Environment Bill (Eighteenth sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Anthony Browne
Main Page: Anthony Browne (Conservative - South Cambridgeshire)Department Debates - View all Anthony Browne's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Environment Bill (Eighteenth sitting)
Anthony Browne ExcerptsThursday 19th November 2020
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Environment Act 2021 View all Environment Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 19 November 2020 - (19 Nov 2020)
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
As a trained mathematician, I fully support the use of data supporting policy and as chair of the Government’s Regulatory Policy Committee, it was my job to ensure that we had evidence-based policy making. However, I do not think it is good enough just to say that there should or must be data unless we specify what that data is. The risk, otherwise, is that we come up with the wrong sort of data.
Given our shared belief in data, I have been doing a bit of data gathering myself—not counting butterflies and so on, but counting “musts” and “mays”. In clause 94, I counted not just one or two—not three, four or five—but six “musts” and only two “mays”. That shows how strong the paragraph is, with the “musts” outnumbering the “mays” by three to one. Do Opposition Committee members welcome that fact?