Environment Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young. I want to speak to and oppose Amendment 2. Using this Bill to mandate that the Prime Minister should declare that there is a biodiversity and climate emergency, both domestically and globally, strikes me as a form of virtue signalling and almost an imperial version of it by declaring on behalf of the globe. I think that that is a bit too much. I am also concerned that its consequences go beyond wordplay and may play into some anti-democratic trends. In recent years it seems that there has been a competition to up the hyperbole and the catastrophist rhetoric across all parties, perhaps to prove green credentials; I do not know that it helps, and I am not sure that this consensus is healthy either.

We are familiar with the approach on climate and biodiversity being added to the mix. The problem with Amendment 2 is that it follows a certain script, with the emphasis on “emergency”. If the Government keep calling everything an emergency, that will become, “Act now or else command”, and dangerously privileges environmental concerns as trumping all others. That rarely puts those concerns into perspective with other possible emergencies or crises. What about the housing emergency, the jobs emergency and the lack of freedom emergency? By the way, I do not think that the trade deal with Australia is a disaster because it will actually solve an emergency. We do not have enough trade deals and we want more.

I recall back in 2009 the book by James Lovelock, The Vanishing Face of Gaia, in which he wrote that surviving climate change

“may require, as in war, the suspension of democratic government for the duration of the survival period.”

At the time, I thought that that sounded extreme, marginal and farfetched, but after the past 15 months, I feel that it is less farfetched. We have just lived through a public health emergency where exactly these things have occurred. We have suspended democratic governance in many ways in order to survive. I am therefore very wary of allowing a statutory nod to ever more emergencies with similar consequences. Many are worried, for example, that lockdown measures will be used in the future under the auspices of environmentalism. I do not think that that fear is unwarranted.

I note that the independent SAGE group, led by Sir David King, has just announced the setting up of another pseudo-scientific body to be called the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, with 14 experts and10 nations. He has said that it is driven by the urgent need to stabilise climatic conditions and to

“protect vital biodiversity and ecosystem functions for the next generation.”

That is because the biggest challenge we face today are these things. I ask: are they really the biggest challenge? I think it is about the elite PR strategy rather than democracy when Sir David King draws attention to the excess of independent SAGE. He says:

“All 12 members have become media personalities. I hope we get the same level of interest on the climate group.”


I am worried about what is going on and whether it is in good faith.

It seems to me that using the language of crisis and emergency and thus presenting everything as an imminent and existential threat can play fast and loose with democratic accountability. When a state of emergency is declared, as we have seen during Covid, there is no time or space for deliberation or debate. According to Greta Thunberg, the house is on fire.

Civil liberties and democratic freedoms can be suspended, and experts, such as Sir David King, main SAGE, independent SAGE and others suddenly become more important on the centre stage than citizens. When a state of emergency is declared, as would happen in a war, we have to ask who the enemy is. When it comes to biodiversity and the environment, my concern is that the enemy is not the virus, foreign foes or whoever, but us, Homo sapiens, and our nasty overconsumption of energy and demands for decent living standards, cars, homes, industrialisation and development.

My objection to Amendment 2 is not a focus on linguistics and the use of the word “emergency”—my concern is political. Any decision this Bill makes about biodiversity or the natural environment must be concrete, specific, proportionate and avoid the pitfall of whipping up fears about imminent catastrophe. I do not think that declaring an emergency solves anything. I am interested in the details of the Bill, not virtue signalling.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to find myself at this place in the debate and to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. It was certainly a passionate speech, but perhaps not a cohesive one. She spoke about anti-democratic trends and then about there being a consensus. If there is a consensus and local governments are following it, that seems democratic rather than anti-democratic. To point to some figures, a survey was done by the UNDP around the world, of 1.2 million people in 50 countries, published in January this year. It was interesting that in the UK the highest proportion of people—81%—agreed that there is a climate emergency. That is a consensus and, in declaring it, we would be following a democratic path.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb noted that your Lordships will be hearing from both of us a great deal. I promise that you will not be hearing from both of us on every amendment, but you will be hearing from us both on Amendment 2, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who introduced it so powerfully. On democracy, the noble Lord pointed out how many local authorities have declared a climate emergency. In fact, 74% of district, county, unitary and metropolitan councils have done that, plus eight combined authorities and city regions. Sheffield Council has just declared a biodiversity emergency, as have Eden District Council and Dorset, so it is spreading around the country.

Perhaps I can offer the Government a little political advice, thinking of the situation in which they find themselves with the blue wall. I note that Henley-on-Thames Town Council, in the heart of what is considered the blue wall, is planning to declare a biodiversity emergency this week. It is going further and plans to back the climate and ecological emergency Bill, so the Government might like to think about not just the science of this but the politics.

I will be brief, because my noble friend has already covered much of this ground, but I want to pick up a point from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering; she said that we have not heard enough from business. I refer to the consultancy firm Deloitte and its environment report a month or so back, which said that there is now, in the combination of environmental, pandemic, social and economic changes, a business emergency. It says that we need cohesive government policies and guidance to tackle this.

This group of amendments, particularly Amendment 2, provides the cohesion that is crucial for this Bill. As we have seen on so many issues, the public are leading here; 81% of the public accept the climate emergency. Local government is not far behind and it is time for the Government, as the chair of COP 26, to catch up.