Climate and Ecology Bill [HL]

Baroness Blake of Leeds Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my appreciation to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for the opportunity to take part in this Private Member’s Bill, which seeks to tackle an issue that, I am afraid, despite all the warm words and commitments, is being failed by government. I add my concern to that which has been expressed across the House about the silence on net zero and climate emergency issues in the current Conservative leadership debates. It does not bode well for future direction of policy.

It seems appropriate that we are talking about these issues today. There were two items on the “Today” programme this morning on the launch of the British butterfly count, a really important piece of work for us all to take part in, and the stark news just announced that we are heading for a level 4 national emergency heatwave for the first time, predicted for the beginning of next week. As we all know, very sadly, the evidence shows that these extreme weather events are becoming even more frequent as time goes on.

I pay tribute to the many thousands of young people across the country who have done so much to raise the issues concerned and to keep them at the forefront of our debate. I also thank Zero Hour for all its briefings and the information flow that it continues to bring forward. I firmly believe that the climate emergency is the gravest threat facing our country. It will be the British people and future generations who pay the price of government and general failure. Action on climate is also the way to tackle the cost of living crisis and to boost the economy, creating tens of thousands of highly skilled jobs across the whole of the UK.

As the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned, responding to this crisis means

“rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”.

I am afraid that we are simply nowhere near achieving that. For example, the Energy Bill being debated in the House next Tuesday will be the latest way in which the Government are set to let the country and the world down on green energy, blocking cheap power such as onshore wind and solar and refusing to invest for the future, including by cutting domestic energy bills through a national plan for energy efficiency. Where is energy efficiency in that Bill?

The UK is on track to deliver sufficient progress against only eight of 50 new key indicators set out by the Climate Change Committee; 11 are significantly off track. It also warned that the Government have credible plans for only 39% of the emission cuts required to meet the UK’s legally binding carbon budget. This simply is not good enough. What is needed is a joined-up, whole-of-government approach to successfully tackle the interlinked climate and nature crises. So, rather than prescribing specific action, this Bill would instead require the Government to achieve defined targets, including through the development of a strategy for reducing the UK’s overall contribution to emissions. Of course, that does not mean that individual considerations are not vital, and I have some questions for the Minister. I am very happy for her to come back to me on these issues, particularly about the steps that the Government are taking towards the same ends.

As this Bill makes clear, net-zero dates are an important marker, but it is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that we put into the atmosphere that counts. Can the Minister explain how the Government intend to stay within their fair share of the global carbon budget, in order to give us the strongest chance of remaining below safe global temperature rises?

We urgently need to get a full, transparent picture of the entirety of UK greenhouse gas emissions, not just those that take place on UK soil but British import emissions. Could the Minister suggest a timeframe for the inclusion of imported emissions in the UK’s emission targets, so that we might finally take responsibility for our full emissions footprint and bring production home to the UK?

Given the Government’s stated ambition ahead of the COP 15 biodiversity summit to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030—a target reflected in this Bill—what plans do the Government have, before the Montreal summit in December, to align domestic policy with international ambition? Surely the Government can do better than simply halting nature’s decline. Could the Minister explain why it is seemingly good enough to call on other nations to restore nature while at home we are satisfied with managing its decline?

The Bill incorporates a climate and nature assembly as part of the creation of a joined-up climate and nature strategy to achieve its climate and nature targets. Citizens’ assemblies, juries or panels have been proven to work and support political ambitions across the globe. Many agree that the public must be more involved in the just transition we need to become a zero-carbon, nature-positive nation. Perhaps the Minister could set out how the Government mean to meaningfully involve citizens in their decarbonisation plans. If there are no such plans, perhaps she might instead consider raising greater public awareness of the behavioural changes we need to see.

By way of example—and to assist, I hope—when I was leader of Leeds City Council, we declared a climate emergency early in 2019, and were one of the first local authorities to do so. We set up the Leeds Big Climate Conversation, reaching out to all communities across the city, and a citizens’ jury. Its extremely constructive recommendations have informed the Leeds Climate Commission’s roadmap to net zero as a template for the city’s future actions. I think there is a fear of involving the public in this way that we need to get over. It certainly can be done, but the Government need to take more action.

Targets are essential to monitor and measure progress. However, what really counts is delivery and action—both, I am afraid, sadly lacking so far. I urge both this Government and any Government who follow to take this action seriously, and with the urgency so obviously required. This Bill would present a welcome step in that direction, and I am pleased to support its passage through this House today. I look forward with great interest to the Minister’s response to all of the points made in the debate today.

Climate and Ecology Bill [HL]

Baroness Blake of Leeds Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, at Second Reading I was happy to support the principle of this Bill as a way of plugging the gap in the Environment Act 2021, as then outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. I appreciate the reasons he has outlined again today for his decision to concentrate solely on the nature loss reversal target to make the Bill more focused. I therefore support the amendments he has outlined in this respect.

We should not lose sight of the dramatic facts, which have been referred to not only by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, but by the noble Lord, Lord Green. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted nations on earth. Frankly, I was extremely shocked and surprised when I first heard this fact. Many will be surprised, especially now at the end of COP 27, where everybody was rather focusing on the problems in Amazonia. I feel this is an appropriate moment to mention how delighted we are to welcome President Lula’s statements in Cairo yesterday in respect of Brazil’s policies in this area.

In the United Kingdom I am heartened by Defra’s 10-point plan, issued in September, which asks for urgent investment in

“solutions that halt and reverse the decline of biodiversity by 2030.”

It seems to me that this ecology Bill, as I hope it will be at the end of these proceedings, ties in with and will support that objective. I will be interested to hear from my noble friend the Minister the Government’s views and the ways in which the Bill can help further the Government’s aims.

In looking at statistics in the area of biodiversity, we should not forget that the major part of the UK’s biodiversity is to be found in the overseas territories—places such as Tristan da Cunha, the Falkland Islands, St Helena, and so on. My only query to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, is the extent to which he has had contact with the Governments of the overseas territories in forming his decisions on the Bill.

I would also like to hear from the Front Bench the Government’s view on how any future plans to create legally binding targets to deliver their environment policies, which include the provisions of the Bill, will be implemented by the devolved Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who have their own responsibilities in this respect. I support the amendments and the principle of the Bill.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, it is extremely welcome to have the Bill return for Committee, and I appreciate the opportunity to take part and to continue to raise issues that we feel are not being met by this Government and are within our grasp to make a real difference on.

Again, I commend the leadership shown in this area by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, in bringing the Bill forward. I also commend Zero Hour for providing us with all the important briefings to support and improve the quality of our debates, and of course I commend all the campaigners across the country who have worked hard to raise the issues concerned and to push them to the forefront of the political agenda. In today’s debate, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Green, in particular, for sharing his expertise, which added a richness to the discussions at hand.

I turn to the Bill and note all of the comments about the impact of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and what they actually mean. I welcome the decision to give the Bill a more concise focus. I believe that steps to make it more amenable to the Government of course mean that it is more likely to see actual action, which is the reason that we are all here. So I am pleased to support these amendments.

As we heard, the Bill as published had various joined-up objectives: imposing a duty on the Government to introduce a strategy for reducing the UK’s

“overall contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero”;

establishing a “Climate and Nature Assembly” to advise the Government; and giving additional duties to the Climate Change Committee and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. These all remain important aspects, but this group of amendments will leave us with a five-clause Bill with just one major objective for the Secretary of State: a duty to ensure that the UK

“halts and reverses its overall contribution to the degradation and loss of nature in the United Kingdom ... by ... increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations, habitats and ecosystems”

and by

“fulfilling its obligations under the UNCBD and … the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature”.

The case for tackling biodiversity loss, climate change and environmental risks to public health is clear. Research from the Natural History Museum—I am pleased that we have had its input—found that the UK is last among G7 countries in terms of how much diversity survives, and it sits in the bottom 10% of all countries globally. It is worth us all repeating these statistics.

As we have heard, we are one of the most nature-depleted nations on earth. Much damage has already been done, and letting it continue would be even more alarming. Some of our most iconic and much-loved British animals could soon be extinct, including the red squirrel, the wildcat, the water vole, the dormouse and even the hedgehog. We have already seen a two-thirds decline in flying insect numbers in England in just the last 16 years. Thousands of badgers continue to be killed, authorised by this Government—in my view unnecessarily—and there are also bee-killing neonic pesticides. The Government have also failed to act to stop illegal hunting or effectively limit peat extraction and moorland burning.

If the Government fail to deliver on their environmental targets, their promise to protect at least 30% of our land, waters and ocean by 2030 is in serious doubt. It is no surprise that environmental groups, including the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust, have accused the Government of an attack on nature by their policies, such as weakening environmental protections in investment zones, the retained EU law Bill and threatening to downgrade new environment-friendly farming subsidies.

The Government have cut funding for national parks by 40% in real terms over the last decade, leaving our most precious nature sites in crisis. Their plan to make up the shortfall is “through private investment”, without giving any further detail on what that will look like. They also failed to set new 2030 biodiversity targets in line with their legal requirements under the Environment Act 2021, and there is no current suggestion of when these will be set. Perhaps the Minister can comment on this in his remarks.

The Labour Party has committed to putting the environment and climate at the heart of its agenda and delivering nature-positive action which halts and reverses the loss of biodiversity by 2030, for the benefit of all people on the planet, as is the ask of the Bill. That element of reversing will make the real difference between the Government’s position and what is necessary. The Environment Act commits to halt species decline but fails to reverse decline and does not tackle broader biodiversity loss.

Without revisiting all the discussion at Second Reading, again I ask the Minister to tell us about progress towards a plan to tackle these messages. Also, where is the positive engagement strategy? Taking the public with us is so important in this agenda and, as we have discussed previously, a wider communication and education strategy is so important as we go forward.

The Government should back the Bill and commit fully to what is necessary to save our natural environment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, I join all other speakers in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on securing this Committee for his Private Member’s Bill today and on continuing to highlight this vitally important issue. I particularly welcomed his comments on red squirrels. When I was a Member of the European Parliament for the north-east, I was a proud member of the European Squirrel Initiative—that major NGO at the forefront of the debate—and of course, Northumberland is on the front line of the battle to preserve red squirrels, which persist primarily in Scotland; the greys have managed to eradicate them for most of England. In my view, we need to pursue an eradication policy of the greys—my noble friend Lord Randall also mentioned that important issue.

We do not have to shy away from the fact that nature is in decline around the world. That is exactly why we are setting a legally binding target in England to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. This ecology Bill deems “species abundance” too limited and seeks to widen this to include habitats and ecosystems. However, in our view, species abundance is a good proxy for the health of the wider ecosystem. The indicator we will use to track progress includes over 1,000 representative species for which we have robust data. Between them, these species depend on the majority of habitats found in England. Action to achieve the species abundance target will necessarily require the creation and restoration of wider habitats and ecosystems.

This target is an ambitious one—indeed, it is world-leading. We will take determined actions to halt the decline of nature, but those actions will not stop once we meet that target. We know that halting the decline in nature is not enough and we will continue to take action naturally leading to a reversal of that decline. That is why we have consulted on long-term targets to increase species abundance, improve the red list index for species extinction risk, and create or restore more habitat—all by 2042. Five-yearly interim targets will help the Government to stay on track.

Furthermore, the overall suite of targets, including on water and air quality, will put nature at the centre of all government policy-making for generations to come. We will confirm all our long-term environmental targets as soon as practicable and will set out our approach to meeting them in our revised environmental improvement plan in 2023.