Brexit: Environmental Enforcement Agency

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, again, I do not want to pre-empt the consultation. We want a wide consultation and stakeholders, your Lordships and others to participate in it. We need to fill the governance gap, particularly as we wish to enhance the environment. I hope that before too long we will publish the 25-year environment plan. We want to enhance the environment, and that is a step forward. I assure the noble Baroness that we wish to have a rigorous environmental body.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister pointed out that this measure is aimed at closing the governance gap. One of the major benefits of the EU enforcement mechanism was that it could enforce fines against the Government in infraction proceedings. I have not been able to find another UK independent regulator which has that power at the moment. Can the Minister tell us whether the new independent regulator will be able to enforce environment standards not only on public bodies but on the Government?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I will be straightforward. We want to proceed with this because we think government and public bodies should be held to account. We have existing frameworks, regulators, judicial review processes and Parliament ensuring that the Executive are accountable to them and, ultimately, to the electorate. This is an important matter, and we are going to consult widely. We have not ruled anything in or out. We want a full consultation so that we can understand what stakeholders and other interested groups think is the best way forward in holding government and public bodies to account.