Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Something must certainly be done to remove this arbitrary, damaging and unfair housing ban. The Government’s proposals effectively take nutrient neutrality out of the consideration of planners altogether and provide some extra funds for mitigation, but it is a pretty crude approach. A long-term solution has to address the intensive farming issues and get on top of the water company failures. A more considered and comprehensive policy change with clear guidance for planners and practitioners needs to set nutrient neutrality alongside water neutrality and all the other nature recovery measures. If this is what the Government intend—and these government amendments today represent a very short-term pause while a more serious policy response is consulted on and worked out—then maybe it is a necessary stopgap. But we certainly should not be in this position and I hope the Built Environment Committee’s report will contribute to a fairer long-term, comprehensive approach that reconciles the need for vital environmental improvements with equally important efforts to tackle acute housing shortages.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority, which is a major planning authority. I am speaking to Amendment 247, to which I have added my name, and the three amendments in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, to which I have also added my name.

The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, has set out with great clarity the rather modest intention of our original Amendment 247, which was to underpin the delivery of nutrient neutrality measures, which are necessary to halt the catastrophic damage to some of our most protected wetland sites. Since then, of course, the Government have tabled a raft of amendments that would have the opposite effect to that which we were seeking to achieve in our original amendment. That Government package goes against many of the fundamental principles of environmental protection to which we agreed during our consideration of the Environment Act.

We have heard reference to the letters from the chair of the Office for Environmental Protection, Glenys Stacey, who has made it clear that the government amendments amount to a regression in law. In the meeting that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, had with Peers this week, she said that that judgment by the OEP was wrong as it had not considered all the factors. That is a serious allegation to make, and I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on how these differences of opinion between the Government and the independent regulator, the OEP, are being addressed.

Our Amendments 247YYAA, 247YYAB and 247YYAC address the heart of our concerns about the Government’s proposals. First, as the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, has said, they place an intolerable requirement on public bodies to ignore the evidence of water pollution in plain sight and pretend that it does not exist. In fact, I am surprised that these late amendments were not sent back to the lawyers due to defective drafting; as has been said, they now require public bodies to look both ways at once, facing different requirements in different legislation. As Matthew Parris said in his recent Times article, under the government proposals,

“when considering an application to build, the authorities must assume that what poisons rivers does not poison rivers”.

This is madness. Planning authorities currently have a responsibility to take all material considerations into account, including the need for more housing and for environmental protections. The government proposals will undermine our evidence-based planning system and set a dangerous precedent.

Secondly, it is being argued that these measures are necessary to unlock housebuilding. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Best, and normally I agree with him on so much, but I felt that his contribution was rather intemperate and had obviously been swayed by some of the so-called evidence given to his committee. I wish that, as he said, the committee had heard evidence from the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, before it made its decisions on this issue, because delays in securing planning permission are not the biggest barrier—it is the inability of developers to build out schemes that have already been approved. We all know the statistics about how much is already in train but has not been developed.

The further uncertainty caused by the government amendments may mean that fewer houses, not more, will be built. Because the legislation is not retrospective, there will be tens of thousands of homes across the country for which consent has already been given, with nutrient provisions in place, but on which the developers have not yet begun. So planning departments will need to enforce the nutrient provisions in relation to those consented developments, leading to a two-tier system that will last for many years.

Thirdly, as Natural England has confirmed, it is perfectly possible to address the balance between the habitat regulations and housebuilders through non-legislative means. There are already a number of well-established schemes that do this, adopting a more strategic approach to the nutrient migration scheme. The Government and the noble Lord, Lord Best, have suggested that everything has come to a halt. This is simply not the case. Housebuilding is still happening, and people are working with Natural England to make sure it is being done in an environmentally sensitive way.

Finally, these proposals will be a major blow to the rollout of the green finance system, which is necessary to support nature recovery. For example, in the South Downs we estimate that we have about 4,000 hectares of nutrient neutrality offset land in the Test, Itchen and Solent catchment areas alone. That represents around £400 million of potential income to landowners and farmers to support economic opportunities and help with the agricultural transition, while also supporting nature recovery.

Without nutrient neutrality offsetting, the Government have no hope of reaching their private finance targets in the environmental improvement plan of £500 million every year by 2027—so it is a lose-lose situation. I urge noble Lords to reject these ill thought out plans and find a consensual way to deliver a housebuilding programme that enhances, rather than wrecks, our water quality.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to speak, in part in my capacity as chairman of your Lordships’ Built Environment Select Committee, to which the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred. I should explain that we have, perhaps coincidentally, spent the last six months taking evidence—not “so-called evidence” but actual evidence—on precisely this topic. The subject of our inquiry has been the interaction between environmental regulations and development. Inevitably, the question of nutrient neutrality has occupied an important place, because it is so important and live. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has explained that the report is not yet published; it is practically at the printer, and we hope it will appear next week, so we are not in a position today to quote from it. However, I see a number of members of the committee in the Chamber and I hope that they will speak, because we have been very struck by what we have found.

A great deal of what we found was explained by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and I do not propose to repeat all of that. I will speak more briefly, but I would like to draw attention to one conclusion we reached without any dissent. When new environmental legislation is introduced, which is well thought out, consulted on and given adequate time for implementation, it is normally absorbed, adopted and implemented by the housebuilding industry with no disruption or difficulty. That is the right way for us to make environmental legislation; it is what we normally do. However, in this case, that is not what has happened at all.

The root of the problem is a European Court of Justice decision in 2018 in a case related to Dutch farming—which, as we all know, is probably the most intense farming in the world—and the consequences it had in the Netherlands for run-off into watercourses. That judgment created a more restrictive interpretation of existing habitat regulations than had been agreed and understood before. Because we were still part of the European Union—I shall not go into the European consequences of this—Natural England rightly understood that this judgment had an effect in England as well. So it took legal advice on what consequences it had.

It then went off and discussed it with Defra, and Defra look legal advice. I have not seen that advice, but it appears to have concurred with the advice obtained by Natural England. Our committee still does not quite understand why Defra insisted at that stage that nobody should be allowed to discuss this, and that it all had to be kept very secret between Defra and Natural England. The result was that when it announced the consequences of that new decision, as it understood them, there was no warning whatever. There was none of the normal consensus, building of consultation, buying in, or time for implementation. All of a sudden, it appeared in a number of catchment areas covering, I believe, approximately 14% of the land area of England. It is absolutely true that it has not stopped housebuilding in every part of England but, in effect, overnight there was a moratorium in roughly 14% of the land area of England even on the completion of sites that already had planning permission. This is utterly disruptive and completely unplanned and, in my view, evidence and argument for treating this particular circumstance as a special case. The Government need to take steps to sort this out, untangle ourselves and make a plan that allows us to deliver all our housebuilding and environmental objectives over time.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, which have been kindly supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, who cannot be here this afternoon, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for which I am extremely grateful.

I do not wish to detain the House long by explaining what local nature recovery strategies are; we have been through that in Committee. They are an important new initiative created by this Government to find a mechanism to ensure that we can bring forward the nature recovery we need. However, they will not work unless they have a firm purchase in the local plans and spatial plans and various other constraints of the planning system. That is what the arguments we made throughout Committee were about. Presently, local authorities do not have to sufficiently have regard to them. The amendments we proposed called upon the Government to bring forward legislation which would incorporate the policies and proposals of local nature recovery strategies in local plans.

I am pleased that, over the summer, following much consultation with Ministers and their civil servants, while we may not have come to an accord we have come to a position where the Government have certainly moved more than half way. They are now proposing seven amendments, whereby local authorities “must” take account of local nature recovery strategies in their various plans and proposals. That does not mean they have to incorporate the policies and proposals, but to my mind—and indeed to legal minds—if the local authority plans were to go, for example, to an inspector, the local authority would have to show how they had taken the local nature recovery strategies into account.

I think we have made demonstrable progress. It has not gone as far as I would have liked but I am a politician and I know you do not always get what you want. However, we have in this House made the arguments and the Government have been prepared to listen in a way that they have perhaps not been prepared to, and are not going to be prepared to, on other environmental arguments.

I thank Ministers and their civil servants, who have gone to the trouble of putting together seven amendments to make the intentions of the Government crystal clear. I hope that, when the guidance comes forward to local authorities on how they should implement this new legislation, it is crystal clear that they “must” take account, as the Government’s new wording says, and that we can therefore do what I think both sides of the House want and ensure that local nature recovery strategies have a firm footing in the planning process. We know that without that we will not deliver the environmental gains that we all want. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has set out extremely well why we are keen to make local nature recovery strategies an effective tool for helping the Government hit their legally binding 2030 nature targets.

The noble Baroness quite rightly said that we did not believe that the current requirements for local planning development plans to simply “have regard to” their local nature recovery strategies would be an effective delivery mechanism. A planning authority could disregard all the spatial recommendations of the local nature recovery strategy and still be compliant with the duty. They could simply write that they “had regard to” the local nature recovery strategy without providing any evidence of how it had shaped the substance of their plans.

When we debated this in Committee, the Minister extolled the virtues of the guidance, and the noble Baroness made reference to the forthcoming guidance. But we did have a very good debate, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, which highlighted the many omissions of the guidance already published. I will not go over all of that, but there is still a concern about the detail of it, and I hope that it will now reflect this new wording in the Bill.

As I said, and like the noble Baroness, I am grateful for Ministers having had subsequent meetings and for the further consideration of our arguments that has now taken place. The Government’s proposals make it much clearer that all tiers in the planning process must take account of local nature recovery strategies when they make their plans. It is not perfect, but it is a welcome concession. I therefore share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, that we should not pursue Amendment 182 at this stage.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Baronesses for their constructive contributions on this subject, both in Committee and more recently. As noble Lords know from the many Statements I have given to this House over recent years, I fully recognise the vital importance of nature and the pressing need for nature recovery. This is at the heart of the Government’s environmental improvement plan and our legally binding targets to halt, and subsequently reverse, species decline.

Local nature recovery strategies were created by the Government to deliver more co-ordinated, practical and focused action to help nature recover. We have been clear from the outset that the planning system has a key role to play in making this happen. Local nature recovery strategies and biodiversity net gain, which we will come on to later, are crucial policies that enable us to achieve this in practice.

Given the strong calls we have heard for more clarity about how the new strategies should be taken into account, we have brought forward government amendments to address this. These amendments would impose a requirement for plan-makers, at all tiers of the planning system, to take the content of local nature recovery strategies into account, and they are explicit about the different aspects of the strategies that must be considered in this context. In this way, we are providing a clear legal framework that plan-makers will need to work within—one that will make sure that priorities for nature recovery are properly addressed. As both noble Baronesses said, this will be reflected in the guidance that we have committed to produce for local planning authorities on how they are to consider local nature recovery strategies in planning. This guidance is in draft and will be published shortly. I am happy to have further conversations with noble Lords about this.

Although our amendments do not impose additional reporting duties on local planning authorities, the way that local nature recovery strategies are addressed through their plan-making will be transparent and open to public scrutiny through the processes of public consultation and examination. Given the importance of getting plans in place, and the pressures on local authority resources, it is important that we do not impose duties that can be met through other means. An enhanced requirement for local planning authorities to report on actions taken to deliver the objectives of local nature recovery strategies is not required at this time.

In May this year, the Government published guidance on how public authorities should comply with the Section 40 biodiversity duty under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, stating that local planning authorities should include information in their biodiversity reports about how local nature recovery strategies have informed policies, objectives and actions.

I really hope that what I have said addresses the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, about how local nature strategies will work across boundaries, catchments and landscapes to make sure there is a coherence that fulfils the principles of the Lawton review of about a decade ago, which set out how our approach to wildlife sites and nature recovery should work.

I hope that I have said enough. I thank the noble Baronesses again for their work on this with us. I am grateful to have been given the hint that they will not press to a Division Amendments 182 and 202.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

With those few remarks, I commend Amendments 272 and 273 as powerful alternatives to Amendment 139.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 139, to which I have added my name. I declare an interest as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority and vice-chair of the APPG for National Parks.

As we discussed in Committee and as the noble Baroness has eloquently introduced today, the amendment addresses the legislative deficit identified right back in 2019 by the Government-commissioned Landscapes Review, which was chaired by Julian Glover. The review identified the huge potential of national parks to deliver the Government’s ambitions for nature recovery, but it also recognised that, as currently constituted, national parks are restricted in the role that they can play and the interventions that they can make.

At the time, the Government accepted the vast majority of the review’s proposals. They also made it clear that they understood that it would require legislation, and we have been waiting for that legislation ever since. This matters, because the national parks and other protected landscapes have a critical role to play in meeting the COP 15 and environmental improvement plan targets of delivering 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030. As we know, and as we can realise, that is an increasingly desperate challenge, given our low starting point and with only seven years left to reach that target.

It makes absolute sense to start with the sites that can be upgraded relatively quickly. Protected landscapes cover about 25% of land in England, and they are the obvious place to start if we are serious about delivering the targets. There is widespread support for this approach from the national parks themselves and from the environmental NGOs. We also heard in Committee that a number of eminent scientists and advisers also support this approach.

This Bill was identified by the Government some time ago as the best vehicle for making these changes, so it has been a huge source of frustration that the issues have not been progressed in it. It is now four years since the Landscapes Review report and 18 months since the Government’s response. The irony is that there is—apart from the noble Baroness’s contribution just now—widespread agreement about what needs to be done and the statutory underpinning that is necessary.

Our amendment would give national parks and AONBs new purposes to actively recover nature, tackle climate change and connect more diverse groups to nature. Crucially, it would strengthen the duty on public bodies not just to have regard to those purposes but to further them. That might sound like semantics, but it is a huge difference in terms of statutory obligations. We have seen all too often in the past that “having regard to” is not taken seriously by other public bodies and allows them to ride roughshod over the priorities of the national parks. I shall give a quick example: it allowed National Highways, when drawing up its proposals for the A27 Arundel bypass, to say it had “had regard to” the South Downs National Park’s objections without demonstrating how that had in any way impacted on its eventual recommendations. There are many more such examples. The point is that the current requirement to “have regard to” is not having any effect. Our amendment would make sure that the targets and actions of public bodies’ management further the purposes that we are now proposing, and indeed are published.

When we discussed this issue in Committee, there was huge cross-party support. In his response at the time, the Minister referred to strengthening the biodiversity duty on public bodies such as national parks and the ambitious environmental targets that have been set. However, what is the point of piling obligations and targets on national parks when they do not have the authority to deliver on them?

The Minister also suggested that the new guidance arising from the Environment Act would deliver the Glover review objectives. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, has done a very good demolition job on how ridiculous that is, given the wording of the guidance that has come out so far.

If there is a problem with our amendment, can the Minister tell us what it is that he does not like about it? I contend that it is completely in line with the Government’s thinking and their own response to the landscape review. Meanwhile, we are running out of road and out of time to resolve this issue. I hope the Minister has some good news for us today and the Government plan to back our amendment or come back with their own amendment which would achieve the same objectives.

I have listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, on her intention to introduce a third purpose. I found it slightly ironic that she criticised us for adding new purposes to the national parks, given that she has now come up with a different one. You cannot have it both ways. However, I have some sympathy with her argument about rural communities. In fact, the government response to the original landscape review stressed that. We agree that support for rural communities is important, but a new statutory purpose is not the way to achieve it. An economic third purpose would duplicate the roles of the economic development bodies and the local partnership authorities, which already have this responsibility, so I question the direction the noble Baroness is going in.

More importantly, I am anxious to hear the Minister’s response, and I hope he has some good news for us this evening.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in farming and land ownership as set out in the register. I am also a farmer and landowner in the Chilterns AONB.

I am enthusiastic in my support for Amendments 272 and 273, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and I have considerable reservations about Amendment 139. This is due to the experience of how changes in the financial support of farming have affected the profitability of farming in marginal land and the consequent need for diversification of farming businesses in the Chilterns AONB—and probably in all the others. Farming is not the only business in these areas. I cannot give precise figures, but nationally, 23% of all businesses are based in the countryside and 85% of these are not in farming or forestry.

The inclusion of these two amendments would ensure that promoting the economic and social well-being of local communities and businesses in national parks and AONBs is assured. These amendments are not limited to business but cover concerns that arise about the provision of affordable and small-scale housing developments in villages, as well as community facilities and the like. Failure to promote and allow economic and social progress in these areas will also encourage people to go ahead with unapproved activities in their buildings, which could be both damaging and short-sighted for the community and themselves. These amendments would not undermine the existing purposes but strengthen the first purpose and reduce the risk of continuing the existing one-dimensional approach, which prevents the diversification that could feed into the financial resource required to conserve and enhance these landscapes and ensure overall sustainability.

Businesses that produce natural landscapes need to evolve to adapt to the challenges of climate change and migration to the countryside, as do the land managers who deliver nature recovery. Environmental considerations currently overrule economic and social decision-making, resulting in a lack of a sustainable flow of funds for businesses. This is weakening the current recovery of nature and the aim of connecting more people to the natural world and tackling climate change.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

289: After Clause 123, insert the following new Clause—
“Wildbelt(1) Local planning authorities must maintain a register of wildbelt land in their local areas (see section 106(3)(c) of the Environment Act 2021).(2) Wildbelt land must be recognised in local plans based on areas identified in the local nature recovery strategy.(3) Local planning authorities must act in accordance with local nature recovery strategy wildbelt designations in the exercise of relevant functions, including land use planning and planning decisions.(4) Wildbelt land may not be subject to land use change that hinders the recovery of nature in these areas.”Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause would secure a land designation in England that provides protection for sites being managed for nature’s recovery, identified through the Local Nature Recovery Strategies created by the Environment Act. Sites designated as wildbelt in Local Plans would be subject to only moderate controls, precluding development but allowing farming and other land uses which do not hinder the recovery of nature.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, who is unable to be here, sadly, as he is unwell, I will be moving Amendment 289, to which I have added my name. I also support Amendment 386 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman.

Amendment 289 would deliver a new planning designation to protect wild spaces for nature, climate and people. We have some effective nature designations in the UK, but there is currently a gap in the protection they offer; for example, there are sites where nature is not yet in full health but is getting there or where nature is, in effect, recovering but is not protected.

These sites can vary from land on the edge of built-up areas, where nature has been allowed back in, such as community orchards, to habitats undergoing restoration to boost carbon storage, such as rewetted peatland. Wherever they are located, these recovering sites provide vital spaces for wildlife—for wild animals to feed, shelter and thrive. They are often the green spaces closest to our homes. However, the lack of planning protection for those spaces means that they are vulnerable to development pressures and other damaging land-use changes, threatening the biodiversity benefits that they provide. With nature in decline, and the crucial Environment Act target to halt the decline by 2030 needing to be met, we cannot afford for more wild spaces to be lost. The wild-belt designation proposed by Amendment 289 would protect sites with growing biodiversity value and ensure that investment of time and money over recent years to restore nature on these sites is not wasted.

The amendment allows for wild-belt sites to be identified by the Environment Act’s local nature recovery strategies and recognised in local plans. They would then be protected through the planning system by a presumption against land-use change that would hinder the recovery of nature. This would enable these sites to continue to support wild species. Existing sustainable land uses, such as nature-friendly farming or habitat restoration for carbon offsetting, would be allowed to continue. That would allow these precious sites to continue to contribute to nature’s recovery and be used to connect up other sites important for the natural world, creating lifelines for nature across the country. It would also provide more access to green and blue spaces for people, greening green belts and restoring neglected blue spaces.

In the words of the Wildlife Trust, which first came up with the wild-belt concept,

“it would help create communities where people can enjoy healthier, happier lives through on-your-doorstep access to nature and ensure we hand over our natural environment in a better state to the next generation”.

We can level up planning protection through the wild-belt designation, securing places for more abundant wildlife and more nature-filled lives for all of us. I hope that noble Lords and the Minister will feel able to support the amendment.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. I have a similar amendment in this group; it requires that the Secretary of State must publish draft legislation to allow local authorities to propose wild-belt designations for the purpose of improving the results of environmental outcome reports.

Amendment 289 would create a new planning designation to support land for nature’s recovery, known as wild belt. As we have heard, the Wildlife Trust first proposed this designation to enable land that is being restored or has the potential for restoration to be protected to see the nature recovery that we so desperately need to see. We want to see from this legislation that the new wild-belt designation gets taken up by the Government so that it is included in planning reforms. If you are going to protect land to allow it to be restored for nature, it has to be tied into our planning system; otherwise, it will just get unpicked in various places.

The Wildlife Trust has warned that the proposed changes to the planning system, which the Government say are to tackle the shortage of homes and support sustainable growth will, unfortunately, increase the threats to nature. It has raised concerns about the fact that we have inadequate data, which then means that the Government, local authorities and planners are not properly informed about the impact on wildlife. That leads to a bias towards development that weakens environmental protections—and I am sure that none of us wants to see that.

As my noble friend said, the trusts want to see recovery of wildlife and easy access to nature for people put right at the heart of the planning system. This wild-belt designation would secure an area against future changes to land use, so that efforts to recreate or restore natural habitat actually become more meaningful and long lasting. We also know that the RSPB has released analysis showing how the UK has missed almost all its targets in this area of conservation, including failing to protect or manage enough land for nature. We know that proposed government planning reforms include zoning land for growth where major developments could take place, renewal areas where small-scale building could occur and protected areas where there would be more stringent controls. But one thing we really need to think about is how our sites for nature join up, because nature travels.

There has been a lot of discussion for a number of years about wildlife corridors. If we are going to have these local recovery strategies for local nature through our authorities, they need to join up. The wild belt would be a good way to do this, alongside the green belt and other proposals the Government have put forward, such as the new ELM scheme. It is about bringing all this together in order to make it absolutely as meaningful as possible. Designation of land as wild belt could be a requirement for receiving public money, for example, through ELMS; it could be part of the new schemes that are coming in.

The Wildlife Trusts have proposed five principles to ensure that the planning system helps nature. They want to see a bold new designation to protect the new land that is put into recovery, which is what they are calling wild belt. So, I hope the Minister has understood why wild belt is so very important and will look to support these amendments. If they were accepted, wild-belt sites would be identified by local nature recovery strategies and actually recognised in local development plans. That would make all the difference, because then they would be protected through the planning system. If we can secure more sites and protect them, we will start to make the difference we need to make in recovering our wildlife and biodiversity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken in Committee on the Bill, it is probably appropriate that I declare my farming and land management interests, as set out in the register.

I turn to Amendment 289 in the name of my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and so eloquently introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and Amendment 386 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. I thank all noble Lords for laying these amendments and provide assurances that I share the same view as my noble friend Lord Caithness on the importance of helping nature to recover.

While these two amendments both refer to wild belts, they take somewhat different approaches. I will begin by addressing Amendment 289, which seeks to secure a land designation of a wild belt. This would provide protection for sites being managed for nature’s recovery, identified through local nature recovery strategies. I thank noble Lords for the recent constructive debate on local nature recovery strategies, which covered quite similar ground. As my noble friend Lord Benyon reassured the Committee, the Government share the desire for local nature recovery strategies to be reflected appropriately in local plans so that the planning system can play a more proactive role in nature recovery. This is something we committed to explicitly in the recent environmental improvement plan.

Where we differ is on the necessity of making amendments to this Bill to achieve this. Instead, we will rely on existing duties created under the Environment Act and the guidance which the Government have committed to produce. The language of this proposed amendment—to “act in accordance” with a new designation based on the local nature recovery strategy—would be more binding than previous amendments. While the Government are determined that the planning system should play an important role in nature recovery, the system still needs to balance this priority with other priorities. Requiring, in legislation, that planning must “act in accordance” with plans for nature recovery would hamper the ability of planning authorities to strike this balance.

Last month we published the regulations and statutory guidance needed for responsible authorities to begin preparation of local nature recovery strategies. We are now working to put in place the guidance on how local authorities should consider LNRS in their local plans. This will be published this summer and will deliver on the commitments we have made. Therefore, while I appreciate the intention of Amendment 289, the Government are not able to support it. I hope that the noble Baroness, on behalf of my noble friend, will be able to withdraw it.

Amendment 386, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would require the Secretary of State to publish draft legislation to allow local authorities to propose wild-belt designations for the purpose of improving the results of environmental outcome reports. EORs sit alongside the Government’s commitments to support nature’s recovery and are intended to ensure that decision-makers have the facts they need when deciding whether to move forward with a specific plan or to permit a specific development. EORs will consider a range of environmental factors, including the influence of protected or designated spaces on the effects of the development, and the model of outcomes and indicators will allow the Government to reflect environmental priorities, including matters such as the preservation of wilderness.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, talked about the need for a joined-up approach. The local nature recovery strategy statutory guidance explains how areas for nature recovery should be identified, including how conditions should be spatially connected for nature recovery and existing areas of importance for nature. I know from my own experience on the Select Committee for land use—my noble friend Lord Caithness also raised this—about management. We need to see much better management, particularly of green-belt spaces which are neither very green nor have much biodiversity in them. This is a real opportunity for those areas to do a lot of what these amendments are proposing.

Noble Lords also referred to the commitments the Government have made on this issue. The recent levelling up White Paper reinforced that local nature recovery strategies will be reflected in plan-making. It has been mentioned several times, but the National Planning Policy Framework expects plans to identify, map and safeguard components of local wildlife-rich habitats and wider ecological networks, including the hierarchy of international, national and locally designated sites of importance for biodiversity, wildlife corridors and the stepping stones that connect them, and the areas identified by national and local partnerships for habitat management, enhancement, restoration and creation.

While the concept of a wild belt is intriguing, introducing a designation that is required for the purpose of improving the results of an EOR risks distorting the purpose of environmental assessment, which is to provide relevant environmental information in a digestible way to support effective decision-making. Therefore, I am not able to recommend that the Government support these amendments, but I hope I have provided noble Lords with the assurances they seek in order to withdraw them.

While Amendments 386 and 289 take different approaches from each other, and from the Government’s stated position, I hope I have reassured noble Lords that we are working towards the same aim—nature’s recovery—and that the approach we are taking through the powers under the Environment Act and subsequent guidance will achieve that aim.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have added their support, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who agrees, normally, with so much of what we are debating. I am sorry we have a slight difference at this late point in the debate, but I am sure we can iron it out.

My noble friend Lady Hayman was quite right to emphasise the essential link between nature recovery and the planning system. This comes up in other amendments we will deal with during the course of the Bill, but this amendment deals with one specific part of that relationship. My noble friend also rightly emphasised the need for wildlife corridors. We are learning so much more about the fact that you cannot have little isolated pockets of nature recovery and expect it to work. We need that broader viewpoint and a way for nature to travel around the country to provide a wider benefit.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was quite right to stress that, in order for that to happen, the less special and the less beautiful places need to play their part as well. An awful lot of nature recovery activity can go on in places which we do not necessarily see as being particularly beautiful, although they nevertheless have a role to play in nature recovery.

All that leads to the concept of the wild belt. I disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness; it is not a bureaucratic proposal because we already have the structure here—we are just giving an extra tool to the local nature recovery strategies and the people working on that to take a wider look at what is going to make nature work in their area. As I say, it is about finding new pockets or areas which are not necessarily the ones that people might think of, which will help with this nature recovery plan.

Therefore all the powers are already there—they already exist in the Environment Act. All we are doing is providing greater scope for those people to really deliver what we are asking of them. I disagree about whether it is bureaucratic; I think it is actually quite a simple ask. It is quite a popular ask; a lot of the NGOs and campaigners out there recognise the benefit that this can bring, so I hope noble Lords will not disregard it as it is a proposal worth pursuing. In fact, I have had a number of noble Lords from the Government Benches talking positively about this, so it is a concept that has legs, and I think we will return to it.

Having said all that, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Randall, has a speedy recovery and that he will be able to be here for us to plan our next steps on what we will do with this amendment. However, in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw it.

Amendment 289 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as in the register. I came in to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, because I thought I liked the wording of her amendment. Having listened to her and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, I am absolutely convinced of the justice of their case. As my noble friend will know, one of the most crucial parts of the Environment Act is local nature recovery strategies—it is what it is all about in many ways. At the moment, the Bill says merely that local authorities must “have regard to” it. We all know—the lawyers present will explain no doubt ad nauseum and for a reasonable fee—that “having regard to” is fairly meaningless in many ways. A local authority could “have regard to” a local nature recovery strategy and then find a dozen reasons to reject it, because they had regard to it but for this reason or that reason did not wish to pursue it.

I particularly like the wording here, which does not seem to tie local authorities’ hands. It says that they

“must ensure that their development plan (taken as a whole) incorporates such policies and proposals so as to deliver the objectives of the local nature recovery strategy”.

It does not tell them what to do or how to do it; it just says that they have a free hand to invent their own policies that deliver the objectives of local nature recovery strategies. I ask my noble friend the Minister: what is the point of us developing local nature recovery strategies at a national level if they are not going to be implemented locally in local development plans?

I do not think that my noble friend is right that there will be great additional cost to local authorities in doing this—I can see nothing here to suggest that—but, if local nature recovery strategies are to work as every single person in this Chamber wants them to, the wording of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, is probably the only way to deliver that. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could explain to me what the problem is with the noble Baroness’s wording.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support these amendments. The noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Willis, have made an absolutely convincing and compelling case for strengthening the responsibility of local planning authorities to consider local nature recovery strategies.

This is exactly the arrangement that the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, set out when he was trying to persuade us not to press our amendments on this issue to a vote during the passage of the Environment Bill. At that time, he made it clear that the Government viewed local nature recovery strategies as key to identifying where action for nature and the environment would have the most impact. He went on to make it clear that Defra was working with the then Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to develop planning reforms that would contain a defining role for local nature recovery strategies and set them at the heart of decision-making. Obviously, there have been some changes in government and some movement on this since then, but that does not alter the nature of the pledges that were given at that time.

Since then, we have made good progress on establishing a network of local nature recovery strategies around the country. They are getting on with the job of surveying their local biodiversity priorities, providing crucial local data and mapping their local habitats. Their local knowledge and insight are proving crucial in identifying what action and resources can best be targeted. Through their partnership in stakeholder roles, they are also bringing together a wide group of interests to support a local strategic biodiversity recovery plan. However, what is the point of them doing all this work if local planning authorities can simply override their work and priorities? If we are not careful, those involved in drawing up these strategies will quickly become disillusioned and this will be seen as yet another talking shop.

This matters because, as we know, we have crucial statutory targets; for example, to halt the decline of species abundance by 2030, to deliver on our COP commitment to protect 30% of land and nature by 2030, and to deliver the many nature recovery targets set out in the environmental improvement plan. These are simply not going to happen unless local planning authorities put nature recovery at the heart of their decision-making. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, pointed out, there is widespread support for greater weighting to be placed on these local biodiversity recovery plans. There is also a real concern that, when it comes to the crunch, those nature recovery strategies will once again slide down the list of priorities and be seen as a second-tier concern.

I am grateful for the Minister’s letter to me and my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone on this issue. Again, she flagged up that the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023 commits to publishing guidance on how local nature recovery strategies can be reflected in local plans. As we have heard, we have received statutory guidance since then; however, it does not answer the central challenge that, unless we have wording along the lines of Amendment 184ZA or something very similar, the current imbalance will continue and local nature recovery strategies will not play their deserved and necessary part in decision-making.

This is not a total determination but about getting the balance right and ensuring that local nature recovery strategies are part of the decision-making. I am very pleased to hear so much support for these amendments from around the Chamber today. I hope that the Minister is hearing that strong case and can reassure us that the Government will take this away and come back with a stronger commitment, along the lines of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I particularly want to speak to Amendments 241 and 504GF, which essentially seek to embrace the planning system within wider health and well-being and health-inequality policies. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to be positive in his response.

I must say that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, rather took me back when he mentioned Herbert Manzoni, who was city engineer in Birmingham from 1935 to 1963.When I became a councillor in Birmingham in 1980, I was reliably informed in the induction programme that the Manzoni plans were kept in the safe in the city engineer’s office, and that policy on roads in the city continued to be dictated not by the political control of the city council but by what Manzoni had drawn in his plans.

I have seen academic arguments that suggest that, by the late 1970s, the city had started to change; but I think it was actually in the 1990s when the proposals to bypass Kings Heath/Moseley with a huge dual carriageway, along the lines of the Aston Expressway, were defeated by a group of people, including my wife Selina Stewart, called Birmingham United Against the Motorway Plans. When the noble Lord described the kind of neighbourhood that he thought we would all want to live in, he was, of course, describing Kings Heath as is, as a result of that campaign. Later in the year, of course, we will see the reopening of Kings Heath railway station, which will be the pièce de resistance of the wonderful community that I live in, in the most beautiful city in this country.

I want to make three points just to echo what the noble Lord, Lord Young, said. We know that the scale of health inequalities in this country is frighteningly large. The work produced by Oxford University and the London School of Tropical Medicine last week showed that, in 1952, the UK had one of the best life-expectancy records of any country. We have now slipped down to the low 20s, and the widening gap between the poorest and the richest people is really quite frightening and extraordinary. In the context of a levelling-up Bill, surely we have to focus on it.

Secondly, we know that local authorities have long had a tradition of seeking to improve public health. Prior to 1974, they were the principal public health bodies; from 2012, they resumed that position. During Covid, the directors of public health in particular showed their mettle when they had to take some very tough decisions at the local level.

Various mechanisms enable local authorities to influence health: health and well-being boards and, under the new arrangements of the integrated care system, integrated care partnerships. Those are all designed to give local government more say in the direction of health and, by definition, in dealing with health inequalities. The issue is whether they have enough beef: do they have the levers to make their potential influence felt? We obviously know their role in planning, air quality, the environment, leisure and various other facets. We know that they can have a really important role for health, but so far that influence has been patchy. We are seeking here to put some levers in place to use the planning system to enhance the promotion of good public health and tackling health inequalities.

There will be discussions between now and Report because it is clear that warmer homes comes within that wider context. In the end, I hope the House can assert itself to ensure that, within the planning system and guidance, a reflection on the need for planning to contribute to overall health will be part of local authorities’ responsibilities in the future.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in the group and will speak briefly in favour of Amendments 188 and 241, on reducing health inequalities and improving well-being. These excellent amendments pick up the theme of Amendment 28, ably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, and to which I added my name. All of these amendments emphasise the importance of walkable neighbourhoods and safe walking and cycling routes in nature to improve health and well-being, which is one of the themes of this debate.

I declare an interest as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority, which is collaborating with local health providers and volunteers to encourage not only disadvantaged groups but individuals with specific health challenges to make better use of the downs.

There is an increasing body of evidence to show that access to nature and green spaces has a positive impact on health and well-being outcomes. It can help to address a range of mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety and loneliness. The Government themselves have accepted the health benefits of access to nature in pursuing the idea of social prescribing pilots, which also have the benefit of cutting back on expensive and often ineffective drug prescriptions. The NHS has supported social prescribing being rolled out on a local basis, but this can work only if there are the facilities and infrastructure to expand access to nature and walking therapies. These amendments would enable joined-up government policies, in a way that is all too often lacking. That would require local planning authorities to have special regard to the desirability of 20-minute neighbourhoods and access to nature.

This is not just an issue of health outcomes; it is also fundamental for inequalities. In her earlier contribution, the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, quoted a Public Health England report which says that

“the most affluent 20% of wards in England have five times the amount of parks or general green space compared with the most deprived 10% of wards”.

We know that those living in the poorest and most nature-depleted areas also suffer the impact of premature death and illness from air pollution.

There is an urgent need to rescue abandoned and neglected community areas to recreate green space and plant more trees. There is also a need to create green pathways and networks that can lead out to larger areas of green parks and waterways. We should encourage communities’ rights to reclaim unused and derelict land for microparks and growing spaces to feed their neighbourhoods. This should be built into the planning system in the way that these amendments require, and I very much hope that the Minister will feel able to support them. If the Government do not feel able to provide that support today, I hope that the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Young, will return to this on Report.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I feel compelled to say, “Hear, hear”, every time a noble Lord gets up to speak on this. As a chartered surveyor, I am, in effect, a witness of evidence to the fact here, having spent a very large part of my career looking at and advising on older buildings, defective modern buildings and everything in between. I support all the amendments in this group, which are at the heart of what we know needs to be delivered by way of appropriate housing standards. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for his untiring efforts on the healthy homes standard; he deserves all of our appreciation for that.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority, as listed in the register.

A number of references have been made to the size and complexity of the Bill, and a number of us have had recent experience of dealing with a similarly sized Bill—the Environment Bill—which we had, perhaps naively, assumed would be followed through into this Bill. I share the concerns on the environmental omissions that have been raised by many noble Lords already in this debate. For example, in the Environment Act we have an agreed target of halting and beginning to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Where are the measures to ensure that planning policy and development contribute to our 2030 nature commitments? The Environment Act also created the concept of local nature recovery strategies, which would require a statement of biodiversity priorities for a local area. Those strategies are meaningless unless local authorities are required to take close account of them when making planning decisions. Why is there no requirement in the Bill for local development plans to take account of local nature recovery strategies, as we might have expected?

The Bill also fails to address the contribution that national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty can play in restoring nature and delivering our net-zero targets. At the moment, they are underpinned by an outdated legislative framework. These issues were addressed in a package of recommendations in the Glover review of protected landscapes, which had broad cross-party support. At COP 15, in December, the Government agreed to the global biodiversity framework commitment to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030. Currently, we estimate that less than 4% of land is properly protected for nature. This is a fundamental issue about land use and planning, and reform of the protected landscapes, the national parks and AONBs is a critical part of reaching that goal. We need to update their purposes, powers and duties so that they can make a substantial contribution to the 30x30 government target. We were expecting the Glover recommendations to be included in this Bill, so I hope the Minister can give some reassurance that this is still being actively considered.

On the subject of omissions, why do the 12 missions set out in the White Paper, to which the Bill refers, have no mention of climate change, or indeed any environmental improvements? This is classic silo thinking, where one arm of the Government does not relate to policy priorities elsewhere.

I turn to what is in the Bill. We are concerned that the environmental outcomes reports proposed in Part 6 could weaken, rather than strengthen, the planning assessment of impacts on nature and climate. The current rules are geared to direct development away from environmentally important sites and to build in mitigation and compensation measures. However, there is considerable concern from a number of committees, including the Office for Environmental Protection, that far too much of the new regime is left to secondary legislation—effectively giving a blank cheque to Ministers. Can the Minister assure the House that the drafting will be reviewed to provide more detail and assurance? Can she confirm that, at a minimum, further information on the scope of environmental outcomes reports will be provided, as requested by the OEP? Does she accept that, given the lack of information in the Bill, regulations made under Part 6 should be subject to the super-affirmative procedure? This would give an additional 60-day period for parliamentarians to work with Ministers on the content of the new system of environmental assessment.

Finally, on the subject of the nutrient pollution standards in Part 7, we welcome the Government’s recognition that action needs to be taken, but the proposals as they stand are insufficiently robust. They address only pollution from water treatment works, rather than agricultural runoff which is leaking nitrates and phosphorous into our rivers and seas. They fail to require water companies to use area catchment-based approaches and nature-based solutions, which we know are far more effective and offer greater benefits for biodiversity, and they do not include a clear obligation on water companies to set out and agree with Ofwat their compliance and investment plans to address these issues.

I give notice to the Minister that we will be addressing these issues in more detail in Committee, and I look forward to what she has to say this evening.

Land Use Framework

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I should begin by declaring an interest as a board member of the South Downs National Park, which is the planning authority for that protected landscape.

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Young for tabling this debate today. I must say that when I saw the speakers’ list for this debate, despite the fact that there are some regrettable but understandable absentees, I knew that we would be in safe hands—and this has proved to be the case, because we have heard a number of wise and thoughtful contributions, for which I thank all noble Lords.

I particularly thank and welcome the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and congratulate him on what I though was a very inspiring speech. He clearly has a great deal to contribute to our rural debates. I hope that his passion for organic farming and renewable technologies will indeed help to shape our policies for the future. I absolutely agreed when he said that we need to treat the countryside with the respect that it truly deserves.

As my noble friend Lady Young said, we debated the issue of land planning at length during the passage of the then Agriculture Bill and again during the passage of the then Environment Bill, and, on each outing, I am pleased to say that she has won more converts to her cause. She has certainly persuaded me along the way.

The fact is that in the UK, and particularly in England, we have an acute shortage of land and the demands and expectations of what the land will deliver are becoming intense. On the one hand, we want to set aside land for habitat renewal, to plant more trees for carbon sequestration, to provide more green spaces for recreation and to become more self-sufficient in food. On the other hand, as we have heard, the pressure for more housing, schools, hospitals and infrastructure competes with our love and respect for those green spaces. Add to that the fact that land is scarce, expensive and its ownership is concentrated in very few hands, and the pressures become insurmountable.

During the passage of the Environment Bill, we debated these pressures at length. My noble friend Lady Young talked about the Bill’s proposals for nature recovery strategies, which are intended to map and provide a nature recovery framework. Local government is intended to be a key partner in this, but we also know—and have heard again today—that it will be conflicted by pressures to build. As my noble friend Lord Whitty, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and others have said, sadly, the balance of power between the environment and development now lies firmly with the developers.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, made a further important point, which is that even when developers get the right to develop, they do not—and it is an even worse use of land when it is just left moribund.

Meanwhile, as we know, in future, through the reforms of the Agriculture Act, landowners and farmers will be incentivised to renature their land. The sustainable farming incentive will replace the basic payments scheme and, we hope, will move away from intensive agriculture and change the face of our landscape. We can all see the sense in this, and it is essential that we use this opportunity to work with the farming community to halt the decline in biodiversity and ensure that it plays its part in achieving our net-zero ambitions.

However, I also agree with my noble friend Lord Whitty and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that in this model, sadly, there is a danger that food production will be increasingly squeezed, as the strategy is that it should be determined by the market, with the worrying trend for trade deals to undermine the environmental and economic stability of the UK farming community. So food production must be an essential part of our land use going forward.

I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that we need to look more closely at the types of food produced and the need for more locally sourced fruit and vegetables. I did not see that as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, described it—a big hand coming down on the farmers—but as part of the incentives that we give for different developments in agriculture for the future. We have an incentive-based scheme at the moment.

The Environment Bill also encourages landowners to sign up to long-term conservation covenants: taking land out of agriculture to provide environmental offsets for the damage caused by building elsewhere. The private sector is already establishing institutions that can buy and sell those offsets, and new markets will undoubtedly develop, which many have likened to the wild west, with little strategic oversight of the outcome of that buying and selling; some indeed being done by overseas investors, who do not necessarily have an interest in the use of that land.

In the South Downs, we are already hearing of farmers being approached to provide forgo farming and instead provide carbon offsets for developments taking place along the coast, and the introduction of biodiversity net gain will ramp up those sorts of offers. This is so far happening on a piecemeal basis, outside any strategic plan for the preservation of the protected landscapes. Meanwhile, the National Farmers’ Union has already talked about conservation covenant stacking, where one farmer could be providing offsets for a number of developers, potentially having multiple commitments on the same piece of land. There is clearly money to be made from this—but is it really what we want? These developments seem to be taking place before we have had a hard look at what is the best use of this very scarce resource.

My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, made a compelling case for a Defra strategic map, underpinned by proper-quality data, which would help determine that land use and the priorities for the future. The case was made that that should not be for just one use; it should be multifunctional. You can have more than one use for a piece of land.

Meanwhile, over in DLUHC—are we allowed to call it “D-Luck”?; I will be interested to hear how the Minister describes it, but I will stick with that for the moment—the Government are seeking reforms to simplify and speed up planning decisions in an effort to increase the number of new homes. As we know, local residents, communities and local councils would be the losers from these reforms and it is fair to say that, as a result, the proposals have not gone down very well.

The Government’s accompanying planning White Paper had virtually nothing to say about how the new planning system would work towards the Government’s goals around net zero. This concern was echoed by the HCLG Select Committee, which urged that any changes to planning should also address climate change and creating sustainable development, as well as dealing with the increased threat of flooding. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, the latest net-zero strategy, written by BEIS, also has little reference to land use. He rightly made the point that that is because Defra does not have a policy on it and is therefore missing out on the opportunity to have any influence on it.

Of course, the appointment of Michael Gove to the new department in September has allowed the unpopular reform of planning to be paused. We are all curious to know how much of a rethink is taking place in the department on this matter, so can the Minister confirm that any revamped reforms will place local people at the heart of decision-making? With COP 26 about to start, can he say what urgent steps are being taken to ensure that our planning system is fit for purpose? Does he accept that our planning system needs to go hand in hand with tackling the climate crisis, whether in insulating existing homes, providing sustainable transport links or tackling the amount of carbon in the construction process?

All those issues come back to the impact of development on the environment and how we make the best decisions for land use. It is an issue which interlinks a number of government departments, all of which currently have competing interests and priorities. This is where my noble friend’s land use framework should step in. It would provide an overarching strategy for approaching the planning and investment decisions that impact on our land. It would provide head space to balance out the competing pressures, away from the day-to-day micro decisions that impact on land use—many of which, once taken, are irreversible. It would also help to address the important point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, about the pressures and trends to be too parochial, rather than addressing the greater good.

I hope that the Minister, having heard this debate today, will agree to take my noble friend’s land use framework back to the Secretary of State as something that should underpin any future planning reforms. I hope he has also listened to the persuasive case made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, for a ministry of land use, and that he can at least agree that we should use this “Gove pause” as a chance for a complete rethink of our approach to land use, and take into account that in future, a strategic framework should be key. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to today’s debate on the gracious Speech. I particularly welcome my noble friend Lord Coaker and the noble Lord, Lord Morse, and look forward to their maiden speeches today. I should begin by declaring a couple of interests: as chair of Rothamsted Enterprises, part of the Rothamsted agricultural research institute; and as a member of the South Downs National Park Authority, which has planning as part of its statutory remit.

Today’s debate takes place against a backdrop of two global environmental emergencies: the rise in global warming, already heading beyond the 2% irreversible ceiling; and the fall in biodiversity, which is declining faster than at any time in human history. Both require international leadership to achieve buy-in from the world’s economies and to save our planet from its own man-made destruction. We will have the opportunity later this year, at the Convention on Biological Diversity conference in China and then at the COP 26 event in Glasgow in November.

Already, President Biden is leading the way but we must play our part too. Sadly, as the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, acknowledged recently,

“to speak with authority internationally, the UK needs to get its own house in order.”

He then admitted:

“This is not the case at the moment.”—[Official Report, 13/4/21; col. 1149.]


This is true. A leaked report from Defra recently revealed that there is still no plan to deliver on the Government’s carbon emissions targets, while the recent Public Accounts Committee report concluded that Defra does not have

“the clout to lead the rest of government”

to deliver their environmental programme. Can the Minister set out what steps Defra is taking to raise its game and prepare government for the huge challenges in the year ahead?

Of course, we welcome the arrival of the Environment Bill to the Lords—as they say, third time lucky. It has been described as a flagship Bill but its history is one of downgrade and delay, causing huge frustration among all of us who have been waiting for this robust new legislation to set environmental targets that are truly meaningful. But now we have the opportunity and we will want to work across the House to make this a landmark Bill of which we can all be proud.

In particular, we want to strengthen the environmental targets in the Bill to make them comprehensive, measurable and legally enforceable. We want to ensure that the office for environmental protection has the powers and independence it needs to hold the Government to account. We will be tabling a range of amendments to reverse the decline in biodiversity, clean up our rivers and oceans, restore peatlands and afforestation, and set WHO limits for air quality.

In the meantime, we welcome the Government’s new announcement on tackling the discharge of sewage into rivers—only weeks after they voted down a similar amendment we supported in the Commons. I hope the Minister will confirm that this spirit of listening and compromise will run through our consideration of the Bill.

We also welcome the announcement of the new animal welfare legislation. Again, this has been a long time coming and the proposals seem based largely on Labour’s recently published Animal Welfare Manifesto. As ever, the devil will be in the detail and we will scrutinise those Bills with great care, undoubtedly with the support of the many animal welfare charities which share our ambition to be a world leader on these issues.

If we are to deliver on climate change and biodiversity, concerted government action across departments will be required. Clearly, transport has a huge role to play in cutting our carbon emissions, which we need to achieve, as it represents 22% of the 2019 UK total. That is why we were so disappointed at the lack of ambition on transport in the Queen’s Speech.

In its sixth carbon budget, the Climate Change Committee made it clear that:

“A comprehensive … package will be needed to deliver the … commitment to phase out new sales of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030.”


It recommends that, in addition, diesel heavy goods vehicles should be phased out by 2040, with clear alternatives identified now. It identifies that a comprehensive recharging and refuelling infrastructure will be needed to support clean fuel for cars. It recognises the urgent need for aviation and shipping strategies to deliver net zero, and urges an essential rethink to “reduce travel demand” and focus on public rather than private transport—including, of course, a bold vision to reverse the millions of miles of bus routes lost across the country. Where is the legislation to deliver all of this?

The Government have flagged up that a transport decarbonisation plan is in preparation. But where is the urgency? The Government have signed up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035, which is only 14 years away. Where is the urgency that will drive this forward?

We support the extension of High Speed 2 from Crewe to Manchester but it is clear that lessons need to be learned from earlier mistakes. Can the Minister say what steps the Government will take to increase consultation as part of this project? Will the Government support new railway stations in the smaller towns around Crewe and Manchester? How will the Government ensure that the extension is developed with more sensitivity to its environmental impact, particularly on ancient and modern woodlands? Does the Minister accept that this project should be one small part of a government investment in rail capacity to address the climate change crisis and better connect our towns and cities?

Planning and housebuilding also have a crucial role to play in protecting biodiversity and delivering our net-zero obligations, so we will need to be reassured that the application of biodiversity net gain principles to new developments will trump the pressure to build on land at any cost.

Local people know what is best for the size and character of their community, but these proposals will prevent them from objecting to inappropriate developments in their own street or neighbourhood. Instead, their involvement will be limited to consultation on the area’s local plan every few years. As the Local Government Information Unit has said, the proposed changes

“leave local government with the political liability on planning whilst depriving them … of the powers to manage it effectively.”

We believe that these proposals are a developers’ charter: removing powers from local representatives and handing them to Whitehall-appointed boards of developers. It does not address the scandal of planning permission already having been granted for an estimated 1 million homes that are yet to be built. It does not require all new-build homes to meet the stringent energy and sustainability standards that are crucial to meeting our climate change obligations. It does nothing to address the growing housing crisis our country faces.

Young people have been hardest hit by the Government’s failure to build the homes we need, especially social and affordable homes. However, there is nothing in this Queen’s Speech that captures the scale and urgency of the housing challenge or which provides any consolation for young people priced out of the housing market.

So many young people cannot afford to buy their own home because they have been forced into insecure, low-paid jobs; and it is getting worse. The lesson from the pandemic is that 11 years of government failure have left our country ill prepared for a job and welfare crisis. A recent report from the Trussell Trust shows that 700,000 households now need to use a food bank, with a 49% increase in children being supported, and 95% of people referred to food banks are described as “very deprived” or “destitute”.

We have to end the insecurity and lack of opportunity in the economy by tackling the jobs crisis and replacing universal credit with a fair and compassionate system that offers security for all. But there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech to address this. In fact, the Department for Work and Pensions is not mentioned once. Where are the plans to protect workers and create jobs for the future? What happened to the employment Bill, which would have protected workers from exploitation and created new jobs for the future? Why have the flaws in the Kickstart scheme not been addressed?

This Queen’s Speech fails to meet the key challenges of our generation. Coming out of the pandemic, we have the opportunity to build something better: a fairer and more equal society, with well-paid jobs, delivering a greener economy built on strong environmental principles. Sadly, we must conclude that this gracious Speech fails to address this ambition or meet the challenge.