Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Lord Khan of Burnley

Committee stage
Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope.

I want to make a couple of points about information. Before I was into food, I was a journalist all my life, and I am very aware of how information gets into newspapers; probably 50% of the stories in the press at the moment come from PR companies. Meanwhile, a great many of our APPGs are sponsored by corporate interests that want to tell a particular story. About two years ago I was invited to sit on an obesity taskforce that was set up by an APPG. It was not until we were at the last meeting that we realised the whole thing had in fact been sponsored by Danone. A bunch of us took our names off the report at that point because you do not want to be associated with someone who is actually causing the problem.

I come back to what has been debated in the main today: the independence of the OEP and the type of information that it agrees to have. The issue of the oat milk tells the entire story. This is a company that wants to sell a lot and make a lot, so it tells a story. Whose information are we going to believe? It is incredibly important to remember that the situation with climate change is changing all the time, so all sorts of voices can get pre-eminence and the ones with a lot of money and deep pockets can buy their way into influence and buy and sponsor research. We all know the stories of what happened with the tobacco industry, and the same has been true of the fossil fuel industry. To have unbiased, genuine information from a setup like the OEP, which is genuinely independent, is vital because otherwise, we will always be prey to the types of commercial interests that got us into this problem in the first place.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I shall speak to government Amendment 95 and Amendment 96 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

We welcome Amendment 95, which will require the OEP to set out a clear strategy of co-operation between itself and the devolved governance bodies. The 2021 Scottish continuity Act established Environmental Standards Scotland to carry out oversight functions in Scotland broadly similar to those of the OEP. Furthermore, the Welsh Government have committed to establishing a commission for the environment, independent from the Welsh Government, which will oversee the implementation of environment law in Wales.

Devolution is one of the UK’s greatest strengths but it also presents some practical challenges, which is no doubt one of the reasons why noble Lords have tabled devolution-focused amendments throughout the Bill. Partnership and collective working in matters of common interest has to be the way forward. The Minister outlined the rationale behind Amendment 95 and spoke to some wider devolution considerations in his introduction, but what other steps does his department plan to take to ensure that we strike the right balance between respecting devolved competence and ensuring a joined-up approach to tackling the climate and ecological emergency?

Amendment 96 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, requests the inclusion of a truth and openness policy in the OEP’s overarching strategy, and the noble Lord used the words “taking people with us”. Several colleagues have referenced the need for evidence-based policy-making in other debates on the Bill, and this amendment offers an interesting approach to ensuring that high-quality data, research and information is available not only to decision-makers in Whitehall but also to the public. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, looked at this issue; he mentioned evidence in policy-making and considered a policy of the OEP using the guidelines established by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser.

We are all alive to the fact that addressing climate change is going to require changes and sacrifices in our lifestyles, but if we are to achieve the level of buy-in that we need, the public must be able to have confidence in the policy-making process and the decisions taken by Ministers. While this goes slightly beyond the scope of Amendment 96, I wonder if the Minister could confirm whether he has had any conversations with counterparts at DCMS regarding their efforts, through the Online Safety Bill and other initiatives, to target disinformation on climate change?