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.
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.