Environment Bill

Debate between Chris Grayling and Ruth Jones

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 26th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones]

I do agree with my hon. Friend: Wales is leading the way and I urge the Minister to seek meetings with the First Minister of Wales and his Environment Minister Lesley Griffiths as soon as possible, so that lessons can be learned and rolled over to England.

As we heard in the previous debate, we have seen 44% of species decline over the past 10 years—and that was on the Minister’s and her party’s watch. Now that we have left the European Union, it is vital that we seek to maintain the highest of environmental standards. That is the approach that the shadow Secretary of State—my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport—and my colleagues and I in the shadow DEFRA team have taken to this Bill, from Second Reading through to Committee and to today’s Report and remaining stages. We have proposed fair, balanced and necessary amendments, all of which were defeated by this Government. Not one of them was partisan, and not one of them was done to play games. All were done to make this Bill fit for purpose, and our new clauses 12 and 24 do just that. They are balanced and they are fair, and they reflect the will out there of those in communities across England who want an Environment Bill that will preserve our planet and protect our environment.

That brings me on to another opportunity the Government have missed with this Bill. This Bill, this debate today and this moment were the Government’s chance to tell the fracking companies, “Your time is up”, but given the choice between doing something bold and doing nothing at all, we know what DEFRA under this Secretary of State always goes for.

My position and that of the shadow Secretary of State and the Opposition is clear: fossil fuels need to stay in the ground. This is doubly true when we take into account just how damaging fracking is for our environment. When a third of England’s drinking supply is in the groundwater, do we really want to engage in a risky industry that could poison it for good? Even more disturbingly, fracking is causing earthquakes of up to 2.9 on the Richter scale.

In our recovery from covid, we need to focus on creating good green jobs for the future. Fracking is not green and it does not create jobs. According to the fracking company Cuadrilla’s licence application in Lancashire, for example, just 11 jobs will be created across two sites—just 11. Labour MPs up and down the country are standing up for their areas in opposing this. I want to give a special mention to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), who has done so much work in this area, and I commend her for all she does. Now is the time to join France, Germany, Ireland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Scotland and, of course, Wales, and put this destructive industry to bed once and for all.

[Chris Grayling]

I would be grateful if the hon. Lady clarified that. Clearly, I support the principle of our leaving fossil fuels in the ground and not using them for the future, but we are going to need natural gas for the time being, albeit I hope that in time we can phase it out. The Germans are planning to bring it in by pipeline from Russia. We are currently bringing it in by tanker from the middle east. What does she think is the best source of natural gas for the coming years, while we still need it?

[Ruth Jones]

We are in a transition phase, and we need not just to look at natural gas, but to look forward to renewables because that is where the future lies. Renewables are the future. We know already, in this country, that there are certain days when no coal is being burned and some days when just renewables are being used. That is the future for the whole of the UK, not just England, and that is where the Opposition would want to be seeing our future. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention.

I encourage colleagues across the House to get behind Labour’s new clause 12, which would ban fracking and show we really are serious about tackling the environmental crisis that our country and our planet faces—a crisis this Government want to tackle with a 25-year environment plan. Talking about the Government’s 25-year environment plan, it feels as though the last few months have given us less of a plan for the next 25 years and more of an impression that it will take 25 years to develop a plan to preserve our planet and protect our environment. This just is not good enough. While I do not doubt the Minister’s personal commitment, I do wonder if Government Back Benchers really understand what is at stake here and what they need to do.

I now want to move on to the issue of peat burning and to speak to Labour’s new clause 24. I fully accept that soil does not always grab the headlines—it is not particularly sexy—but the impact that peat burning has on our environment is profound, and that is why Labour has tabled this new clause. I want to thank stakeholders, such as Matt Browne at Wildlife and Countryside Link, for all the passionate campaigning on these important issues.

The Government’s peat action plan came three years late. In the meantime, our peatlands have been continuously burned and degraded, releasing approximately 10 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere each year. The Government have committed to restoring 35,000 hectares of peatland by 2025, which is great, but that is only one tenth of the 355,000 hectares that need to be restored in England, and we have no clear targets for peatland restoration after 2025. What is going to happen then?

The Government have committed to ban some peat burning, but, again, it is not enough. All we get from this Government are words and hot air, and we need cool, focused and comprehensive action. Labour’s amendment would prohibit the burning of peat of any depth in upland areas. We cannot wait for action any longer. We need a foolproof strategy to restore and protect this vital carbon sink. I hope the Minister will do the right thing and get her colleagues to do what so many out in the real world want us to do, which is to provide action to stop burning peat. It is as simple as that.

Today, we have the chance to improve a weak Bill—a Bill that is lacking in ambition, in focus and in delivering a real and tangible plan to preserve our environment and protect our planet. I encourage the Minister to send a message to the Secretary of State—I wonder where he is today, because this is supposed to be his landmark Bill— and to the Government Whips and tell them that the time has come to get real, to act and to deliver by supporting Labour’s new clauses 12 and 24. There is no better way than by supporting us in the Lobby tonight to show that this Government are finally willing to act, to get real, and to deliver on their rhetoric. The future of our environment and the preservation of our planet demand no less.