Environment Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Cameron of Dillington
Main Page: Lord Cameron of Dillington (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Cameron of Dillington's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, as someone who spoke passionately about the independence of the OEP at earlier stages of the Bill, I support my noble friend Lord Krebs in his amendment.
The OEP will be at the centre of our country’s new environmental future: post Brexit, post COP 26 and post COP 15. The world is changing fast, and I am pleased to say that, as the Minister mentioned earlier, we are slowly waking up to the environmental dangers we face and gradually—very gradually—moving in the right direction.
We all have great hopes for and expectations of the OEP, and within the nation’s ambitions to drive a cleaner, more sustainable and more biodiverse future, I cannot stress how important it is that we get the OEP right. The success or otherwise of everything in the Bill depends on it. At the moment, it still looks as though it will be a tool of the very department it should be overseeing, as has been mentioned.
Let us not forget that Defra is in charge of and funds our most important environmental bodies: Natural England and the Environment Agency. Even local authorities do much of their environmental work in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency, so the auditing and bringing to book of these, our most important environmental bodies, will be crucial. Sadly, in my experience of working with NDPBs within the Defra family, I believe this is unlikely to happen if Defra is allowed to exert undue influence over the OEP. As I said in debates at earlier stages, the OEP has not only to be independent but to be seen to be independent, and at the moment there is a severe danger that it will be neither.
This House’s views on the vital importance of the independence of the OEP have been expressed again and again by noble Lords from all sides of the House with much more eloquence than I can muster, so I will not go on, but I urge Defra, which originally fired the arrow of an independent OEP when Michael Gove was Secretary of State, to now let it fly. This is the department’s chance to do that.
This excellently crafted compromise amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Krebs is, like all compromises, probably not to the satisfaction of all, but I strongly believe that the Government and all noble Lords should now grasp this opportunity to resolve the impasse and give us an OEP we can be proud of by voting for my noble friend’s Motion F1.
My Lord, extremely briefly, I offer the Green group’s support for all the opposition amendments in this group. On Motion E1, I have a question for the Minister. Will he acknowledge to the House that we cannot keep the same mantra of “It is either deal with climate change or deal with national security” and acknowledge that, as the integrated review says, the climate emergency is the number one threat that the Government should be focused on internationally?
On introducing this debate on Motions F1 and G1, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said that he was not commenting on any individual involved in the OEP. I shall comment on individuals, to note the two noble Lords moving those Motions and urge noble Lords to support those extremely distinguished Members of our House in their area of absolute expertise and get behind them.