Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Lawlor Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 6th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I say that to try to make sure it continues to be a good-natured debate. There is no doubt that many people who are not antagonistic to the Government do not want to rely on the excellence of the present Minister, but want to make sure that future Ministers do this job as he, I am sure, would hope to do it himself. Therefore, the question here is: given that we have doubts about the efficacy of the department most responsible for it—not because of our own concerns but because of the House of Commons Select Committee—and given that he will surely want other Ministers to follow him in the attitudes which he has displayed, would it not be more sensible to put this into the law, as indeed the Law Society itself has suggested? I think I am right in saying that every exterior independent body, including the Government’s own watchdog on this matter, agrees. I remind the House of my own interests, as declared in the register of interests: not only the things I do outside but also my chairmanship of the Climate Change Committee. I just feel that the world would be more assured that the kind of attitudes which we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, for example, will be the attitudes enforced in the future. That is all we are asking, and I do not quite understand why that is unreasonable.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with great interest throughout Committee to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and his very reasonable and constructive proposals for protecting our environment. But it is time to move on to UK law, which is more transparent and will save the taxpayer the cost of having to pay for a dual system of EU and UK law. Yes, we are already committed by international obligation to our international treaties, but it is ironic that many of the problems which we hear considered have arisen under this dual system of arrangements. I am afraid that I will not support the noble Lord’s amendment. I hope the Government will get on with it, and we will move to restoring UK law over this vital environmental sector so we can all have the protections we need for the environment and hold the Government to account.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for bringing this amendment forward and assure him of our full support. We heard from him that, in response to comments made by Ministers on Report, the amendment has been altered to focus on enshrining a legal commitment to maintain existing levels of environmental protection, and that he has taken into account much of what was said during that debate.

One of the things that we debated is how much of the Bill has significant implications for environmental law and for many regulations of significant public interest protecting our natural environment and many aspects of our health so, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said in his introduction, and others have said, it has been pretty disconcerting to hear the Government describe commitments to maintain existing levels of environmental protection as burdensome. I find that quite shocking. We know that there is wide-ranging support for an environmental non-regression principle. Amendment 15 would give legal substance to what Ministers have been saying they want to achieve. In fact, in his introduction, the Minister said that the Government are committed to maintaining high environmental standards; the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, said that; and the Minister in the other place, Trudy Harrison, said that. However, as a matter of law, just because somebody says something provides no assurances or protections and, however welcome it is, it cannot bind the hands of any future Ministers, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, has just said.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned concerns that some regulations that we need may well be lost. I want very briefly to give an example, which is the intention to remove some items relating to the national air pollution control programme—the NAPCP. Removing the obligation to draw up and implement the programme strips away any clear duty on the Government to show how they will reduce emissions in line with their legally binding emissions targets. The Government say that by repealing this item they can better focus on what will help clear the air, such as delivering on the targets set in the Environment Act. In this debate, the Government repeatedly cite the existence of the Environment Act as the reason why such amendments are not necessary, and no doubt the Minister will repeat that shortly. However, if we look at Regulation 10 of the National Emissions Ceilings Regulations 2018 and the associated implementing decision, we see that the Government are clearly required to consult the public as part of the process of preparing and revising the NAPCP. This is in stark contrast with the approach they took with the revised environmental improvement plan earlier this year where there was no public consultation, very limited stakeholder engagement and limited transparency over which stakeholders were contacted—yet the Minister in his introduction held the EIP up as something to which we should aspire. Given that there is currently no provision in the Environment Act to require any public consultation in relation to future revisions of the EIP, how will the Government ensure that the public do not lose their ability to contribute and to have their say?

I also want to look at some of the powers in the Environment Act and how they are constructed. For example, it includes a non-regression commitment in respect of one piece of REUL, the habitats regulations. This empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations to amend part of the habitats regulations

“only if satisfied that the regulations do not reduce the level of environmental protection provided by the Habitats Regulations”.

So I consider it relevant in today’s debate to look at why the Government opted to include this non-regression safeguard in law.