Nature’s Rights Bill [HL]
(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
That the Bill be now read a second time.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I begin by quoting the Government’s own words from a biodiversity strategy published jointly with the devolved Governments in February 2025:
“Biodiversity is key to all the processes that support life on Earth. We rely on it for our essential needs, like food, shelter, energy and medicine, as well as for the ecosystem services it provides, such as climate regulation, flood management, water purification, disease and pest control, and pollination. Additionally, more than half of the world’s gross domestic product … is highly or moderately dependent on nature”.
You would therefore think that the Government, and Governments around the world, would have established legal systems and forms to effectively protect and enhance nature, but that is not what is happening—particularly in the UK, one of the most nature-depleted countries on earth, as the State of Nature report of 2023 concluded. That report was arguably very soon after the 2021 Environment Act, which set the very modest target of halting the decline in species abundance by 2030.
But half a decade after the Act, there are still scant signs of progress. For evidence, I go to a peer-reviewed study by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, out this year, which found little sign of an end to the spiralling decline. Its lead author pointed to the grave risk of loss of the merlin, the mountain ringlet, large heath butterflies and plants such as burnt orchid, grass-of-parnassus and alpine gentian, and many other species. The lead author said:
“This will negatively affect local habitats and a range of ecological functions, from soil health and nutrient cycling to pollination and food production, with knock-on effects for wildlife and people”.
That reflects what is happening around the world. The UN Environment Programme found in 2019 that 150 countries have enshrined environmental protection or the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions, 176 countries have environmental framework laws and 164 countries have created cabinet-level bodies for environmental protection.
However, the laws for environmental protection have not worked. That is not surprising, for as Mari Margil from the US Centre for Democratic and Environmental Rights explains,
“environmental laws are put in place to determine how much we can harm or exploit nature”.
Environmental laws and regulations have not fundamentally changed the rate of environmental destruction, despite 60 years or more of awareness of environmental issues and half a century of environmental law. Short-term economic interests, particularly of powerful companies—now with resources and power rivalling those of all but the largest states—and nations’ determination to exploit and extract from states unable or unwilling to resist them, through mining, logging and polluting, have overwhelmed what are essentially ineffective legal provisions.
That has potentially existential consequences for humans and for our nation. The long-delayed and still not fully released joint intelligence chiefs’ report that finally emerged in January identified six ecosystem regions that it called
“critical for UK national security”
and which it said were, on a reasonable worst-case scenario, on the “pathway to collapse”.
The search has therefore begun for an alternative approach to secure the future of our biosphere and all our futures. The approach that many have settled on, and which the Bill brings in, is that of rights to nature.
I thank the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology for setting out a clear briefing about the ethical framework of rights to nature. It notes that there are “competing views” on this, and I expect we will hear some of those today, but it is worth going back through the origins of this issue.
The origins of this alternative approach are often traced back to Christopher Stone’s Should Trees Have Standing?, published in 1972, who noted that, for many centuries, women and slaves were not fully recognised as legal subjects, and described how there had been a progressive widening of the law’s circle of concern. Stone proposed that
“we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called ‘natural objects’ in the environment—indeed, to the natural environment as a whole”—
which is what the Bill does.
The “rights to nature” approach offers a reset in our relationship and the ending of the disastrous 17th-century paradigm: a mechanistic worldview that falsely separates people, nature and the economy as though they can operate independently. Global application of that paradigm has led to this disaster, as the Stockholm Resilience Centre charts—literally, in the case of one diagram showing the current state of human impacts on nine planetary boundaries; seven of them have not just been exceeded but smashed. As the European Economic and Social Committee spokesman said:
“It’s irrational to have societal systems that undermine Nature”.
As one of the many who have mustered on Instagram to support the Bill put it beautifully, we need a green Magna Carta—and that is what the Bill I present before your Lordships today is.
The Bill was written by lawyer Mumta Ito of the Nature’s Rights charity, drawing on experience working with the UN Harmony With Nature programme—for more of its foundations your Lordships can go to a study conducted for the European Economic and Social Committee, Towards an EU Fundamental Charter for the Rights of Nature. What I present here today is a new legal framework that recognises nature’s rights as the foundation of human rights and social and economic activity. It aligns law with modern scientific understanding.
This is a long Bill, particularly for a Private Member’s Bill, at 57 pages, and it not only sets down a major change in legal principle but would: establish a legal duty of care for public bodies, business and individuals; establish an integrated rights framework; introduce mechanisms for dispute resolution and legal enforcement; establish a nature guardianship council, bioregional councils and a nature’s rights tribunal; and create a governance structure for implementation and integration. As usual, our excellent Library briefing sets out the impact of the Bill clause by clause, and the Bill itself is written in clear and accessible language, with a particular focus on ensuring that democracy and local democratic voices are at the heart of decision-making across its proposals. If we are going to “Change Everything”—yes, I have a book out with that title—we have to set out a plan, as well as a paradigm shift.
However, in this introductory speech I will concentrate chiefly on the major change in legal principle and approach—nature’s rights—because making the case is the first step to delivering it. I will focus on making the case for rights of nature as the foundation of a healthy society—and for all our futures—to genuinely, at scale, not just protect the fragments of poisoned, degraded, limited nature that we have left but regenerate it.
To do that, I will briefly outline the international picture. For, while the Bill is, I believe, the most comprehensive to be considered by any global legislature, the concept of rights of nature, and its application, has been spreading like a rich and diverse mycorrhizal fungal network, nourishing a flourishing tree of legal change.
To quote the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics, published in 2021, rights of nature has gone from being a radical idea espoused by only a handful of marginalised actors to a legal strategy seriously considered in a wide variety of domestic and international policy areas. Its authors count 185 legal provisions recognising rights of nature in 17 countries across five continents, with 50 more pending in 2021 across a dozen other countries. Rights of nature are also now recognised in many international policy documents.
Two exemplars are to be found in New Zealand—centred on the Whanganui River, a famous example—and Ecuador. Both cases are inspired, as is the whole nature’s rights movement, by indigenous thinking: the foundations of cultures that have existed for many thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of years, which have allowed human societies to live and flourish without trashing their local environments or the planet. Perhaps the most globally comprehensive is Article 71 of the Ecuadorian constitution, written in 2008:
“Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes”.
It is important to say that the Bill does not represent an alternative to very strong local action, such as by the Friends of the Thames and the Western Sussex Rivers Trust, working on rights of rivers, and declarations of the rights of rivers—on which the House of Commons Library recently wrote an excellent report—but, rather, it is complementary to those efforts. Defending the rights of one river can have only a limited impact on the microplastic and nano plastic pollution that now covers the planet, the explosion of novel entity pollution that has far exceeded the planet’s limits, and of course the climate emergency, with every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted having global impacts and every tonne prevented being emitted being a global positive. All that demands far broader action than just a focus on one river, as important as that is.
It is also entirely complementary with the campaign, of which I declare I am a member, to create an international offence of ecocide, and calls—on which I am also working—to strengthen the rights of Antarctica to continue to exist as a healthy part of the cryosphere. It also fits very well with the One Health approach that acknowledges that human, animal and environmental health are all interdependent.
I very much look forward to our debate today, and I thank the wide range of Peers who have signed up to participate. I particularly look forward to the Minister’s response, for the world is watching—I can say that from the social media interest that this debate has already generated.
The UK Government currently have no stance on the rights of nature on the formal record that the House of Lords Library could find. Two years ago, at the United Nations, the Tory Government caused international upset at the United Nations by vehemently opposing a Motion from Bolivia on
“living well in balance and harmony with Mother Earth and Mother Earth-centric actions”.
That included a passage on the rights of nature.
However, we now have a Labour Government, and I trust that we will hear for the first time whether they have moved on from that disastrous anthropocentric perspective of 2024. Labour’s 2024 manifesto acknowledged that we are in a “nature emergency” and said it would tackle
“the unforgivable pollution of our rivers and seas … promote biodiversity, and protect our landscapes and wildlife”.
In the nature’s rights debate, the Government have a chance to acknowledge demands acknowledging a place for nature, not as a source for extraction but as a place for the human and the more than human to flourish.
To conclude, any noble Lords participating today might like to check out Instagram, to see a positive use of social media offering broad support for the Bill from around the UK and beyond. I will finish with the words of one of those posts, from 12 year-old artist and naturalist Benjamin Fallow, who made a video supporting the Bill. He said:
“Listen to the children … we need nature and wildlife to survive”.
I beg to move.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on introducing the Bill. It is a comprehensive Bill, given the number of clauses in it, and I completely understand the sentiment with which the noble Baroness is bringing it forward. She is right to point out that the Environment Act was important legislation but still only an element along the way to aspects being commenced and the like. I also understand the noble Baroness’s huge concern in recognising that this Government are rowing back on a lot of the measures that were put in that Act deliberately to try to improve the standing of nature.
The Natural History Museum’s index states that the UK stands 189th out of 240 countries when it comes to considering the completeness of a country’s original nature, with the UK having only 53%. The phrase often used is that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted places in the world, but that does not recognise the amount of change that has happened, with the growth in population, industrialisation and the like.
It is fair to say that it was recognised that we needed to get nature back into balance, which is what brought about the Environment Act. In 2024, in the Environmental Performance Index, run by Yale and Columbia Universities, the UK was the fifth-best in the world at trying to improve the environment. The only countries ahead of it were Estonia, Luxembourg, Germany and Finland. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is particularly interested in ecosystem vitality, and on that the UK was the 11th-best in the world. That is because there has been a real focus on trying to restore habitats, and it is why I am worried about other aspects of the consultations that are already under way and changes that were made to the Planning and Infrastructure Act that seem to put habitat aside if a building could be placed there instead.
I am conscious that there has to be an ongoing balance between nature and the development of humanity and the development of housing, but I understand the noble Baroness’s sentiments as to why she thinks the Bill may be necessary. But I feel that the existing legislation already has a lot of what the noble Baroness wants, and that some of the extra points may well be superfluous.
This is an ambitious Bill. It is UK-wide, with only a duty to consult the devolved Administrations. The Government already have statutory advisers: Natural England is the principal statutory adviser on nature, and there is the OEP for aspects of legislation. In the Bill, “nature” is not defined. Will it cover all flora and fauna? Is it about landscapes? Is it about ecosystems? Is it about cryosystems? That is not defined in the Bill. If it is to include fauna, will the definition exclude kept and farmed animals? Is it supposed to be only what is in the natural environment? We will need to probe this further in Committee.
On trust, as I have already started to set out, I agree somewhat with the noble Baroness’s concerns. This is why I will continue to press on other aspects of legislation that are already coming through. I encourage the Defra family to think a bit more carefully about the development of trust. We have seen it elsewhere, with the climate, where people think that the world is going to end tomorrow and ask why we are to be the ones who save it. People start to become rather sceptical. When they hear about the actions we are undertaking but then hear that nothing is happening in other parts of the world, things becomes difficult. Let me give a recent example. In March, there was huge publicity around the coastal path being fully open around the country, but the Parliamentary Answer given by the Minister showed that that was not the case. This sort of deception, in the sense of publicity, is not helpful.
I do not know the 2024 Motion to which the noble Baroness referred—I was not in office then. However, I was proud to be leading the delegation to the second meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Montreal. We listened to the EU’s concerns about our ambitions but put them aside, reopened negotiations and made it completely comprehensive. Of course we need to keep going to ensure that it is a reality, but that reflects the ambition of the Conservative Government. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Gove was the leading force in driving the Environment Act.
I turn to the scrutiny of the legislation. Clause 45 largely sets these out to be negative resolutions—which surprised me—apart from the establishing of the bodies in Clauses 15, 17 and 28. For criminal offences, that makes sense, but I am nervous about the huge Henry VIII powers that are set out in Clause 46 and Clause 45(f). I gently say that Clause 45(3) is one of the few places where affirmative resolutions are referred to, but it refers to “section 43(6)”, which is not actually in the Bill. Maybe something got deleted by accident. It would be interesting to hear what further parts of the Bill that was intended to apply to.
How do the noble Baroness and the Minister think this will work with the EU reset? An important part of this will be recognising that, if we are in an EU reset, very soon this Parliament will have no say. It will have no vote on any regulation that will then be applied in this country when it comes to a lot of the factors affecting this area, about which the noble Baroness is rightly concerned. I am interested to see what the new Prime Minister will have to say on some of the powers that have already been put in place which are depleting nature, some of which started yesterday. We will see if we have a Manchester reset on that aspect.
I am minded to table an amendment relating to Section 23 of the Environment Act. This concerns when a Minister makes a declaration in each House at Second Reading only. I asked the Procedures and Privileges Committee how the accuracy of those comments could be challenged. The answer was that we can ask a Parliamentary Question or ask the Minister. The Minister kindly said that Ministers were bound by the Ministerial Code. However, due to a legal action undertaken by Wild Justice, it was determined that these are parliamentary proceedings. It has got nothing to do with the Ministerial Code or any other aspect of law, but so far the Government will not release the legal opinion presented by First Treasury Counsel or Speaker’s Counsel provisions. It may be that I table some amendments on that point.
With that, while I wish the Baroness well generally, I am afraid that I will not be supporting her Bill through its full passage.
Lord Lebedev (CB)
My Lords, this Bill addresses one of the greatest crises of our times: the ravaging of nature and the destruction of the environment on which we depend and of which we are an inseparable part. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on her good fortune in coming second in the Private Members’ Bill ballot and using that opportunity to bring forward this Bill. I lend my voice in support of her.
The noble Baroness has made the case for the Bill with admirable clarity and passion. She is right to remind us in this House of the scale and speed with which the natural world is being destroyed. With deforestation, loss of habitats, the hunting of endangered species for gain, unsustainable farming practices, the ruthless race for rare earths, the rapacious approach that so many nations take to mineral extraction, and the accumulation of plastics and other waste in our rivers and seas, mankind is, in so many ways, laying waste to the planet which is our only home and demonstrating a reckless disregard for its creations, of which we are only one part.
This global phenomenon is sadly all too apparent in our poor stewardship and disdainful lack of care for nature in these islands. The UK is one of the most depleted nations in the world. Valuable habitats have been lost to unsustainable development. Our rivers continue to be polluted by poorly regulated water companies and inadequately supported farmers.
The sanctity and preservation of nature is a deeply personal cause for me. My grandfather, Professor Vladimir Sokolov, was a pioneering zoologist and ecologist and a member of the Brundtland Commission, which helped to define our modern understanding of sustainable development. As a boy, I travelled with him to Africa and across the old Soviet Union, inspired by his tireless work to protect nature. I have tried in my own small way to carry on that work by campaigning against the illegal wildlife trade and supporting indigenous communities to protect their way of life and the precious environments on which they and the species they live alongside depend. I am particularly moved by the efforts I have been proud to support to safeguard African elephants and other megafauna, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, reminds us all, nature demands our care and requires our protection.
I know that some aspects of the Bill and the expansive legal and regulatory protection it envisages will not be to the taste of many of your Lordships, but no one has been clearer about their wish that this Bill be improved through debate and dialogue than the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Working with civil society, she has made clear that we need a broader conversation about precisely the measures we need to implement to recognise the interdependence between our species’ fate and that of others.
What cannot be in doubt is the need for greater urgency and action. The Government and their predecessors have taken some important steps, such as moving away from the wasteful system of subsidy we had in the common agricultural policy and providing public money for public goods such as carbon sinks and enhanced habitats. The 25-year environment plan, with its targets for habitat reclamation, the creation of marine protected areas and the establishment of the Office for Environmental Protection, is a welcome move forward, but the public expect us to go further. I am sure your Lordships are familiar with the work of the gifted nature writer Robert Macfarlane. His latest book Is a River Alive? is a runaway Sunday Times bestseller, its popularity speaking to the new clamour for us all to recognise what we owe nature. We need to recast the language of rights and duties to arrest and transcend the destruction of the natural world. This Bill will help us do just that, and I am pleased to be able to support it at its Second Reading.
Lord Frost (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing forward this Bill. It is an extremely interesting Bill, well worthy of debate. It is good to have a Bill that raises properly philosophical issues; apart from the recent assisted dying Bill, we do not often get them.
The question of what nature is has preoccupied philosophers and theologians since the ancient Greeks. They have asked whether the natural order is itself divine, merely God’s handiwork, something in between or, more recently, none of those things. In examining this question, one issue very relevant to this Bill recurs—whether, and if so why, it is reasonable to personalise the concept of nature for theological, philosophical or political purposes. This Bill seems to do just that. One is led to speculate whether we are seeing not just the embodiment of the modern Gaia concept but a return to the “Lady Nature” of the early medieval Chartres school of Bernard Silvestris and Alain de Lille. These are not irrelevant or purely intellectual questions. The Bill asks us to believe that nature exists as a specific, recognisable and even self-evident concept, and builds an entire political structure around that. Yet intellectual history tells us that things are a bit more complicated. Get the concept wrong and the politics and the legislation will be wrong too. I fear that that is what is happening.
Despite what I have just said, I have more sympathy with the Bill’s proponent—the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett—in this area than she might perhaps imagine, even if she will not necessarily agree with the route by which I get there. The Bill is very problematic, as we will come on to, but it is trying to recognise something important with which I sympathise. I am rather with Thomas Aquinas in thinking that nature is distinct from the divine creator, but also in some way special. The natural world is not God, but nor is it just stuff; it is special and should be treated accordingly. It bears witness to God in a sacramental way. We should not be casual, therefore, or casually mistreating of our natural environment.
It is one thing to say that and another to turn it into meaningful, practical legislation. I worry that it is not possible to do this in a secular democracy. The reason I have begun with this theological excursus is precisely because I think the Bill is trying to bring in a kind of confessionalism by the backdoor. If we were to take it seriously, it would require every one of us and every organisation to pay obeisance to nature and its rights, as if it were some kind of goddess—someone or something with super-personal rights and superior status, reducing us as humans to beings subordinate to her. That is exactly what we find in Clause 4(2), in which humans and human rights are explicitly made secondary to the rights of “Nature”—with a capital “N”. I contend that this is a sort of religious approach, but not a Christian one. It is more of a pagan vision, which is fundamentally anti-human and antithetical to human flourishing and should therefore be resisted.
The Bill raises not only such philosophical issues but practical and important public policy issues. One is the way that this approach treats “Nature” as a single, unified, rights-bearing subject. But “Nature” is not a single “it”. Indeed, Clause 42 defines “Nature” at some length as
“the interconnected community of living organisms, ecosystems, habitats, species, landscapes”,
et cetera, collapsing an almost limitless heterogeneity of entities into one legal person in what I contend is a rather meaningless fashion.
I think the Bill’s proponent has summarised this by saying that “Nature” is everything there is and that the economy is a complete subset of it. I agree on that, but it is precisely the problem: how can “Nature” be a rights-bearing entity, as Clause 2 describes it, if it is everything that there is? How are we supposed to address all the trade-offs and conflicts that arise within that? The only way of doing it would be to do what we already do: to establish various rights—human, corporate, property, whatever—and adjudicate between them on the basis of agreed criteria. You cannot adjudicate between those rights and the whole system; they are on different levels and are different kinds of things. It simply does not make sense to try to do it. In that sense, the whole Bill is just not workable.
But suppose we try it anyway. The problem then is that nature is full of competing interests: predator versus prey, native versus colonising species, one bioregion’s water needs versus those of another. You could go on endlessly. Any coherent rights of nature framework needs some sort of metric to compare harms and benefits across radically different kinds of entities. The Bill’s definitions of concepts such as “ecological integrity”, “safe ecological limits” and “planetary boundaries”, as set out in Clause 42, all gesture at scientific precision but actually just relabel these same incommensurable variables as things that purport to be legally operative thresholds. They bring scientific contestability directly into binding law. In these circumstances, I contend that the judges, tribunals or members of the sinister-sounding “Nature Guardianship Council” will simply be making their own value judgments dressed up as adjudication. That risks becoming arbitrary government in its purest form.
To conclude, there are many other problems with the Bill. I will just mention a few. Clause 33 creates a sweeping new criminal offence—incredibly, with up to 20 years’ imprisonment as the maximum sentence—for “recklessly” causing “serious harm to Nature”. That is entirely disproportionate. Clause 30 allows proceedings to be brought “in the name of Nature” by charities, community bodies, public interest organisations—a long, long list—combined with a state-funded environmental justice fund. All of this is yet further subsidy to campaign groups to litigate against infrastructure, housing and farming—real activity in the real world—as if that was not problematic enough already.
We are seeing the enshrining of the precautionary principle in a very broad form in Clause 34. Clauses 10 and 11 direct the entire financial and banking sector to reorient lending, investment and pension decisions around ecological criteria. We are seeing the creation of huge regulation-making powers for Secretaries of State with very few limitations and, of course, the creation of a vast additional bureaucracy to support this new activity.
To conclude, I say with a degree of sadness, for the reasons I set out at the start, that I am afraid the Bill is not just philosophically incoherent but probably unworkable. In saying all this, I am doing the Bill the courtesy of taking it seriously. I wonder whether one really should, given that it involves a complete upending of our economic, environmental and legal systems. It is difficult to imagine it could really make progress, given that. But I do think, to conclude, that it is worth identifying and dismantling these ideas now, while they are marginal and merely crankish, rather than risking them acquiring momentum and becoming actively dangerous. We have had enough bad ideas in politics in the last few years. Let us not import another one in this Bill now.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing forward this Bill and for her long-standing commitment to environmental protection and climate justice.
I draw the House’s attention to an Early Day Motion tabled in the other place this May, entitled “National Emergency”, sponsored by Members from the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and my own party, Plaid Cymru. It highlighted the escalating risks posed by climate change and nature loss. It noted that one in four properties could be at risk of flooding by 2050, that heatwaves and wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe, and that
“the UK ranks among the lowest globally for biodiversity”.
It further recognised that
“food security, public health, and national security are increasingly threatened by climate-related impacts”.
The Motion called for “emergency legislation” to address the scale and urgency of these challenges. That is why I believe this Bill comes before us at a particularly important time and we must consider it seriously
We often speak of a climate emergency and a nature emergency, yet emergencies require more than declaration. They demand that we seriously consider new approaches and, where necessary, new legal frameworks. Time is not on our side. The systems upon which our society depends are under growing pressure and the consequences of inaction are becoming increasingly clear.
The central principle of this Bill is both simple and profound. Should nature itself be recognised in law as a subject possessing rights, rather than be regarded as property or a resource to be managed? In considering that question, we must be honest about the scale of the crisis that the Bill seeks to address and ask ourselves whether the status quo is delivering the protection that nature, and indeed future generations, require.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has already referred to examples internationally, including in Ecuador, where recognition of the rights of nature has provided a new legal mechanism for environmental protection, including the successful defence of the Los Cedros forest against mining activity. Whether or not we conclude that that model is directly transferable to these islands, it demonstrates that alternative approaches are possible and worthy of serious consideration. I believe our legal frameworks must continue to evolve if they are to respond effectively to ecological decline. As legislators, we have a responsibility to engage constructively with ideas that seek to protect the natural world, which we all depend on, and which future generations have every right to inherit in a healthy condition.
For me, the Bill poses a fundamental question: if the well-being of future generations depends on clean water, healthy soils, thriving biodiversity, resilient ecosystems, pollinators and a stable climate, should the law continue to treat nature principally as a possession and a resource? Or should it begin to recognise nature as the living foundation upon which long-term societal resilience ultimately rests?
From a Welsh perspective, this question is particularly relevant. Wales has already sought to place future generations at the heart of public policy through the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. That legislation was pioneering in requiring public bodies to consider the long-term consequences of their decisions and the world they leave behind for those who will come after us. It reflects a growing recognition that prosperity, well-being and environmental stewardship cannot be separated from one another.
In many respects, the Bill can be seen as part of that broader evolution in governance. The future generations Act asks us to think about the well-being of future generations; this Bill invites us to consider more explicitly the ecological foundations on which that well-being depends. As this legislation progresses, there will undoubtedly be important questions about how such an approach would interact with existing Welsh legislation and devolved responsibilities. But I do not think that that should be consider a blocker. Those are precisely the kinds of issues that can and should be explored in Committee.
Ultimately, the key question at Second Reading is not whether every clause is perfect, but rather, whether the principle underpinning the Bill is worthy of further examination. In my view, the rights of nature are not in competition with human rights or economic prosperity. Rather, nature is the foundation on which they depend. A degraded natural world cannot support flourishing communities or resilient economies.
There is work still to do, and legitimate questions remain. Those questions should not prevent us examining the Bill further; they should encourage us to do so. Supporting its passage today would be a sign of the recognition that the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss require us to examine new ideas with an open mind and, where necessary, improve them through scrutiny in Committee. This is what the public, and many young people, are asking for. For that reason, the Bill merits further consideration by this House, and I am pleased to support its progression today.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing forward the Bill. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness’s speech. I agree with much of what she said.
As someone who has recently re-tabled my own Private Member’s Bill to introduce a close season for hares in England and Wales, I appreciate how much determination and luck is required to bring issues such as these before Parliament. I welcome the spirit of the Bill. It invites us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world and to reflect on whether our laws adequately recognise our responsibilities towards the species, habitats and ecosystems on which we all depend. In particular, I welcome its emphasis on the duties of public bodies, businesses and individuals to act as responsible stewards of nature.
The noble Baroness is right to argue that there remains a gap in our legal framework. Too often, nature is viewed primarily as something from which we derive benefit, rather than something to which we owe a duty of care. The result is that species and habitats that are widely admired and often deeply valued nevertheless remain inadequately protected.
The case of the wild hare illustrates that point particularly well. At present, hares are the only game species in England and Wales without a statutory closed season. They may be shot throughout the year, including during the breeding months between February and September. Other game species, whether deer, pheasants or partridges, receive seasonal protection during these sensitive periods. Hares alone remain exempt. The consequences are significant. Pregnant hares and nursing mothers may legally be killed, leaving dependent leverets orphaned. A 2017 peer-reviewed study published by the UK Health Security Agency found that between February and August, the majority of female hares are either pregnant, suckling young or both, and that, if a nursing female is killed, her leverets are unlikely to survive. This creates both an animal welfare problem and a conservation challenge, and is inconsistent with Natural England’s own guidance that the control of species during peak breeding seasons should be avoided. There is also a broader ecological concern. Evidence suggests that large, organised hare shoots can remove a substantial proportion of local populations, while the peak period for shooting coincides with the start of breeding season. This undermines population recovery and increases the risk of localised decline.
The wider picture is equally concerning. In 1880 there were an estimated 4 million brown hares in England and Wales but today there are fewer than 600,000 remaining. Agricultural change has undoubtedly been the principal driver of this decline, but unsustainable exploitation through shooting, poaching and coursing has also played a part. The United Kingdom has often been a leader in advancing animal welfare standards, yet in this instance we have fallen behind. Scotland introduced a statutory closed season more than a decade ago, and comparable protections already exist across much of Europe. England and Wales remain an exception. For many years, campaigners have sought to address that anomaly but they have failed.
I therefore welcome the Government’s animal welfare strategy, published last December, which committed to introducing a closed season between 1 February and 30 September. I was also grateful to hear the Minister reaffirm her commitment to animal welfare reform when we discussed this issue in the House last week. I have no doubt about either her personal commitment or her determination to secure legislative time. It was therefore deeply disappointing that, despite reports earlier this year suggesting that a closed season would be included in His Majesty’s gracious Speech, the proposal did not ultimately appear. That experience reflects one of the central themes of this Bill: responsibilities towards nature cannot always be postponed until a more convenient political moment. If we recognise that we have duties towards the natural world, then even relatively modest reforms should not repeatedly fall victim to competing legislative priorities.
A closed season for hares is one such reform. It would be modest in legislative terms but significant in its practical effect. It would prevent the unnecessary killing of pregnant and nursing hares, reduce the number of orphaned leverets, bring England and Wales into line with protections already established elsewhere, and contribute to the Government’s wider commitment under the Environment Act 2021 to halt species decline by 2030. It would also command considerable public support. Polling by More in Common found that 66% of the public support a closed season while only 6% oppose it. Whether noble Lords agree with every mechanism proposed in the Bill, it raises an important question: are we content with a legal framework that too often recognises the value of nature only after damage has occurred, or should our laws better reflect our responsibility to prevent that damage in the first place?
The story of the brown hare demonstrates how easily necessary and widely supported protections can be delayed. I hope the Bill will encourage us to translate our responsibilities into practical action, not only for hares but for the wider natural environment upon which future generations will depend.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap. I congratulate the noble Baroness on introducing this interesting debate. I hope the Bill goes to Committee where I am going to have some serious objections to it, but we will come to that in due course.
We have to accept that, if nature has rights, it is difficult to see how they can be enforced. If nature has rights, how do those rights become protected? If there is a conflict, who resolves that conflict? Is it merely lawyers? Because there will be different issues. We have to understand that the definition in the Bill of nature and of those rights is extremely difficult. They would need a great deal of disentangling if we did that.
This is the case even with medicine, and here I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Frost. One of the issues is that these things are so difficult to disentangle and very difficult to define. If we look at Aquinas on the history of the embryo, for example, even he had difficulty. He had to define the notion of life and whether in fact the embryo was alive. He decided that it might be once it had an anima, but maybe not while it merely had flesh. That was one of the issues with Chara.
I would argue that, ultimately, if we are really going to look at this, we have to recognise that even the conflicts in medicine are massive. The biggest single cause of death in humans worldwide is bacterial organisms. At what stage do we deal with this and how can we possibly do it in terms of natural justice?
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for providing the timely opportunity to examine this concept. As we have heard today, it involves practicality and philosophy. As she rightly said, nature is critical and we are on the brink of a mass extinction. I should declare an interest, as my daughter-in-law works as a scientist for Friends of the Dart, which I will mention later.
I have been thinking particularly about the issues around the rights of nature since the conference I went to recently, which was organised by the Real Farming Conference and the New York University School of Laws More-Than-Human Life—MOTH—programme. That conference was really exciting because we heard from agro-ecological farmers, citizen activists, scientists and local authorities. They are all taking very effective action and learning from each other about how to put nature’s well-being at the heart of their work, and that is what this Bill is about too. It is about a new way of thinking and working. As other noble Lords have mentioned, it is about economy and society working in harmony with nature.
Several noble Lords have mentioned Ecuador, and I will spend a little time on this because there are lessons to be learned. In 2008, Ecuador introduced the right of nature into its constitution; of course it has the Galápagos Islands, Amazon rainforests, volcanic landscapes, cloud forest and high elevation moorlands. In short, it has a diversity to protect that is internationally recognised as extraordinarily special. Obviously, it is a very different country from the UK, with very different strengths and problems, but there are some lessons we can learn from Ecuador.
First, there is the fact that scientific evidence is crucial. To argue the case for an ecosystem, there needs to be a sound scientific basis. Rights of nature work in Los Cedros, which is quoted by Robert Macfarlane in his book, Is a River Alive?, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, has shown how inadequate the typical environmental impact assessment is for industrial projects. In Los Cedros, scientists and local farmers have found many more endangered species than the environmental impact assessments had reported.
Secondly, nature’s rights need to go hand in hand with human rights. A journalist who was investigating a lot of these issues in Ecuador, Katie Surma, wrote an interesting analysis in Inside Climate News that has global application. She said that Ecuador is
“emblematic of a global trend … governments and corporations increasingly relying on criminal charges, retaliatory lawsuits and other forms of legal harassment to stifle opposition”.
Having rights of nature in its constitution has not been a silver bullet, and it is not that its Government have always been on board. Currently, multiple heads and board members of the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance, which protects 35 million hectares of the Amazon rainforest, are on the prosecutors’ list and face all sorts of things, such as frozen bank accounts.
Before noble Lords think, “Well, that wouldn’t happen here”, just remember the recent direction from judge to jury to disregard motives for protest—that was about climate change—and the arrests of those holding placards reminding juries of their rights. That was a shocking abuse of a fundamental right. Human rights and nature’s rights are absolutely intertwined.
Another lesson from Ecuador is about press freedom. Reporters Without Borders documented four cases of death threats just this year between January and February towards journalists in Ecuador reporting on environmental issues, who also face increasing restrictions imposed on the press by the state. Again, noble Lords should not think that press freedoms are a given in the UK. They are compromised at the moment by SLAPPs, strategic lawsuits against public participation. There are plenty of examples of public interest activism that is quelled by a SLAPP, for example on pollution, environmental reporting and corporate accountability. I hope all noble Lords will support the very important forthcoming Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on SLAPPs.
Local activism is incredibly important. Perhaps the one thing for which we might thank the noble Lord, Lord Frost, in encouraging Brexit is that it really made people realise the value of their local rivers and what was happening to them once the water framework that had protected them all the time we were a member of the European Union disappeared. It took rivers to a different place—basically being used as drains by the water companies.
The “Rights of Rivers” charters and declarations have grown as a movement incredibly quickly in these last few years. Around my hometown is Friends of the Dart, which I have mentioned. It is a community interest company based in Totnes that works to protect and restore the River Dart through scientific monitoring, advocacy and community action, and it really brings people together to recognise that river. Of course, a more famous example is the River Wye, which had such issues with agricultural pollution. Herefordshire Council and Powys County Council came together to make sure that, from source to sea, that river is properly protected. The movement is at an early stage, but it is growing exponentially.
We also have local nature recovery strategies, which local authorities are putting into effect. In my home county of Devon, I can see that there will be immense beneficial effects as those strategies begin to bed down and work. I have a whole list of county and district councils which are doing all sorts of work that I will not weary the House with, as I am sure noble Lords are aware of them.
Although I support wholeheartedly the rights of nature principle, it is stronger to build it from local actions that are already happening and are effective. That will create much stronger foundations. My concern about the Bill at the moment is that it is very top-down and prescriptive and does not consider how it will mesh with the current law. Nor does it address the failure of enforcement and regulation. Current laws protecting nature are ignored. Just take the fly-tipping in Hoad’s Wood, for example, and sewage dumping in rivers. But the awareness of this and the anger that people feel have really begun to cut through, and local community action and citizen scientists are all nature’s guardians now. I worry that the approach in this Bill would mean tying up resources in lengthy legal battles.
On these Benches, we are very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for introducing her Bill and I look forward to discussing some of these issues in greater detail in Committee. In the meantime, I think the difference between us is that the Lib Dem approach is one of practical action and localism, and while we may legislate to have rights of nature in principle, fast action on the ground should rest at a local level.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for bringing this Bill before your Lordships’ House.
The Bill is clearly driven by good intentions, but it proposes a number of radical shifts, which the noble Lord, Lord Frost, referenced as problematic on several different levels and which the noble Lord, Lord Winston, suggested he had very serious objections to. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition also have significant concerns about the Bill’s practicalities and the implications for individuals, businesses and policy-making. Our concerns centre around two main points. Primarily, we do not believe in creating all-powerful governance structures which potentially override democratic decision-making, nor do we believe in imposing new requirements for nature which override existing legitimate considerations and interests.
I should clarify that His Majesty’s loyal Opposition stand tall on our principles when it comes to nature, and this is not a recent commitment. Lady Thatcher was crystal clear when she advised that:
“No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease”.
We passed the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1981 and established the modern framework for sites of special scientific interest and species protection. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, highlighted the Environment Act 2021; my noble friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park supported its passage through your Lordships’ House. We also championed the blue belt programme. In recent months, noble Lords on our Benches have consistently advocated for a brownfield-first approach to development to protect our land. We have advocated for reforms of arm’s-length bodies such as Natural England and to better enable private investment in nature restoration.
However, I am afraid to say that we are now seeing the consequences of a flawed approach to the environment for our industry and our cost of living. Instead of drilling our own oil and gas in the North Sea, we are importing it from Norway. Instead of growing more of our own food, we are covering productive farmland with solar panels, an estimated 68% of which come from China. We are weakening our energy security and increasing our reliance on imports. The Aberdeen South by-election was a referendum on homegrown oil and gas, and the result was overwhelming. The country wants a common-sense approach. Our major concern is that the Bill as currently drafted risks pitching economic growth against nature and giving the rights of nature precedence in all instances.
As I flagged earlier, we do not fault the intentions behind the Bill, but we have serious questions about how it will play out in practice. Nature will inevitably be impacted, perhaps on a site allocated for development, but biodiversity net gain requirements will compensate for this impact elsewhere. Yet, if our interpretation of Clause 3 is correct, the Bill would give nature the right to restoration and regeneration where the impact has occurred, potentially hindering development in that very location. We have to ask ourselves: do we want to risk slowing or even blocking housing needs, which are significant? Do we want to risk hampering infrastructure or energy investment at a time when delivery is absolutely critical for the country?
I turn now to the new governance structures proposed in the Bill, which would be tasked with implementing, monitoring and enforcing the Bill’s provisions. The membership, appointment, governance, procedure and accountability of the proposed nature guardianship council and the bioregional councils are left to the Secretary of State to determine via regulations. The appointment, qualifications and independence of members of a new nature’s rights tribunal are also left to the Secretary of State to decide. Yet these would be immensely powerful bodies.
The nature guardianship council would be tasked with interpreting the integrated rights framework, which would apply to all ministerial decisions, whether they were legislative, policy, fiscal, planning, procurement or investment decisions. The council would issue guidance on new rights impact assessments, which public authorities and UK entities would be required to carry out when any decision, policy, plan, programme, project, activity, financial decision or regulatory measure “may materially affect Nature”.
Furthermore, the Bill is explicit that there would be no exemptions for any entity, even on the grounds of national security, which, we would suggest, is the first duty of any Government. Much would depend on what is interpreted as lawful, what constitutes a significant effect on nature and how risk or harm is measured. Nor would the Bill’s rights and duties be applicable just to national and local government. It would establish a legal duty of care towards nature on all individuals, private businesses and public bodies. Trade, supply chains and overseas activities would have to comply with the Bill’s provisions.
This would be a huge, radical and all-encompassing change. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition believe that we should never, on any account, risk sidelining the everyday economic realities of UK citizens, or indeed our national security. A cross-departmental approach to nature, driven by both evidence and data with advice from experts in their respective fields, is the way forward. Undoubtedly, there are significant improvements to be made to the status quo, but, in our opinion, this Bill is not the way to do so.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s debate. The strength of feeling we have heard reflects a deep and widely shared concern for the state of our natural world. It also reflects the seriousness with which this House approaches questions of environmental protection, governance and accountability. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for bringing forward the Bill and for her long-standing commitment to the protection and restoration of nature. Whatever our differences on the legislative route, there is no doubt about the sincerity, intellectual rigour and energy that she and those supporting the drafting of the Bill have brought to this issue and these proposals.
As the noble Lord, Lord Frost, mentioned, we have heard some very thoughtful contributions on the philosophical and ethical foundations of recognising nature’s intrinsic worth. We have heard reflections on international examples, on local initiatives and on the growing public desire for stronger action to protect the environment. These are important perspectives, and the Government recognise the legitimacy of the concerns that underpin them. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, recognised the Government’s commitment to this when she referenced our manifesto and our environmental commitments specifically.
However, as many noble Lords have also made clear, the question before us is not whether we value nature, nor whether we must act urgently to protect and restore it. The question is whether the mechanism proposed in this Bill—recognising nature as a legal subject with enforceable rights—is the correct approach within the UK’s constitutional and legal framework. The Government’s position is that it is not.
We already have in place a comprehensive, outcomes-focused and legally binding framework for environmental protection through the Environment Act 2021 and the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, that this Government are not rowing back on any of our commitments. These provide long-term statutory targets, strengthened duties on public authorities and independent oversight through the Office for Environmental Protection. Importantly, they require government to act, report and be held to account. Taken together, these measures will help us to restore nature, improve environmental quality, create a circular economy, protect environmental security and improve people’s access to nature.
The Environmental Improvement Plan 2025 ensures that nature’s recovery is a key priority, fundamental to the Government’s approach to economic growth. This Government are committed to delivering for nature, taking action to meet our Environment Act targets and to restore and protect our natural world. This is not a system that lacks ambition or enforceability; it is one of the most robust environmental governance frameworks in the world, which sets out our goals and targets, how we will achieve them and who is responsible for delivery, and it is designed to integrate environmental considerations across government, regulators and local authorities.
Achieving our environmental ambitions requires collective action from individuals, communities and organisations across all sectors, as referenced to by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic. We have sought views and advice from civil society, business, landowners and managers, and local government in developing the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025, and we will work in partnership to achieve its goals and targets. We are also already strengthening nature recovery across government land by publishing a first-of-its-kind Government Estate Nature Plan, which improves co-ordination, evidence and delivery within our existing legal framework. This demonstrates that we can work together to accelerate nature recovery without creating new legal rights or legal personality for nature.
Introducing a parallel and overlapping rights-based system, as the Bill proposes, would create significant risks. It could duplicate or conflict with existing statutory duties. It could generate uncertainty for regulators, land managers, businesses and communities, and it could divert resources away from delivery and into litigation, procedural complexity and institutional restructuring.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, talked in particular about the impact on Wales and the challenges facing Wales. It is important to stress to noble Lords that the Bill has UK-wide ambition, but still preserves the devolved competence, which enables devolved Governments to make decisions around implementation.
We have also heard today about the serious legal and constitutional implications of recognising nature as a legal entity. Such a step, through the Bill’s proposed integrated rights framework, would require a fundamental reworking of long=established principles of administrative, property and planning law. It would introduce new enforcement bodies, including a nature guardianship council and nature rights tribunal, without clarity on how these would interact with existing regulators and courts. It could lead to a proliferation of claims brought on behalf of ecosystems or species. It is important to consider the whole system in the round, as demonstrated through our recently published land use framework, including considering wider, democratically determined priorities such as housing, infrastructure and economic development, and to utilise existing tools to assess their impacts on nature.
International examples of nature being recognised as a legal subject were cited in her introduction by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and they are important to consider. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, we need to be aware of alternative approaches. However, evidence and outcomes are mixed, and the interaction with relevant domestic legal systems and frameworks is complex. While I acknowledge that “rights of nature” is a concept that is legally recognised in some countries, the UK’s consistent position in international negotiations, alongside many other countries, has been to focus on environmental outcomes, such as halting biodiversity loss, restoring ecosystems and reducing pollution, rather than debating legal constructs whose practical implications remain uncertain.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, spent some time talking about the fact that there has been a marked rise in international and domestic litigation drawing on existing human rights, such as the right to life and the right to private and family life, and linking these to adverse environmental conditions. The Council of Europe has been particularly active on the issue in recent years and has been scoping a possible new instrument on this right, which could create a new right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, alongside other human rights protected under the European Convention on Human Rights. So, I would like to clarify that the UK is open in principle to exploring a new instrument to enshrine the right. However, there is not yet consensus among member states on the type of instrument—whether it should be binding, for example—or the content, nature and scope of the right.
None of what we have just discussed diminishes the urgency of the challenge. The Government are clear-eyed about the pressures on nature. It underpins our security, prosperity and resilience, and understanding the threats we face from biodiversity loss is crucial to meeting them head-on. We are acting through the environmental improvement plan to restore habitats, improve water and air quality, strengthen resilience and invest significantly in nature recovery. This is a statutory, science-based and accountable framework, and it is the right one for our legal system.
Before closing, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for her energy and determination on the need to bring in a close season for brown hares. I am sure we will hear from her again on this issue.
Finally, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing the Bill forward and for stimulating an important and thoughtful debate. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said, legislation must be workable, coherent and compatible with the UK’s legal framework. For these reasons, while we share the ambition that motivates the Bill, the Government cannot support it. We will continue to focus on delivering the environmental improvement plan. We want to meet our legally binding targets, so that we can ensure that nature in this country is protected, restored and valued for generations to come. I commend the House for the quality of today’s debate.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I echo that. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. It has been a fine debate, and I thank everyone who has contributed.
Picking up the Minister’s comments to start with, I am taking encouragement from a part near the end where she said that the Government might be open in principle to considering the rights of nature in an international context. I will have to study the fine detail of her comments, but I am taking that as a positive step forward. I also acknowledge that she recognises the legitimacy of concerns about the state of nature, which are widespread.
Picking up what the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said about this being a transformative, even revolutionary Bill—step forward, rights of nature—I agree. The Minister talked about changing the UK’s constitutional and legal framework. Of course, that is a broader question we have before us today. We are going to have to see major changes to them to create a modern, functional, democratic constitution, and the rights of nature could be part of that transformation. The Minister also talked about a fundamental reworking of principles. As some of the early proponents of the rights of nature said, that is also what happened when we created rights for enslaved people and women. We have seen significant changes in the past.
I thank, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her strong support for the Bill. She summed up in one question why we need this Bill: is the status quo delivering for the protection of nature and the rights of future generations? No, the current framework is not. She also said that the rights of nature are not in competition with human rights or economic prosperity and explained, as did the Minister, how this fits within the Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act. As the Minister acknowledged, this Bill acknowledges the competencies of the devolved Administrations. That has been carefully written into the Bill.
I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, who said we have looked at how we derive benefit from nature rather than seeing that we owe it a duty of care. I wish her Bill all fair winds behind it and thank her for starting my morning, as we had a pre-debate discussion, with a lovely picture of a leveret. That really cheered up my morning. I can recommend that any morning you need to be cheered up.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, for stressing the need for urgency and action. I am going to look up the work of his grandfather. I will be very interested to find out about that. I also thank him for his focus on the need to support indigenous communities. I have recently come back from the High North. Indigenous communities in the High North and Europe have a lot to teach us but are also under significant threat and need protection.
I thank the noble Baroness beside me for highlighting the work of Robert Macfarlane, Is a River Alive? It is a great book and anyone who has not read it should.
I engage now with the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I sincerely thank them for seriously engaging with this debate and this Bill. I appreciate that. I am a little surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, regarded as an argument against it that it would be a complete upending of our current arrangements. Coming from one of the chief proponents of Brexit, it seems a little curious that that would be an argument against the Bill—but I will park that there. However, I also note that the noble Lord said we should have more philosophical debates in our Chamber, and I agree. We have philosophies that have led us to a very bad place in the world at this moment. Debating philosophies and thinking about the foundations of our thought is something we need to do a great deal more of.
One of the points the noble Lord, Lord Frost, made was that there is a problem in how you balance various types of nature, organisms and ecosystems. A number of other noble Lords also said this. The noble Lord described this as an “incommensurable variable”. We have had about 4 billion years of life on this planet. It has always been a balance. It has very often been co-operation between organisms, co-operation between species, working out. That is what we would have to continue with as part of that nature.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, asked about the definition of “Nature”. I point her to Clause 42; page 37 sets out that definition on the basis of the Bill. I really appreciate her careful engagement and her questions about negative and affirmative procedures, which I will very much look at.
The noble Baroness asked how this might work with the EU reset. I point out that a parallel effort is happening within the EU at this moment. The Rights for Nature: Empower Citizens to Represent and Protect Ecosystems initiative has been accepted under the European citizens’ initiative regulation and is being taken forward within Europe. Of course, should we return to being part of Europe, in the future, it would not be a problem at all any more.
I will pick up just a couple of the points from the noble Earl, Lord Effingham. I am aware of time. He said that national security is
“the first duty of any government”.
I point to the Joint Intelligence Committee’s report highlighting how biodiversity is essential to our security and how food security is a pressing problem because of those risks. These are not two things to set against each other.
The noble Earl seemed to find problems with a legal duty of care for companies and organisations with overseas activities. Again, I cross-reference the JIC report: those overseas activities are not faraway things with no impact on us; they have very close impacts on our “everyday economic realities”, in the noble Earl’s words.
The noble Lord, Lord Winston, said that this might give too much power to lawyers. Noble Lords will see that there is so much detail in the Bill because of its stress on democracy, particularly local democracy—to pick up the points of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. That is where the power lies, rather than with the lawyers.
The noble Lord raised a fairly obvious point about bacteria. That is where we have to acknowledge that we are holobionts; we consist of some 50,000 species. We tend to think of bacteria as being that thing out there that we want to kill, but protecting the bacteria of our own microbiome is a crucial step to protecting our own health.
Finally, I will pick up the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and wish the Friends of the Dart and all other similar groups around these islands the absolute best. The noble Baroness said that we need to address the failure of enforcement and regulation. Yes, we do, but we have been trying to do that for decades under our current model and it is not working.
The noble Baroness pointed to the limitations in the way that rights of nature have been working for Ecuador. I am not going to claim that any single Bill or action is a silver bullet to fix all our problems. If anyone tells you, “I have this one thing that is going to fix everything”, I would immediately tell you to disregard it. This is an essential foundation for our future. It does not solve all our problems or deliver everything that we need; it is a foundation to build on that acknowledges that our life is dependent on all other life. The noble Baroness mentioned agro-ecological farming and a new way of thinking and working. That is what we need: a new way of thinking and working. I commend the Bill to the House.