Environment Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to offer the Green group’s support for this amendment—there not being enough space, given the cross-party and non-party signatures already on it. I particularly compliment the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on her comprehensive introduction, and the following two speakers on their excellent additions to it.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made a point about processed food, particularly ultra-processed food, a definition which the Government unfortunately still have not accepted, despite it being widely accepted around the world in terms of nutrition. Ultra-processed food accounts for 68% of the calories in the British diet. That is so-called food that bears no relationship to what started out on the farm. We know what we need for public health and for the state of our natural environment: far more production of vegetables and fruit, ideally produced here in the UK, meaning real changes in our farming systems.

I note the reference by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, to the Climate Change Committee’s land use report. That said that we need to see a 20% reduction in food waste and a 20% reduction per-person in the consumption of beef, lamb, and dairy. Essentially, we need to see a massive reduction in factory farming, in methods of production that are causing enormous environmental damage, and we must stop food waste. Feeding perfectly good food to animals to produce a small amount of protein is food waste.

It was very disappointing that, in response to the Dimbleby report, we heard, though not in this place and perhaps not even within Parliament, some very dismissive comments from Ministers, yet we went right through the Agriculture Bill, the Trade Bill, and this Bill, being told: “Wait for the Dimbleby report, wait for the Dimbleby report.” That was supposed to be providing the direction. If the Government do not adopt that, we need to see this on the face of the Bill.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, sadly, I was too slow to get my name on to this amendment, but I think that it has complete support around the House. I have just one point, which is that this is something that we must be focused on not only in the UK but globally. As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said, we must have farming that is absolutely hand in glove with nature. When the Select Committee on Environment and Climate Change looked at COP 15 and some of the essential issues that must be tackled, this whole issue of addressing the global food chain was absolutely critical. Therefore, we commend the noble Baroness for all her campaigning on this issue and hope that the Government take the food strategy seriously as all of us in this House know that they should.

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[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I added my name to my noble friend’s amendment. When he first proposed it to me I was not quite clear what the intention was, but it is quite clear what it requires. It gives us a metric —a figure—to display to the public what is a central matter of political dispute in this and many other countries, namely the claim that to achieve green growth and a reduction of greenhouse gases is in direct conflict with the ability to grow and become more prosperous. This country is one of the few countries that has managed to resolve that over the past 20-odd years. In most years we have grown the economy and reduced our greenhouse gases. That will be more difficult in the future and it is more difficult around the world.

All the amendment is asking is that the Government, the Treasury and the Bank of England in particular adopt some metric as an objective of economic policy and turn the ratio between growth and the reduction in greenhouse gases into a forward-looking metric that reduces our dependency on fossil fuels while assuring the public that we are still increasing prosperity. It is possible that the econometricians, statisticians and everybody else can work out a more complex or a simpler figure, but we need one figure that on a rolling basis measures the past and gives us a target and a tool for the future, so that we can counter a very insidious position where the climate pessimists say it cannot be done.

Of course, the polemicists in this argument on social media and more broadly not only emphasise that position in this country; it is making life difficult in many other countries. It defined Trump’s America and to a degree still hamstrings the American Government. It means that, however sophisticated their regimes, the oil producers still trot out the conflict as an excuse for not doing anything that will lead to a meaningful delivery of either the Kyoto or the Paris commitments. Of course, the conflict and the political argument are at their most acute in the poorest countries, where constraints on fossil fuel-based energy are seen as a barrier to raising the living standards of the poorest and most wretched on the earth.

That is why having a clear metric might help us in international negotiations as well. At present, the post-Paris commitments of each signatory are expressed in different terms. Most of them are absolute reductions in greenhouse gases, some are reductions in what they call energy intensity, and others are just lists of particular measures. It is quite difficult to determine the relativity between these different commitments and impossible to compare the level of their commitment with what are supposedly the Paris objectives.

If we started here and the Government committed to getting the Office for National Statistics and the other relevant bodies to address this issue and to come up with a single, clear measure—one that carries at least the broad range of political opinions in this country —we could then move on to convince the OECD and the rest of the world. We can start here. Whether in this Bill or in some other context, the Government really need to commit themselves to having a clear metric here, and I hope the Minister can give some encouragement to that view tonight.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly, in a slightly curious position, to speak on Amendment 119 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, and signed by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I continue to support this amendment while disagreeing with most of what they just said.

I will start with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on prosperity and GDP growth. If we define prosperity as a good quality of life and a healthy life, GDP growth is profoundly not coupled to what I would call prosperity. In both these contexts I point noble Lords to an excellent, if now slightly old, book, Tim Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth, which started out life as a government report. Professor Jackson continues to work with the APPG on Limits to Growth to produce excellent further reports on that.

However, I am sure noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I will not reprise the whole growth debate at this stage of the evening. What I will point out is that we have people coming from different sides saying that we need a decent measure. Further, on the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, the figures we have for our reduced carbon emissions exclude emissions produced offshore and used by us. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said earlier, we are not counting the emissions associated with the blueberries we consume from overseas. We need to have counting. This is one measure of having true accounting of the actual cost.

Finally, on GDP, it is appropriate in the Environment Bill to look at how faulty GDP is as a measure. If you cut down a forest, you count the cost of selling the timber in GDP figures but not the cost of the lost forest. That really is a demonstration of how utterly faulty GDP is as a measure.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, for his Amendment 119; I will speak very briefly. He talked about having an international system of climate parameters, a uniform approach and targets ahead of COP 26. I listened very carefully, as I always do, to my noble friend Lord Whitty on the importance of having a metric that measures performance, past and future. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, put across a really interesting point about GDP growth, prosperity and making sure we do not lose that prosperity in economic figures. A lot of interesting points were made in this very important debate, and I hope to hear the answers from the Minister.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 124, which is exploratory in character, on encouraging the use of reusable nappies. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and I have been working with the Nappy Alliance to try to inject some momentum and common sense into a subject that affects every one of us at some point in our lives. Disposable nappies comprise around 8% of residual waste in England, costing local authorities £140 million a year and making the waste pretty awful for the bin brigade.

Rebecca Pow, the responsible Minister, was kind enough to write to me to confirm that we have wide powers in the Bill to do whatever might be needed in terms of labelling or standards. If we go down that road, I would share the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for consistency in labelling products that go into the waste stream. Ideally, this should apply across the UK to make it easier for manufacturers of nappies to comply. I add that reusable nappies are much more convenient and easier to handle these days than the terry nappies and pins that I used with my four boys.

I think there is also a need for some seed corn funding. There is a big saving from using reusable nappies—£420 for three years of nappies, compared to £2,250 for disposables, according to the Money Advice Service—but it is a bit more work, especially in the early stages, and you have to find cash up front. A number of nappy libraries are helping with this, but we need a source of funding for mothers who cannot afford the outlay.

Society will also save. We spend at least £70 million a year on landfill for nappies and, in London alone, 47,000 tonnes of nappy waste is generated annually. Could we use the landfill tax or some other source of funding for green purposes to prime and promote a national scheme, as the Nappy Alliance would like?

Finally, the Minister explained at a very useful meeting that Defra is awaiting the imminent results of the independent environmental assessment being undertaken on the detailed costs. Can she tell me who is doing this work and when it will report? Will she undertake to write to me and the Nappy Alliance, as soon as the results are available, with a plan to support the use of reusable nappies in a way that is friendly to our hard-pressed parents, so is voluntary and easy? I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer my support, as I attached my signature to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. It may come as a surprise to the House to see both of us on the same amendment, but that shows its breadth of support. Given the hour, some people may feel like they have started to dream; for the Minister, it is possibly a nightmare. But I am not going to speak at length, because we have canvassed on this, both in Committee and on an earlier amendment that appeared in my name on the labelling of single-use nappies.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, just outlined, there are real reasons in savings for families. The figures that she gave translate to a saving of £11 a week over the average time that a baby or toddler is in nappies. This is where we perhaps part company, because I will point out that that would almost make up for half the cut in universal credit that is approaching.

It is interesting that, overnight, we saw significant investment in a UK maker of reusable nappies. This is a chance for the Government to be promoting a good, positive, green industry—something they often talk about. There are huge environmental, social and economic benefits to this amendment. It is common sense and has support from across the House, so I hope we hear something positive from the Minister.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not repeat what I said in our previous debates on this, but I very much support the noble Baroness’s amendment. We agree that the Government should take action to encourage reusable nappies, including, where necessary, incentives for the low paid to be able to access them in the first place. The sooner we use innovation to encourage alternatives to single-use nappies and that whole industry, the better. On that basis, as the late hour is descending on us, I look forward to hearing what the Minister says.

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Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

126: After Clause 136, insert the following new Clause—
“Ecocide
(1) It is an objective of Her Majesty’s Government to support the negotiation of an amendment to the Statute of the International Criminal Court, done at Rome on 17th July 1998, to establish a crime of ecocide.(2) In pursuance of subsection (1), a relevant Minister of the Crown must promote discussion of such an amendment, either independently or jointly with other sovereign states, within the Working Group on Amendments of the International Criminal Court within 12 months of this Act being passed.(3) In this section “ecocide” refers to unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott, Lady Whitaker, and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, for offering their support to Amendment 126, on ecocide. A number of other Members of your Lordships’ House would have brought extra cross-party support to this amendment if there had been space.

I have been asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, one of your Lordships’ House’s foremost advocates of human rights, to share, with your Lordships’ permission, a few words from her. She wished to say: “Criminal offences are not to be created lightly, and I have resisted so many, but the repercussions of ecocide go way beyond those of most criminal acts. The emergency demands this measure, as should our grandchildren.”

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and Stop Ecocide International for agreeing to a meeting following Committee stage of the Bill. I found the debate we had in Committee and the subsequent engagement hugely insightful. As the noble Baroness knows and as I have made clear in my contribution during that debate, I very strongly agree with the premise of her argument.

As she knows, ecocide is not a crime recognised under international law and there is currently no consensus on a legal definition. Before the ICC and the crimes it has jurisdiction over could be established by the Rome statute adopted in 1998, ecocide had to be removed in the drafting stages because of the lack of agreement among states parties to the court. The Rome statute provides some protections to the natural environment in armed conflict. It designates international attacks that knowingly and excessively cause widespread, long term, and severe damage to the natural environment as a war crime. But ecocide in the broader sense, in the manner in which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, described it, as an internationally punishable crime, has not yet been recognised by the United Nations.

The UK’s current priority regarding the International Criminal Court, as I said in Committee, is to reform it so that it functions better and can deliver successful prosecutions of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. I know noble Lords on all sides of the House share that ambition. As I understand it, if an amendment to the statute was adopted, it would only bind states parties which have ratified it. If not ratified, the court has no jurisdiction over those states. It is likely, and certainly possible, therefore, that the biggest culprits in relation to ecocide and egregious environmental damage would be exempt.

However, reform of the court is a long and complicated process. The independent expert review of the court made over 300 recommendations to improve the workings of the court, some of them fundamental. It will take time to implement these recommendations and that is a priority not just for the UK but many other states parties to the Rome statute. A significant amendment such as that proposed is currently unlikely to achieve the support of two-thirds of the states parties necessary to amend the Rome statute to make ecocide an international crime. As I said in Committee, pursuing it would require enormous heavy lifting on our part, with—at this stage—little prospect of success. There is a concern it could detract from the goal of improving the court’s effectiveness, which in any case would be a prerequisite for a meaningful application of ecocide.

Although I am afraid that I cannot commit here and now to promoting this campaign or concept internationally, I very much share the noble Baroness’s interest in this area, as she knows. I cannot take action as part of this Environment Bill but I am keen to continue discussions with the noble Baroness on how she and others believe the UK, through these international channels, can better lead in recognising and tackling egregious environmental crimes. In the meantime, I very much hope she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and I thank the Minister for his response. It is probably rare that we have seen such quality and intensity of debate on an amendment at this time of the evening, and I sincerely thank everyone who has contributed to that. I particularly thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Whitaker, who have been my stalwart supporters throughout this debate. It was wonderful to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, about her long family connection to this campaign.

That ties in with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who outlined the long-term history of the development of this concept. I am not going fully to engage in the legal issues and the questions that he raised, given the hour, but I will point out that the definition of ecocide in subsection (3) of the amendment was developed after a long process involving a distinguished panel of jurists, of whom Philippe Sands—a name well-known to many Members of your Lordships’ House—was co-chair. The interesting approach of holding states responsible is something I will certainly look into further.

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who also engaged on this issue in Committee. The point that he made—that reform of procedure can go hand in hand with legal reform—very much answers one of the points made by the Minister. The noble and learned Lord pointed out that there is significant momentum in continental Europe. I would also point out that there is significant momentum within the UK, in Scotland. Indeed, a briefing was held there in the last few days with wide parliamentary engagement, so I come back to the point about this Parliament really needing to catch up.

The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, was significant. The Minister, in Committee and again tonight, repeated the suggestion that this would involve enormous heavy lifting and would require lots of resources from the UK Government in order to make progress. The amendment does not ask the Government to pursue a drive for the creation of the crime; it asks them to promote a continuation of the discussion. I do not believe the phrase “enormous heavy lifting” is an appropriate label for the promotion of discussion.

Before I conclude, I want to pick up on what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said about the Law Commission. That issue was also raised in Committee and I do not think we have had an answer from the Minister in either of those discussions. There was a commitment to refer to the Law Commission. Can the Minister inform me now of progress on that, or at least commit to writing to me as progress is made on reference to the Law Commission?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

With the noble Baroness’s permission, I will make a commitment to the second of her suggestions. I will write to her and continue this discussion.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the Minister for his response. It is with regret, and a feeling that we really are delaying while the planet burns, that I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 126 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

126A: After Clause 136, insert the following new Clause—
“Right of access to land(1) Within two years of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish a draft Bill to provide for a statutory right to access land for recreational purposes and educational activities, including building of understanding of natural or cultural heritage, provided that the land is accessed responsibly in accordance with a code of practice, with landowners having the responsibility to take reasonable action to ensure the right can be exercised.(2) The Bill must provide that the right to access land must extend to rivers and other waterways.(3) The Bill must provide that the right to access land does not extend to land on which a building or other structure, plant or machinery, or a caravan or other structure stands, and the curtilage of such, a sports field or land planted with a crop.”

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Yes, my Lords, me again. I have been begged to keep this brief, given the hour, and I am going to do my best, but this is also an important amendment. Looking back to the debate on day one of Committee on 21 June, I have not calculated how many hours of debate ago that was but “a lot” will probably suffice. We have had extensive debates about the need for people to be able to get out into the natural world, to spend time in it, to engage with it, to develop their understanding and love of it and to deliver positive benefits for it with their time and attention.

I shall just mention Amendment 8, creating targets for public access, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market; Amendment 9, connecting people with nature, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas; and Amendment 56, making a change to the current provision in the Bill to say that the Government must take steps to connect people with nature, also proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market. There was also Amendment 284 in my name, calling for a report on these issues. There were, I think, others, and I apologise for not making a complete list. I was surprised and a little disappointed to find that none of those amendments reappeared at Report, given the importance of the issue, and that the Bill already states that the Government may include steps to

“improve people’s enjoyment of the natural environment”

in its environmental improvement plans.

We all know that many NGOs, campaigners and members of the public have been engaged in this debate all the way through, in ways that might not always be visible to the public but certainly have impact in the House. It is important, as it was on Monday night, to give due weight and hearing to their efforts, however inconvenient the hour that our procedures have forced the debate into. I have shared with a number of noble Lords, and would be delighted to do so with anyone else I might have missed, an extensive briefing on this amendment from the Right to Roam campaign, which calls for an extension to the Countryside and Rights of Way Act in England, so that millions more people can have easy access to open space and the physical and mental benefits it has been proven to bring, as well as enabling them to bring benefits to nature from their presence.

The amendment that I present here is modest. It calls for the start of a debate in the form of a publication within two years of a draft Bill. I sincerely thank the Bill Office for assisting me in its preparation; its relatively late arrival at this stage is entirely my own fault. The draft Bill would provide for statutory right to access to land for recreational purposes and educational activities, including building understanding of our natural and cultural heritage, provided that the land is accessed responsibly in accordance with a code of practice, with landowners having responsibility to take reasonable action to ensure that the right can be exercised. That is an outline based on the Scottish legislation.

In looking back to the Committee debate, I have to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for doing some very useful research for me. He noted that the population density of England is 279 people per square kilometre, which is more than four times that of Scotland, at 67 people per square kilometre, and nearly twice that of Wales, at 151 people per square kilometre. The noble Viscount used that figure to suggest that we could not have the right to roam in England, but I would turn it around and suggest instead that those figures are a powerful argument for opening up as much of the countryside of England as possible to give those people space to breathe and roam. The argument is even stronger for England than it is for Scotland and Wales.

Just 1% of the population own half the land in England—a rather significant number of them in your Lordships’ House—with the other 99% having the right to roam on just 8% of the remainder. Open access land under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act is only mountains, moorland, downland, heaths and commons and, more recently, the English coastal path. There are also rights in Forestry Commission forests. However, by their nature, these are spaces largely remote from where people live. As many noble Lords agreed in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, among them, we need far more public transport into these areas—but that is an issue for another day.

Looking back over the debate in Committee, I think that we extensively canvassed the benefits for the public of access to nature, so I shall not go over the same ground. However, I want to raise one additional point that was not really discussed in Committee. We know so little about the fast-changing natural world, subject to the pressure of exotic animals and diseases and, of course, our fast-changing climate.

There are significant benefits to the landscape, to the environment, to nature, of having many more people in that environment. Citizen science has a growing place in growing our understanding. The RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch is billed as the world’s largest wildlife survey—how much larger and more wide-ranging it could be with the right to roam. The British Trust for Ornithology monitors the population changes of 117 breeding bird species across the UK, thanks to the dedication of almost 3,000 volunteers who survey randomly selected 1 square kilometre spaces each spring, spaces to which they are given access.

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for her amendment. Without going into the arguments, everything she said about the benefits of access to nature, I and colleagues fully support and agree with. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 allows the establishment, recording and appeal of rights of way to agreed standards and sets out people’s rights and responsibilities.

The refreshed Countryside Code helps the public enjoy the countryside in a safe and respectful way, and we are supporting and enhancing access to the countryside in a number of different ways, including laying legislation to streamline the process of recording and changing rights of way. We are completing the England coastal path and creating a new northern national trail. Our agricultural plans set out examples of the types of actions that we envisage paying for under schemes which include engagement with the environment. We are incentivising access via our new England woodland creation offer. There is already extensive access to rivers and other waterways which are managed by navigation authorities, with licences available for recreation and leisure use. The Government’s position remains that public access to nature is a fundamentally good thing. However, the Government’s view is also that access to waterways which are not managed by navigation authorities should be determined through voluntary agreements between interested parties.

I hope that what I have said demonstrates to the noble Baroness that the Government very much share her concerns and aspirations in relation to access to nature and that she will be willing to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for her positive and cheering contribution. I very much echo the point she made about how disappointing it is that the sustainable farming initiative pilots do not contain such provisions and that it would be nice to see progress on that. I also thank her for highlighting the way Covid has brought about a sea change in many people’s relationship with the natural world.

On the questions the noble Baroness raised about the prescriptive nature of the amendment, it is very much based on Scottish law, which is already in place and has worked through exactly what the code might look like. It has been very well worked through in Scotland—so the model is very much there.

On the Minister’s response, I am pleased to hear his acknowledgement of the benefits of having people out in the countryside. That is something I will certainly be taking up with him in future. I also point out that he raised the issue of rivers. It is perhaps not very well understood outside certain communities that 90% of our rivers are off limits to wild swimmers, paddle-boarders and kayakers. Of course, wild swimming is a very fast-growing, popular and healthy pastime, and this is something that people are increasingly discovering for themselves and are very disappointed by, and it is something that very much needs to be raised.

None the less, given the hour—I hope we will have a more extensive debate on this at a more reasonable hour very soon—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 126A withdrawn.