Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Friday 10th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his introduction to this SI, and to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. Clearly there is a great deal of passion about this subject. As we have heard, the damage caused to the environment by single-use plastic is understandably a major concern, not only in this House but among the public at large.

When the proposal was first announced in 2018, some 80% to 90% of respondents supported the ban on plastic straws, drink stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton buds, but this SI, welcome though it is, deals with only one small part of the plastics problem. It has been long promised and has taken a long time to get here, but at least it is a start, although the most recent delay, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, also highlighted another problem: how easily the progress we are making on single-use plastic can be undone if we are not vigilant.

The use of plastic knives, forks and cups in takeaways and restaurants has surged again, as it is seen as safer than metal cutlery and china crockery. Even the restaurants here in the Lords are distributing plastic cutlery again as standard. Although this is not the subject of today’s SI, it reminds us of the necessity of embedding a change in consumer behaviour and finding safe, reusable alternatives for all forms of plastic. However, while that is the right thing to do, we must be aware of the drift towards easy substitutes, which are often not much of an improvement on the plastic they replace. For example, the global market for paper straws is growing by 13% each year. McDonald’s switched to providing paper straws in 2018 and currently uses 1.8 million straws a day, equating to 675 million a year. None is recycled; they all end up in incineration or landfill.

What measures are in place to prevent this ban simply resulting in a switch from one unsuitable single-use material to another? How will the use of unsuitable substitutes be monitored, and action be taken as required? Where does this fashion for drink stirrers come from anyway? In my childhood, metal spoons did the trick. It worries me that, as with many consumer products, we seem to have been sold a desire for a lifestyle symbol that is neither particularly practical nor attractive, while other, more sustainable, substitutes are available.

The Minister is committed to the concept of a circular economy, in which all materials are used and used again and consumers play their part in sustaining that economy, but we are a long way from achieving that goal and a great deal more education is needed to make it a success. In the meantime, this SI tackles only one small part of the challenge. We have been waiting for legislation on bottle return schemes and a requirement for all remaining single-use plastics to be recyclable and recycled. I agree with noble Lords that we need tighter measures to ensure that we do not simply export the plastics and contaminated waste to countries less able to process it.

We are also waiting for the Environment Bill, which has been delayed again. It would give us the chance to address some of these wider objectives—with, we hope, more ambitious targets than those originally set out in the 25-year environment plan. Can the Minister say when we are likely to receive the Bill in your Lordships House, and answer a specific concern about when the office for environmental protection will be in place and fully functioning, given that its deadline was originally 1 January 2021?

In the meantime, I have some specific questions. First, can he confirm that the exemption for plastic straw use in schools is only for reasons of disability? I am sure that he would recognise that allowing all young people to have access to straws could encourage an expectation which would be hard to reverse as the children get older. Secondly, what is the assessment of the introduction of these bans during the Covid pandemic? For example, would the medical exemption apply in pubs and restaurants if it was used for hygienic reasons? Thirdly, what guidance will be made available to local authorities on enforcement, and what steps will be taken —and indeed what additional resources will be provided— to ensure that trading standards is able to give this issue priority? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Fly-tipping

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

I do not think that it is possible to avoid the perverse incentive for some to engage in fly-tipping while, at the same time, ramping up our ambitions in relation to the elimination of unnecessary waste across the system. The Environment Bill takes us much further in that direction, putting a huge onus on producers to take responsibility for the waste that they generate, abandoning all kinds of unnecessary single-use plastic items, introducing deposit return schemes and managing the export of plastic waste to countries that simply cannot cope with it. Alongside that, there will of course be some incentive for criminal activity, and that is why we are providing local authorities with the powers and tools that they need to eliminate, or at least minimise, that risk.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that many fly-tippers are repeat offenders and often operate as part of a criminal gang? What discussions have taken place with the Home Office to ensure that policing in rural areas is increased and that rural crime is at last taken seriously?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

In addition to providing more powers for local authorities to tackle fly-tipping, including, as I said earlier, the power to search and seize the vehicles of suspected fly-tippers, and fixed penalties and so on, we have launched the Joint Unit for Waste Crime. Its purpose is not to deal with mundane or small levels of fly-tipping but to take on serious and organised criminality in the waste sector. That means bringing all the relevant agencies together and effectively stamping out the organised component of waste crime.

Food and Drink: Waste Prevention

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we are working with WRAP and across the supply chain to help get surplus food to those who have a need. Defra has made £5 million available for the Covid-19 emergency surplus food grant fund to help redistribution organisations obtain, store and transport food from the hospitality sector safely and to ensure that valuable food supplies do not go to waste. The Government are in discussions with industry to explore the alternative options for the repurposing of spoiled beer.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, but is he concerned that millions of litres of beer had to be poured down the drain when the lockdown was first announced and many pubs continue to seek the approval of water companies to pour beer away when it could be used for other purposes? Further, is he concerned that when pubs eventually reopen, it will be local craft breweries that will have been the hardest hit by the lockdown, putting them at a huge disadvantage to the global brewing companies and affecting our local and national pub culture for many years to come?

Water Industry (Specified Infrastructure Projects) (English Undertakers) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to these amended regulations, and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken.

As the Minister said, this is a fairly straightforward change, removing the sunset clause from the original regulations agreed in 2013. We should welcome the approach taken back then, as it seems a model of good government, and the inclusion of the sunset clause has given us the opportunity to debate the issues today. At the time, it was an innovative approach to funding large infrastructure projects. It provided for a timely review and an end date, which would force us to consider whether the approach was working. That is exactly what we are doing today, and we should not take this responsibility lightly. I agree with noble Lords who queried whether a further sunset clause might be appropriate. I shall be interested to hear the answer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, about whether there will be further reviews. We do not want the response to this to be open-ended when the sunset clause comes to an end.

Clearly, the fact that other funding options were considered at the time is an indication that the Government saw this as an experimental approach which might not be successful. However, the one model that we have before us today—the Thames Tideway Tunnel project—seems to have made a success of the powers enabled by the regulations. As noble Lords have said, this is a huge and impressive engineering project. It has generated thousands of jobs and is bringing significant environmental benefits by protecting the Thames from sewage overflows. Like many noble Lords, I have had a chance to visit the construction site along the Thames and have been hugely impressed by it. I am very pleased to report that it appears to be on target for completion by 2024 and largely on budget.

In this case, the creation of an infrastructure provider separate from Thames Water, which was allocated to Bazalgette Tunnel Ltd after a competitive process, seems to have worked well. Of course, there continue to be risks with both the funding and timescale. Can the Minister explain what continued monitoring and regulation of the project will be in place to ensure that customers will be protected from footing the bill if the private funding falls short in future? He will be all too aware that the privatised water industry does not have a good record of putting customers’ interests first. Recently, we have seen customers left without water for days and trillions of litres of water lost through leakages, while those at the very top have been rewarding themselves with huge bonuses. It remains important that we have robust oversight of multi-million-pound projects such as this.

In addition, the post-implementation review, which took place in 2018, mainly received responses from stakeholders with a financial interest in the project. Not surprisingly, they said that everything was going really well. However, as noble Lords have pointed out, the Consumer Council for Water’s response was more circumspect. It said that the arrangements for

“the handling of customer complaints and queries presented greater challenges … a significant amount of proactive communications was required to educate and inform customers … This activity … was not originally accurately priced”.

Meanwhile, Ofwat reported that the “initial delivery” of the regulatory

“framework was significantly more complex and time consuming than originally anticipated”.

What steps have now been put in place to ensure that these concerns are addressed and not replicated in future projects that would operate under these regulations?

Finally, the removal of the sunset clause opens the door to other complex water infrastructure projects to be funded via this route. So far, it has applied only to Thames tideway, but the Explanatory Notes make reference to a number of new high-risk infrastructure projects that might benefit from these regulations in future. I am grateful to the Minister for his outlining the four projects being considered under that reference. How will the Government ensure that this funding model is appropriate for each of those four new projects? How will they ensure that lessons are learned from the Thames tideway experience so that a more responsive and accountable system of oversight and delivery is applied in future?

I look forward to the Minister’s response to my noble friend Lord Adonis’s question on whether a future national natural water network is being considered. That certainly seems a hugely sensible option for a country that suffers both flooding and drought. I also agree very much with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, about separating rainwater from sewerage. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister could address that point. Other than that, I welcome the proposals and look forward to his response.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Unfortunately, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, ran into a technical problem earlier. I think that we have time so I would like to see whether we can bring her in now.

Air Quality and Emissions

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

We have done a great deal of real-time monitoring in recent months, particularly during this coronavirus period. We have determined that road traffic has reduced by more than half since lockdown started, public transport use is at less than 20% of usual levels, electricity demand is down 18% since lockdown began, and so on. Unfortunately, data on domestic emissions—air quality within the home —is much harder to come by. We continue to process the data we are gathering, but I cannot give a clearer answer at this stage.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

Given the preliminary evidence of a link between polluting air and higher death rates from Covid-19, can the Minister explain the decision of the Joint Air Quality Unit to delay the rollout of clean air zones across the country at the very time, as colleagues have said, when action on dirty air is most needed?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

The request to delay the clean air zones came directly from Leeds and Birmingham. It follows the reality that has I think affected every local authority and department of government: numerous personnel have been sidetracked by their need to address this immediate crisis. The Government responded to that request positively, but it does not in any way diminish our recognition that clean air zones are an essential, necessary part of our efforts to bring us in line with the air quality targets we have set ourselves.

Environmental Programme: COP 26

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

This Government are introducing genuinely ground-breaking legislation this year. The Environment Bill introduces world-leading environmental commitments based on environmental principles and with a new organisation for environmental protection to hold the Government to account. The Fisheries Bill puts sustainable fishing at the heart of government policy and the Agriculture Bill scraps the old land-use subsidy system, which many people believe was entirely destructive—I am sure the noble Baroness agrees—and replaces it with a system conditional on land managers delivering some kind of public good, not least environmental protection. That is just the start of what this Government are doing this year. In hosting COP, they have enabled the Prime Minister, whose commitment to tackling climate change is in my view unquestionable, to convene the Government to ensure that we have a whole-government approach to honouring the commitment that this country made to achieve net zero by 2050.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that action on the environment is not just an issue internal to the UK? We also have to tackle our global environmental footprint. For example, we continue to import food and other goods that are causing the loss of the Amazon and other forests. Will our COP 26 commitment include legislation to control UK commodity supply chains, which often go across the globe, causing environmental damage?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

The noble Baroness is right that it is not just about what we do domestically. There is a big question about what the UK brings to the world in this super-year for nature. We have already brought a great deal. We are world leaders in marine protection; our blue-belt scheme is on track to protect an area of ocean the size of India. We have doubled our climate funding to £11.6 billion, and much of that uplift will be invested in protecting and restoring nature on an unprecedented scale. She is right also to talk about supply chains. In a few weeks’ time we will hear back from the GRI—the Global Resource Initiative—which was established by a former Secretary of State. It will report back at the end of this month, and I imagine one of its headline commitments will be to clean deforestation out of our supply chain. We will respond as soon as we hear that report.

Single-use Plastics

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

There is no doubt that there has been an upsurge in the use of so-called bags for life, but the net impact of the plastic bag tax has unquestionably been superb for those interested in reducing unnecessary plastic waste. The noble Baroness’s second point, about the ease of recycling, is absolutely right. In the Environment Bill, which has been introduced in the other place and will be here later in the year, we commit to making recycling easier and ensuring a more consistent, comprehensive service right across the country to avoid exactly that confusion, which exists from local authority to local authority. The Bill introduces legislation requiring all local authorities to collect a core set of recyclable materials—plastic bottles, plastic pots, tubs and trays, glass, metal, paper and card, food and garden waste—from households and businesses in England from 2023.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, if we concentrate on single-use plastics, there is a danger that manufacturers will just switch to other materials that are not much better in terms of their impact on the environment? Should we not be challenging the whole concept of “single use” and tackling the throwaway society? This requires a much bigger change in mentality than simply, item by item, banning the use of particular materials.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

The noble Baroness is right. I make one point about the plastic bag tax. It is often argued that the paper bag alternative is, from a carbon point of view, not necessarily an improvement, but if you look at its environmental impact, there is no doubt that the paper bag is vastly superior to the plastic bag, which can last in the environment, breaking up slowly over anything up to 1,000 years. Paper, of course, decomposes very quickly. If you judge things only through the lens of carbon, perhaps single-use plastic bags might be better than paper bags, but that would be fundamentally the wrong approach to take. I agree with the noble Baroness on the broader point; the Environment Bill is designed to take us to a place where we reduce unnecessary single-use plastic bags consistent with the 25-year plan launched a couple of years ago by the former Prime Minister. Our emphasis on extended producer responsibility is essential and, in effect, means that producers will have to take financial responsibility for the lifetime costs of dealing with whatever they create.

Flooding Update

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Statement. We echo his condolences to the families and friends of those who have lost their lives and offer our solidarity and sympathy to all those whose homes have been flooded, particularly those for whom it has become an ongoing trauma. We also pay tribute to the emergency services and the staff of the Environment Agency, who have been battling the effects of these storms for several weeks without let-up. It is a shame that the Prime Minister could not find the time during his holiday to visit these shattered communities, to listen and learn from the voices on the ground as well as offer practical support.

The Minister rightly listed the scale of the challenge, with 632 flood warnings issued in one day and over 200 still in place. This is not a normal winter and these are not normal circumstances. There has never been a starker reminder that our weather is changing, with warmer and wetter winters an inevitable by-product of global warming. This is why, time and again, we have urged the Government to take more urgent and decisive action to address the climate emergency. Does the Minister now accept that the Government’s aim of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is too little, too late? By then the tipping point will have been reached. Does he accept the evidence from the Committee on Climate Change, which has estimated that there are 1.8 million homes at significant risk of flooding in England? That number will rise unless we hit net zero in the next 10 years.

We agree that harnessing nature and delivering better land management are part of the solution, but we have known this for some time. Does the Minister accept that the promise of a long-term flooding policy later this year is simply layering delay on delay? When will the Government take decisive action to stop any more houses being built on flood plains, an issue we discussed in Oral Questions? It has been reported that there are more than 11,000 new homes planned in areas with high flood risk. This cannot be right. When will the Government put a complete stop to this reckless profiteering by housebuilders or make sure that they take full responsibility for the long-term clean-up costs if flooding later occurs?

Of course we welcome the new flood defences that are being erected, but many areas flooded in 2017 have still seen no sign of improvement. Local authorities continue to protest that the current emergency funding system is not working properly, particularly where the need for match funding is emphasised. Can the Minister explain the proposed annual allocation of the promised £4 billion in new flood defences, and does he accept that it should be front-loaded to deal with the immediate and ongoing threats we now face? Can he clarify how quickly individuals will be able to access the £5,000 flood resilience grant that has been reported? I am sure he recognises that the money needs to be available now, as the clean-up repairs are put in place, to have any real effect.

During the last Statement on flooding, on 10 February, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, about funding for the Environment Agency but did not get a reply. It has said that it needs at least £1 billion a year to provide an effective response to flood risk. Is that money now forthcoming? The Minister also referred to the review of the Flood Re insurance scheme. We accept that Flood Re has provided a solution to many households, but many others are still excluded from the scheme and remain in uninsurable properties. Does the Minister accept that the review is rather urgent? When does he anticipate its conclusions being published and acted on?

I doubt that the communities under threat of flooding will be very reassured by the Government’s Statement today. The truth is that they feel supported by the emergency services and local staff, who are working alongside them day and night to alleviate the threat, but they feel let down by a Government long on promises but short on action. None of the issues we are discussing today is new. The Government have had 10 years to come up with a credible flood defence plan and an action plan to mitigate the impact of climate change. I hope the Minister can reassure us that there will be a more immediate, urgent and responsive plan for the future than we have heard so far.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement and draw the attention of the House to my register of interests, which include being a councillor in Kirklees, which is in West Yorkshire, where there has been significant flooding.

On behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, I wish to record my admiration and gratitude for the amazing dedication and sheer hard work of the staff from local councils, the Environment Agency, the emergency services and, of course, the many volunteers.

When the flooding is no longer news and when the water has receded, local people will still be picking up the pieces of what is left of their lives. A resident in my town whose home was flooded is living in a local hotel, where she will be for months. A profitable manufacturing business in the next-door town is to close permanently, with inevitable job losses, because it can no longer afford recovery costs. It is simply not worth its while. My understanding is that due to escalating costs, businesses are not eligible for the Flood Re insurance scheme. Are the Government content to see businesses close by not extending this scheme? If not, will the Minister commit to providing the House with a definitive and—I trust—positive answer to this problem?

The flooding experience has been intensive and devastating. We have heard what steps the Government are planning, but anyone living in a flood-prone place will probably not feel reassured if other places are being protected while they are not. The Government must make flood-water retention a key element of their approach, which currently appears to be more about physical barriers. Does the Minister agree that it is simply not possible to build ourselves out of this regular flooding crisis?

There are alternative approaches which, to coin a phrase, go with the flow. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who is not in her place, has recounted the success of the Slowing the Flow at Pickering scheme. The peat moors of the Pennine uplands will act like a massive sponge where landowners allow that to happen, and the University of Exeter has reported that beavers on the River Otter have successfully contributed to flood alleviation. Beavers everywhere: what fun that would be. What is so thoroughly disappointing is the Government’s commitment to building defences when natural approaches may well be more effective and enable natural improvements to our environment. Will the Government’s flood alleviation policies include many of these ideas?

I have referred previously to the issue of the number of organisations responsible for different parts of the drainage system. Every part is under considerable stress, which inevitably contributes to flooding. Local authorities are under extreme financial pressure. As part of the flood prevention approach, will the Minister consider government funding for flood-prone councils, so that highway drainage systems can be properly cleared and, if necessary, upgraded?

Finally, there is the thorny issue of development on land at risk of flooding, which the head of the Environment Agency has spoken about today. It is not as simple as that, of course. Local authorities avoid allocating land that is set aside for flood plains, but developers are not required to take responsibility for building on land that will cause flooding elsewhere, and are not required to construct homes that include flood prevention as an essential element. Will the Minister ask his colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to instruct all local authorities to review land allocation to ensure that no such land is in an area with a high risk of flooding? Further, will he request that the necessary regulation are introduced to include responsibility for buildings to be part of the Hackitt recommendations, which the Government have accepted in full? The Environment Bill provides the opportunity to set out a long-term approach. Meanwhile, thousands of people, communities and businesses need the assurance that the Government will provide a significantly more generous financial offer than currently exists, and that the Government have recognised the fact that, once the media headlines have long gone, their needs will not disappear with them.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I thank the noble Baronesses for their questions and statements. I join them in acknowledging the heroic efforts of our emergency response teams and volunteers. That has been an extraordinary endeavour and, in many respects, a success story in terms of the sheer number of people who have stepped up. I of course agree that recent events are yet another wake-up call in relation to climate change. We are seeing records broken, not just in this country but around the world. I sometimes wonder how many wake-up calls we need before we globally agree and accept the responsibility that falls on this generation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to the Government’s target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. I would love us to achieve net zero sooner; I do not think anyone would disagree. But we must be realistic when we set policy and even the Committee on Climate Change has been clear that there is no path to net zero that does not involve a major commitment on tree planting. However, trees do not tend to be able to absorb significant amounts of carbon until they are about 15 years old. If nature-based solutions are to form part of our endeavour to meet net zero, there is no way we can meet that target by 2030. When we legislated, we were the only serious industrialised country to make such a commitment in law and I am proud of that. We are in many respects world leaders in tackling climate change at home and contributing against it abroad.

The question of building on flood plains has been raised numerous times in the debate and will no doubt continue to be raised. It is a legitimate point: we should not build in areas where homes are at risk of floods if there are alternatives. As was pointed out by my noble friend Lady Bloomfield in her answer to an earlier question, I am standing at a Dispatch Box on a flood plain right now—London is largely constructed on a flood plain. It is not possible or realistic simply to have a blanket ban. Equally, we should absolutely ensure that homes are not built in areas that put residents at risk and, where there are no alternatives, that such homes are built to be resilient—with raised floor levels and so on.

We have been asked about the review of the insurance scheme, Flood Re. It is correct that it does not currently extend to businesses. However, there is a review, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, knows, and part of that will look at what answers will need to be provided by government in relation to businesses. I should say that a number of specific mechanisms have been available to local authorities to help businesses following the 2015 floods, such as business rate relief and a broader package, none of which would leave a local authority out of pocket. It is not enough, and there is no taking away from the fact that the lives of people, as well as homes and businesses, affected by floods are turned upside down. There is nothing that any Government can do to make that not the case. However, the Government are reviewing the issue and Flood Re may well be extended beyond its current scope, depending on the evidence that is returned.

I hope that I have covered all the points raised but one final issue relates to working with nature as a means of trying to prevent an increase in this problem in the years to come. That is very much part of our strategy and there is no doubt that if we want to prevent the ever-increasing ferocity of floods, we will need somehow to increase the absorbability of land and slow the flow of water across its surface. We know that planting trees massively increases that absorbability and that, when we restore peat lands, the same effect is true. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned beavers. I am a huge fan of the beaver experiment that is unfolding across this country. There is no doubt that where beavers form colonies their activities, not least building dams, enable that particular catchment to hold much more water than it otherwise would. There is some quite strong evidence that where beavers form a colony it reduces the impact of flooding.

As a Government, we are doing a number of things that will ensure that we increasingly put the emphasis on nature-based solutions, not least the new land use subsidy system that we will introduce to replace the common agricultural policy. Instead of paying landowners more or less simply for owning farmable land, we will ensure that those payments are entirely conditional upon the provision of some kind of public good, whether that is flood prevention, biodiversity support or access for people in cities. Equally, we have committed to establish a nature for climate fund worth £640 million. Much of that will be spent to ensure that we deliver on our manifesto commitment to plant trees on 30,000 hectares per year, but it also includes money for restoring our valuable peat lands across the country, among other things.

There is an enormous amount of work to do but, from the commitments that this Government have already made, which I hope we will continue to build on over the coming months in this hugely important year—the super year for nature—it is clear that the Government have taken these issues extraordinarily seriously and are responding to the challenge as they should.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

Before this Minister sits down, I have asked this question several times, but so far I have not had a reply, so I will press him on it. It is about funding for the Environment Agency. It has said it needs at least £1 billion a year to provide an effective response to flood risk. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, about this and did not get a reply and the Minister has similarly not replied. I will be grateful for a response.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I thank my noble friend for her question. I believe that when that question was put to my noble friend Lord Gardiner on the previous Statement he promised to write to noble Lords, and he did so today.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

It was not in the letter.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I have not seen that letter so I cannot argue with the noble Baroness. It is not an answer that I am able to provide, so I will ensure that we follow this up and that the information she has requested is provided.

Israel

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for giving us the opportunity to debate this crucial issue this evening. As several noble Lords have said, the movement for democracy across the Middle East, while causing short-term anxiety about the loss of life and the intransigence of some regimes, must ultimately offer a precious moment when new politics and real change can be delivered. That is why the Foreign Secretary was right to say that the turmoil in the Middle East should be used as a springboard to reignite the peace process.

At the same time, it goes without saying that we have to be sensitive about our comments and/or interventions when the region is in such flux, particularly in the context of our own history. That is why the United Nations, imperfect though it is, continues to provide a respected forum for determining the common good and the rule of international law. That is why it continues to have an important role to play in the Middle East peace process.

We remain concerned that the peace talks initiated by the Obama Government appear to have stalled. No one underestimates the difficulty of the task involved in bringing the two sides together for meaningful dialogue, but with any new Government there is hope for a fresh approach and a renewed determination that they might make progress. In addition, President Obama himself signalled from an early stage that this would be a priority for his Administration and we desperately want him to succeed, but since the 10-month moratorium expired last September Israel has resumed construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—an act that it knows to be provocative not only to the Palestinians but to much of the rest of the world.

We also know that the Obama Administration has called on Israel to cease construction and return to the peace talks. However, that appeal appears to have been ignored and it may well be time to face the fact that diplomatic initiatives of the past need to be backed by other forms of pressure. Perhaps the Minister can update the House as to any discussions that are taking place between the Foreign Secretary and his US counterpart in this regard.

This brings us to the recent UN resolution that condemned the Israeli settlement construction in Palestinian territory. It was a resolution in accord with the stated policy of the US, but nevertheless the Administration chose to stand alone and veto it at the Security Council. As we have heard, their justification for this decision was that it would complicate efforts to resume the peace talks. With some sadness, I have to say that this position might have had some legitimacy if there had been any evidence of a pending breakthrough in kick-starting the peace talks, but as things stand, the US position has weakened both its own role and the UN’s voice in bringing the parties together, and has regrettably encouraged further illegal construction of Israeli settlements.

I welcome our own Government’s intervention on this, and the fact that we supported the UN resolution, and I hope that the Minister can update us on some further discussions that have taken place behind the scenes on this. Whatever route it takes, and whoever ultimately succeeds in bringing the two sides together, it remains the case that any settlement should include a two-state solution, with a permanent end to hostilities, an agreement on the boundaries of a new country of Palestine, an end to the West Bank settlement expansion, and a resettlement of illegal occupiers.

Finally, I hope that both our own Government and the United States can seize this chance and play their role in bringing about a lasting Middle East peace settlement based on these principles.