Environmental Targets (Biodiversity) (England) Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Could this be the underlying cause of the unambitious environmental targets? Regardless, it is necessary to halt the decline in biodiversity now and quickly. How is public confidence to be restored in the country’s ability to delivery on the 25-year environment plan, which promised so much but so far has not lived up to the expectation that it set? Something concrete must be done—and done soon.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend made a powerful speech setting out why the targets in this SI are inadequate. It follows on from the concerns we raised in the amendment to the Motion on water on Monday and in Grand Committee yesterday.

The fact is that these targets are not the huge strategic targets that we were expecting from the Environment Act. Instead, they have been cherry-picked to comply with the legislation, so that the box can be ticked without worrying the department unduly. As a result, we have weak and unambitious targets, which will underpin the environmental improvement plans due at the end of the month, and the department will continue to coast along without clear drive and focus.

I refer noble Lords again to the excellent report from the OEP published last week, to which my noble friend also referred, which was a stocktake of the Government’s progress on improving the environment. It raised significant concerns, making reference to persistent trends of environmental decline; adverse trends becoming difficult to arrest; and risks of environmental impacts becoming irreversible. It also made the important point that the Government have far too many targets—some voluntary, others statutory—and that it is not at all clear how these targets work together to achieve the overarching goals and objectives. I do not think that the OEP had had sight of these new targets when its report was written, but I am guessing that its concerns will not have been allayed by these statutory targets that we are now considering.

Once again, I am also grateful for the excellent work of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the submissions from Greener UK and Wildlife and Countryside Link. They raise considerable concerns about how the targets will be measured and the consequences of unforeseen distortions of data. For example, as has been said, they question whether the use of the red list indicator fluctuations is a credible way to measure extinction risk, which should look across a wide range of species rather than one or two outliers. I ask the Minister: was authoritative scientific advice requested before this statistical model was proposed? Were the Government advised on the best way to set the baseline, so that we could be assured that real progress was being made right across the board?

On species abundance, we already have a target set in the Environment Act to halt the decline of species abundance by 2030. There was a logic in all the debates around this target that a halt in the decline of biodiversity would then be followed quickly by increases in biodiversity as the graph started to go up again. But this expectation is not reflected in the new targets before us today. Instead, we have a huge gap between 2030, when the decline will halt, and 2042, when we might see some measurable progress upwards, according to these proposals. This seems to water down the original, hard-fought deadline of 2030, as we now have to wait 14 more years for signs of progress. Then the target will be met—as we have heard—if, by an insignificant amount, the 2042 level is better than the baseline 2022 level.

Given the current rate of decline, with 41% of species in decline since 1970, this is a ridiculously unambitious target. Can the Minister provide some reassurance that 2030 will see the species decline go properly into reverse and by 2042 a significant, measurable improvement will be achieved?

Finally, my noble friend has made a compelling case for an ambitious target to improve terrestrial protected sites. We know that protected sites have a crucial role to play in delivering the Government’s stated objective of creating 30% of land for nature by 2030, but so far the rate is only 3%. The SSSIs have a particular role to play in protecting our ancient woodland, hay meadows, peat bogs, chalk streams and moorland. How have we allowed them to get in such poor condition that only 40% meet an acceptable standard?

These sites are key to driving nature’s recovery. Can the Minister explain why, after 13 years of Conservative government, the SSSIs have been left to languish in such a poor state? Can he assure us that this latest round of target setting will be more effective than those that have gone before, when we have not been able even to protect our most sensitive and highly prized sites? I look forward to his response.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a rabid Green who thinks that these are not just limp targets; they are utterly inadequate. It strikes me that Defra is not doing its homework with scientists. It is not listening to the science; it is not keeping up.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for tabling this amendment and I have really enjoyed the speeches. I am not going to go on for very long, but I would like to mention the whole issue of zoonotic disease. I am quite concerned that at the moment we have caged animals in the UK for all sorts of reasons; they are mainly hens. Such practices can pose a serious risk to human health as well as to animal welfare and biodiversity. Unnatural crowding, poor hygiene, stress, injuries and low genetic diversity are ideal for the creation and spread of novel pathogens, as we have already seen in the past few years. I am curious as to whether the Government are working on this issue or if it is just not part of their thinking at their moment.

I also mention that international zoonotic diseases are particularly prevalent in fur farming and although we have banned such practices in the UK, we still allow imports. Are the Government considering a ban on imported furs?