National Networks National Policy Statement

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Bishop of Manchester

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Woodland Trust and president, patron or vice-president of a range of environmental organisations. I support the Motion to Regret tabled by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. He got to the Table Office about 30 seconds before I did with my version of the Motion. He will pay for that in future.

I want to challenge the previous statements, with all respect to Voltaire. This is not a question of it not being necessary to update the previous policy statement. It is very overdue to update the previous policy statement, but, alas, this version is badly out of kilter with a whole suite of other policy commitments that the Government have already made, including environmental and other targets. Voltaire might have said that the best is the enemy of the good, but this is far from being “the best”—and it is not even “the good”. Let us press on.

It is amazing how many respectable bodies have criticised this policy, because this revised version has significant implications for the delivery of the key objectives of the UK Government on climate and the environment. The Government have missed many of their targets for years. In its most recent assessment of the Department for Transport, the National Audit Office gave a “black” rating—the worst possible rating—to the likelihood and impact of the risk that the Department for Transport would

“not deliver sufficient action in the transport sector to provide carbon savings, meet air quality and biodiversity targets, and adapt to climate change”.

That is pretty forthright. We have to remind ourselves that these targets are, for the most part, enshrined in law.

The Transport Select Committee had a go at this. It was highly critical of the draft NNNPS, but the Government rejected the vast majority of its findings. The Climate Change Committee’s 2023 progress report to Parliament stressed the need for

“a systematic review of all current and proposed road schemes”,

with only those that

“meaningfully support cost-effective delivery of Net Zero and climate adaptation”

to be taken forward. But that did not seem to be picked up by the Government. In fact, the Department for Transport flatly refused to undertake any assessment of schemes, and the revised NNNPS would now permit an increase in emissions, when we are already not on track to meet our future carbon budgets. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said, road transport emissions are almost one-third of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions. We must take action in transport if we are to meet these overall binding targets.

The NNNPS is not just failing on net-zero targets; it does next to nothing to reduce the significant impact on key habitats, such as ancient woodlands, of the strategic road and rail programmes. So far, HS2 has caused the greatest ever destruction of and damage to irreplaceable ancient woodlands of any major infra- structure project. The successive stages that have emerged since the early part have not shown any improvement whatever—and neither has East West Rail in its planning process. The most valuable fragments of ancient woodland often occur in the open spaces between areas of built development. New roads and railways make a kind of beeline for those open spaces, since they provide a green field route with nothing getting in the way—except irreplaceable habitats. In fact, it often looks like roads and rail routes simply join up the dots of the ancient woodland fragments that should be protected.

The Woodland Trust ran an assessment of the impacts of the schemes in the Department for Transport’s road investment strategies 1 and 2, which cover the last 10 years. Some 29% of the schemes have resulted in a confirmed impact on ancient woodlands and ancient trees.

There is one small crumb of comfort in the proposed NNNPS. It adopts the wording of the National Planning Policy Framework that loss or damage to these key habitats should be allowed only where there are “wholly exceptional reasons”. However, the DfT then goes on to argue that nationally significant infrastructure project roads are wholly exceptional due to national needs—so a fat lot of good the slightly tougher wording turns out to be.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about the debate in the other place on the NNNPS. It was a bit desultory—to use the kindest phrase I can think of. It was scheduled as virtually the last business before the Easter Recess: sort of the equivalent of a wet Tuesday night at the Aberdeen Empire. That is not a great way to deal with such an important policy statement. Although several Members made compelling points, the Minister barely noticed that they had happened. This development since the debate in the other place is crucial: the High Court’s judgment last week declaring the Government’s climate change action plan unlawful is absolutely fundamental.

In the light of that, it seems unwise for the Government to seek to designate the NNNPS now. A lawful plan will inevitably require a fundamental shift in government approach to transport planning, since transport policy represents 70% of the gap in delivery policies across all economic sectors. Therefore, a lack of progress to decarbonise transport, in effect, kicks the legs out from under the whole net-zero agenda.

There is an elegant way for the Government to get out from under the car crash in which they find themselves as a result of the High Court ruling. In February 2022, the energy national policy statements were withdrawn for further review in light of the BEIS Committee calling for stronger emphasis on net zero, so there is a precedent. In my book, the DfT should gracefully do the same, and commission an independent review of the NNNPS and of the projects that are beneath its overarching framework to make sure that transport policy can deliver what is needed for the Government to achieve their statutory targets, both in climate change and in the broader environment.

Can the Minister confirm that he will, in fact, gracefully withdraw the NNNPS? If he is not prepared to do that, why not, and how are the Government planning to meet their statutory climate and environment commitments and to respond to the verdict of the High Court?

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, as it seems compulsory in this short debate to quote Voltaire, perhaps I might take us to his wonderful creation, Dr Pangloss, who continues to assert:

“All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds”


even while the horrors are descending around him. I feel there is something of that in the statement; it is a bit Panglossian. As noble Lords have already said, we face a climate emergency and crisis, and this statement is not adequate to the seriousness of the situation that we are in.

In Greater Manchester, we have made a commitment through our combined authority to become a net-zero city by 2038. It is no good us doing that if everybody else is going the opposite way. My wife is a priest in a parish underneath a motorway interchange. Motorways are, of course, exempt from all the clean air regulations that apply to many other roads. We desperately need every policy to be thoroughly tested to ensure that it will get us to net zero in the time and at the pace that we need, and at the moment, this is not good enough.

Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness Young of Old Scone and Lord Bishop of Manchester

Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, bearing in mind the hour, I shall speak briefly to Amendments 85 and 87. It is a pity that it is late, because these are terribly important amendments. I have been sitting and thinking: how long does it take to create a habitat? The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, just said that at the end of 30 years we may have rip-roaring habitat, but the likelihood is that we will not have rip-roaring habitat for many habitat types.

There are some instant habitats: wetlands, for example—just add water and you get birds. It is instant habitat creation. There are some middling habitats, such as meadows, where you can grow grass and wildflowers, but it will not be a complex meadow ecosystem, certainly not SSSI quality, by 30 years’ time. As for woods, a wood will not really get into its stride in 30 years. You will have canopy formation by then, but it will be a fairly limited wood. Of course, many habitats are very long-term: ancient woodlands take 400 years. Long-standing woods, which the Government have said they are now interested in protecting, are complex assemblages of habitat and we do not yet know how long standing “long standing” will be, but it is certainly more than 30 years. Peatlands take 1,000 years, so 30 years for newly created habitats for biodiversity gain, planning gain or conservation covenants is a bit pathetic; in fact, it is pretty useless. Destruction of these biodiversity gains and climate change carbon sequestration at 30 years will be unacceptable to the public and it makes no sense to create and then destroy.

Longer periods do not discourage landowners and farmers. I draw attention to my interest as chairman of the Woodland Trust. We regularly deal with farmers on woodland creation schemes. What farmers and landowners want is clarity for the future, so that they can make decisions. The current woodland carbon code requires woodland sites for carbon storage to be in place for at least 100 years and we have no shortage of people banging on our doors wanting to create at least 100 year-old woods, so I ask the Minister to accept this amendment.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interest as a Church Commissioner, as set out in the register, and I wish to support what the noble Baroness just said: 30 years is rather a short period of time. I am grateful for the way the Minister, in proposing Amendments 86 and 88, is showing us the possibility of some flexibility in the future, but may I just tempt him a little further? What he is proposing would allow a future Government, by regulation, to change that period of 30 years—one would hope that it might go up to 50, 60 or perhaps even 125—but if they did, there would be nothing to prevent a subsequent Government reducing it back to 30 again. If we are to have a direction of travel in how long a site needs to be protected for, it should be one-way, without the possibility of going back down again. That could create a sort of planning blight, whereby somebody, particularly towards the end of a government cycle, might feel that, rather than making some land available for development, they can wait and hope that the period will be knocked back down to 30 years by the incoming Administration. Would the Minister be willing to think again so that, whatever period we set, any future changes would have to increase it rather than potentially allowing it to decrease?