European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry that I have to follow the noble Lord, because I feel he has lowered the tone of the debate in a Chamber that, up until now, has been doing a proper scrutiny role. That is what we are here for; it is what we are renowned for and we are confident that we can do it well. As I say, I am sorry that he has lowered the tone.

As other noble Lords have done, I will speak primarily to raise our concerns about the exclusion of the environmental clauses which we spent many happy hours crafting and agreeing in the 2018 withdrawal agreement. I very much regret that I have to raise these concerns again, as they received considerable cross-party support around the House at the time as well as the eventual approval of Ministers. Why are they no longer in this legislation and why have the Government now backtracked on that deal?

Of course, I accept that the Conservative manifesto contains promises to legislate to ensure high standards of environmental protection. Indeed, this was repeated in the Commons debate on this Bill when the Minister, James Duddridge, stated:

“We will maintain and uphold high standards for workers, consumers and the environment.”


However, he went on to say:

“We do not have to follow EU rules to achieve that; we can do it on our own.”—[Official Report, Commons, 8/1/20; col. 529.]


Our history shows that we have not been very good at doing it on our own. This is why, over the years, we have had to rely on EU directives to clean up our water, our waste, our air and our soil, and it is why we have had to rely on the 527 EU regulations to set strong standards for the environment. This is why something like 80% of UK environmental legislation is derived from the EU. Doing it on our own remains a big challenge.

Of course, while there is a cautious welcome for the Government’s commitments on the environment, there remains considerable concern among environmental and animal charities about what the future holds. This has been fuelled by the Government’s decision to remove the environmental clauses from this Bill. This is why we are tabling an amendment which will insert the principle of non-regression of environmental standards into the Bill. This will be a legally binding commitment to non-regression to protect current and future generations against weakening environmental standards. It will ensure that the Government do not take their eye off the ball and let standards fall behind through neglect or default.

As we have heard, when this was debated last week in the Commons, the Minister said that

“the underlying point is that there will be no regression.”—[Official Report, Commons, 8/1/20; col. 529.]

However, if this is the case, why are the Government so reluctant to have this clause in the Bill? If it is their intention to legislate separately on environmental standards in the Environment Bill, can the Minister confirm that a specific non-regression clause will be included in that Bill? What mechanism does the Minister envisage for regularly updating that environmental legislation in future years to ensure that it remains relevant and becomes the world leader to which the Government aspire?

There are also other consequences to diverging from established EU environmental rules. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, warned last week that any new trade deal giving tariff and quota-free access to the single market would come with strings attached. She specified that Britain would have to agree a level playing field on workers’ rights and the environment. If we are serious about a comprehensive new trade deal with the EU, we may well find that we need to match their environmental standards. Clearly, UK businesses will not welcome two sets of rules, one for the UK market and another for the EU export market.

In his response, can the Minister confirm that we accept the need to follow EU environmental standards and that any other provision in the Environment Bill will be at least as good as those provided for by the EU? Can he confirm that the Government do indeed intend to take forward their commitment on non-regression of environmental standards in that Bill? I look forward to his response.