Budget Statement

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the OEP—the office for environmental protection—was heralded by the Government in October 2019, with its offices to be in Worcester. It took two years to appoint an interim CEO on 28 January this year, but this post will last only until December, just 12 months. The G7 summit in Cornwall and COP 26 will both happen this year, but the Government’s green agenda will be no further forward. The Environment Bill, having been stalled, is now seriously threatened as the Bill team has been disbanded.

I welcome the levelling-up including rural areas, but am not holding my breath. There is much in the Budget to help the environment—green gilts, green national savings, offshore wind, hydrogen and energy storage—and a plethora of strategies in the pipeline to come soon, but no mention of just when “soon” will be. The UK infrastructure bank is to assist, among others, farmers to move to net zero. It will also support new entrants into farming and tenant farmers but, as ever, there is little detail of how this will happen.

Green technological investments are one side of meeting environmental and carbon targets. The other side is an independent regulator, the OEP, to set challenging targets and enforcement to penalise the polluters. Can the Minister indicate just how the OEP is be funded so that it can begin its essential work, and when this will happen?