Environment Bill (Third sitting)

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Q My question is specifically directed at ClientEarth. You have taken the Government to court over their failures on air pollution three times now. Do you feel that the Bill gives sufficient powers to take action against the Government if there are future failures? Also, my concern is about the buck being passed to local authorities to a large extent. In the wider picture, I have just heard that Bristol has finally got its directive from the Government today, but unless funding is released for transport, housing and all the things that go with it, it will be very difficult for local authorities to do what is required, so where is the balance? Who should be held to account, and can they be held to account under the Bill?

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Q I suppose that my question follows on from that. I am lucky enough to represent a coastal rural community. My confusion is about how we measure these targets. I do not know what success looks like where I live, compared with London, for example. We might also set targets in the Bill, but where I live might have met them already while London has not. Who are we setting the targets for? I find it a bit too complex, which is why I am leaning towards using secondary legislation to manage that. Following Kerry’s question, I would also like to hear a little more about the role of local authorities.

Katie Nield: I will go first, given that the first question was directed at ClientEarth. The cases that ClientEarth has taken against the UK Government have been key both to driving action to meet the legal limits we already have and to highlighting this as a serious issue and highlighting Government failures so far. It is really important that the Bill allows people to continue to do that against these new binding targets. They need to be meaningful, and that means that the Government need to be held to account against them. That is key.

What is also key is that we should not have to rely on organisations such as ClientEarth or individuals to take action. That is another reason why it is really important that the Office for Environmental Protection—the new environmental watchdog set up by the Bill—has adequate teeth to do that job and scrutinise Government actions. I assume you heard in previous evidence about the shortcomings of the Bill in that respect, so I will not repeat that.

In terms of action from local authorities, what has come out in the discussion so far has been clear: air pollution is a national problem and there are a huge number of different sources that need to be dealt with. It is not a localised issue with just a small number of hotspots that need to be cleared up. What we are concerned about is pushing the burden of responsibility on to local authorities to deal with this problem—that will not be the most effective way to tackle this national public health crisis. We need the Bill to reflect that, and we need the environmental improvement plans to reflect that.

At the moment, the Bill provides some new powers to local authorities, and those are very welcome, but it risks putting the burden of responsibility on them. This goes back to the point Liam was making earlier about the opportunity to introduce a broader ranging duty on all public bodies across different levels of Government and different Departments from the central level to ensure that they are doing their bit to contribute to those targets.

Professor Lewis: I would like to comment on assessment in a rural environment, because that is really important. Most people potentially live in places that will not be anywhere near a measurement point. It has been possible to bring action on nitrogen dioxide because there was a very good way of assessing it: we knew where the pollution was—at the roadside—and there was a network of measurements and, crucially, an ability to predict, model and fill in the gaps in between, where everybody else lived. That provided you with the evidence base with which you could say, “These areas exceed; these areas don’t.”

It is harder with PM_2.5 because it does not come just along the roads, although there are sources there; it comes from many places. You might rightly ask, “How will I know if it is getting better in my constituency?” The answer is that if we do adopt things like a 10 microgram target and continuous improvement, we will have to do more measurements, because we will not have the evidence to present to say whether it is getting better or not. There is a fundamental difference as you go lower and lower: the challenge in proving that things have got better, and particularly in places that historically we would not have thought of as pollution hotspots, is pretty hard. People should go in with their eyes open that there will be more of a burden in demonstrating that progress is being made.

Katie Nield: I suppose setting am ambition for that target also provides an opportunity for us to better assess it and better understand the impacts it is having on our health, so it is an opportunity.

[The Chair]

I am afraid we have time for only one more question, and I am not sure that we will have adequate time for all the witnesses to respond. Alex Sobel, please be very brief.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robbie Moore]

Q I have a question for the Marine Conservation Society, although I am happy for the other witnesses to comment. How important do you think that the waste and resource efficiency measures in the Bill are as a means of tackling pollution in the marine environment?

Chris Tuckett: They are really important. As I said earlier, it is about systems thinking. What is happening on land, what is happening at source, and where does that go through the environment? Ultimately, quite a lot ends up in the sea. We welcome the waste and resources clauses. I think you have a session this afternoon in which you will go into more detail on the ins and outs of what is needed.

The clauses are absolutely welcome, particularly the enablement of deposit return schemes. That needs to happen as soon as possible, please. That would be great. A lot of other countries have done it, and there are figures of up to an 80% reduction in litter as a result of having deposit return schemes in place, through improvements in recycling. That is really important.

We also very much welcome extended producer responsibility. The emphasis within the waste and resources portion of the Bill should be very much on the waste hierarchy—reduce, reuse and recycle—but very much on the “reduce” bit to start with. Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion on marine plastics—the “Blue Planet” effect—and some measures have come in as a result of that, but not an awful lot. The Bill takes all of that forward, which is great and we welcome that. The sooner it happens, the better.

For the deposit return schemes that the Bill enables, we really hope that the legislation will be passed as soon as possible. It will be a comprehensive system that includes all types of containers—drinks containers—and all sizes. We at the MCS have been picking up litter from beaches for more than 25 years. It is not getting a lot better. We really hope that it will do soon as a result of the Bill.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

Q I believe clause 81 sets out the same powers that we already had under the European Union with regard to ensuring that water quality is maintained. The only way is up, in my opinion, on that. I wanted to come back to the run-off from agricultural land. I believe that that is covered more in the Agriculture Bill than in the present Bill, with incentives given for good stewardship of land, and so on. I wanted to get your feelings on that. It does not change the wider regime for assessing and monitoring water quality that is enshrined in English law under the 2017 environment regulations. Do you feel that the Bill sufficiently sets out the direction of travel on leaving the European Union? As I say, the only way is up. Does it give you sufficient comfort that there will no regression?

Ian Hepburn: The problem is that we do not see non-regression. The way could be up or down, given the way the Bill’s provisions are set out. There is nothing to stop the Secretary of State from changing the substances listed or the standards for those substances in the same way that there would have been had we been part of the EU and, alternatively, had we had a non-regression clause within the withdrawal Act. Again, that has gone. As my colleagues have made clear in earlier sessions, we consider that clauses 19 and 20 do not amount to non-regression obligations. That is the risk that we see. We think that some amendments to clause 81 could soften the impact of the risk and of going in the wrong direction.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

Q To my mind it feels as though the Secretary of State is able to leave that open to do things differently from before, and that it is not an intention to regress.

Chris Tuckett: I absolutely would like to think that. I really would, and I think we all agree this is a significant piece of legislation under this Administration. I am sure this Administration would absolutely think that this was about non-regression, but for the future, for the continuity of the Bill and what happens under the next Administration and the one further on, making that very clear would be extremely helpful.

Stuart Colville: I will make one quick comment on agricultural run-off, if I may. Incentives being put in place through the Agriculture Bill, which are really important, need to be coupled with a decent regulatory baseline. At the moment there is mixed evidence about that baseline. One option might be to set a target through the Environment Bill, not just on water and some other sectors, and to think about how that works with agriculture. That refers back to the integration point that we discussed.

[Rebecca Pow]

We have a couple more minutes. This is not a question, but an observation. The whole purpose of the Bill is to significantly improve the natural environment; that is why the targets are set there. They should achieve what has just been referred to. We have not touched on water abstraction, on which there is a measure in the Bill.