Environmental Protection and Biodiversity

Debate between Gideon Amos and Pippa Heylings

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I commend, as we all do, the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) for securing this important debate—it could not be more timely.

I start by asking the Minister why this Government refused to publish the full national security report on global biodiversity loss. The reason for that refusal is pertinent to today’s debate; it seems to be a refusal to be honest with the public about the inextricable links between nature, climate change and our national security, and how vulnerable it makes our country and society when we do not act on the evidence. That evidence states that biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse have severe consequences for food and water insecurity, crop failures, fisheries collapse and intensified natural disasters. That is cause for alarm and action.

Instead of responding with urgency, however, the Office for Environmental Protection has confirmed that not only do the Government remain largely off track to meet their environmental commitments, but, worryingly, they have committed to

“doing little that is new or different”

to change that. The latest State of Nature data shows decline, with one in six species at risk of extinction. We have heard that just 14% of England’s rivers are in good ecological health. Action on nature loss and climate breakdown cannot be dealt with in silos. That is why the Liberal Democrats, led by my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage), have pushed for an annual climate and nature statement from Government.

The Conservatives and Reform, meanwhile, refuse to accept that climate change is one of the greatest drivers of nature loss and propose the rolling back of climate legislation. There seems to be a similar siloed approach from this Labour Government—this time a nature-blind approach. While we commend the Government’s drive towards decarbonisation, the loss of nature is also accelerating climate change by disrupting habitats that capture and store carbon, such as peatlands and woodlands.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that habitat loss will not be helped if the Government accept recommendation 19 of the Fingleton review, which will weaken the duty to support our national parks? Our national parks did not stop the building of Sellafield, or of Trawsfynydd in Snowdonia national park; the Quantocks national landscape did not stop the building of Hinkley. We need to protect our national parks and landscapes.

[Pippa Heylings]

More than 20 leading nature organisations, including the Wildlife Trust, the National Trust and the RSPB, have warned that the changes my hon. Friend mentions would weaken environmental law by effectively allowing developers to pay to destroy protected wildlife.

I would like the Minister to respond on proposed recommendations 11, 12 and 19 of the Fingleton nuclear regulatory review. We do not want any more of the damaging framing of nature as a blocker to growth, or any more actions such as the weakening of key biodiversity safeguards in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. As my hon. Friend said, the proposed exemptions to biodiversity net gain risk hollowing out one of the most important tools for nature recovery. That is not just the case with nuclear energy; the Prime Minister has said that he also wants environmental deregulation across the entire industrial strategy, which would risk breaching level playing field provisions in the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement.

Liberal Democrats take a different view. We would accelerate environmental land management schemes with an extra £1 billion a year to support nature-friendly farming, as my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) said. We would halt and reverse nature’s decline by 2030 and double nature by 2050. We would strengthen the Office for Environmental Protection, and properly fund Natural England and the Environment Agency.

We have heard much about chalk streams, the jewel of our natural heritage, which is why I brought forward legislation with cross-party support to nominate the UK’s chalk streams as UNESCO natural world heritage sites. I hope the Minister will support that legislation. Nature is our joy and our pride, and it underpins our economy, our health, our food security and our safety.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Gideon Amos and Pippa Heylings

Report stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I declare my interest as co-chair of the all-party group on local nature recovery.

When the Government first introduced this Bill, they branded it a win-win. They said that we could build the homes and infrastructure that this country desperately needs and protect and restore nature. We have seen in my constituency—one of the fastest growing areas of the country, with a Liberal Democrat-run local planning authority—that it is indeed possible to demand from developers both ambitious house building and high environmental standards that restore nature. We Liberal Democrats believe that a healthy childhood for all children includes homes that are energy-efficient and warm, not cold and damp; access to green space for mental and physical health; and infrastructure, including public transport, GPs and schools.

When done well, nature is a partner to the healthy homes and green energy that our country needs. However, through this Bill, the Government risk taking a wrecking ball to good-quality development. Nature is not a blocker to development. We are pointing the figure at the wrong culprit, and this is cheap, false rhetoric. Nature is not to blame. The Government’s own watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection, has publicly warned that the Bill in its current form will be a regression from current environmental protections, rather than increasing the number of homes, helping nature and helping us to meet our binding climate and nature pledges. Instead it will remove vital safeguards and put protected sites and species at risk.

Over 30 leading environmental organisations, including the RSPB, the wildlife trusts and the National Trust, have raised the alarm about part 3 of the Bill, with its very worrying plan to move to a “cash to trash” model for the nature restoration fund. I know the Minister has rejected that characterisation, but in the Environmental Audit Committee we heard robust evidence from expert witnesses that we could call it a “pay some amount later for something, somewhere” fund.

[Gideon Amos]

Does my hon. Friend share my dismay that the Government are not receptive to amendments to part 3 that would restore the mitigation hierarchy and protection for irreplaceable species and ancient woodland?

[Pippa Heylings]

I completely concur. We appreciate the work done by my hon. Friend and others in the Bill Committee, and by tabling numerous amendments at this stage to help the Government improve the Bill.

Why do we need more stringent regulations and demands on developers, rather than less? Why do we need evidence and mitigations approved prior to development, rather than a “pay later for something, somewhere” nature restoration fund? It is because we have the evidence to show what happens without much-needed investment in enforcement capacity for local councils. On the Environmental Audit Committee, we heard the conclusions of the Lost Nature report: for nearly 6,000 homes across 42 developments, only half of the environmental pledges were kept. The others were missing in action—a staggering 83% of hedgehog highways, 100% of bug boxes and 75% of both bat and bird boxes. We need more. That is why I am speaking to the targeted amendments my hon. Friend has mentioned, to make sure we can have this win-win. His ew clause 1 would reinstate the mitigation hierarchy as a legal duty. Simply put, the duty is: first, avoid harm; then mitigate if that is not possible; and only compensate and offset as a last resort. This principle has underpinned environmental planning for decades and cannot be cast aside.

Amendments 6 to 10 and new clauses 26 and 29 aim to address the Office for Environmental Protection’s concerns and strengthen the overall improvement test for environmental delivery plans. I support new clause 21, which requires local plans to have due consideration to the local nature recovery strategies, which are currently silent in the planning system. Amendments 16 and 70 would give protections to England’s globally rare chalk streams—our rainforest and our groundwater. We have 85% of the world’s chalk streams, many of them in Lib Dem constituencies, including mine, yet they remain unprotected.

I hope the Government will consider amendments to the Bill, because we face a choice: pass this nature-wrecking Bill as it stands, or fix it by adopting amendments to protect chalk streams, restore wildlife and create a planning system that works with nature, not against it. I know what the Liberal Democrats will be voting for.