Environmental Targets (Public Authorities) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. As an aside in relation to the previous Bill, as a former chair of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I published a report on the appalling abuse of delegated powers by all Governments over the past 30 years. It is just as well that I was not replying for the Official Opposition, because I would have probably supported the Bill in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.

When the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, proposes something, we should all pay close attention because he speaks from a position of great authority. We have all had in the past 24 hours—at least, Conservative Members have—a note from the Chief Whip reminding us of the proper appellations and how we should address people in this House. In this House, we have noble and gallant Members and noble and learned Members. I always thought we should have a category of noble and expert Members, of which the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, would be the prime example. I recall a debate during the gene editing Bill, when the noble Lord was making some important but totally inexplicable technical point about DNA with the noble Lord, Lord Winston. It was inexplicable to every other Peer present, as we had no idea what they were talking about.

On this occasion, I think I understand the thrust of the noble Lord’s argument. I worry about overreach and that it may detract from the core tasks some of these public bodies have. That is the fourth reason I would worry about the Bill, not that I necessarily support the other three reasons; I have no objection to them in principle.

Take national parks, about which I know a little. Legislation which has received universal support over the past 75 years gives them two purposes: conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the designated national parks, and promoting opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of those areas by the public. I must say to the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, that the national parks do not have an economic objective. In fact, one of the criticisms many of the national parks make is that they do not have that economic objective in their powers.

We all agree that national parks and AONBs, now called national landscapes, need to do more to recover wildlife and biodiversity. I have lived in the Lake District national park for many years and, as the Minister will agree, it is just as devoid of wildlife as the areas outside it, unlike US national parks. Recognising that, Defra introduced the grant scheme for farming and protected landscapes. It offers grants to farmers, provided that they deliver on climate change and biodiversity goals. They must support nature recovery and mitigate the impacts of climate change. They must provide opportunities for people to discover, enjoy and understand the landscape and its cultural heritage. They must protect or improve the quality and character of the landscape or place.

I suggest that these remain in sync with the national park aims and that we need to let these develop. Indeed, I would urge the Government to expand them before imposing the requirements in this Bill. I also suggest that the national parks will be out of their depth in trying to assist in meeting a target for particulate matter or air improvement. On water quality, we shall probably debate amendments to the water Bill on sewage in Lake Windermere, over which the national park has no control.

On local authorities, this House made some substantial changes via the Environment Act 2021 to amend the NERC Act 2006 to conserve and, now, enhance biodiversity. A public authority must consider what action it

“can properly take, consistently with the proper exercise of its functions, to further the general biodiversity objective”.

That objective, set out in the Act, is

“the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity in England”.

Section 104 of the 2021 Act creates local nature recovery strategies, and 48 designated “responsible authorities” are now developing such strategies, covering every inch of England. Every nature organisation agrees that this will be the greatest boost to wildlife recovery in our lifetime.

Noble Lords may say that takes care of the biodiversity targets, but what about climate change, water and air? To that I would say that many of the organisations listed here do not have the ability or competence to assist in meeting those targets. We spoke about the problems of water quality at Second Reading of the Water (Special Measures) Bill last week and will debate it in more detail in Committee, but the only organisations that can improve water quality are the water companies, the Coal Authority, which has a specific obligation, the Environment Agency and Ofwat. I see that Ofwat is listed in Clause 2(2)(i) as a public body which must

“take all reasonable steps to meet the environmental recovery objective”.

I think there was probably agreement from all sides of the House last week that Ofwat has failed in its relatively narrowly defined key regulatory role, and no one would trust it with any responsibilities on climate change adaption, air quality and biodiversity recovery.

I would have similar concerns if we gave all local authorities the duties under this Bill to assist with all the targets on climate change and the Environment Act. My concern is that many local authorities with no expertise in the targets in this Bill would be diverted into doing this badly instead of the day job. As we have seen, many local authorities have gone off on woke tracks in recent years. If given these duties they will, I am certain, merrily employ climate change, air and water quality officers, and our dustbins will not get emptied regularly and recycling rates will fall further behind.

Let us look at Ofgem’s priorities. They are:

“shaping a retail market that works for consumers … enabling infrastructure for net zero at pace … establishing an efficient, fair and flexible energy system”,

and

“advancing decarbonisation through low carbon energy and social schemes”.

Ofgem is already on board with the net-zero targets and, I suggest, would be at a loss to assist with air quality and biodiversity aims.

Take Great British Nuclear, which was created in 2023, not 100 years ago. It has as its objects

“to facilitate the design, construction, commissioning and operation of nuclear energy generation projects for the purpose of furthering any policies published by His Majesty’s government”.

I do not think you can make a better contribution to net zero than that.

I will not go through all the 28 organisations, but a final example is Network Rail, which has as its objective

“to get people and goods to where they need to be, and in turn to support the UK’s economic prosperity. Our role is to run a safe, reliable and efficient railway, serving our customers and communities. We oversee the running of the railway as an entire system and work closely with train operators to deliver train services as safely, reliably and punctually as possible. We lead the industry’s planning for the future of the railway, and we’re committed to a sustainability agenda”.

I say that with a straight face. I think we all have views on how well Network Rail has fulfilled its primary purpose, and I would dread to see it having the slightest responsibility for net-zero or biodiversity objectives.

I am glad that this building is not included because I have counted six oil heaters trying to boost the heating in this building, as our 150 year-old steam generators are not quite working yet. I am not sure what contribution we are making in this House to burning extra carbon and use of electricity.

I have spoken more about biodiversity and nature recovery than climate change—possibly inevitably, since I am, for the next two months, still the deputy chair of Natural England and a member of the board of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, both organisations listed in the Bill. I submit that those two organisations do not need these provisions to drive forward, within their areas of expertise, all the relevant targets. They are already leading the way.

I also believe that climate change and nature recovery are two sides of the same coin and that, if we restore our peatlands, which hold 3 billion tonnes of carbon, plant the right trees in the right places, conserve our sea-floor and keep carbon trapped there, and go for nature-friendly solutions, then we can avoid the excessive cost of going too far, too quickly on heat pumps, electric cars and getting rid of gas boilers, not to mention the appalling damage to our natural landscape caused by wind turbines and pylons.

Personally, I have always considered biodiversity loss to be more important than climate change. With enormous political will and an awful lot of money, climate change can be reversed, but once a species is lost it is lost for ever, and the world is losing species at an alarming rate.

In Committee, I will judge the Bill by what these 28 public bodies can legitimately do, without detracting from their core duties, to increase species abundance and recover nature. I believe that that is the top priority and the key to unlocking climate change improvements and water quality. I wish the noble Lord well with his Bill, and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response to it.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, for clarification, he appears to be suggesting that climate change and nature have to exist in certain silos and that getting people around the country by rail is a different and entirely separate silo. Do I take it from that that His Majesty’s Opposition’s position is that we should not mainstream climate and nature across all areas of action of government and public bodies?

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Of course we want to “mainstream” it, but I am suggesting that some of the Bill may be overreach for some of the authorities and that they may not be competent to do it. I am not making any argument that it may be too costly, but we must try to achieve our targets on climate change reduction and in the Environment Act by the measures that the last Government took and that the current Government plan to take. I would be rather worried if we gave additional powers in the Bill to some of those authorities, but I remain to be convinced in Committee. I am sort of neutral on the Bill, and I respect the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, in his ability. In Committee, we can explore the points the noble Baroness raises.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests set out in the register. It was a delight to listen to my noble friends Lord Goldsmith and Lord Randall describe the importance of swift bricks to the preservation of this species and to stopping their decline. I am delighted to be able to support it.

Installing these bricks is an absolute no-brainer. They cost between £25 and £35. Last year, the big four housebuilders—just four of them, Barratt, Berkeley, Persimmon and Bellway—made profits of £2.749 billion. I am sure they can afford a £25 brick for the 300,000 homes they might or might not manage to build next year. Installing the bricks is a no-brainer.

I learned today—I hope, wrongly—that the Government may be opposed to this measure. That, too, would be a no-brainer if they are. I wonder where the opposition has come from. I hope they have not been lobbied by the Home Builders Federation—the organisation which lied, lied and lied again about the Government blocking the building of 145,000 homes because of nutrient neutrality. That was totally untrue. Of course, housebuilders are sitting on more than 1 million planning applications and are land-banking until they can release them gradually and make maximum profits. If that is legitimate, so be it, but let us not let them attack the Government for holding up housebuilding when it is not the Government doing it.

I understand that in the Commons the Government said they could not mandate this nationally and it must be left to local voluntary discretion. Housebuilding left to local voluntary discretion? You cannot build a house anywhere in the country without the Government almost dictating the colour of the curtains. Look at the national regulations on every aspect of housebuilding: electrics; plumbing; the type of cement; the way the damp-proof course is laid; the tiles and insulation. Nearly every mortal thing of importance in the house—the width of the doorways, the bannisters, the boilers you may install after 2030—is dictated by central government, and rightly so. I am not complaining about that, but I am complaining about the apparent hypocrisy if the Government I support are now saying “Oh, we can’t order every house to have a little brick installed because that is taking national government interference too far”. If that is the case, I think that is nonsense.

I know that some Government Ministers have already installed these bricks. They have done it voluntarily, without guidance. If it is good enough for some Ministers, quite rightly, to save swifts out of their own volition, then it should be quite right that the Government support a measure to impose this nationally.

If it is the case that the Government are opposed to this, I would really like to know where that opposition came from in government. If it is true then some idiot—an adviser, spad or civil servant, but hopefully not a Minister—has decided to oppose this. I exempt my noble friend the Minister, as this is an environmental matter and nothing to do with her brief, but why in the name of God should a Conservative Government oppose this?

In the first three years of this Government, under Michael Gove and George Eustice in environment, we made the biggest strides forward in environmental and nature protection that this country has ever seen, with the 25-year plan and the Environment Act. Now we could lose that good reputation because of a trivial thing if we oppose installing a 25-quid brick in a house wall to save swifts.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 221A on swift bricks, as your Lordships might expect. My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has, in the terms of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, flown back from a nearby cavity just to be here for this debate, but she could not be here at the start, so your Lordships get me instead.

This is something that I have been talking about. I was on TalkTV, talking to Julia Hartley-Brewer about restoring biodiversity. I happened to mention swift bricks in that discussion and the presenter said in response, “Isn’t that just a small thing? Don’t we have to do much more?”. Of course that is true, but, if you are a swift then a swift brick is not a small thing. The fact that you need somewhere to make your home and raise your young is a matter of life and death. As the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said, there has been a 60% decline in the population in the last 25 years. These beautiful and utterly amazing creations of nature depend on having a place to rest and raise their young, and we are closing those spaces off.

The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, also made an important point about human well-being—how much we all benefit from having swifts around and what a wonderful addition they are to our environment. Think about young people, such as the toddler who says, “What’s that?”, and has it explained so that they learn more. That is crucial.

The state of our biodiversity is absolutely parlous. We are one of the worst corners of this planet for nature. As we heard passionately from the Benches opposite, surely the Government cannot oppose this—they cannot oppose what was said by MPs in the other place and is being said by so many petitioners. Please let us have some common sense here.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak in favour of all the amendments in this group—even, in a very soft way, the government amendments. They address issues that I spoke on at considerable length in Committee, so I will, given the hour, be brief. It is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and all the speakers on this group. I think the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, really hit the nail on the head. If 30 years is all we can tie things up for, if it works, you are tying it up, one would assume, indefinitely, which 125 years serves as a figure for.

In Committee, I talked about 30 years being a blink of an eye in nature, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, set out a very nice template for us thinking about different kinds of habitats and ecosystems. I will add to this my—perhaps now inevitable—point about soil, which is about the biodiversity of the soil and producing what you might describe as a mature soil, whether it is under any of those habitats. A meadow might look quite nice on the top, but the soil is not going to be anything like a long-term developed meadow for many years. These are ecosystems that take a long time to develop to get the real richness you would need for a proper, healthy soil.

I will just note that we are strongly behind Amendments 85 and 87, which my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb signed, but I would also particularly compliment the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on Amendment 84A. I would have signed it had I actually spotted it, but I am afraid I missed it. There has been much discussion in the media, in the public and in the environmental community about the utter inadequacy of the biodiversity metric. In this amendment, the noble Lord is going some way to finding a way forward to fix that, and I really do hope the Minister will take it on board.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. I want to comment briefly on two amendments. First, I welcome my noble friend’s Amendment 89; it is important to keep under review the amount of land available for the net gain register.

Secondly, I want to comment on Amendment 84A from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I say this to him: I do not think it is necessary. As he said, this is evolving. The metric as published by Natural England is not set in stone. It will be an evolving measure, and as further and better particulars come along, it will be changed and amended. An annual review by the Government is not needed for that to happen.

The other point I want to make is this: yes, of course, the metric could be made more complicated. Some on the Climate Change Committee condemn it, because it is just a biodiversity net gain metric. They want an environmental net gain metric, which would be an all-singing, all-dancing super one, but incredibly complicated to produce. No one is capable of doing it properly at the moment.

If we bring in lots of other factors, which would no doubt make this much better in biodiversity terms, we would be faced with an industry and builders that have not a clue how it would work. Net gain is terribly, terribly important. It will be one of the greatest improvements to planning and the environment we have ever seen in this country. But it is a completely new concept; it is innovative. For it to happen, we have to get developers on side, working with it. At the moment, they have not a clue how it works. They have a couple of years, I think, to get that right.

I am concerned that we keep this initially simple. The current metric, which is still doing a good job and can evolve and can change, will not be detrimental to biodiversity; it will be a big improvement to biodiversity. But I am certain that in a couple of years’ time or a year’s time, it may be tweaked again to improve it. As developers and Government and Natural England bed this down, I am certain it will become more sophisticated and more perfect from a purist environmental point of view.

So I say to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who is incredibly able and thoroughly knowledgeable in this matter—he is 10 times more knowledgeable than I am, though I am practical—that we have to start somewhere. There used to be an army acronym KISS: “Keep it simple, stupid.” We have to keep it simple to begin with, and we can make it a lot more complicated as we get used to it.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Monday 12th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and to express my support for nearly all the amendments in this group, except Amendments 263 and 265.

We should start by acknowledging that this is yet one more sign that campaigning works. Schedule 16 represents amendments brought by the Government in the other place which reflect the campaigning of a great many NGOs and other groups and, as other noble Lords have said, the conclusions of the independent Global Resource Initiative Taskforce. However, as multiple briefings that we have all received show, it still needs improvement to deliver on the recommendations of the GRIT and the expectations of UK consumers and businesses.

I shall not go through each amendment, but I shall start with Amendment 293B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, because it is in many ways the most far-reaching and crucial. This is the one that calls for a global footprint target. I shall start with the benefit for the UK, before looking more broadly. It would reduce the risk of future pandemics; I do not really need to say more than that. It would help safeguard against the economic costs of biodiversity decline and climate change. The WWF Global Futures report calculated that that will cost the world at least £368 billion a year, with the UK suffering annual damage to its economy of £16 billion a year by 2050. It would also support the resilience of UK and global businesses. It would help businesses to manage risk proactively. Coming back to the Government’s desire, of which we so often hear, to be world-leading, it would mean that the UK was the first country to embed the latest pledge for nature into its legislation. It is crucial.

It is worth noting that this amendment is another way of addressing the issue I addressed in the amendment I moved to Clause 1, many days ago, on reducing resource use rather than making it more efficient. We need to reduce our ecological footprint by around 75% to fit within ecological limits. The WWF global footprint report looked at some of the key issues: our material footprint needs to come down by 38%, biomass by 48%, nitrogen—for which I tabled a specific amendment earlier—by 89%, and phosphorous by 85%.

The most basic amendment that I would surely suggest the Minister has to adopt in some form is Amendment 264A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. She has already made many powerful arguments, in particular that if we do not introduce this amendment there will a perverse incentive to encourage the legalisation of deforestation. UK businesses could also benefit from this amendment. Currently, in many parts of the world laws relating to land use, forests and commodity production are numerous, uncertain, inconsistent and poorly implemented. It is very difficult to determine legality, and companies can be trapped in a regulatory, paperwork minefield from which the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, could free them. Of course, 2.1 million hectares of natural vegetation within the 133 Brazilian municipalities that currently supply the UK with soya could be legally deforested.

I come now to Amendment 264ZA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, which calls for the recognition of customary land ownership and membership systems. Some 80% of indigenous and community lands are held without legally recognised tenure rights. We know that in indigenous and tribal territories, deforestation rates are significantly lower. Ensuring respect for customary tenure rights is an efficient, just and cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Noble Lords who have been reading The House magazine might know that I have some recommendations for summer reading in there. I would like to add an extra one: Imbolo Mbue’s second novel, How Beautiful We Were, which is set in a fictional African village and shows how it was depleted by centuries of the activities of fossil fuel companies, forest exploitation and rubber plantations, going back to slavery. We really cannot allow this kind of relationship with the world to continue.

I come now to Amendment 265A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. What we are doing here is the reverse of what your Lordships’ House achieved in the Financial Services Bill. After a lot of wrestling, we finally got a reference to climate—although, unfortunately, not biodiversity—into the Finance Bill. What we also need to do is to get recognition of the damage the financial sector does to the rest of the world, and we need to see finance addressed in all the other Bills. The UK is the single biggest source of international finance for six of the most harmful agribusiness companies involved in deforestation in Brazil, the Congo basin and Papua New Guinea, lending £5 billion between 2013 and 2019. These UK banks included HSBC, Barclays, and Standard Chartered. We simply cannot allow this to continue.

Noble Lords may not think so, but I am really trying to be brief, so I will turn to some very short concluding thoughts. If deforestation was a country, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon, behind China and the US. Some 80% of deforestation is associated with agricultural production, yet figures published this afternoon from five major UN agencies show that the number of people without access to healthy diets has grown by 320 million in the last year. They now number 2.37 billion in total. A fifth of all children under five are stunted because of lack of access to the most basic resource of all: food.

We have to stop wrecking other people’s countries. We have to ensure that our lives are lived within the limits of this fragile planet, and that everyone else has access to that same basic level of resources that is their human right.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. While I warmly welcome all the provisions that the Government have put into this Bill on this matter of due diligence, I also support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, who moved them so powerfully, eloquently and rapidly. I pay tribute, too, to the passionate and excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, which was a pleasure to listen to.

I will comment first on Amendment 265A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. It is a rather ingenious and clever approach, and I was appalled to hear that British institutions—if I heard the noble Baroness correctly—have raised about £5 billion of funding for the illegal destruction of rainforest. If British banks and financial institutions are involved, we have to find ways of putting a stop to them doing that sort of thing.

The current provisions in the Bill quite rightly impose obligations on regulated persons who are trading products from endangered rainforests. As in every other business, however, the normal rule is “Follow the money”: if you want to catch illegal or improper behaviour, look at the money flows. Putting an obligation on all financial institutions to exercise the same due diligence as the companies that import and export timber would plug a potentially big gap. How do we crack down on money laundering and terrorist financing? We do it by putting an obligation on all financial institutions to report transactions above £10,000. It works for illegal money transactions, and it can work for destructive timber transactions or the financing of palm oil, soya bean or ranching projects.

I rather like my noble friend’s Amendments 265B and 265D. Why should we try to save the rainforest? The rationale for saving the rainforest is infinitely greater than just reducing carbon emissions—important though that is—or saving indigenous people or preventing mahogany and other tree species from being extinguished. The rationale is that the rainforest is the “medicine cabinet” of the world, to steal another phrase from the Prince’s Rainforests Project.

As rainforest species disappear, so too do many possible cures for life-threatening diseases. Currently, 121 prescription drugs that are sold worldwide are derived from plant sources, and 25% of western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients. However, fewer than 1% of tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists. So we have tested 1% and are burning the other 99%, yet we are getting 25% of our drugs from that small 1%. That is a very dangerous pyramid.

A single pond in Brazil can sustain a greater variety of fish than is found in all the rivers of Europe put together. A 25-acre area of rainforest in Borneo may contain more than 700 species of trees—a figure equal to the total tree diversity of North America. A single rainforest in Peru is home to more species of birds than are found in the entire United States, and the number of species of fish in the Amazon exceeds the number found in the entire Atlantic Ocean.

So I repeat my question: how can we in the West be so stupid as to permanently destroy, or fund the destruction of, a habitat when we have not looked at 99% of the species in it? Some scientists estimate that we are losing more than 130 species of plants and animals every single day through rainforest destruction. We just do not know, yet we are carrying on regardless. Estimates of the total number of species in the world vary from 2 million to 100 million, the best estimate being that there are about 10 million species of living things, ranging from nematode worms, slugs, molluscs, plant life and fungi to trees, birds and the cuddly animals that we worry about.

Biodiversity, however, is not just about saving the red squirrels, polar bears, orangutans, lemurs and tigers—as vital and close to my heart as some of those are. Of far greater importance to the planet are the plants and bugs that we never see and are not cuddly.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. It was an absolute pleasure to hear my noble friend introduce this vital new clause, which is quite superb. It is also amazing to hear that he has accepted every recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which I am privileged to chair. I think, in all my time in the House, I have never known a Minister or a department accept every single recommendation. I have already said to another very big, powerful government department that if it wants to see how to do delegated powers properly, it should look at the Defra Delegated Powers Memorandum and see the way in which it has drafted a very large Bill, in eight parts, covering an awful lot of delegated powers, and done so with proper parliamentary scrutiny. I commend that to every other department.

Officially, I shall speak to Amendments 200 and 201 on biodiversity net gain—or nature net gain, as I would love to have it called—and to support my noble friend the Minister and his wonderful, large new clause. As someone who passionately believes in recovering our nature, I consider this to be one of the most important clauses in the Bill. When we add up the clauses on biodiversity targets, local nature recovery strategies, species conservation targets and now 10% minimum net gain, this is the greatest step forward this country has ever taken to bend the curve of nature loss and begin full-scale nature recovery. The only principal differences between my noble friend’s amendments and mine are that mine attempt to apply biodiversity net gain to the first two legs of HS2 and the Minister’s amendments are much longer with a lot of detail—that always makes me slightly suspicious, of course. However, my noble friend has pulled off an absolute blinder in getting other departments to agree to extend net gain to all national strategic infrastructure projects.

A few months ago, I and others made the case in this Chamber that 10% net gain be extended to HS— the Birmingham to Crewe leg—but that was resisted by the DfT. To be fair, the excellent Transport Minister in the other place, Andrew Stephenson MP, has been pressing HS2 to go further than “no net loss”—the current policy—and it seems to be moving in that direction. I want the Government to make sure that HS2 follows up on the welcome aspiration of a commitment to BNG.

I hope that will not be a watered-down version of net gain—it should be open, transparent and open to scrutiny. Net gain should be net gain, whether its supported by legislation or not. While we in this Committee may be urging my noble friend to go faster or do more, we must acknowledge that he and Defra have persuaded the Treasury, BEIS and DfT to accept 10% biodiversity net gain for all national strategic infrastructure projects. Quite frankly, that is an astonishing achievement and I did not expect to see it. It is important that NSIPs can and should deliver BNG to at least the same standards as those expected for other developments.

I welcome the reference to NSIPs having access to the statutory biodiversity credits scheme in the case of market failure. Natural England is currently developing this credits scheme. I like how BNG is to be embedded within national policy statements through biodiversity net gain statements and that there are mechanisms to be put in place for those sectors where the NSIPs have yet to be updated or where there is no national policy statements. I consider that this will allow for sufficient flexibility to allow biodiversity net gain to be tailored to any sector requirements if and where needed.

I am delighted to see it also extended to marine. That issue is contained in my amendments and I thought that I would have to argue the case for it. All I need to do instead is say, “Well done, Minister.”

That is enough praise—now for a few little queries. As I said at the beginning, I am always suspicious when we get a massive new clause to deal with what is really a simple matter of amending the schedule. First, I note that the amendment allows for developments to be excluded from this requirement by the Secretary of State. I cannot see grounds for granting such an exclusion and would not wish to see it enacted. However, I suspect that it is perhaps one of those safeguards Defra had to offer in order to get the other departments to sign up to BNG in the first place. I hope that it is merely a comfort blanket for the Treasury.

I hope that the requirement for NSIP net gain will be the same as for TCPA schemes. I would like to be reassured on this. Also, there is no commitment to a minimum period in which the biodiversity net gain must be secured on or off-site in the legislation. TCPA schemes are required to legally secure biodiversity net gain for a minimum of 30 years. I would expect NSIP schemes to secure outcomes for at least the same period, if not longer. Will my noble friend assure me that this omission is simply because the Government expect these schemes to last for evermore and thus a 30-year requirement is not necessary? I cannot imagine that in 30 years’ time any Government would consent to NSIP net gain schemes being ploughed up. Of course, the better guarantee of schemes lasting more than 30 years is conservation covenants—an excellent innovation in the Bill that we will come to in due course.

I note that there is reference to the use of alternative metrics other than the one developed by Natural England, metric 3.0, for use by TCPA developments. I can see no reason why NSIPs should not use the same metric. Any alternative metrics developed would mean that one NSIP’s 10% BNG would not necessarily be comparable with another’s. The current version of this metric is in use by major infrastructure delivery bodies such as Network Rail, Highways England, National Grid, et cetera. Of course, as my noble friend has said, no metric currently exists for marine developments; these will require a specific approach to be agreed on, and then some statutory instruments made in due course. It is a complicated area; it is better we get it right than rush it.

Finally, I note that there is no requirement for land delivering NSIPs’ biodiversity net gain to be registered on the national net-gain register developed for TCPA schemes. As I understand it, the statement by the developers must set out the gain to be achieved and how it is to be recorded. If they do not use the same register as the TCPA then, even if they are publicly available elsewhere, that is an unnecessary hassle. I would expect to see all terrestrial and intertidal NSIPs using the national net-gain register. There is nothing about the design of that register that would preclude its usage by such NSIP schemes. Furthermore, as quasi-government-funded projects, I cannot see an argument why there should be any reason why an NSIP should not see its net gain registered in a public and transparent manner in the same way that we expect private developments to be. NSIPs and TCPA schemes will both be engaging in the same net-gain market and it is critical that each is held to the same high standards that having net gains registered on the national register will provide for.

The only exception I can see to the above is an argument possibly requiring a different mechanism for marine NSIPs. At present, the register has been designed for terrestrial and intertidal schemes, and it does not cover sub-tidal. However, as soon as there is greater clarity about the nature of marine net-gain schemes I think that Defra and Natural England can discuss how the register could be adapted, and what resources would be needed to allow it to accommodate marine net gain.

With these technical queries—and they are technical queries. not criticisms—I am delighted to support this excellent new clause. I reiterate that it is an incredible achievement for my noble friend and Defra to get BNG for national infrastructure projects, and get every other department, including the Treasury, to sign up to it. I will be happy to accept my noble friend’s amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, it is a particular pleasure to commend his Amendment 201, also backed by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, although my perspective on it is a little different. This is potentially one of the most important amendments that has been tabled. If we are to see biodiversity net gain actually survive and thrive, we should look at the last paragraph of the lines that would be left out by Amendment 201:

“Paragraph 13 does not apply in relation to … development of such other description as the Secretary of State may by regulations specify.”


That is a get-out clause for the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—perhaps being very charitable and coming from a slightly different political perspective —said, “This is perhaps just a comfort blanket for the Treasury.” I think it is a get-out-of-jail-free card that simply cannot be allowed to remain in the Bill. That is absolutely crucial.

This is a very long list of amendments, and amendments to amendments, so the easiest way of approaching it might be to run through them chronologically. I am happy to commend all the amendments in this group, including the government amendments. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that the Minister can be proud of the additions that are here. This is a very clear sign that campaigning works: we know that a great many NGOs, campaign groups, individuals and Members of your Lordships’ House have been working very hard to ensure that biodiversity net gain covers our nationally significant infrastructure projects. There is real progress in government Amendment 194B. However, the number of amendments shows how much that still needs to be strengthened.

Running through some of the most significant of those, and those to which I have added my name or tabled myself, I begin with Amendment 196 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, also signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and myself. Obviously,

“maintained for at least 30 years”

is grossly inadequately in the kind of circumstances that we are talking about. As noble Lords have already said, the destruction is going to effectively be permanent. If we are seeing replacement structures and natural conditions put in, they have to continue indefinitely. Thirty years, in terms of nature, is merely a blink of an eye.

Amendments 198 and 199, both of which appear in my name—also kindly backed by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—seek to ensure that what is done in securing biodiversity gain continues. Amendment 198 refers to

“proof that sufficient funds have been allocated to implement the plan in full, including contingencies.”

As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was referring to HS2, I was thinking about some horrific case studies associated with that from a couple of years ago. We saw trees—little saplings that were planted as part of HS2 offsetting plans in a very dry, hot year—left to die because it was cheaper to do that and replant them than to water them. That really is a demonstration of the way in which externalised costs and the need to ensure that biodiversity is allowed to establish and thrive have to be built into the Bill. Ensuring that the money is there is not going to guarantee that totally, but at least it is a start.

Amendment 199 strengthens the argument on sufficient funds. Of course, we know that many developers of all kinds of projects go broke. They undergo restructuring; they mysteriously disappear into offshore entities that are impossible to trace, and ownership is impossible to trace. We need to ensure that the funding for any biodiversity net gain is fully provided.

Amendment 201AB on monitoring is particularly important, and I commend those who identified the issue. It requires that an independent body be established to check the reality of biodiversity gain. Reading this, I was thinking about the practical reality of the huge issue we have with building standards, and the fact that we know that most of the buildings constructed in the UK now do not even meet our inadequate standards to which they are supposed to be built when they are actually put to the test. That is very often under a self-certification scheme. It is absolutely crucial that we have genuinely independent verification of this gain being made.

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to this group and pass observations briefly on other issues raised by the Delegated Powers Committee that are covered by other amendments, so that I do not have to speak again and take up the time of the House.

I begin by saying how nice it is to see my noble friend and roommate Lord Naseby back in the Chamber. I also see that we share the same non-barber. In contradiction to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I want pensioners, not youngsters, on my pension board.

As chair of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I give a very warm welcome to these concessions from the Government in Clauses 11 to 17 and Clause 25. As noble Lords will know, our report was highly critical of a number of delegated powers in the Bill, and it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that the Government, and particularly my noble friend the Minister, have listened to quite a bit of what we recommended. I am sure that the whole committee would be delighted if the Minister would go one step further and accept our remaining recommendations, but that might be a bridge too far for her.

The government amendments to Clauses 11 to 17 now mean that all regulations, and not just the first ones, made under the provisions will have to be affirmative. We said in our report that the Government had failed to justify the first-time affirmative regime. We accept that there will be measures where the first regulation is major and should be affirmative and that subsequent ones might be just little tweaks where the negative procedure might be appropriate. However, that is not always the case, and we see a growing tendency among government departments, in addition to bunging highly inappropriate Henry VIII clauses into every Bill, to use this ploy of applying the first-time affirmative procedure and then the negative procedure for all subsequent regulations. The subsequent regulations here could be as important as the first regulation and I thank the Minister for making the change. The same reasoning applies to Clause 124, and I regret that the Government will not make that affirmative too.

We all accept that speed is often essential, but there is an alternative to the negative procedure which is just as speedy: the made affirmative procedure, whereby the Government lay the regulation, it comes into force immediately and then Parliament has 40 days to confirm it. That is a far better procedure than the Opposition having to put down a Motion against a negative resolution. This procedure would deal also with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, on the negative procedure. I pay tribute to my illustrious predecessor, my noble friend Lady Fookes, as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee. Today, she made very telling points on the made affirmative procedure and first-time affirmatives.

I welcome the government amendment to Clause 25 too. We generally deplore Henry VIII powers, and for very good reasons: they deprive Parliament of the opportunity to scrutinise properly legislation that should go through all the procedures applied to Bills and Acts of Parliament. It is quite wrong to use the negative procedure, where there is no discussion whatsoever, for Henry VIII powers. At least with the affirmative procedure there is 90 minutes of debate.

As for the government amendment to Clause 47, we said:

“The fact that the Government have not yet worked out how multiple-employer collective money purchase schemes should be regulated has led to very wide powers being conferred by clause 47(3) to (5). Subsection (3) confers a power on the Secretary of State to make further provision in regulations about multiple-employer collective money purchase schemes. Although specific things are mentioned in subsection (3) as to what the powers may be used for. These are not exhaustive of the things which may be dealt in the regulations.”


We therefore recommended that the delegation of powers was inappropriate.

My noble friend the Minister’s amendment goes some way to flesh out the details of the plans, but we are still concerned that they give extensive powers to the Secretary of State. I was going to award the department and my noble friend eight out of 10, but in view of her generosity of spirit, graciousness and courtesy today, I will upgrade that to nine out of 10. While I would have liked all our recommendations to have been accepted, I congratulate the department and my noble friend for moving on so many of them when other Ministers and departments have obstinately refused to budge on anything.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]]

I thank your Lordships’ House for allowing me to speak. I apologise for the earlier confusion. I also apologise in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for upsetting the rhythm of his speech. I thank him and other noble Lords for providing an introduction to Amendment 33. I must pay tribute to the campaign group ShareAction, which has done a lot of work on the amendment. I know that it has informed other noble Lords about it.

I moved the amendment in Committee. In response, the Minister pointed to the consultation on the future of trusteeship, which concluded that, due to a lack of consensus on how to address the issue, it would look at setting up, and is setting up, an industry working group to look at the diversity of pension boards. While this is welcome, we need the data to inform that work. I ask the Minister to consider incorporating this into future versions of the Bill.

A further development has happened since we last debated the Bill. There has of course been a great upswelling of frustration and understandable anger, represented by the Black Lives Matters movement. The issue of ensuring that all voices in our society are heard and have decision-making powers is particularly pressing. I urge Members of your Lordships’ House to consider it.

In response to the amendment in Committee, the Minister stressed that she wanted the pensions dashboard to focus on the provision of basic information. That is why the amendment has been amended so that it does not refer to this information being on the pensions dashboard, but rather that it would simply be reported. Information on diversity could be published elsewhere. That might be on the Pensions Regulator’s website, or as an annexe to its planned SIP repository.

Other noble Lords have referred to the level of inequality in our society and the lack of diversity. I will finish by reflecting on what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, and the fact that a 2016 survey showed that on average 83% of pension boards are male and that a quarter are all male. That reflects another crucial disparity: we all know that there is a very large pay gap between men and women, but the pensions pay gap, at 40%, is double the pay gap. These inequalities have to be tackled in our society along with levels of inequality and poverty. We have had a lot of discussions about intergenerational fairness, but we must not forget that there are already a lot of people at pension age now who really are struggling to get by in this difficult world.

I thank your Lordships’ House for the debate that we have had thus far and I look forward to further debates.