Environment Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I join other noble Lords who have already spoken in warmly welcoming government Amendment 6, which accepts the spirit of the amendment we had put forward. To halt the decline in species by 2030 is a very stretching target and I congratulate the Government on their clear ambition.

For many species, reversing the declines and halting them will require dramatic changes in land use and in habitat restoration. It will involve responding to the vagaries of unpredictable events, such as extreme weather and disease that could easily set progress back. So it is, without doubt, a very stretching target. I will ask the Minister to clarify a few points about it—perhaps, even if he cannot now, he might be able to subsequently in writing. First, what will be the baseline from which the target of halting will be judged? Secondly, which species will be included in the target? Thirdly, how will a composite measure of halting declines be computed if, as seems likely, some species will continue to decline while others do not? Fourthly, who will carry out the independent monitoring to check whether the target has been met: will that be the role of the OEP? Last but not least, who will be accountable if the target is not met?

I now turn to the two other amendments in the group. The amendment to which my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington has just spoken seeks to go further by requiring the Government to reverse the declines. I support it, but, as my noble friend said, this should be a longer-term aim. If the near-miracle of halting declines by 2030 is achieved, I think, inevitably, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said, the measures put in place to halt declines will, in the longer run, result in reversal of the declines—for example, by habitat restoration or creation.

That brings me neatly to Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, to which I have added my name, along with those of my noble friend Lady Boycott and the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, no one would dispute the fact that, if you wish to maintain or restore species abundance, you have to create, maintain or restore the habitats on which those species depend. Therefore, this amendment is, in effect, a necessary precursor to government Amendment 6. Achieving the objective of halting and eventually reversing species decline will depend entirely on our understanding of and restoration of the habitats on which those species depend.

Habitat restoration is in itself a subtle art. In Committee, I referred to the example of the large blue butterfly and the complexity of its habitat requirements that have led successfully to its recrudescence in the south-west of England. Habitat heterogeneity is often crucial. Ecologists agree that one of the important ways in which agricultural intensification has caused dramatic declines in wildlife is because it has replaced a patchwork of different habitats with uniform monocultures. The relationship between species abundance and habitat heterogeneity is complex and needs to be understood.

Finally, in relation to habitat restoration, the so-called Lawton principles, put forward by Sir John Lawton in his review, Making Space for Nature, emphasise that not only do habitats have to be improved—be bigger—but they also have to be better connected, so that fragments of high-quality habitat are connected and crucial individuals and species can move between them. Amendment 9 is part of the package for halting species decline, and I hope that the Minister will accept that it is an essential precursor and adjunct to Amendment 6.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I briefly offer my support for Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, to which I thought I had attached my name; it was an administrative failure on my part that I did not. I also support Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. Both amendments have strong cross-party support. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. Indeed, his questions about how the Government plan to define and measure biodiversity are questions that we canvassed extensively in Committee. I do not believe—I would be happy to be corrected if I am wrong—that we have received any answers to them. It is essential for the understanding of this Bill that those things are defined and set out because, as we discussed in Committee, there are many different aspects of diversity, from genetic variance within a population to the number and range of species, and indeed the range of their habitats.

I will comment briefly on Amendment 6. Like other noble Lords, I welcome it, in that one always has to welcome progress and acknowledge the huge amount of work done by campaigning NGOs and campaign groups to get us this far. There is, however, a thing called “shifting baseline syndrome”. In the brilliant State of Nature reports, which are issued regularly by our NGOs, the baseline is often the 1970s. To quote one figure, more than 40% of species have declined since the 1970s. However, based on the figure from 50 years earlier than that there has been a massive decline. If you go further back, it becomes evident that we live in an incredibly impoverished landscape. In the UK we have lost 133 species since the 1500s. These include obviously charismatic species like the lynx and wolf, but also the apple bumblebee, Mitten’s beardless moss and the common tree frog, which fails to live up to its name.

I was reading, in preparation for this debate, a book called An Environmental History of Wildlife in England, by Tom Williamson. It speaks of 17th century England teeming with wildlife. The polecat and pine marten were present in every county. The great bustard was still a common sight on open land. We should be aiming to restore those kinds of wild landscapes, at least in part, and stopping decline does absolutely nothing to get us to that destination. That is where the habitats amendment, Amendment 9, is really important.

I was once lucky enough to visit in France one of 234 sites that are called—I apologise for my French, which I am told I speak with a broad Australian accent— réserves biologiques intégrales. They started in 1953 and that are quite small pockets of land that have essentially just been left untouched. I was lucky enough to visit one of these sites, and what amazed me was a depth of lichen on the trunks of the trees that you could touch; you felt that your hand sank into it and it went on for ever. That is a depth of richness of wildlife that we are so far away from now but need to start to head back to.

I strongly commend Amendments 7 and 9 to the House, but particularly Amendment 7. This is where I am afraid I will disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, in that I do not think that halting decline is an ambitious target. It is holding us in a state of extreme poverty of nature. We have to do better.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate to listen to. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing forward his amendment. I made up my mind to speak when I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. He put his finger on something very important but then moved off it. Which species are we going to keep? Who is going to decide which species will be protected? One thing that is absolutely certain is that the law of unintended consequences will continue: human beings will get involved in one area that will help some species but will be to the detriment of others. So I hope that my noble friend will tell us how exactly this part of the Bill is going to work.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said that success relies entirely on habitat, but, thank goodness, he changed his mind a little later and went on to say that it is part of a package. Habitat alone will not solve the problem and halt the decline of biodiversity. We need proper farming practices, we need habitats, we need winter feed and spring feed, which farming practices have all but eliminated on agricultural land, and we need predator control. It is a hugely complicated and difficult area. To give a simple example, many of us feed birds in our garden and think that we are doing a great job for nature. We are benefiting some birds; blue tits have certainly increased. But, as a result, a lot of other birds have not increased, because blue tits are quite territorial and quite vicious towards other birds. In this mix, we have some species increase but also some species decline.

To move to a perhaps more rural aspect, one could look at the work that the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust has done with the Allerton Project. It has been trying for years to bring back waders, but unsuccessfully. If my noble friend says that we must bring back waders and even the Allerton Project cannot do so, how will this succeed and what will be the price?

My noble friend the Minister is, I know, terribly keen on white-tailed eagles. They are one of his specialities and he mentioned them in Committee, but they are vicious birds and not terribly good breeders. They are vicious in that, in parts of Scotland that I know, they have driven out the golden eagle. They fight golden eagles and kill hen harriers and peregrines. That is the nature of white-tailed eagles. They are lovely birds to look at, but if you get too many of them you will destroy a whole abundance of species that have been living happily on the moor for hundreds and thousands of years. As they are not terribly good breeders, man will have to intervene to make certain that the numbers were maintained by bringing in hand-reared chicks.

Whatever we do, we are upsetting the balance of nature. Can my noble friend explain how he and the department, and subsequent Ministers, are going to handle this? To me, this is crucial. I thoroughly approve of not only halting the decline but turning it round, but we must be cognisant of the fact that some species will be far worse off. Who will make that decision? Will it be transparent, so that we can all decide whether those are actually the species we want to see decline and the other species increase?