Environmental Targets

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I think there is a collective clunk of realisation of what it would actually take to replace that. That legislation was created for an environment that goes from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. I am sure she understands, being the expert that she is, that it is a bit clunky when it comes to dealing with the bespoke environment of these islands. It can be improved, but in a way that is at least no worse for nature, and which preferably improves it.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, that “collective clunk” took hours of time of the Minister’s department and both Houses of Parliament. Is he saying that, at the stroke of a pen, the Government are going to write off all the environmental protections that we spent hours in this place writing into retained EU law?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

No, that is not what we are saying at all. Most of the protections we have are written into law in the Climate Change Act, the Environment Act and many other provisions that no Administration in recent months—of any form—have talked about trying to tamper with. The habitats directive and other measures are very important; we will not be able to hit our 2030 target for no net loss of biodiversity if we were somehow to sweep those away.

So, if we are going to get rid of them, we have got to replace them with something that is meaningful and bespoke for these islands, and that cannot be done overnight. The Government want to hit our target for 2030, our 30by30 target and many other measures that are written into the Environment Act. The directives we have transposed into UK law have got to be dealt with carefully and in a way that results in no net loss of benefit for the environment, preferably improving it.