Nature’s Rights Bill [HL]

Lord Lebedev Excerpts

Friday 3rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lebedev (CB)]

My Lords, this Bill addresses one of the greatest crises of our times: the ravaging of nature and the destruction of the environment on which we depend and of which we are an inseparable part. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on her good fortune in coming second in the Private Members’ Bill ballot and using that opportunity to bring forward this Bill. I lend my voice in support of her.

The noble Baroness has made the case for the Bill with admirable clarity and passion. She is right to remind us in this House of the scale and speed with which the natural world is being destroyed. With deforestation, loss of habitats, the hunting of endangered species for gain, unsustainable farming practices, the ruthless race for rare earths, the rapacious approach that so many nations take to mineral extraction, and the accumulation of plastics and other waste in our rivers and seas, mankind is, in so many ways, laying waste to the planet which is our only home and demonstrating a reckless disregard for its creations, of which we are only one part.

This global phenomenon is sadly all too apparent in our poor stewardship and disdainful lack of care for nature in these islands. The UK is one of the most depleted nations in the world. Valuable habitats have been lost to unsustainable development. Our rivers continue to be polluted by poorly regulated water companies and inadequately supported farmers.

The sanctity and preservation of nature is a deeply personal cause for me. My grandfather, Professor Vladimir Sokolov, was a pioneering zoologist and ecologist and a member of the Brundtland Commission, which helped to define our modern understanding of sustainable development. As a boy, I travelled with him to Africa and across the old Soviet Union, inspired by his tireless work to protect nature. I have tried in my own small way to carry on that work by campaigning against the illegal wildlife trade and supporting indigenous communities to protect their way of life and the precious environments on which they and the species they live alongside depend. I am particularly moved by the efforts I have been proud to support to safeguard African elephants and other megafauna, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, reminds us all, nature demands our care and requires our protection.

I know that some aspects of the Bill and the expansive legal and regulatory protection it envisages will not be to the taste of many of your Lordships, but no one has been clearer about their wish that this Bill be improved through debate and dialogue than the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Working with civil society, she has made clear that we need a broader conversation about precisely the measures we need to implement to recognise the interdependence between our species’ fate and that of others.

What cannot be in doubt is the need for greater urgency and action. The Government and their predecessors have taken some important steps, such as moving away from the wasteful system of subsidy we had in the common agricultural policy and providing public money for public goods such as carbon sinks and enhanced habitats. The 25-year environment plan, with its targets for habitat reclamation, the creation of marine protected areas and the establishment of the Office for Environmental Protection, is a welcome move forward, but the public expect us to go further. I am sure your Lordships are familiar with the work of the gifted nature writer Robert Macfarlane. His latest book Is a River Alive? is a runaway Sunday Times bestseller, its popularity speaking to the new clamour for us all to recognise what we owe nature. We need to recast the language of rights and duties to arrest and transcend the destruction of the natural world. This Bill will help us do just that, and I am pleased to be able to support it at its Second Reading.