Environment Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions.

Although I welcome the commitment to transparency of my noble friend Lord Lucas, Amendment 96 would effectively cause the OEP to become a data bank. This would weaken its ability to focus on its principal objective of contributing to environmental protection and to the improvement of the natural environment. The OEP cannot simply publish commercially held data, nor can it ignore the sensitivity and confidentiality of certain data which may inform policy-making and make it public. It will be subject to clear requirements set out in existing law, such as the Data Protection Act 2018, which govern access to and protection of information. I highlight that the Bill explicitly sets out that the OEP must have regard to the need to act transparently. However, there may be occasions when the OEP cannot be transparent and make information publicly available, such as during the investigation of a complaint.

The Government support making environmental data open and public where possible: for instance, through DATA.GOV.UK. Defra is also developing a new interactive dashboard to improve access to the open data used in the 25-year environment plan outcome indicator framework. Defra published an update on 11 June which I encourage any noble Lords interested in this area to view.

My noble friend questioned the discrepancy in cost between cows’ milk and oat milk. Although I cannot pretend to know the absolute details, I can remind him that the thesis of the Dasgupta review was reconciling our economy with nature, learning to value valuable things and adding costs to pollution, waste and plunder. That is not the case today, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made very clear in her speech earlier; unfortunately, the consumer often pays twice, over the counter and then through their taxes, or perhaps through a damaged environment. If products reflected the true costs of production, I suspect that the price system would be very different across most products today.

I was asked by my noble friend the Duke of Montrose to write to him about—I have to remind myself what I promised; I am now promising to write him about something and I cannot remember what it was. Yes, it was about the framework agreements that we have made with the devolved Administrations. I will take him up on that offer and I will write to him as soon as possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked whether I believed that the OEP should follow the guidelines and guidance of the chief scientific adviser. It is certainly the case that the two should be working very closely together. Whether that relationship should be formalised is a different issue—I suspect probably not. However, I would expect that relationship to be a close one.

Finally, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for his kind comments about this amendment.

So I hope I have reassured the noble Lord and I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

I have had one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his explanation of the reasons why he cannot go down the road that I would like him to go down. I suspect that, after I have studied them, I will fully accept them. However, it seems to me that, one way or another, we have to find a way to empower ordinary people to make these decisions and not leave this as something which is happening to them—particularly if, at the end of the day, we will be asking them to pay more for things or to not have things that they have at the moment.

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Amendment 96 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 97. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Amendment 97

Moved by

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The impact of UK REACH is extensive and may often be less visible than we would wish. Animals are sentient beings and deserve to be treated with compassion and respect. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on these amendments, especially bearing in mind the animal sentience Bill, which is going into Committee next week.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, have indicated that they do not wish to speak on this group of amendments. I therefore call the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this is an interesting group. I will stick to talking about Amendment 281 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville.

Nowadays, there is widespread recognition that animal testing is wrong and should be avoided. The expansion and development of human society has had huge impacts on all sorts of other species. Disruption to their lifestyles has been accidental and deliberate, and has resulted in suffering, death, and even extinction. Millions of animals are still abused every year in experiments that cause great pain and suffering. This is despite significant differences between the physiology of animals and humans, which can mean these experiments are ineffective or even pointless. I am sure that noble Lords know that biomedical researchers have often excluded women from clinical trials, even for drugs only for women, so how much worse to try to model on animals. A lot of non-animal technologies can be used instead, as can human tissue.

We must also not forget the harmful use of animals in education, where millions more animals are killed specifically for dissection and other educational experiments. Just as we would never think of killing a human so that trainee doctors can learn about anatomy, we should not be killing animals for people to learn. Again, technology can replace much of the need for using real animal specimens in education, but where dead animals are necessary, they can be sourced from animals that have died naturally or have been euthanised for humane reasons.

This is all about shining a light on our exploitation of other species and choosing a different course for our future. Hopefully, we are advanced enough to move beyond these barbaric practices and move positively forwards as stewards of the natural world.

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[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, this debate was always going to raise great passions and I understand the different views on each side of the debate. I thank noble Lords for their contributions, and reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that the Government agree that the operation of UK REACH should be transparent and accountable.

This is why under Clause 29(3) the OEP may give advice to a Minister on any proposed changes to environmental law, including any relevant amendments to the REACH regulation. This advice would be published and the OEP could comment if it thought the Government were seeking to inappropriately amend a protected provision. The Bill protects key provisions relating to the fundamental principles of REACH. I urge noble Lords to look at the very long list in Schedule 20 on page 250 of the Bill. I am sure they have done; this is explicitly outlined.

The Government will not change what REACH sets out to achieve, including a high level of protection of human health and the environment, which is set out in Article 1. Any breach of these provisions’ protected status could be subject to legal challenge, including by the OEP. In addition, any proposed amendment to the REACH regulation must be consulted on, ensuring transparency in the process. Therefore, the Government do not consider this amendment to be necessary.

I turn to Amendment 289, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I hope it reassures the noble Baroness to know that the aims of this amendment are already achieved in Article 117 of REACH, which sets up a rolling programme of reports. Although it is not a protected provision, it is part of UK REACH and it requires reports from the Health and Safety Executive and the Secretary of State in the operation of REACH every five years, starting in 2022 and 2023 respectively. The Health and Safety Executive must publish a report on the operation of UK REACH by April 2022. The Secretary of State must then publish a general report by April 2023. These duties then recur every five years. The Secretary of State’s report must cover the Health and Safety Executive, as the UK agency, and progress towards the development of alternative test methods, including funding provided for that purpose.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked about the duplication of testing—as indeed did a number of noble Lords. The Government are very keen to avoid the need for duplication or repeats of animal tests carried out for the purposes of EU REACH. That is why we will recognise the validity of data generated by any animal testing already done. Industry and the Health and Safety Executive must follow the “last resort” principle, so any proposal to carry out an animal test must be given rigorous scrutiny before it goes ahead. Before developing a new alternative for testing for a particular hazard, it is necessary to see whether one is even feasible. An alternative then needs to be developed and scientifically validated. This is done through the OECD to encourage the widest adoption.

On the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, the Government share her aim of avoiding unnecessary animal testing, which is why we have enshrined the “last resort” principle as a protected provision in Schedule 20 to the Bill.

On Amendments 277 and 282 specifically, the concept of “read across” from one chemical to a similar one is already encouraged and widely practised in REACH, but it needs to be considered in each case whether it is appropriate and not applied in a blanket manner. For example, reading across from a less to a more dangerous chemical could result in risks to human health or the environment going unidentified. The Bill ensures that amendments to UK REACH are carefully considered through consultation, drawing on the scientific expertise in the Health and Safety Executive and acting with the consent of the devolved Administrations on devolved matters. The Government believe that we should follow those good practices right from the beginning.

On Amendment 281, the powers in Schedule 20 to the Bill to amend UK REACH would enable such targets to be built if that was felt to be appropriate. Any amendments would have to be consulted on and consistent with the aims and principles of UK REACH, as set out in Article 1. The Government consider that this would be the better route if we concluded that targets were desirable.

There is also an important practical issue. There is an accepted scientific process for developing new test methods. Before developing a new alternative for testing of a particular hazard, as I said, it is necessary to see whether one is even feasible. The alternative then needs to be developed and scientifically validated. This process is done through the OECD to encourage the widest adoption.

On Amendment 296, the Government agree that the HSE, as the UK REACH agency, must operate in a transparent manner, including on matters connected to animal welfare. That is why the general duty in Article 109 to adopt rules about transparency has been included among the protected provisions listed in this schedule. But the Government do not believe it would be appropriate to use the protected provisions to freeze the detailed processes that REACH lays down, such as the publication and consultation arrangements contained in Article 40(2).

Similarly, on Amendment 294, Article 13 already contains the powers we need to amend the REACH annexes to replace animal tests with alternatives where appropriate, and the Government do not think it would be sensible to freeze those processes by fixing them in primary legislation.

On Amendment 295, the Government agree with the aim that companies should share data on chemicals to avoid duplicate animal testing and to reduce costs. However, the articles affected by this amendment contain prescriptive detail, such as the speed at which companies should pass information to each other. Again, the Government believe we should continue to be flexible and not remove that possibility by including them as protected provisions.

Finally, regarding Amendment 297, while it may be appropriate to amend the REACH annexes in the future to follow evolving scientific consensus on animal testing, the power to amend them is already contained within REACH itself. It is therefore unnecessary to add an overlapping power in the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked me about the resource adequacy of the HSE. It has 130 extra staff and the Environment Agency has had considerable increases in its resources. Defra continues to add resources to both. Probably one demonstration that that resource is adequate is that 9,000 grandfathered registrations have already been notified on to the UK system and 5,000 chemical substances are on it so far. The next deadline is 300 days, which is 28 October, when chemicals not manufactured in Great Britain would come on to the system. I think the consensus is that progress has been even better than we expected.

On enforcement and oversight, UK members of the European Chemicals Agency’s committees frequently pressed the agency to be more rigorous in avoiding the use of animal tests, and we shall work with the Health and Safety Executive to ensure good enforcement of that principle within UK REACH. I add that the use of cell cultures has grown hugely in the past few years and taken over some of the primary testing of animals. Most animal testing is now restricted to medical research and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, stated, it is a strongly regulated market; you no longer see beagles forced to smoke cigarettes. Also, the cost of keeping animals, fortunately, makes keeping them for testing almost prohibitive, in many circumstances.

It always makes me anxious coming to the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, because I know what a specialist he is in this field and have read a number of his contributions to SI debates in the past. On his first point, although EU REACH still applies to Northern Ireland, and he is absolutely right that the domestic REACH system regulates the Great Britain market, it also contains some provisions that apply to Northern Ireland businesses to facilitate their access to Great Britain.

On chemicals and the EU trade and co-operation agreement, the Government welcome the friendly co-operation the EU and UK have had on chemicals regulation, which the chemicals annexe will support. The UK’s proposal for a chemicals annexe included an arrangement to share REACH registration data. We worked closely with industry in the UK and EU in developing this proposal but, unfortunately, it was not possible to reach agreement in this area. As the noble Lord will understand, the EU was not prepared to discuss the UK’s data-sharing ask.

UK REACH will retain the fundamental approach and key principles of EU REACH, and the Government are keeping the transition as simple as possible. We have extended the deadlines for businesses to provide all the registration data needed to comply with UK REACH. In trying to minimise the costs and burdens on chemicals businesses, we have developed these grace-period provisions, grandfathering and downstream user import notifications to minimise disruption to businesses and supply chains. We will keep all these timeframes under review. On the TCA, we asked to share information between companies, but this was not included, as the noble Lord will know. On that basis, I ask noble Lords to withdraw or not move their amendments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

I have received one request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that excellent reply and information but, as we are in Committee, I would like to press the Government on their current view of divergence in regulation, because it has a huge effect on this industry. I also want to take this time to correct myself, in that the cost to the industry is £1 billion and not £10 billion—so we have already saved £9 billion this evening.

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Clause 28 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 103. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Clause 29: Advising on changes to environmental law etc

Amendment 103

Moved by