European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lord Framlingham

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. He laid it out extremely well, but I cannot resist adding to his comments. I say, first and foremost, that this has nothing to do with Brexit, nothing to do with exiting the EU; it is all about British institutions. Quite honestly, I take deep offence at the disgraceful contribution just now. I voted to leave; I very much want us to have a successful Brexit, but for me a successful Brexit is a green Brexit. It is also about the Government honouring their promises to move all European law over. In my view, this is the most important amendment that we have considered in the whole passage of the Bill. This House has the opportunity today to secure our world-class environmental protections that have come about through our membership of the EU.

[Lord Framlingham]

Will the noble Baroness give way?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

No.

[Lord Framlingham]

Just briefly?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

No, no, no. These protections are for our air, our food, our animals, our countryside and ourselves: it is for us that we are doing this.

I have had a lot of flak from people for voting for Brexit, and one of the biggest things that they are unhappy with—obviously I get a lot of green people emailing me—is the risk of losing our environmental protections when we leave the EU. It is something that I worry about as well. Currently, our Government are policed by the Commission and the European Court of Justice. But our Government cannot be trusted on environmental issues, on which they have routinely lost legal cases. Examples include ClientEarth forcing the UK to make good on reducing our lethal levels of air pollution, and the Commission forcing us to reduce the disgusting levels of human waste in the River Thames. So I agree with the criticisms levelled against me and levelled against Brexit. If we do not replace the legal powers of the Commission and the ECJ and maintain the environmental principles that underpin them, Brexit will be a disaster from an environmental point of view. This amendment is our chance to put that right.

The naysayers to this amendment—if there are many in the House—might suggest that the whole point of Brexit is to remove ourselves from EU institutions and so it is wrong to try to recreate their functions. This is plainly wrong. Parliament can, and should, determine what our environmental principles are and who should enforce them. It is perfectly right for Parliament to insist that a statutory body, with real enforcement powers, should hold the Government legally accountable to its national and international environmental obligations.

To me, the crucial part of this amendment is proposed new subsection (1). The Government have repeatedly promised us that leaving the EU would not mean any diminishment of rights, obligations and protections. But, clearly, if we do not pass this amendment, we will be diminished.

Other Members of your Lordships’ House have said how feeble the option is that the Government are offering us. The reason for this feeble environmental watchdog is probably because of the divisions in the Government. On the one hand we have a wonderfully ambitious Environment Secretary, whom one can almost imagine frolicking in a field of wheat. On the other hand we have an International Trade Secretary who dreams of GMO-fed beef and chlorinated chickens from factory farms in America.