Environment Act 2021 Targets
Debate between Lord Bishop of Norwich and Baroness Hayman of Ullock(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Norwich
To ask His Majesty’s Government how they intend to meet the targets in the Environment Act 2021, including halting the decline of species abundance by 2030 and increasing overall species abundance by at least 10 per cent by 2042 compared to 2030 levels.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, Defra published the revised environmental improvement plan in December 2025. This sets out the Government’s long-term plan for improving the natural environment and our enjoyment of it. It includes prioritised actions to deliver our goals and ambitious Environment Act targets, and clearly describes the actions that are required and, importantly, who is responsible for delivering them. The delivery plans published alongside the environmental improvement plan set out how we will deliver against our interim and long-term targets.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. Notwithstanding the work that the Government have done on this and the plans that they have put in place, the Office for Environmental Protection has concerns. It reported back in January:
“Government needs to speed up and scale up its efforts … and actions”
because they remain
“largely off track to meet EA21 targets”.
The window of opportunity is closing fast. We need to drive nature recovery at scale. With 70% of the UK being farmland, farmers play a vital role in nature recovery as well as in ensuring food supply. Might the Government consider providing greater support to farmers for these two twin aims, including within the environmental land management schemes?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The OEP’s assessment that the right reverend Prelate refers to was made before our revised environmental improvement plan. Following the assessment, we have reset the interim targets so that they are live and under active review. Regarding farm wildlife, to achieve the legally binding biodiversity targets referred to we need as many farmers as possible to be working in a way which benefits biodiversity. Crucially, this will mean land sharing, to support farm wildlife alongside productive farming, as well as land sparing—habitat creation and restoration through bigger projects such as our landscape recovery project. That is a new interim target for the EIP to deliver environmental change through incentivising farmers.
Sustainable Farming Incentive: Small Farms
Debate between Lord Bishop of Norwich and Baroness Hayman of Ullock(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The Farming Minister has spent a long time looking at the different options to try to target the types of farm and types of productivity that she wants to increase. The noble Lord is absolutely correct that the management payment has been removed. That was done to increase the amount of budget that would be available for new agreements. We want as many farmers as possible to be able to benefit from SFI funding this year, which is why that payment was taken out. A number of actions have come out but, in some areas, agreements have seen the payments increase for certain activities—for example, on moorlands. Some areas have gained and some have not, but it is about getting the balance towards where the Government want to see things changing.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
I keep hearing from farmers, particularly from small farms, about the impact of the fiasco of the changes in inheritance tax. Would the Minister give some reassurance that future policy changes will truly be rural-proofed? I declare an interest as this year’s president of the Royal Norfolk Show.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I am beginning to wish I lived in Norfolk so that I could come—it is a long way from Cumbria. I reassure the right reverend Prelate that one of the things we have been working much harder on in Defra, as we develop policies and then manage and oversee them, is working with other departments where there is also an impact. It is really important to have that oversight. The noble Lord was just talking about energy prices, and we work with DESNZ on how best we can approach that. It will be the same for rural-proofing more broadly. It is certainly very much on our agenda.