Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his explanation of the new regulations. As he rightly pointed out, this is in effect a consolidation exercise. The original 2010 regulations have since been amended some 15 times, making it difficult for businesses, charities and voluntary bodies to navigate their way around the permit system. As he also pointed out, the permit system covers a very wide range of activities—including the handling of asbestos, the use of landfill, managing mining waste, the collection of waste electronic equipment, the protection of groundwater and the control of industrial emissions—so it is easy to understand how complex the system has become. The fact that the consolidated regulations cover nearly 300 pages is testament to that.

We therefore accept that this is primarily a tidying-up exercise that will make the legislation more accessible and restrict the need for multiple applications. As the noble Lord pointed out, two specific changes have been made. One is to add restrictions to the number of fluorescent lamps containing mercury that can be crushed without a permit and the other is to amend the flood defence permit system to enable organisations with a statutory function, such as the Canal & River Trust, to dredge without a permit, as had previously been the case. Both of these are sensible amendments and we are happy to support them.

We are content to support these consolidating regulations as far as they go. There is, of course, a wider debate to be had about the further steps necessary to reduce pollution, improve our air and water quality and embrace the circular economy, so that we design waste out of the system altogether, perhaps leading to fewer permits being needed. It will be interesting to hear at some point how the Government intend to deliver on their promise to leave the environment in better shape than they found it in these important areas of pollution and waste.

There is an increasingly pressing question about the future of the regulations in a post-EU world and the process that will ultimately take place to review them. Can the Minister update us on the department’s thinking in this regard and the extent to which all such pieces of legislation will be included in a great reform Bill? But I realise that I am straying slightly from the main point at issue today. I hope that the noble Lord can give us some responses, but I will reiterate that we support the regulations.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for her comments and questions. Having seen the document, my heart sank at its many pages, but in fact the framework is 50 pages and there are a lot of schedules. It is inevitably complex, but we want to get it right. It is important that it is part of a tidying-up exercise. I have no doubt that your Lordships and the other place will be considering other elements of the environment and environmental permitting in the years ahead. The noble Baroness is absolutely right. We want—as would any Government—the environment to be left in a better condition than the one we find it in now. That is a laudable aim, and we are working to that end with not only proposals in the 25-year plan for the environment, but many other aspects which perhaps we will debate at other stages in proceedings in this House.

On the question of the United Kingdom leaving the EU and the subject of environmental permitting, the first thing to say is that, as the Prime Minister has said, while we remain a member of the EU, the Government will continue to implement and apply EU legislation. Of course, the outcome of the negotiations with the EU will determine what arrangements apply in relation to EU legislation in future, once we have left the EU. The Government’s intention is to repatriate all the environmental permitting regulations into British law, as the noble Baroness said, via the proposed great repeal Bill. The environmental permitting regime will, as I say, remain under regular review, with proposed amendments to the rules expected between now and when we leave the EU. I see this very much as an evolving situation as we seek to work on the environment.

As I hope I have outlined, these are part of a continuum of updating the rules on permitting and putting them into a single piece of legislation—indeed, making them easier to find and to understand. We have made some changes which I believe improve the rules on the crushing of florescent lamps, and which will help us to protect the environment better, and a change has been made to reinstate the position for the Canal & River Trust and others with a statutory responsibility for dredging. As the noble Baroness has acknowledged absolutely, it is important that they will be exempt from the requirement to hold a permit for dredging because that is precisely part of their remit.

We wish these regulations to be part of our intention to leave the environment in a better condition than the one that we found. I commend these regulations to the House.