Environment and Climate Change Committee Report: An Extraordinary Challenge: Restoring 30 per cent of our Land and Sea by 2030

Lord Banner Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests on the register. I declare that, up until I took my seat in this House in March, I was the interim chair—and, prior to that, deputy chair—of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, although I am no longer on its board and do not speak for it today. I am also a practising King’s Counsel in environmental and planning law; I have a number of clients affected in various ways by environmental designations. I am a member of Peers for the Planet. I am also a donor and pro bono adviser to the Save Me Trust, an animal welfare and environmental charity.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the Environment and Climate Change Committee on their excellent and comprehensive report. The need to stem the decline in our nature, both terrestrial and marine, is truly urgent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, nature is our life support system. It provides the air we breathe, the climate we need, the water we drink, the food we eat and the materials we use. However, it is now on life support in far too many places. The ambitious words of the 30 by 30 pledge will address this only if they are matched by ambitious actions. The committee’s report has laid down the gauntlet for the incoming Government; I encourage them to pick it up without hesitation or qualification.

I highlight the following points in particular. First, as the committee's report recognises, there is a pressing need for the Government to publish an action plan detailing how the 30 by 30 target will be delivered. The alternative is directionless drift. Secondly, proper resourcing is critical. The committee’s report notes how budget cuts have hampered effective monitoring and evaluation of ecological habitats, in particular of SSSIs. I have seen myself how resource constraints have posed perennial difficulties for the JNCC, whose critical UK-wide role in nature conservation and recovery is recognised by the report. If we are to do the job of nature recovery properly, proper investment is needed. Public finances may be finite, but do not the Government agree that nature is surely at least as deserving of a pay rise as train drivers?

Thirdly, much is said in the report about the importance of working with the farming and fishing communities to transition them towards more sustainable practices. That is of course right, and appropriate incentives and collaboration to that end are to be welcomed. However, the carrot needs to be accompanied by the stick. Both industries have, to be frank, a lot to answer for in terms of their contribution to the nature crisis our country finds itself in. Greater incentives need to come with greater regulation. Environmental principles require that the polluter pays, yet all too often the polluter gets paid. Nutrient neutrality rules mean that farmers get paid millions of pounds by developers to take agricultural land out of use, despite the fact that the nutrient pollution which necessitates this is a direct result of the very same farmers’ use of chemical fertilisers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, described— I agree with everything she said in this respect—fishing boats are still able to profit from bottom trawling, to the detriment of fragile marine ecosystems, even in marine protected areas. The role of the state should not be simply to bribe polluters to change their ways but to ensure that the law makes them pay a heavy price if they do not do so.

Fourthly, strengthening the protection of AONBs, or national landscapes, as they are now known, and enlarging them where that is supported by evidence, is, as the report suggests, an important part of achieving 30 by 30. It is equally important, however, to remember that the task is conservation of nature, not preservation of the status quo. The two are different concepts. Change does not always mean harm. For too long, the relationship between nature conservation and new development has, in many people’s minds, been mutually exclusive. That is a misconception. Done properly, proportionately and in the right places, sensitive developments to meet local needs can add to the biodiversity of protected sites and, in fact, contribute towards delivering the aims of 30 by 30—at no cost to the public purse.

Finally, restoring 30% of our land and sea by 2030 must not mean that the remaining 70% is ignored. We must strive to conserve and enhance not just designated habitats and species, but all our precious nature. I conclude by saying that, in the last decade, almost a quarter of a million badgers have been slaughtered in culls which the Labour Party manifesto conceded were “ineffective” —a concession which Sir Brian May’s recent documentary on the subject clearly demonstrates is correct. The Government’s recent announcement that the culls will not cease until the end of this Parliament has come as a huge disappointment to those who took the manifesto pledge to “end the culls” at face value. It also begs the fundamental question: if the Government accept that the culls are ineffective, why are they not taking more immediate action? Can the Minister confirm how many more badgers will be killed before the ineffective culls finally come to an end, and how are those ongoing deaths consistent with the policy commitment urgently to reverse the decline in our nature?