Environment Bill

Bob Seely Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The world has changed immeasurably in the year since the Bill’s First Reading. In the last 12 months covid-19 has devastated lives, torn through communities and paralysed economies across the globe. The pandemic has taken so much: lives, of course, but also hugs, handshakes, kisses, birthdays, Christmas and Eid. It has given, too: mental health issues, domestic violence and poverty. However, during the height of the pandemic the lockdown also gave us much lower emissions and much better air quality. Anecdotal evidence suggests, somewhat ironically, that those who suffer from certain respiratory illnesses fared much better during the first lockdown. That gives us a brief window into a post-pandemic future if we manage to take a hold of it. We need to create long-term structural change, underpinned by robust legislation.

In my city of Leeds, a person is 20 times more likely to die from air pollution than in a car accident—20 times. According to the Royal College of Physicians, across the UK, air pollution is responsible for 40,000 early deaths, at an economic cost of £20 billion a year. For that reason, I believe it is my moral duty to support amendment 25 to ensure that the particulate matter target for air quality is at least as strict as the WHO guidelines. That is a call I made when we introduced the charging clean air zone in Leeds, a commitment the Government have abandoned. We need to pass the amendment and reintroduce the clean air zone.

The State of Nature report says that UK species diversity is in freefall, with 15% of UK species at risk of becoming extinct. Some our most-loved animals, including Scottish wild cats, red squirrels and water voles, are at risk. I am the parliamentary species champion for the white-clawed crayfish. New clause 5 would give all those species a much better chance of survival. We also have bee-harming neonicotinoids. The UK Government recently granted emergency authorisation for sugar beet seeds to be treated by neonicotinoids. That is banned under EU law and we cannot allow it to come in through the back door, so we need to pass amendment 39.

Finally, on the OEP, its progress has been followed by the Environmental Audit Committee for three years. It is supposedly independent, but its budget, board and chair are set by the Government. Only recently, the Secretary of State said: “We will be able to guide the OEP.” It is worth noting that the Government have no comparable power in relation to any existing enforcement bodies. We therefore need to pass amendment 23 to bring a semblance of independence back to this important regulatory body, and ensure that we move forward and do not have another pause in this legislation.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con) [V]]

I am speaking from the Isle of Wight, where, in addition to being a UNESCO biosphere, we hope in the next couple of years to become the UK’s first island park, if the Government intend to bring forward the new protected landscapes Bill, as I clearly I hope they do.

I support this Bill very much—I think it is a great Bill—but I wish to speak in favour of new clauses 14 and 15 to argue the case for minimising the impact of housing on the environment. It is great that the Government want to design better, and frankly we need better design in this country, but a well-designed low-density greenfield housing estate is still a low-density greenfield housing estate, and these housing estates are, by nature, unsustainable. New clause 14 would allow for a handbrake to stop environmentally damaging housing, because it would, by law, prioritise carbon-efficient housing and carbon-efficient locations.

House building, along with everything else that we do, needs to align with the UK’s binding obligations in the Paris climate accords and carbon-efficient obligations, as well as the Government’s justified world-leading commitment to net zero by 2050. To do that, we need carbon-efficient housing solutions, and that implies a focus on cities as opposed to suburban and rural development. If we do not get that carbon-efficient housing in this Bill, as mandated by this new clause, then can we look at it for the housing Bill?

For me, this also means that we need to do more to incentivise brownfield development in not only suburban but rural areas. Very often brownfield sites are too small to be used efficiently under the current financial regime, and it is much cheaper to build inefficiently on greenfield sites. Greenfield sites, as well as being the most carbon-intensive because we are building detached houses, are also dependent on car use outside existing communities, which means dependence not only on carbon-emitting cars but on people having to travel to get to amenities rather than those amenities being built near them. Research provided by the House of Commons Library shows that homes built in urban areas are significantly less carbon-emitting than those built in suburban and rural areas.

I welcome this Bill, but can we please look at the legal requirement for the most carbon-efficient housing in the most carbon-efficient locations, not only for our climate change commitments but for quality of life in cities, in suburbs and in rural areas?

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Like other Members, I am disappointed that the Government have failed to make significant progress with this Bill, especially given the urgent need to act to address not only the causes of climate change but biodiversity loss. In such an important year for climate change mitigation and adaptation, I hope that the Government will make a meaningful effort to get the Bill on to the statute book as soon as possible in the next Session.

It is a pleasure to speak to several amendments, including new clause 9, which draws attention to our international commitments and the importance of action to protect our natural environment both here at home and abroad. In particular, I hope that the new clause will draw further attention to the plight of our forests—the lungs of our world and vital habitats for species great and small—in addition to the need for measures to discourage trade in products of deforestation abroad.

I hope that new clause 9 will also draw attention to an equally pertinent issue: the offshoring of our emissions and associated resource consumption. WWF believes that as much as 46% of the UK’s carbon footprint is not currently accounted for by national reporting or included in the UK’s net zero target. This simply must be addressed if we are serious about our role in tackling climate change.

The Bill also focuses minds on the constraints imposed by the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 on action to protect our natural world across the four nations of the UK. This is reflected in amendment 40 and new clause 1, both of which Plaid Cymru will be supporting.

Wales is rightfully proud of its status as a world leader in recycling and a nation where sustainable development is a constitutional duty, yet one of the many reasons why the Senedd withheld consent from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and why the Welsh Government are now taking legal action against the UK Government is the issue of plastic pollution, as raised by the Senedd Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee. Wales would be legally prohibited from taking action to restrict the use of single-use plastic under the Act’s non-discrimination clauses. These clauses not only make the Bill’s lack of ambition even more egregious, but draw attention to how the Government are hindering environmental action by working against, rather than with, the devolved nations and their record of action in this field.

We have a duty to do all we can to protect our natural world for present and future generations. We cannot afford to ignore this most profound duty, so I hope the Government will actively listen and reflect on the constructive debate we have had here today.