Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I add my voice to those of other noble Lords who have outlined their severe disappointment that the Bill shows a Government not willing the means to address the ecological and climate crises that we face. We may not yet have had the environmental principles policy statement, which would have put a duty on Ministers to ensure that Bills do just that, but we already have, as many noble Lords have mentioned, climate and new environmental targets, to which this Bill should have a fundamental link. We know that planning is a means to address both those crises.

I see that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is in his place. As others have indicated, the Climate Change Committee has made clear the pivotal role of planning in helping us meet our climate targets. As someone who sat on a planning committee for eight years, I know that turtles, newts, birds and bees live, breed and travel somewhere. The planning process is a fundamental tool for us to meet the targets that we are rightly setting ourselves in this country to address the weaknesses of our biodiversity in the UK.

I will come on to the major missed opportunity in meeting some of those targets in future, but I first add my voice to those of my noble friend Lady Sheehan and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who highlighted that we may be regressing on environmental standards. I am sure that the Minister signed off on the Bill that there should be no environmental regression in good faith—she could do so because so much is being pushed down the line into secondary legislation, particularly the environmental outcomes reports, which could fatally undermine protections for our most precious habitats that we have protected through environmental impact assessments in the past. It is not just this House saying that; the Office for Environmental Protection, the new governmental watchdog, has outlined its concerns to the Government that the scope of these environmental outcomes reports is not clear.

I add my voice to others and add an extra point for the Minister, which I hope she will address in summing up. It is very hard for this House to move forward with taking a position on the environmental outcomes report if, by the time we come to Committee, we have not had the scope of that report set out. Of course you can do the detail in secondary legislation but we need the scope by Committee so that, if there are reassurances the Government can give us, those can be addressed. Additionally, we need to see the links to the environmental and climate targets, and equally the links to other important pieces of planning legislation such as the local nature recovery strategies, which is what I want to come on to.

There is a big opportunity here of which I am sure that not all noble Lords will be aware; again, this was addressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown. The Government, in a very welcome step, created in the Environment Act new local nature recovery strategies; the aim is to have about 50 around England, linking up all the local priorities in biodiversity —a statement of local priorities accompanied by a map. It would help the noble Lord, Lord Randall, who early in the debate talked about the Colne Valley park, which covers more than one constituency. These local nature recovery strategies are clearly anticipated by the Government to be at the county level; they are about bringing together local priorities so that we can build up those fonts of nature, and join them to create a national network of nature recovery, as well as reflect local priorities.

I will go on to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, about devolution. As they stand at the moment, these local nature recovery strategies have absolutely no weight in the planning process. Local people will put in their plans and invest all their time, and their views will then be ignored, because there is no grip on the planning process. I will argue that Clause 85 should be amended so that local nature recovery strategies are part of the local development plan, to protect our environment and to give local people a say over the environment they want protected in their areas, and which we will not meet our targets for unless we use the Bill to deliver.