impact of climate change on the natural environment is becoming increasingly evident. The scale and extent of this impact is, unfortunately, projected to increase.
In addition to the direct environmental challenges it poses, climate change also exacerbates existing pressures on biodiversity and their impact. Environmental degradation increases the likelihood and impact of climate shocks that could create significant and material risks for the UK economy. A report by the Green Finance Institute found that ongoing environmental degradation could slow UK economic growth by up to 3% of GDP in the coming decade. When compounded with climate-related damages, this could result in a scenario where GDP is more than 8% lower, so this is an economic issue as well as a nature issue.
The UK was one of the first nations in the world to enshrine climate adaptation into law, in the Climate Change Act 2008. We published the third national adaptation programme in July 2023, outlining actions to address the risks and opportunities from climate change that were identified in the third UK climate change risk assessment. The national adaptation programme includes many actions that will be taken to support the resilience of the natural environment, such as delivering our legally binding targets for biodiversity in England that were set through the Environment Act and are central to our environmental improvement plan, which we are updating, as I am sure noble Lords are aware. These include to restore or create more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat by 2042. Delivering our biodiversity targets will help create more ecologically functional, better-connected habitats and larger species populations, which will confer resilience to the predicted impacts of a changing climate.
We also have international nature recovery commitments, as we have heard, such as to effectively conserve and manage 30% of our lands and seas by 2030—the 30 by 30 commitment about which we have heard so much. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, specifically asked about government plans to achieve this. We intend to deliver these targets through a variety of mechanisms, such as biodiversity net gain, local nature recovery strategies and environmental land management schemes. Our review of the environmental implementation plan will play a key role in that.
As we have heard today, climate and nature are intrinsically linked. Functioning ecosystems are required to tackle climate change, and climate change is a key pressure on nature. Natural habitats provide key carbon sequestration and storage, which is needed to combat global warming. Around 580 million tonnes of carbon are stored in England’s priority habitats; deciduous woodland, blanket bog and upland heath-land store about 76% of the national total.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, and the noble Earl, Lord Devon, talked about nature-based solutions. When designed well, such solutions can contribute to tackling climate change. Planting trees and restoring peat, as well as tackling climate change and restoring biodiversity loss, can support other priority issues—for example, flood management, which the noble Earl mentioned. I reassure noble Lords that this Government absolutely support and promote nature-based solutions.
We are also improving the evidence base through the Nature Returns programme. Six projects are creating or restoring habitats to test which are most effective in promoting carbon uptake or preventing greenhouse gas emissions. We are also supporting organisations to develop investment-ready nature projects that use private sector investment, which the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, asked about, to benefit the environment and tackle climate change through the natural environment investment readiness fund. Through £15 million in grants, so far we have backed 86 pioneering projects to develop new business models that generate revenue from nature recovery, through carbon storage, cleaner water or enhanced biodiversity. We have confirmed the third round of grants, supporting an additional 50 projects to help farmers generate revenues from ecosystem services alongside food production.
The pathway to net zero includes actions to protect existing ecosystems, restore degraded landscapes and sustainably manage and create new ecosystems. We are actively pursuing the role of nature-based solutions to enhance habitats such as seagrass and salt marsh to deliver blue carbon and biodiversity benefits. This is not just about restoring land; it is also about restoring the sea.
A number of noble Lords, most recently the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, talked about trees and tree planting. Of course, other key habitats are trees and native woodlands, which are an essential part of our nation’s biodiversity and are at the forefront of our plans to reduce emissions. As the noble Lord said, reforesting has an important role in achieving this. We are working towards our target to reach 16.5% tree canopy and woodland cover in England by 2050. Achieving this target would remove more than 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2050 and more than 100 million tonnes by the end of the century.
As the climate changes, however, extreme weather events will become more likely. The right trees in the right places can help protect us from these extreme events: for example, they can slow the flow of flood water to protect people, homes and the natural environment during intense rainfall. However, trees can provide these benefits only if they are themselves resilient to a changing climate. Threats posed by a warming climate include direct threats such as drought and wildfire—the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, talked in particular about the challenges of wildfire—and the increased risk of new pests and diseases.
Good woodland management is key to tackling these threats, but only 57% of all woodlands in England are currently in sustainable management. To address this, in December last year we published details of the improved offer for woodland management as part of the Countryside Stewardship higher tier environmental land management scheme. This includes increased payment rates and a new payment option for woodland resilience. We are also providing guidance for woodland managers and grant scheme requirements to ensure compliance with the climate change guidelines of the UK forestry standard.
Noble Lords asked about peat. We have ambitions to restore hundreds of thousands of hectares of peat across the country and are working to make sure that we have the most effective mechanisms in place to go further than we have before. Peatlands are our largest terrestrial carbon store, so our peatland restoration will directly support the Government’s mission to make Britain a clean-energy superpower and accelerate towards net zero. Peatlands are also a haven for rare wildlife and are natural providers of water regulation, helping to reduce the impacts of climate change.
Private finance will be critical to meet our restoration objectives and peatland projects must be able to use new revenue streams, including carbon finance. The Government are implementing policies that will mobilise private investment, including working with the International Union for Conservation of Nature to attract investment via carbon credits through the Peatland Code. I hope that helps to answer some of the questions on that. On the noble Baroness’s specific question on extraction, we are looking at the best measures to end the use of peat, including working with the horticultural industry to look at how best we can get there.
To achieve the best outcomes, it will be important to spatially target actions to restore nature in a climate-resilient manner. I am sure that noble Lords are aware that local nature recovery strategies are being developed right across England to target and deliver land management changes where they will have the most impact for nature and the wider environment. These strategies will consider climate change projections to help local areas prioritise and spatially target nature-based solutions that take account of our shifting climate.
My noble friend Lady Young asked about the land use framework. We have clearly committed to publish the land use framework. I previously said that we would publish it “soon”; I am pleased to be able to say that we will publish it “very soon”. I cannot give an exact date, but it will be very soon. Over the next 25 years, England’s landscapes will need to change to support climate change mitigation and adaptation, economic growth, housing delivery, food production, clean energy and the statutory targets that we need to meet on nature recovery.
I also point out that the NPPF—the National Planning Policy Framework—has recently been published and has a lot that relates to the environment and nature and how we should involve planning, with a look at the impact and mitigation on environment. There are three sustainable development objectives in the plan—economic, social and environmental—and I will read noble Lords the environmental objective:
“to protect and enhance our natural, built and historic environment; including making effective use of land, improving biodiversity, using natural resources prudently, minimising waste and pollution, and mitigating and adapting to climate change, including moving to a low carbon economy”.
If noble Lords have not read it, it is very good.
I turn to international co-operation, which is very important, because we cannot address the huge crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss without co-ordinated global action. A good example of the impact of climate change globally was given by the noble Lord about what is happening in California at the moment with the appalling wildfires. At the UN Convention for Biological Diversity COP 16 last year, the UK took the lead on unlocking the climate and nature finance and resources that developing countries need to support emissions reductions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The UK co-chaired the negotiations, which led to the creation of the Cali fund on digital sequence information, which is the first fund of its kind to focus on channelling finance from the private sector towards nature conservation and restoration. At COP 29 recently, we continued to build on these successes by maintaining momentum on the interlinkages between climate and nature, focusing on sustainable agriculture, nature finance and the ocean.
I turn to some of the other questions that have come up. First, I reassure noble Lords that Defra and DESNZ work incredibly closely together: we have some staff who work between both departments, because we recognise the importance of working together to achieve these targets.
My noble friend Lady Young talked about public bodies. With the concerns that she raised, I remind noble Lords that the Corry review is currently looking at the effectiveness of existing bodies and whether things can be done to improve them.
The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, mentioned wildfire. I think it is important to say that we are working with and encouraging landowners and land managers to adopt good-quality wildfire management plans, because that can make a real difference.
The noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, asked about the high seas. The UK played a significant and proactive role in over 10 years of negotiations leading up to the adoption of the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement. I am sure he is aware that ratification of the agreement is in line with the Government’s determination to reinvigorate the UK’s wider international leadership on climate and nature, and we are currently working at pace on the measures needed to implement the detailed and complex provisions of the agreement before we then ratify.
The noble Earl also asked about the chair of the Climate Change Committee. My understanding is that that is a matter for DESNZ, so I would have to pick this up with that department, or the noble Earl could.
The noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, also asked about bottom trawling. Over 60% of marine protected areas have restrictions on damaging bottom towed fishing. The department is now considering the next steps for fisheries management in the MPAs in the context of our domestic and international nature conservation obligations and how we can support the fishing sector at the same time. We are extremely keen to manage it and sort it out.
The noble Lord, Lord Randall, specifically talked about the green belt. There is a great big section in the NPPF on it if he is very interested in it. Again, we are taking our responsibilities towards it very seriously within that planning document.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked about neonics—neonicotinoids. I can confirm that we are committed to ending the use of those neonicotinoid pesticides that are known to carry substantial risks to pollinator populations, including through the use of emergency authorisations. In our recent policy statement, released on 21 December, just before Christmas, we set out our plans to deliver on that commitment.
A number of noble Lords asked about farming. First of all, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that I have read the Rock review. I regularly discuss tenancy matters with the noble Baroness, Lady Rock. Also, the Farming Minister, Daniel Zeichner, is very keen to work closely with the tenant farming sector and is doing so.
On other issues around farming, we have committed to support the farming sector through a farming budget of £5 billion over two years in order to invest in the sector to support farmers to make their businesses and food production more sustainable and resilient. That is why the previous Government brought in the environmental land management schemes, and why we are continuing to support them and take them forward. They will remain at the centre of our offer for farmers with the sustainable farming initiative, Countryside Stewardship higher tier and landscape recovery all continuing, because we want to give farmers and land managers the support they need to help restore nature while supporting productivity and building in resilience to climate change. That includes restoration of soil.
The final question I come to was from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. There is nothing I enjoy more than a gentle chide from the noble Baroness. She asked about the EA appeal regarding the river in Pickering. I have asked about that because I felt the piece in the media was quite concerning. I now understand, and it is important we get this clear, that the appeal is seeking clarification on the interpretation of the water framework directive provided by the High Court judgment. The issue is whether the river basin management plans can be strategic plans to improve surface water and groundwater for a river basin district. That has been the approach in the UK and across the EU since the river basin management plans were first published back in 2009.
Following last year’s judgment, the Environment Agency has undertaken a further review of water quality at Costa Beck and publicly consulted on measures to improve that water body, which is one of nearly 1,000 covered by the Humber area, so there is good work going on to improve that river’s status. Finally, it is important to point out that we are committed to improving our water quality both through the Bill that has recently been through this House and through the commission that is taking place.
In conclusion, I reassure noble Lords that the Government are serious about tackling the challenges of climate change and the loss of biodiversity. To those who say that the Government are not taking it seriously, I point out that we have a Minister for Nature, who was appointed because we want someone to be focused on nature and nature’s recovery. That Minister is Mary Creagh MP. She is extremely competent and working very hard on delivering on the commitments and targets we need to achieve in quite a challenging space.
I hope I have demonstrated that the Government are taking action in many areas to deliver the restoration of our valuable ecosystems while recognising the increasing threat of climate change. I look forward to working with noble Lords to deliver on our targets.