Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
Debate between Lord Benyon and Earl Russell(3 days, 20 hours ago)
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Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Assessing the Materiality of Nature-Related Financial Risks for the UK is an outstanding report, which needs to be read by chairmen of risk companies all over the world. It identifies precisely that this problem is not just about the environment but about risk. The net-zero economy grew by 9% last year. The value of net-zero technologies is now £74 billion, and the same will happen for nature. Therefore, there is an economic imperative as well as one that should drive us because we need to do the right thing for nature.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, the UK was an early adopter of the TNFD framework, and it is great that more 300 businesses have now signalled their intention to sign up. What actions are the Government undertaking to promote and champion the framework internationally, particularly at key global functions such as the G7 and the G20 summits this year?
Lord Benyon (Con)
Climate and nature finance are raised at all those fora. The most important thing is that the Government have put a large amount of money in. We have backed the Green Finance Institute, a wonderful organisation, with £4.8 million to do a number of different pieces of work for us. This is being talked about in all sorts of fora and was mentioned last week at the World Bank spring meetings. It is now embedded in how risk is talked about as well as in how Governments are supporting a global endeavour to get some universal baseline which companies can understand and which is not overburdensome but which makes them look at their supply chains.
Forest Risk Commodity Regulations
Debate between Lord Benyon and Earl Russell(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Benyon (Con)
The Government are doing a lot to prevent deforestation in addition to this measure, which, as she knows, came from the Glasgow leaders’ declaration we led on at COP 26 to put an end to deforestation and land degradation by 2030. We are putting this in place. The noble Baroness asked for the date on which it will be laid. We have a few tweaks to make, because we are in negotiation with the EU to make sure that we are getting this right for Northern Ireland. We are working with the EU. With products that come from other countries and are then processed and exported to the EU, we will be working under two systems, and we want to make sure we are getting that right.
In addition, we are doing a range of different activities, including our investments in forests and sustainable land use. Our Partnership for Forests has mobilised £1 billion in private investment and has brought 4.1 million hectares of land under sustainable management and benefited over 250,000 people. I could go on. We are doing a lot in addition to this measure.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, while we welcome these measures, we note that Defra consulted on them in December 2021. They only cover illegal goods and apply to businesses that have a global turnover of over £50 million per year and use over 500 tonnes of beef, leather, cocoa, palm or soya oil per year. Will the Government commit to full alignment with the EU’s deforestation regulations, which cover all forest commodities sourced from both illegal and legal deforestation?
Office for Environmental Protection
Debate between Lord Benyon and Earl Russell(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, raised the issue of peat. The England Peat Action Plan committed us to restoring 35,000 hectares of peat-land by 2025—which is fairly soon—through the nature for climate fund. Through the net-zero strategy we are also committed to restoring 280,000 hectares of peat by 2050. We will bring forward legislation this year to ban the use of peat in horticulture. That is just one area that the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, raised. I also draw her attention to our 34 new landscape recovery projects, which show that we are on track to have 70% of land in environmental land management schemes by 2028. This is progress and has real benefits to our environment on the ground.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, launching the annual assessment, the chair of the OEP said that
“government’s plans must stack up. Government must be clear itself and set out transparently how it will change the nation’s trajectory to the extent now needed, in good time”.
We do not yet have that clarity or transparency. What action will now be taken to meet the key delivery plans, the interim targets, and to implement an effective monitoring and evaluation learning framework?
Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Earl probably missed what I said earlier about the fact that this report covers just two months since the announcement last January—a year ago—of the environmental improvement plan. In a year’s time, he will be able to see how we are doing against that through the next report, in the summer. Through the Environment Act, noble Lords on all sides were rightly keen to ensure that there is an accurate monitoring and reporting system. These are not state secrets; this is 800 pages of data that we can share that underpin the targets that we produce in that plan. We are committed, through parliamentary processes and through the OEP, to report on those monitoring methods. We will continue to do so in an open and transparent way.
Environmental Policies: Timeliness and Effectiveness
Debate between Lord Benyon and Earl Russell(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, the Office for Environmental Protection’s annual report shows that the environmental improvement plan, which sets out legally binding targets, is meeting only four out of 40 of them. With the OEP keeping legal action under active consideration, the Government taking almost a full year to respond to the first OEP report, and the Minister in the other place saying only that the Government will respond in due course, will the Minister give a firm date for when they will provide a formal response to this serious report?
Lord Benyon (Con)
The Environment Act requires the Government to respond within 12 months, and we will respond considerably more quickly than that. I know that the noble Earl is asking me a question, but does he agree with me that this is without any measure of doubt the greenest Government ever? I am proud of that and happy to be held accountable for all these measures. We brought in a landmark piece of legislation in the Environment Act. We have brought in so many other measures that have addressed long-awaited needs in this environment, and without doubt we have the greenest Government ever.
English Flood Defences
Debate between Lord Benyon and Earl Russell(5 months ago)
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Earl Russell
To ask His Majesty’s Government, following widespread flood damage caused by both storm Babet and Ciarán, what action they are taking to ensure all English flood defences are fit for purpose.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are working closely with the Environment Agency and other relevant authorities to ensure that flood defences impacted by recent flooding are repaired. Following Storm Babet and Storm Ciarán, more than 14,000 inspections of flood protection assets have been conducted, with action taken wherever performance was compromised. We have allocated more than £200 million a year for the maintenance of flood defences and aim to achieve getting 94% to 95% of flood-risk assets to their target condition.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, extreme weather is now the new normal. When it comes to flood events, I am not certain that we are ready for the future. Although I recognise that the Government have doubled capital funding, information from the National Audit Office just two weeks ago revealed that the number of properties to be protected from flooding by 2027 has been cut by 40%. In addition, Unearthed has shown that 40,000 of England’s vital flood defences are so damaged as to be almost useless. Why are there no longer-term plans or concrete targets for flood defences beyond 2026-27? Is it time for a full review of our flood defences?
Lord Benyon (Con)
We constantly look over the horizon to make sure that we factor in important phenomena such as climate change and the extreme weather events we are seeing. The National Audit Office has reduced that figure principally because of the inflationary effect on the cost of building concrete and steel defences. Of course, that is only part of it; nature-based solutions are now becoming a key part of our defences. I really question the Unearthed data. The Environment Agency puts all defences in a category from 1 to 5. If it is a category 4, meaning that it is not where you want it to be, it still functions in the main. When we know that a flood is coming, a minor change can be made. That was an unfair description by Unearthed; the figure of 94% to 95% of our assets being in good condition is worthy of comment.