Environment Bill

Duke of Montrose Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, in the midst of all this great technical expertise, I would like to follow up one point that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, touched on, which is how all this will be achieved. This amendment asks that a further metric be added to those already in the Bill. The Secretary of State is tasked with setting targets for the annual mean level in ambient air, and an amazing combination of statistics will be needed to get that.

Clause 17 asks the Secretary of State to prepare a policy statement, but who is actually going to produce all these measures? The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, hinted at what local authorities could do, but is the Government’s policy to pile all these tasks on to local government? Who will be blamed if the measures are not produced? Are the Government considering what the financial demands are likely to be? The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has given us some indication that they may be considerably more than is currently the case.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I think the later contributions have shown that it is vital, in this connection, for the Government to focus on changing the materials that produce this. It is one thing to say, for example, that we want to go to zero carbon by a certain date. Well, surely we should have that kind of system applied to the way this development arises. Nobody wants to kill people, yet there is a substantial amount of this trouble arising in our country, and the remedy must be focused on getting rid of the particulates as far as possible. That is a very high aim, which is not always made prominent in the literature and the policies.