Environment Bill

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the speech that the noble Lord, Lord Duncan of Springbank, has just made. It is a privilege to follow him. I agree with many of his points, some of which will be echoed in my speech, but maybe not quite so eloquently.

The Bill has much that is positive in its intent, but I join other noble Lords in expressing some disquiet. The list is not exhaustive, but these are some of my concerns. First, there are important gaps in the Bill that are to be filled by secondary legislation, thus diminishing the role of Parliament and limiting scrutiny. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has just published its report on the Bill. It contains 110 delegated powers, 48 of which allow for the affirmative procedure. This, according to the report, is a comparatively large number. It highlights a particular example, that of the process by which a biodiversity metric will be produced and published by the Secretary of State with input from ecology experts but subject to no parliamentary procedure at all. The biodiversity metric will shape our landscape for probably several generations, so Parliament must be allowed a say.

My second concern is about the process by which the office for environmental protection will define its strategy and the influence the Secretary of State will wield, which will undermine its independence, as will the power of appointment to its executive body. I am also concerned about the rather unusual enforcement mechanisms it will be asked to operate under, which risk emasculating its ability to hold offenders to account.

The rule of law principle of legality requires there to be an effective mechanism for courts to provide a remedy where there has been a breach of the law. However, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has spoken persuasively and with great authority and concern about the issues around the remedies and sanctions available through the environmental review process—which undermines the polluter pays principle to boot. I hope his discussions with the Government will be fruitful. As currently drafted, the OEP will be inferior as an enforcement body to the regime that existed when we were members of the EU. The European Commission, with ample resources to monitor, evaluate and instigate rigorous investigations, was backed up by the steel of the European Court of Justice and its ability to impose meaningful fines on transgressors.

We saw some progress, but it is going to be an ongoing process. There are real fears that we will regress, particularly when it comes to the air we breathe. EU standards on air pollution have historically not been met, particularly on the concentration of PM2.5, which causes so many premature deaths. It is not clear that the Bill is signalling the urgent action needed because we do not yet know what the Government will offer. Can the Minister assure us that, as well as an ambitious target, there will be a clear strategy to meet that target, including a clear indication of the role that local and regional authorities will play and how they will be funded?

I am going to move on to an issue raised by a number of civil society organisations on due diligence, deforestation and human rights. I thank the Corporate Justice Coalition for its briefing. Deforestation is a leading cause of carbon dioxide emissions globally, second only to burning fossil fuels. Some 80% of this deforestation, particularly in tropical regions, is due to land and tree clearance, sometimes forcibly or by deceit, to make way for grazing animals and growing crops such as soya, palm oil and cocoa—so-called forest risk commodities. I commend the Minister for his championing of these issues, echoing the Liberal Democrats’ ambitions.

The Global Resource Initiative Taskforce was commissioned by BEIS, Defra and the FCDO to consider actions that the UK can take to make its international supply chains more environmentally sustainable. In its report of March 2020, it specifically recommended that the UK Government urgently introduce a combined, mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence approach to forest risk commodities. By happy coincidence, the landmark United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights, which first outlined the concept of human rights due diligence, celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. The UK’s first due diligence process should have been a cause for celebration, but for the fact that there is no mention whatever of human rights. This is both a practical and moral oversight.

Only this year, a report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization outlined that if the customary rights to land, territories and resources of indigenous peoples and forest communities are respected, and they consent to activity happening on their lands, the likelihood of deforestation, ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss is much reduced. Do the Government recognise that human rights, environmental destruction and climate change are inextricably linked? If so, why have the human rights of indigenous people, the custodians of these precious resources, received no mention whatever in the due diligence system on the use of forest risk commodities, as outlined in Schedule 16?