Brexit: Environmental and Climate Change Policy

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

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[Baroness Parminter]

That this House takes note of the future of environmental and climate change policy in the light of the result of the referendum for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the European Union has produced the world’s most comprehensive body of environmental policy and legislation. It has protected our wildlife and biodiversity and has improved the quality of our water and other natural resources. It has also been pivotal in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and prompting the growth in renewable energy in our fight against climate change. As the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee concluded,

“the UK’s membership of the European Union has improved the UK’s approach to environmental protection and ensured that the UK environment has been better protected”.

So the challenge now for our Government is to continue to improve our environment as we move outside the overwhelmingly positive, collective approach to environmental policy that we have been party to in the European Union over the past 40 years.

Given the bulwark of protections provided by that body of European environmental policy, it is good that the Government have confirmed that EU law will be transposed into domestic law on the day that the UK leaves the European Union—protections such as rules that govern the use of pesticides and nitrates, ensure fewer toxic chemicals in household products, or deliver greater product efficiency standards, as well as the birds and habitats directive, the most significant and extensive system for protecting wildlife and wild places that we have. However, this does not mean that the hard-won environmental policy gains built up over 40 years are secure. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, has caveated this transposing with the phrase “wherever practicable”. The Farming Minister, George Eustice, called the birds and habitat directive “spirit-crushing” and, at a recent event that I attended, suggested that the need to designate special areas of conservation for harbour porpoises is an example of its inflexibility, despite a review by the coalition Government that showed that the directive’s implementation worked well.

We cannot allow “wherever practicable” to become a means to oust what is, to some, burdensome red tape when, in reality, that environmental policy framework has created a level playing field for companies and our farmers to trade fairly while tackling the threat of catastrophic climate change and environmental degradation. Further unpicking—as the Prime Minister herself said—to reflect UK preferences looks even more likely, given that a key plank on which all EU environmental legislation is built is that of the precautionary principle. The Government’s opposition to the precautionary principle has been all too clear, with their stance on the EU’s ban on three neonicotinoid insecticides and its approach to GM food. Moreover, this is a Government who pride themselves on championing deregulation. They refused earlier this year to reinstate the zero-carbon homes policy, arguing that it would place unnecessary burdens on small housebuilders, despite clear evidence that it would limit carbon emissions from future homes.

Let us make it clear that this House will insist on full parliamentary scrutiny of any proposed changes to environmental legislation—no using the back door of statutory instruments. I and my colleagues on these Benches will vigorously oppose any watering down of environmental outcomes of transposed EU legislation. Any changes should be made only when demonstrable environmental benefits would result.

Leaving the European Union will mean that we are no longer part of the common agricultural policy—a policy which has hugely impacted on our rural environment and natural resources, for good and for ill. The CAP currently provides much of the funding for the conservation of terrestrial biodiversity through our green environment schemes but it has also been a major driver of damage to the environment, despite reforms to green it in more recent years. Our departure presents a major opportunity for our Government to reshape our land management and agricultural policy. Liberal Democrats will contend that future policy, and the financial support allied to it, must reward farmers for the public goods that they provide, producing healthy food and protecting the natural capital of our farmed landscapes through building healthy soils, carbon storage, clean water and flood prevention.

There is no doubt that there will be political pressure to divert the £3 billion that farmers currently receive away from agriculture—who can forget the Brexit bus and its infamous promise of £350 million a week for the NHS? By allying a new agricultural and land management policy to the provision of public goods, political will to maintain farm support, which is critical to many farm businesses, particularly in environmentally sensitive areas, could be secured. I therefore ask the Minister to confirm that the consultation promised within a few months on the food and farming policy will dovetail with the Government’s proposed 25-year environment plan and actively encourage public engagement, and whether the Natural Capital Committee will be formally asked for its views.

The Government committed in their 2015 manifesto to this being the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. Work on the 25-year environment plan began a year ago and we are anticipating a consultation on a framework later this month. This plan now assumes a far greater importance as we move outside the framework of the EU’s seventh environmental action plan, with its bold ambitions up to 2050. Ministers should be clear: if their environmental plan fails to set ambitious targets for our stock of natural capital and biodiversity or to place a duty on all government departments and public bodies to implement it, it will be judged a failure. Moreover, the case for legislative underpinning of this 25-year environment plan is now even stronger. Up to now, the European Union policy process has made agreed environmental measures more stable, giving public authorities and private investors the confidence to plan ahead.

As we have learned from tackling climate change, intergenerational progress is best achieved when targets are underpinned by UK legislation, with a body to help deliver progress and hold the Government to account. So we need the 25 Year Environment Plan to commit to legislative underpinning, an environment Act with overarching targets for clean air, biodiversity, water and other natural assets, and to put the Natural Capital Committee, like the Committee on Climate Change, on a statutory footing to recommend actions, meet those targets and monitor progress.

The Government have committed to put the National Infrastructure Commission on a statutory footing to deliver the hard infrastructure we need. They should now commit to empower the Natural Capital Committee to do the same for our equally critical natural infrastructure. Nature does not respect national boundaries and some of the European Union’s major environmental successes have been in tackling challenges to shared resources such as our birds, air and water quality, and our fish. When we leave the European Union, the common fisheries policy will cease to apply. Recent reforms have started to deliver more sustainable fisheries with the principle of maximum sustainable yield and banning discards. The complexity of the transition to new arrangements will be huge and there is a real risk for fish stocks if negotiations are prolonged without a new deal and the UK falls into a default scenario for several years. I look forward to the report on this issue by the EU Agriculture, Fisheries, Environment and Energy Sub-Committee, ably led by my noble friend Lord Teverson, which we anticipate will be published shortly. But what is already clear is that it will require strong political will to improve, based on British conditions, the policy interventions that the EU’s common fisheries policy is delivering in reducing the environmental burden of industrial-scale fishing.

In a post-Brexit world, getting the right new policies in place will be critical, but so too will holding the Government to account for their delivery of environmental policy. As members of the European Union, both the Commission and the European Court of Justice are there to ensure that environmental policy is delivered, as the Government have found to their cost on numerous occasions. In December 2015 alone, there were three air pollution, two energy, two waste and three water cases active relating to UK non-compliance. Outside the EU these critical backstops will be gone and new ways of holding the Government to account will be needed if—or, more likely, when—they fail to live up to their obligations. Surely expecting individuals and organisations to fund costly judicial reviews cannot be the answer, as Dr Coffey, the Under-Secretary of State at Defra, suggested in a Westminster Hall debate earlier this week. Therefore, I ask the Minister: will the Government commit to ensure the proper enforcement of future UK environmental legislation? What mechanisms do they see replacing and replicating the current enforcement role of the Commission and the ECJ?

EU environmental policy is a mature body of work, although a less developed area is that around the circular economy—producing less waste and using our resources productively. The EU is grappling with this now and it looks likely that we will have left the EU before a circular economy directive will be in force. As someone who fought hard to persuade our coalition partners to introduce the 5p charge on plastic bags, I keenly anticipate the launch next month of the Government Office for Science report on how we should produce less waste and use our resources more productively. It should be a clarion call on the benefits of a circular economy. An early test of the Government’s commitment to improving our environment outside the EU policy framework will be whether it embeds the principles of a circular economy in their forthcoming industrial strategy.

However, environment policy cannot remain static. As our scientific knowledge and evidence grow in future, the policies must develop too. Yet not only has Defra a severely depleted number of staff in its agencies due to sustained budget cuts, it will lose access to EU institutions and funding for research programmes and the vital collaborations that come with them. So what reassurances can the Minister give about our capacity post-Brexit to continue to develop evidence-based environmental policy?

As the Liberal Democrats’ Defra spokesperson, I have naturally concentrated today on the issues around the impact on environment policy, and leave my noble friend Lady Featherstone and others on other Benches to focus on the other pillar of climate policy. In doing so, I am aware that the uncertainties and challenges in that area are no less severe. The rapid progress in ratifying the Paris climate agreement is welcome, as is the Government’s acceptance earlier this year of the recommended seventh carbon budget of the Committee on Climate Change. However, we urgently need the Government to produce their plan to deliver our emissions targets, which has been delayed. Such a plan is fundamental to giving investors and public authorities’ confidence to plan to deliver the low-carbon infrastructure we need to transition our energy supply and move to a low-carbon economy.

Post-Brexit it is clear there are opportunities for improving environmental policy and outcomes, most notably the fundamental recasting of agricultural and land management policy to replace the common agricultural policy. But sizeable threats are clear too, including the watering down of environmental legislation, finding timely responses to managing shared natural resources as well as a lack of policy capacity and enforcement mechanisms to deliver them. Strong political will is required to secure policies we need to protect our environment, and the public and private investment to deliver it. The imminent framework of their 25 Year Environment Plan will tell us whether this Government are prepared to deliver that or if, as some of us fear, outside the European Union we are about to enter a new dark age for green policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, I thank all Members who have participated in this debate. Again, they have shown the breadth of expertise in this House but also, as my noble friend Lord Teverson said, the breadth of environmental issues that Defra will have to cover as a result of Brexit. I thank the Minister for the answers that he has been able to give to us today; there are clearly many unanswered questions. As we move outside the European Union, which acts as a backstop holding the Government to account, as does the European Court of Justice, we need to be that backstop. This House will make sure that we will hold the Government to account.

Motion agreed.