Natural Habitats: Infrastructure Projects

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I cannot unilaterally commit HS2 to doing so, but it should. I will convey that message back to colleagues in Government. HS2 is a nature-positive programme, which has been overlooked too much by some of its opponents. The amount of land being planted with trees, for instance, greatly exceeds the amount of land that will be damaged by the process, and HS2 would do well to tell its story more effectively than it has been doing.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, even though we have left the European Union, can the Minister confirm that we will still be bound by the Council of Europe’s Berne convention, which was the base of the EU habitats, but that the Government will take a more sensible and pragmatic approach under that convention?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the Government are completely committed to ensuring that our environmental protections are not only maintained, but enhanced. We have said so at every opportunity. EU exit gives us the opportunity to improve our existing domestic and legacy EU laws to support those high environmental ambitions and, where appropriate, we should keep all those regulations under review, which we do.