Environment Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, Clause 109(3) says:

“The Secretary of State may make regulations under this section only if satisfied that the regulations do not reduce the level of environmental protection provided by the Habitats Regulations.”


I suggest that all the Minister needs to do from this point of view is delete the words “satisfied that”.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I add the support of our Benches for this important regulation on day four of Report. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, said, the habitats regulations are the jewel in the crown in terms of protecting our sites of most special protection for our wildlife and our birds, our bitterns and our nightingales.

It has not been mentioned in this debate so far today that the proposals from the Government to amend these regulations were smuggled in on Report down the other end. These are incredibly important regulations. No one is saying that things must be set in stone for ever, but if they are to be changed, it should be done with full and clear consultation and for the right purpose.

The Minister said in Committee, “They’re not working.” I live in Surrey, which is one of the most densely populated areas, and they are working there. With the Thames Basin initiative of 11 planning authorities, we are managing to build the houses and protect the sites at the same time. If there are going to be changes, the Government should ensure that there is no regression, which this amendment would guarantee, and that there is consultation with experts. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, that might be a slightly broader list than that suggested in the amendment so far but certainly there needs to be that expert consultation.

If this amendment is not accepted, it will leave the impression that there are other reasons why the Government are prepared, at a time when we are facing a nature crisis, to sweep aside these most important protections. That will make people feel that perhaps it is because they want to ensure that planning regulations are given a light touch, which, frankly, is not appropriate given the environmental challenge and crisis that we face.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, to which I have added my name.

The noble Lord has set out in detail why we have concerns about Clauses 108 and 109 and why the safeguards in our amendment are so important. There is real concern that the government clauses will weaken the protection of our most valued species and habitats which the habitats directive conferred. There is also concern that the clauses give the Secretary of State undue discretionary powers to change the rules in the future.

The Minister will no doubt argue that there is no need to worry and that the wording in the clauses give sufficient protection that the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity will be assured. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and others have explained, there is a difference between a general commitment to biodiversity and the specific protection of individual habitats and species. The new objectives are simply not a substitute for those of the nature directives, which have provided the first line of defence for our most precious habitats over many years.

If we are not careful, these new powers could be used to deconstruct the strict protections for the UK’s finest wildlife sites by referencing other enabling clauses in the Bill. This is why we believe that the general commitment to enhanced biodiversity and to halting species decline, which is elsewhere in the Bill, need to go hand in hand with the more specific guarantees set out in our amendment. This would ensure that any regulations made under these clauses delivered compliance with international obligations, and, crucially, improved the conservation status of species or habitats. It would also deliver the non-regression promises that the Government made when we left the EU.

In response to the debate in Committee, the Minister spelled out that the Government are planning a Green Paper in the autumn with the aim of providing a “fit-for-purpose regulatory framework” to deliver the Government’s ambitions for nature. However, we know that historically, the Government’s idea of “fit-for-purpose regulation” is less regulation and less protection, and we also know that a Green Paper could take a very long time to reach conclusions that can be enacted. We are being asked to put our faith in a process which is stepping into the unknown, and it is quite likely that by the time that process is completed, a different set of Ministers will be in play, with a different set of priorities. Therefore, the proposal for a Green Paper simply adds to our concerns.

Over the summer, we were grateful to have a meeting with the Defra officials dealing with this issue, who sought to reassure us that this was about improving nature recovery rather than watering it down. But of course they do not yet know the content of the Green Paper or its likely outcome. In the meantime, all we have before us is the wording in Clauses 108 and 109 and the rather amorphous phrase that the Secretary of State must “have regard to” the importance of furthering conservation and enhancement of biodiversity.

As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, made clear, it should not be for the Secretary of State to make that call, or to be satisfied that the regulations do not reduce environmental protection for what my noble friend Lady Young rightly described as the jewels in the crown of the countryside. This decision needs to be authenticated by objective scientific bodies such as those set out in our amendment. I hope that noble Lords, having listened to the debate, will understand the strength of our concerns and will agree to support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Horam (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend Lord Deben and will just extend what he says. Essentially, his point is that we cannot ask Defra, which has a narrow remit, to take the integrated and across-the-board view that is necessary.

We also need to take into account the pressures on land—population, for example. As the noble Baroness said in her opening remarks, the population projections over the next few years from the Office for National Statistics are very considerable; we are talking about an extra 7 million people over the next 10 or 15 years. These are the sort of pressures we have to take into account when we look at land use. Although I am sympathetic with her point, we have to consider this properly, systematically and rationally.

No one wants the land to be ill-used or underused. None the less, the practicalities of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and my noble friend Lord Deben’s view about the wider nature of this issue mean that this amendment is deficient.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to say that we support the intent of this amendment. Given the competing demands on land in our country, we believe it is time for a national framework. If it works in other parts of the continent and in other parts of the United Kingdom, the time has come and we would support it.

I fear the Minister will say that, for a number of reasons, he is not able to accept it. I therefore applaud the noble Baroness for her campaigning on this over many years and the fact that she has put together a proposal for an ad hoc House of Lords Select Committee on this. I certainly support that. I think it is an incredibly important initiative, and I hope other Peers will support that proposal so that this issue can be taken forward in a broader way.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I follow on from the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and my noble friend Lord Caithness mentioned the enthusiasm of the devolved Administrations for this type of approach. It would be hard to find anything more enthusiastic than the way the Scottish Government have approached it. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, must have experienced this with the various organisations she has dealt with across the border. I have no doubt that my noble friend the Minister has looked at some of these other countries. In fact, in spite of all the things the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has incorporated in her amendment, the Scottish Government have gone way further than that. We need to think about how far we want to go in this type of organisation.

My noble friend Lord Carrington mentioned the drawbacks that could occur. The Scottish land use strategy has been in place since 2016. There are a whole raft of policies—a natural resource management policy to tabulate stocks of ecosystem services and use an ecosystem approach. Land-based businesses, including the Crown Estate, have trialled the natural capital protocol. They had a statement on the land use strategy, then found they needed to incorporate a national marine plan as well as a national planning framework. It overlaps into forestry as well.