Environment Bill (Second sitting)

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Pow]

Q So this is very much what is termed a framework Bill. I get the impression that the local authorities would welcome more public consultation and engagement to get this right for you and for the businesses that we heard from this morning.

Mayor Glanville: Absolutely. As I said, we all face a tremendous amount of challenge from residents, consumers and activists. We all want to play our part in responding to the climate emergency. We as the Local Government Association have been doing a lot of peer-to-peer work. My board has created a climate change emergency action plan, and we are keen to continue that work. Where we would value a greater voice is at the political and officer level, if there is a taskforce linked to the Bill, especially on climate change emergency and action. I am told that there are still some details there to work through in terms of leading that full sector-led response.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Q Can I ask two things? The Minister said that all new burdens would be met. What is the figure that you said initially that local government would need to do the work set out in the Bill?

Mayor Glanville: Just on the area of waste and recycling, to meet the objectives that are set out in the Bill, we have done some internal modelling that said there would be a £700 million gap in local government funding to meet those new responsibilities and burdens. That is in the context of a total amount of around £4.2 billion spent on processing household waste. Of that, £700 million is spent on recycling, so it is a doubling of the recycling and reducing element that is outlined in the Bill.

[Jessica Morden]

Q Waste crime is obviously a big problem, with organised criminals dumping vast amounts of waste. What powers, duties and resources does local government already have, and what does it need? Does the Bill address that issue adequately?

Mayor Glanville: The challenge when taking enforcement action is the cost of bringing cases to court or issuing civil penalties. Local government has a lot of powers in that area, but it can sometimes be challenging to prove a cost-evidence base for implementing them, so anything to improve not just our powers but the ability to ensure that the polluter pays will help. That is the element that is always the challenge for local government.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

Q Many local authorities have declared climate emergencies. How will the Bill help local authorities to address those self-declared climate emergencies?

Mayor Glanville: Local authorities across the country from Hackney to Hull have declared climate emergencies. The Local Government Association itself has. Local authorities are doing a lot of work outside the scope of the Bill on energy, and there is some detailed work going on at the LGA. The challenge with air pollution and some of the aspirations in the Bill is that many of the elements are reliant on industry and consumer change. There is a lot of work on clean air zones in local government. There is experimentation in places around Nottingham on levying parking charges in workplaces. Wider investment in sustainable and public transport is needed to ensure that our aspirations on air pollution can be met.

In the Bill, there is some positive work on the contribution of motor vessels on our waterways and improving regulation of them. The Bill strengthens elements relating to domestic pollution and domestic fuels, which we very much welcome as well.

We are very keen, as local government, to ensure that we do our part in responding to the climate emergency. There are some of those upstream, “producer pays” principles around waste and recycling—for example, the car industry switching to a more electric fleet, and I know there have been announcements on bus funding—but if we are talking about the types of shift that we are going to need in consumer behaviour in the way that we travel, further work will need to be done together on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

It is a significant issue, but we are going to have to move on.

[Jessica Morden]

Q The Bill loads lots more powers and responsibilities on bodies such as Natural England. Given the big cuts you have faced, how much more do you anticipate you would need to take on the new responsibilities?

Alan Law: Fortunately, there is a spending review coming up. We are looking at refocusing our organisation in a way that aligns closely with the ambitions of the Bill and the 25-year plan to focus on nature recovery. That means looking to operate at a larger landscape scale and to use our statutory powers at a local authority scale, rather than solely focused at the end-of-pipe development control scale.

We welcome the powers and the ambitions set out here. I was being slightly flippant about the spending review, because wherever that money goes it goes, but our ambitions will be to refocus our organisation to use our incentive, convening, statutory advice and regulatory functions in ways that allow us to build larger-scale nature recovery.

A point was made earlier about whether we should focus on existing areas of high value for nature or wider areas. The point I want to emphasise is that we know—basic ecology tells us—that trying to protect small isolated sites over time does not work. Over the last 50 years, we have been exercising a regime that is effectively holding back the tide, stemming species extinctions on these sites. Unless we extend beyond those sites, it is inevitable that we will see losses of further species interest on these sites as the pressures from the environment and people’s activity continue to grow. This is something that we have to do and it is about rebalancing our focus to what the challenges are for the environment right now, rather than what they were 50 or 60 years ago.

Dr Young: I do not want to repeat what Alan just said, but I totally agree. I want to stress how important we feel Natural England’s role is in developing and helping to deliver the local nature recovery network and local strategies. It is able to convene partnerships, it has a wealth of knowledge and we really think it should play a central role.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Q Dr Young, what role could local nature recovery strategies play in targeting funding under the environmental land management scheme? How could those two things interact?

Dr Young: There is a real opportunity to integrate policy delivery where there is a need for action to be geographically targeted. Some of the options that will be developed under environmental land management will be much more effective for the delivery of public goods and for nature if they are targeted in particular places and form a connected network. Local nature recovery strategies have a mapping element that shows opportunity areas, so they can be used to help with targeting and alignment with other policy areas, such as water policy, so that we can see multiple benefits from delivering particular actions and therefore get more value for money.

Alan Law: Your question is absolutely fundamental. It is imperative that local nature recovery strategies provide an effective mechanism for drawing together different funding streams into a coherent delivery pattern on the ground. Whether it is ELM, net gain or potentially water company investments—a whole range of sources—we need to be able to target coherently. To do that, we need a degree of consistency of standard in place around those local strategies, because how could you offer—