Environment Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as has become clear from the debates and amendments in the other place, and as is reflected here today, there is potentially a tension at the heart of the Bill and surrounding it. It begs the question: what should society prioritise?

The claim is that the Bill puts nature’s recovery at the heart of all policies by creating binding biodiversity targets, backed up by yet another legalistic bureaucratic body to enforce regulations. All this has the potential to mean that environmental rules will rule and act as barriers to other political priorities, such as levelling up and economic development. In my opinion, we, and the Government, need to put a rocket under industrial growth, especially for left-behind areas. This is even more urgent after the havoc wreaked by locking down society in response to Covid. I dislike the slogan, “Build Back Better”, and I am even less keen on “build back greener”, which is doing the rounds this week, but building is necessary in whatever context, and it is an example of the tensions.

To illustrate these contradictions, look at the way—and how often—it has been argued that the Bill clashes with forthcoming planning legislation. The promise in that legislation to accelerate and boost much-needed mass housebuilding and large infrastructure projects by removing barriers to growth is surely worth cheering. Yet here, and in lobbyists’ briefings that we have received, it has been described as an utter disaster for biodiversity that will destroy swathes of the countryside—that is misinformation, by the way. It has been labelled a “dark age of development”—it is a dark age only if you think that the environment should trump citizens.

In some ways, there is a philosophical clash over what economic growth means and what our priorities should be. The Green Alliance, a supergroup of eco-NGOs, which sent us detailed briefings on the Bill and was quoted uncritically here earlier today, complains that UK consumption is now such that UK citizens create a greater carbon footprint in 12 days than citizens in seven other countries have in a year. We are invited to infer that UK consumption is too high, but the issue is that theirs is too low. The tragedy is that those seven nations of non-consumers are not consuming because their countries are in dire poverty, so under- developed that living in hunger and destitution is the norm. Even if that means that you do not emit too much carbon, that is not something that I will celebrate.

I hope that some of the Bill’s philosophical tensions can be debated in this Chamber. The problem with having a cross-party consensus on environmental issues is that all the arguments feel like a competition to outgreen one another, with no real challenges. That is not helped by a broader crass demonisation of critics, outside of here, who are called deniers who want to concrete over the countryside. I hope that there will be more nuance, and none of that, in this Chamber.

For example, we need proper debates. We should be debating whether we really should institutionalise the precautionary principle. After all, let us remind ourselves that the EU’s rigid adherence to the precautionary principle on vaccines led to fatal delays and a political debacle. Surely we should also debate the dangers of over-rigid targets and bans. Only recently, that much-maligned material, plastic, with the disposability of its products, became not a waste but a lifesaver, in the form of PPE such as gowns and face masks.

One issue that definitely needs to be debated is the plan to force companies to root out illegal deforestation from supply chains. I wonder whether there is a danger that punitive and onerous regulation of UK companies will create hidden victims in the developing world. I am thinking of the many individuals working in commodity supply chains in the developing world, whose livelihoods may be threatened if the complexities of supply chains are ignored in the pursuit of a Westminster-designed topdown eco-agenda. And what about the sovereignty of producer countries? Many of the UK companies affected have tried to remind the Government that we need to remember to respect those countries as partners. They need to be engaged, not imposed on.

The commentary and amendments tabled in the Commons demanding that that part of the Bill be expanded to financial institutions, in an attempt to prevent British banks financing any companies involved in deforestation—that amounted to £900 million last year—seem so hypocritical. I have heard lots of passionate outrage about aid cuts in this House, but surely attempts to curtail productive investment in the name of the environment are far more egregious.

That brings to mind the persuasive arguments outlined in a new pamphlet entitled Greens: the New Neo-colonialists, in which I declare an interest, as it was published by the Academy of Ideas, of which I am director. I shall ensure that I send the Minister a copy. I am wary of the rich world continually curtailing the developing world’s economic growth under the guise of environmentalism. This is just another example of the dangers of a Bill focusing on preserving the natural environment at the expense of human flourishing and economic growth.

A lot of the material sent by green lobbyists takes a pessimistic, misanthropic and catastrophising tone, implicitly suggesting, with much hyperbole, that human activity on the planet is toxic and responsible for crises, environmental damage and so on. Can we have a bit of perspective and balance as the Bill progresses, and remind ourselves that human activity on the natural planet has not, in the main, been destructive, but has been hugely creative in overcoming natural limits? It has brought us from the caves to modernity, it has allowed agriculture to feed billions, it has allowed us, the human species, to build productive economies and technological wonders, and it has brought freedom and democracy. That is what allows us the leisure time that will enable us to join the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, in bumblebee-watching in due course.

Natural Habitats: Infrastructure Projects

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I too share my noble friend’s fascination with newts, but perhaps not quite to the extent that Ken Livingstone does. I mentioned in an answer to a previous question that we are streamlining the process, and that is true across the board, in relation to both bats and great crested newts. District level licensing, for instance, has reduced the average time to issue a licence to 23 days compared to 101 days previously. The estimated national annual time saving is around 2,500 weeks. Schemes are now available in over 150 local authorities, and in March, the thousandth pond was created in Natural England-led schemes. Early monitoring data tells us that 34% of new ponds being colonised are colonised in the first year, which is double the normal rate, so we have achieved better environmental outcomes—better newt outcomes—while at the same time streamlining and speeding up the process of development.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, one clear lesson of the success of the UK’s vaccine development is surely that the removal of overly bureaucratic and risk-averse regulations frees up creativity and speeds up innovation. In that context, and in light of the Government’s commendable priority of levelling up and building back better, will the Minister look at how we can cut the expensive, cumbersome red tape created by the habitats directive for infrastructure and construction projects? Will he look at more efficient and flexible means of conservation, without creating barriers to human development, job creation and productive industrial growth, which are more important than newts in my opinion?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

I do not think, and the Government, likewise, do not believe, that there is a binary choice between biodiversity and human development; our challenge is to reconcile the two, as we must. In the last 20 to 30 years we have seen dramatic biodiversity collapse in this country of all types of species, from insects to predators. This Government have announced their high ambitions for the environment, including protecting 30% of our land and seas. However, where we have an opportunity to simplify and improve the rules protecting wildlife and habitats, as the noble Baroness suggests, then yes of course we should explore that, and indeed we are.