Read Bill Ministerial Extracts
Environment Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Bill will establish the Office for Environmental Protection, which will have the power to take public bodies to an upper tribunal if there are breaches of the law. Of course, there are remedies in such a process through the usual mechanism of court orders.
The Bill sets out a framework for setting and taking concrete steps towards achieving our ambitious, legally binding long-term targets, and chapter 2 will establish that new, powerful independent Office for Environmental Protection to provide expert, objective and impartial advice on environmental issues and to take a proportionate and transparent approach to issues of national importance concerning the enforcement of environmental law. The OEP will hold this and every future Government to account by reporting on the progress we have made to improve the natural environment, as set out in our published evidence-based environmental improvement plans and targets.
I am going to make some progress.
The annual progress report we published last May showed that 90% of the highest-priority actions from our first 25-year environment plan, which will become our first improvement plan, have either been delivered or are on track. We have heeded the advice of both the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne). The OEP will enforce compliance with environmental law where needed, complementing and reinforcing the work of the world-leading Committee on Climate Change.
Environment Bill (First sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesMs Norberg, do you wish to add anything before I go back to the Minister?
Signe Norberg: I would like to add that our business members, who represent around £550 billion of global turnover, do support the Bill. They really want to see a robust environmental regime, because they fundamentally believe that environmental policies make clear economic sense for them. It is also better for the overall environment.
On why businesses want to see that happen, it does not just make clear economic sense; it also provides a stable environment in which they can invest in their workforce and in green products and services, and innovate their business model. If the Bill clearly sets out what is expected and by when, and what the targets are in the intermediate term to meet these objectives, it will help businesses to adjust their business model, where needed, but also to go beyond the targets.
We would certainly support some of the points that Ed has made about objectives. We would also like to see the interim targets strengthened further, because when you have certainty about what is going to happen in the next five years, it helps you also to look at the long-term targets that are 15 years ahead. If there is also something around remedial actions—so that when it looks like the intermediate targets are going to be missed, action will be taken—that will give businesses certainty around what is expected of their sector, but also about how they fit within the overall environmental framework.
Q
Signe Norberg: Certainly, and that stresses the importance of the interim targets, with the long-term targets being, as they should be, long term and indicating the direction of travel. The interim targets help to drive progress in the intermediate term, but also help us to see where we are and what we need to do to put us back on track. If we strengthen the interim targets, that will certainly be something that we know our businesses would welcome, because it not only provides the direction of travel but helps them look at their own model.
Martin Baxter: We fully support long-term targets because they give the strategic predictability and confidence for business to invest over the long term. The importance of interim targets is that they determine the pace at which we need to make progress, hence the need for a robust process for setting the long-term targets and involving businesses in the interim targets, to ensure absolute clarity about the likely investment needed to achieve progress at the rate we need. If we want to speed up progress, the question is, “How much will it cost and where will the cost fall?” We have to make sure that businesses are part of owning some of these targets, because they are the ones that will have to make the investment to deliver them. They have to understand what changes will be needed and what policy mechanisms might need to be introduced to ensure that that can all be achieved. That is where the role of interim targets and their link to environmental improvement plans, and the robustness with which those interim targets will be set, is really important.
Q
Edward Lockhart-Mummery: Absolutely. The objectives would guide how the targets and interim targets were set. The Secretary of State, when setting targets, would have to think how those targets would contribute to meeting the long-term objectives. That would be the legal mechanism. When stakeholders were having discussions with Government, everyone would understand the purpose of those targets and that would temper the discussion, because everyone would have a clear vision for what they were.
Objectives could also determine how principles and environmental improvement plans are applied in the Bill, so that when you are developing environmental improvement plans, you are also thinking, “What are we trying to achieve through this Bill?”, when you are applying principles and when the OEP is exercising its function. Thus, everyone is clear on the purpose of all those processes in chapter 1 of the Bill, which is the governance framework, and those objectives link to how the Government applies those processes, so that it is clear externally what we are trying to achieve. Then businesses, local authorities and other organisations know what we are trying to achieve through the Bill and know that when Government pull all those levers, it is all trying to go in a particular direction.
Q
Edward Lockhart-Mummery: We definitely support strengthening the targets. This is something we have discussed a lot in our group, and there are slightly different views of exactly how you do it. Some people would support the targets’ being legally binding, and others say that the final targets should be legally binding, but on the interim targets there needs to be more transparency. Then, if an interim target is not met, it could be that it triggers more of a reporting process, where the Government say, “We have missed the interim target. This is why, and this is what we’re doing about it,” rather than their being legally binding.
Potentially, if you made those interim targets legally binding, it could have perverse effects. Government might be a little less ambitious in setting interim targets, because it is always harder to know exactly what you are going to be able to do in the shorter term, particularly when some things require a lot of capital investment. If the target is to increase recycling rates, that requires a lot of capital investment or whatever.
There are some questions about exactly how you would set those interim targets. Because they are nearer term, it is more likely that the same Government will be in power when they are met, so what you do not want is for them to end up being very unambitious in setting the targets. A transparency mechanism would certainly be very good.
Q
“enhancing the coherence between the different governance elements so they are mutually supportive and aligned to drive environmental improvement to a common purpose”?
That sounds like management-speak. Can you try to bring it alive and explain what you really have in mind and what the benefits of it are?
Martin Baxter: Certainly. There are three key elements in the governance section of the Bill. First is the process for setting legally binding targets, and underpinning that is the significant improvement test in the natural environment. The environmental principles have a slightly different objective, on environmental protection and sustainable development. The Office for Environmental Protection has a different set of objectives as well. We think there is a real opportunity to set a common purpose in terms of clear objectives, as Ed has outlined, and to point all aspects of the governance process into achieving those. That is where we think you could get far greater coherence and cohesion between the different elements.
Q
Martin Curtois: Consistency of labelling could be one of the most significant changes in the right direction. At the moment you have this awful phrase, “widely recyclable”, and no one knows what it means. It could apply to one local authority and not to another. We would advocate literally a simplified traffic light system, whereby green is recyclable and red is not. I think the shock, for a retailer or producer, of having a red dot on its packaging would be such that it would want to avoid it. At a stroke, you would be improving recyclability straightaway.
That is one key element of it. It also drives people mad that they just do not know whether a product is recyclable or not, so you would get an improvement not only at the front end in terms of the manufacturers’ production, but in the materials we receive at the processing facilities. As you can imagine, we receive thousands of tonnes of materials a year. Anything that can be done to ensure that people are sorting it more efficiently at the outset will make our job of reprocessing it more straightforward.
Andrew Poole: For me and for small businesses, a lot of this legislation is generally about trust. The problem is that, if we do not get these things in place, everyone knows that the stick will come. There is an opportunity at the moment to be on the front foot. A lot of our engagement around the Bill has been about keeping businesses on the front foot and steering the legislation in a way that is beneficial to everyone. It is a case of giving all of these things a consistent approach, including labelling, for example. It is about trust in the outcomes of the legislation, and about making the right decisions. It is about trusting what they can see and seeing that the decisions are the right ones. It is important to have that transparency around the whole Bill.
Q
David Bellamy: We have not identified any shortcomings to date. Obviously, there are voluntary approaches. You mentioned WRAP, and there is also the UK food waste reduction road map. Companies are signing up to that in increasing numbers and manufacturers are making good progress. We are expecting a consultation on food waste reporting from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs soon, and there is no need for primary powers in the Bill to do that. There was talk of the potential for powers on setting targets down the track. I am not sure where the Government are on that at the moment.
We have not identified any shortcomings as such. The inertia is there with the UK food waste reduction road map, and knowing that food waste reporting is going to come in as planned as a legal requirement in line with the road map.
Q
David Bellamy: Yes. It is defined in the consultation, but certain companies of a certain size will be required to report their food waste. The idea is that they would do that in line with what they report under the road map, or what they do under Courtauld currently continues, so that there is no disconnect.
Q
David Bellamy: Yes. That is my understanding of the Government’s proposals.
Andrew Poole: Making it mandatory would be a sign of failure potentially at a certain level, in the sense that we can encourage them to do it voluntarily. I come back to the idea of making it easy for people to do it. Once we get to the mandatory stage we would then be arguing about issues. We picked on the reporting requirements of things like that. If it was risk-based and proportionate, that would be the way to go. We would hope that businesses in particular would be doing this voluntarily, to begin with.
Q
Andrew Poole: It is quite important with those big producers that many of these requirements are not pushed down through the supply chain. If you are a small supplier supplying a big supermarket, one of the requirements is to deal with a proportionate and risk-based reporting mechanism. That has to be borne in mind if you are targeting big supermarkets such as Tesco. They have to report everything, and the burden is passed down through those that supply them as well.
Q
Andrew Poole: I am saying it would have to be looked at quite carefully, so that the requirements were proportionate and the supply chain was taken into consideration as well.
Q
Andrew Poole: I come back to the point I keep making, which is that small businesses are signed up to this—in the broad concept. They want to do the right thing for the environment. They are human beings. What is increasingly important is that they want to demonstrate to their customers that they are doing the right thing. They are aligned with the broad concept of the Bill.
When it comes to those granular details, that is obviously what is going to make or break the Bill. Government must see small businesses as a partner for delivery at every stage where those decision have to be made. I suggest that the outcomes of this Bill will not be achieved without a fully engaged small business community playing a very active role in it. It is a plea to policy makers and legislators that small business views are taken into account fully when those decisions get made, at each stage.
Environment Bill (Second sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesQ
Rico Wojtulewicz: It is definitely not my expertise, but if it is a real concern, the industry would support measures to ensure that that does not occur.
Q
Rico Wojtulewicz: Guidance on what we could do to increase the swift population, such as on what trees and food they might like and what lights do and don’t attract the food that they enjoy eating. All these little things actually make a big difference. If that knowledge is there, it feels quite isolated. I think we are very enthusiastic about the things we can do, which will effectively make our sites better at delivering what people want.
The difficulty is that sometimes politicians perhaps do not understand the development process and what occurs. We in the development industry need to ensure that we have a greater understanding of what we can do on site. Perhaps you would have a particular target in an area that you know would encourage more swifts. Perhaps you could issue specific guidance for that local authority, as part of the network.
I think Brighton and Hove has just done it, and Exeter. I am working on Bristol.
Rico Wojtulewicz: They have. I am from Brighton.
Q
Rico Wojtulewicz: I think that is a really good point. The majority of our members are small and medium-sized, where someone might be a bricklayer one day and a site manager the next. They are trained to a high level—typically level 3, with more of them taken on than level 2. This is absolutely an opportunity to ensure that the education is there, not only because it would allow for better building approaches but because it would reduce the burden on a local authority always to have an expert. The more that the development industry can do to deliver what we can, the better. That means that local authorities can be certain that what is being delivered is correct and right for their local area. That is a great idea, and it would absolutely have the support of the National Federation of Builders.
Q
Ruth Chambers: It is an interesting question about the EHRC. We recently came across something that, if it would help the Committee, we could provide a short note on. I think that last year the Government undertook what is called a tailored review of the EHRC. In its evidence to that review, the Equality and Human Rights Commission itself was arguing for greater independence, more accountability to Parliament and a slightly different model, but the Government said that they did not think that that was appropriate for that body. So even a body that the Minister this morning was drawing some comparison with is saying that it feels that it is not sufficiently independent from Government.
We would not say that, for us, in the NGO sector, that is the best comparator. The two bodies that we think are more comparable in this space are the National Audit Office and the Office for Budget Responsibility—not necessarily in terms of their form and function, but in terms of how their independence is delivered via laws, both now and in the long term.
Ali Plummer: It is worth saying that what we are looking for here, ultimately, is that the OEP will hold the Government to account on meeting their environmental obligations, so building in some independent safeguards just to make sure that there is that gap between what the OEP can do, in terms of holding Government to account, and how it is set up is really important. As Ruth said, there are clear examples of that happening in other places, so what we are calling for is certainly not unique or unheard of in other places. I think that it would make sense to apply it to the OEP as well.
Q
Rebecca Newsom: Absolutely—we totally agree with what you have just said. We have to think about our global impact, as well as getting things right here. There is a major problem with the UK’s global footprint at the moment. A lot of the products that we consume on the UK market often, when it is related to meat and dairy, are somehow connected, through the supply chain, to deforestation. For example, 95% of chickens slaughtered in the UK are farmed intensively in a way that means they are fed on soya, and half of Europe’s global deforestation footprint is in relation to soya. We know that it can be tracked back, but, at the moment, there is not that kind of transparency.
The way to deal with this issue is twofold: first, reduce how much meat and dairy we are consuming in the UK, because we need to be freeing up agricultural land globally to give back to nature and allow abundance to be restored. We know the Government are very keen on nature-based solutions for climate change, and a key part of the puzzle is giving land back to nature. That requires a shift in our consumption habits. A global footprint provision in the Environment Bill to allow targets for this would enable that to happen.
The other piece to the puzzle is sorting out our supply chains and putting a requirement on corporations to clean up the supply chain and conduct due diligence. That can be delivered through the amendment you tabled on enforcing the 2020 deforestation deadline; the Government have backed that previously, but it needs legal enforcement, and also the establishment of due diligence legislation in six months’ time, which would set up that framework to enable it to be delivered.
Ruth Chambers: Can I add one thing to that? Again, this is a vital issue. If we take a step back and think about the journey of this Bill, it has been on a journey, and we have been on a journey with it. Its existence came from draft provisions from the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which were intended to close the environmental governance gap I have already talked about that arose as a result of EU exit. Then the Government took a very welcome step and decided to take the opportunity to enshrine domestic ambition in law through the Environment Bill, which came out in October and was re-published in January. This is the missing piece of that trilogy.
We totally understand that the Bill has been on a fast track—rightly, because nature’s decline cannot wait a moment longer. We understand why it has not been possible until this point in time to include measures in the Bill, but we hope the Government will do all they can to ensure these important issues are addressed, whether substantively or by using the Bill as a very important springboard ahead of the international summit later this year.
Q
Ali Plummer: From my perspective, one of the things the OEP can do is help bring a strategic overview of how some of this is working, to really drive and make regulation work a bit better in this country. One of the things regulation suffers from is underfunding and under-investment, to be honest; that applies particularly to bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency. Natural England has suffered huge budget cuts, and when it comes to its ability to properly regulate the things it is supposed to, it is struggling to fulfil some of its statutory duties. As a result, one of the things the OEP can do is take a much more strategic overview and hopefully provide a bit of insight and guidance—and enforcement, when needed—to make sure regulation is working effectively. It is not the OEP’s role to step in and perform the roles of these regulators, but it can take a much broader view and make sure the regulators are doing what they are supposed to be doing, and are properly upholding environmental law.
I need to bring the Minister back in. Ms McCarthy, do you want to come in briefly?
We are having a sitting on Thursday, when we may be looking at things such as the waste hierarchy, so I can probably save my question for that. It was mentioned earlier today that, because there is already technically a waste hierarchy that is enforceable in law, we do not need anything here. I would like to return to that, but I think we can do it at the Thursday sitting. I am flagging it up now in case Thursday’s witnesses are listening.
Environment Bill (Fourth sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesQ
Dr Benwell: We hope that all sorts of stakeholders will be involved in the production. We hope that Natural England will sign off the plans, to show that they are ecologically rational, and that non-governmental organisations will come together with water companies, developers and local businesses to make it happen. However, all of those need to be sure that the plans will actually be used in day-to-day planning and spending decisions; otherwise, they will waste a lot of time and money putting together things that will just sit on the shelf. The duties to actually use them are not quite there at the moment.
Q
We heard from one witness that the Bill is slightly lacking an overarching vision, which they thought could be addressed by having not just environmental objectives but objectives on health and wellbeing—I see that they are debating that in the Lords today—a bit like in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. The other issue mentioned was resource use, because there is stuff about reducing single-use plastics but not about consumption patterns overall. Decarbonisation was mentioned as well. Do you feel that the Bill could encompass those things without being unwieldy?
The other thing, which is slightly connected, is the global footprint, and I have put down some amendments on that. I entirely agree that there is not much point in doing things here if you are buying in stuff that causes environmental degradation elsewhere, or if we are funding it. I wonder whether you can say a bit more. George, on that point, one of my amendments would add to the four priority areas of the global footprint. What would be the sort of targets that we would be looking at? What would be the first things that we would address on that front?
George Monbiot: Of course, footprinting is now quite a technical and well-documented field, in which we can see what our footprint is as a proportion of our biological capacity. In land use, for example, we are using roughly 1.7 times as much as the agricultural land that we have here. A fantastic objective—it would be a long-term one—would be bring that down to 1. If we were to look at living within our means as far as key ecological resources are concerned, that would be a wonderful overarching objective for anyone.
Dr Benwell: On global resources, we should set out with an aspiration to deal with the UK’s entire environmental footprint eventually, including embedded water, embedded carbon and all those sorts of things, but for now it is very difficult to come up with reliable metrics for everything, so we should start where we can. One of the most straightforward ways is dealing with products in the supply chain that cause deforestation. It is basically the point that George was making. We know what those products are—it is things like leather, beef, soya, cocoa—
George Monbiot: Palm oil.
Dr Benwell: Palm oil, of course. It is perfectly possible to measure that footprint and set a target for reducing it. Businesses themselves came up with a voluntary commitment back in 2010, and it has had no real effect on the UK’s impact on global deforestation in some of the most amazing areas of the world. It is time to back that up with a regulatory commitment, and that would be good for the businesses that have shown a lead. At the moment, the only ones who properly investigate their supply chains, disclose what they find and take due diligence are the ones that are trying really hard. Unfortunately, it makes them look bad when the ones that are doing the worst and most damaging practices are just not bothering to report.
We should start off with a priority area for the global footprint being a metric for deforestation. Then we should have a due diligence duty that requires all businesses to look across their supply chain for deforestation risks and, crucially, to act to reduce those risks where they find them. That would be a massive step forward. It would be such an unlocker in international negotiations, where the refrain is always that developed countries are not doing their bit, but are just exporting their harm. If we show that we are not going to play that game anymore and are actually going to take responsibility, that would be an amazing thing to lay on the table in international talks.
George Monbiot: To Richard’s list of commodities with very damaging impacts, I would certainly add fish. We currently import all sorts of fish with devastating by-catch rates. The Fisheries Bill aims to improve performance within UK waters, although it is pretty vague at the moment. It would be profoundly hypocritical if we were to carry on importing fish from places with very poor environmental performance.
Q
Dr Benwell: It should definitely be in there. I think there is full potential for that to be covered in the Bill. If there is not, it should be broadened out. Yes, definitely, we should think of our approach to the natural environment as serving wildlife and people. Setting an overarching objective is one way to do it, or you could deal with specific areas.
George Monbiot: And specifically listing children and future generations as people for whom there is a particular duty of care in terms of protecting the natural environment.
Q
I feel that the Bill is the overarching framework for a positive way forward, and that were we to try to lock in all sorts of specific targets it would lose what it is trying to achieve, because there would be so much going on. What is your opinion on taking the matter to secondary legislation in the future so that we could listen to experts? I do not know what the experts would say about somewhere like Dartmoor. They might have differing opinions, and then how would we know what success looks like?
George Monbiot: You raise the fascinating issue of baselines. What baseline should we be working to? Should we be working to an Eemian baseline—the previous interglacial, when there were elephants and rhinos roaming around, with massive, very positive environmental effects, and there was an identical climate to today’s? Should we be aiming for a Mesolithic baseline, when there would have been rainforest covering Dartmoor; a Neolithic one, when it would have been a mixture of forest and heath; or a more recent one, which is basically heath and grass, with not much heath left?
The truth is that baselines will continue to shift because we will move into a new climatic regime. All sorts of other environmental factors have changed, so we will never be able to recreate or freeze in time any previous state. That is why I think that a general legislative aim should be restoration and the re-establishment of missing species, without having to specify in primary legislation which ones they will be. The restoration of missing habitats, as well as the improvement and enhancement of existing habitats, is the bit that is missing from clause 93. We could add in habitats that we no longer have but could still support. However, we should not lock it down too much.
A big problem with existing conservation, particularly with its single-species and interest-features approach, has been to lock in place previous instances of environmental destruction. You will go to a site of special scientific interest and it will say, “The interest feature here is grass no more than 10 cm high.” Why is that the interest feature? Because that is the condition in which we found the land when we designated it as an SSSI. Is it the ideal condition from an ecological point of view? Certainly not.
We need flexibility, as well as the much broader overarching target of enhancing biodiversity and enhancing abundance at the same time. We could add to that a target to enhance the breadth and depth of food chains: the trophic functioning of ecosystems, through trophic rewilding or strengthening trophic links—“trophic” meaning feeding and being fed upon. Having functioning food webs that are as deep as possible, ideally with top predators, and as wide as possible, with as many species at every level, would be a really great ecological objective.
Dr Benwell: You are right: we would not want to set detailed targets for the condition of Dartmoor in the Bill. That would not make sense. Nor, indeed, do we necessarily want to set numerical targets for anything else. What we need is the confidence that the suite of targets will be comprehensive and enough to turn around the state of nature. In the Bill at the moment, that legal duty could be fulfilled by setting four very parochial targets for air, water, waste and wildlife. I do not think that that is the intention, but when it comes down to it, the test is whether the target would achieve significant environmental improvement in biodiversity.
You could imagine a single target that deals with one rare species in one corner of the country. That could legitimately be argued to be a significant environmental improvement for biodiversity. Unquestionably it could, but what we need—I think this is the Government’s intention—is something that says, “We are not going to do that. We are going to treat the natural environment as a comprehensive system and set enough targets to deal with it as a whole.”
I can think of three ways of doing that. You could set an overarching objective that says what sort of end state you want to have—a thriving environment that is healthy for wildlife and people; you could list the different target areas, as I had a go at before, on the basis of expert advice, and make sure that those are always there; or you could look again at the significant environmental improvement test and make it clear that it is not just talking about individual priority areas but about the environment as a whole, on land and at sea. It does not matter how the Government do it. I think that is their intention. However, at the moment, we are not convinced that the legal provisions in the Bill would require that now or in future iterations of the target framework.
Q
Bud Hudspith: Yes, we welcome that. That was the point made before. Parts of it are fairly vague and we would like it to be much clearer as to who should be involved. There should be clear consultation with the chemical industry—the people who work in the chemical industry and the people who represent them.
Dr Warhurst: The principles sound good, but the point of principles is how they are interpreted—not just the political decisions about interpretation, but these capacity issues. The problem we see is that it is very difficult for the UK to be in a position, even if it wanted to, to go ahead of the EU, which we have not seen as very likely. In parallel areas, such as chemicals and food contact materials, where the UK could have gone ahead of the EU, it has not, even though countries such as Germany, Belgium and France have.
I will give a practical example. Perfluorinated chemicals are in all our bodies. They are in our blood. They were talked about in a recent film, “Dark Waters”. They are in food packaging, ski wax and textiles. The EU is proposing to do a general restriction on these chemicals for non-essential users. This is thousands of chemicals. That will be a huge job for the 600-person ECHA and member states around the EU. There will be challenges from industry. We know that Chemours is already challenging a decision on one of the chemicals in the group.
We do not see it as credible that a UK-only agency, which will have to spend a lot of time just administering the registration system that is set up or the applications for authorisation, will really have the potential to copy that. But we would obviously like the Government to make a commitment that they will follow this and ban these chemicals.
Q
Bud Hudspith: I would follow on from Michael’s point. We have concerns about the resources available to the Health and Safety Executive and the technical ability of people in the HSE to mirror what has gone in the European Chemicals Agency, its size and extent, and the amount of work that has gone on over many years to get to the position that it is in now.
It seems as though we will be in a situation where we will start again from scratch. Even if we achieve what has been achieved in ECHA, it will take us many years to get there. We are worried, especially about that intervening period. Where will we be? I do a lot of work with the HSE, and I am aware of the kind of pressures it is under. It is easy to say that the HSE will do this, or that the HSE will do other things, but unless it is given the resources and people to do that, it is words rather than action.
Q
Bud Hudspith: Yes. The position with the EU— ECHA—is that it has come an awful long way. We are getting to the stage where it is probably working better than it has before, and I do not want to wait another five years to get to that position in the UK. It may take more than that—I do not know whether or not it will be five years.
The UK, in “The Future Relationship with the EU” document, talks about
“the separate regulatory requirements of the two markets”.
What impact would that have on the chemicals industry, if there is that level of divergence—or is it about trying to keep up?
Nishma Patel: Following on from what Bud said, REACH has been there for 10 years, and a big chunk of the work under REACH has been done in the past 10 years. The UK contribution has been second in that, in terms of registrations and in providing the data behind the chemicals. To start that process again would put us on a behind path on EU REACH and REACH in general.
The annex, in what we see of the UK position at the moment, allows for the two regulations to co-operate, to talk to each other, if that is the way the negotiations go. It might also allow a mechanism to share data, evidence, on the input put into the European Chemicals Agency database. It is not completely negative. The door is still open in terms of starting from the same evidence base and regulating chemicals; it is just how UK REACH will work—that will depend on what is negotiated in that annex on chemicals, and the extent of the co-operation.
Dr Warhurst: We would agree with many of the points that have been made. We have to remember that, at the beginning of the process, the UK will essentially have an empty database and will be asking for material to be submitted to it from industry. There are already a lot of complaints from industry about the new costs that that will generate—for the chemical companies that are used to doing it, and then for all the people who import substances registered in REACH in a different country, who will suddenly have to register as well. There is a lot of cost to get a database that, even when it is full—in two years or however long—will be much less detailed than the EU one.
It is worth saying that the UK is already not good at enforcing chemicals laws at the moment. We talk a lot about the risk-based approach in the UK regulations, but we did a survey a couple of years ago of how councils were enforcing the laws on the safety of consumers—toys with illegal levels of phthalate chemicals, for example—and we found that large numbers of councils do no testing at all, and that even the ones that do some testing do not do much. Yet, when they do testing, they find lots of failure. We know that banned chemicals are on our high streets and in our markets, now. That really does not give us confidence that somehow there will be this amazing leap in UK capacity to implement and enforce these laws.
Q
Bud Hudspith: I must admit that I was not clear what the safeguards were. Broadly speaking, we are supportive of the Bill and the things that it is trying to do. Our doubts lie with how deliverable that is and what resources and expertise the UK is able to apply. As I saw it, there did not seem to be too many safeguards. I was aware, again, of the amendment whereby at least there is some effort to institute safeguards.
Clearly, large parts of the REACH regulations are being transferred into the UK position. An example is that the stuff on data sheets, which is currently held within the EU REACH regulations, is going to be transferred into the UK REACH regulations, and that is fine. There are lots of things that we are happy with in respect of the change. I suppose that, on a broader level, we would like to see huge improvements to the speed at which things are done and the way things are regulated, but whether that is going to happen is, I think, questionable.
Dr Warhurst: We would back that position. The problem is that the Bill is so much about a process, and the process itself has no targets and timelines. It does not say, “You will assess this many chemicals each year. You will check this many chemicals.” This is a problem at EU level. There has been pressure, and now it has set its own targets and is doing much more.
The danger is that you end up with this sort of hollow system here. It exists in theory, but if the system does not say, “Actually, this chemical is not adequately controlled so we are going to restrict it,” it could essentially just sit doing very little, dealing with all the things that it needs to exist, and you end up with something that is hollow.
We are already in a situation where you can have a chemical such as bisphenol A in till receipts; you ban that; and then the industry moves to bisphenol S. This is demonstrated with tonnage data. That is what has happened in the EU, and the EU has not yet restricted bisphenol S; it is just going to define it as a reproductive toxin, hopefully in the next few months. These things are happening. Movement is happening. The market is moving from one chemical to another. Will the regulator move? We have no evidence. There is no obligation in the Bill for the regulator to actually do new restrictions or new authorisations.
Environment Bill (Fifth sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesI am afraid that my level of expertise does not match that of the shadow Minister, but I will do my best with the time, space and knowledge that I have to do justice to the three amendments.
Amendment 103 is listed in the names of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who is Chair of the Select Committee for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee; and myself, as vice-chair of the EAC. It is therefore clear that these are not partisan amendments. We took it upon ourselves to table them as a result of the prelegislative scrutiny we undertook. The scrutiny applied by this Committee last week underlines the need for the amendment.
I will speak to amendment 103 and new clauses 1 and 6, and will then refer to some of the things that were said my our expert witnesses last week, which underline the need for the amendments to be included in the Bill. All three are complementary, although they all provide something slightly different to strengthen the Bill. I say to the Minister that these proposals will strengthen the Bill and give it clarity; I do not intend to wreck the Bill or change its intent.
Amendment 103 would give the Secretary of State the power to look at environmental objectives holistically, and would ensure that the overarching goal of the Bill and of the Department is the continuous improvement of the whole environment. It would also make the targets richer, as the Secretary of State must explain why targets are being set at that stage and the necessity for them.
The amendment links target setting with environmental objectives. Evidence from last week’s expert witness sessions explains why that is important and why the Bill may not yet be strong enough to ensure it. I am not saying that the Minister or Secretary of State would not do such things, but we have to legislate for future Administrations that may not be as committed as the current one.
Last week, we took evidence from Ali Plummer of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead asked her:
“Do you think the clauses give a sufficiently clear direction of travel on the sort of targets that will be set?”
The amendment relates specifically to that matter. Ali Plummer responded:
“Not currently, the way the Bill is written. The provisions to set targets in priority areas are welcome. We are looking for slightly more clarity and reassurance in two areas: first, on the scope of targets that will be set, to ensure there are enough targets set in the priority areas, and that they will cover that whole priority area, and not just a small proportion of it; and secondly, on the targets being sufficiently ambitious to drive the transformation that we need in order to tackle some big environmental issues.”
The amendment speaks directly to that evidence—for me, not strongly enough, though it takes us a long way towards the goals that Ali Plummer set out.
Ali Plummer also said that
“on, for example, the priority area of biodiversity…I think we are looking for more confidence that the Government’s intent will be carried, through the Bill, by successive Governments.”
We will come back to that. The amendment is not about the aim of the present Government, but about successive Governments and setting a long-term framework. She went on to say:
“I am not sure that that sense of direction is there. While there is a significant environmental improvement test, I do not think that quite gives us the confidence that the Bill will really drive the transformation that we need across Government if we are to really tackle the issues.”––[Official Report, Environment Public Bill Committee, 10 March 2020; c. 75, Q118.]
The point about transformation being needed across Government, not just in the Minister’s Department, brings me on to a question that I asked of Ruth Chambers of Greener UK, regarding the carve-outs and exclusions in the Bill. She responded that they
“absolve much of Government from applying the principles in the way that they should be applied. The most simple solution would be to remove or diminish those carve-outs. We do not think that a very strong or justified case has been made for the carve-outs, certainly for the Ministry of Defence or the armed forces; in many ways, it is the gold standard Department, in terms of encountering environmental principles in its work. There seems to be no strong case for excluding it, so remove the exclusions.”––[Official Report, Environment Public Bill Committee, 10 March 2020; c. 76, Q120.]
The amendment provides a framework to do that, although not wholly.
I will move on to new clause 1, and return later to some of the expert witness statements. I was honoured to table the new clause with my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test; hopefully he will not be dissatisfied with the way I speak to it. The intention of the new clause is to enshrine an environmental objective in the Bill. The new clause complements amendment 103, because it is about achieving and maintaining a healthy natural environment. That goes very well with the point that we need continuous improvement of the environment.
The new clause also says:
“Any rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures arising from this Act must be enforced, allowed and followed for the purpose of contributing to achievement of the environmental objective.”
It would give all those powers—or duties, shall we say, as “powers” are one of the things listed—to the Secretary of State and would give the Bill an overall coherence that it lacks. It would tie things together and give confidence that there is a single unitary aim, and would start the process of tying target-setting to the aim.
That was underlined by the excellent evidence that we had from Dr Richard Benwell of Wildlife and—
I thank my hon. Friend—Wildlife and Countryside Link. We also heard from George Monbiot in that sitting. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth asked last week—I am sure that it relates to her constituency —how far back we would need to go in terms of preserving Dartmoor, and they gave a good answer. Parts of their answers are useful with reference to the new clause. George Monbiot said:
“We need flexibility, as well as the much broader overarching target of enhancing biodiversity and enhancing abundance at the same time. We could add to that a target to enhance the breadth and depth of food chains: the trophic functioning of ecosystems, through trophic rewilding or strengthening trophic links”.––[Official Report, Environment Public Bill Committee, 12 March 2020; c. 121, Q163.]
That, again, is a broad aim, which is included in the new clause.
Dr Benwell said in answering the same question:
“In the Bill at the moment, that legal duty could be fulfilled by setting four very parochial targets for air, water, waste and wildlife. I do not think that that is the intention, but when it comes down to it, the test is whether the target would achieve significant environmental improvement in biodiversity.”
I do not think that the Minister or the Secretary of State would set very parochial targets in those four areas, but perhaps a future Minister or Secretary of State would. That is why I think that not only would a much broader environmental objective, as in the new clause, be welcome, it is necessary.
Dr Benwell continued:
“You could imagine a single target that deals with one rare species in one corner of the country. That could legitimately be argued to be a significant environmental improvement for biodiversity.”
For instance, our entire biodiversity target could relate to red squirrels, which now mainly reside in Cumbria. That would be our whole objective. If a future Secretary of State were obsessed with red squirrels, and did not care for any other aspect of biodiversity, that might happen. I know that the current Secretary of State does not have those views, but while I have been in Parliament, and sat as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, there have been four Environment Secretaries, so they come and go fairly often, although I hope the present one stays longer in his role.
Dr Benwell said:
“You could set an overarching objective that says what sort of end state you want to have—a thriving environment that is healthy for wildlife and people”.
That is what new clause 1 would do. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test does not seem to be shaking his head, so I assume I am getting that right. Not much later in the sitting, the hon. Member for Dudley North asked whether the Bill sufficiently empowers all Departments to protect and improve the environment. Dr Benwell said:
“‘Empowers’, possibly; ‘requires’, not quite yet.”––[Official Report, Environment Public Bill Committee, 12 March 2020; c. 121-22, Q163.]
New clause 1 responds to Dr Benwell’s response, and goes from “not quite yet” to now. That is why it is a necessary improvement to the Bill.
Many of the amendments and new clauses that we shall talk about later and during the passage of the Bill will bring us back to new clause 1, which is an anchoring point from which to improve the Bill. Even if the Minister does not accept it today, I hope that through in Committee and on Report she will consider taking a much broader environmental objective as part of the Bill, to help us improve it.
I beg to move amendment 76, in clause 1, page 1, line 17, at end insert—
“(e) global footprint.”
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 77, in clause 1, page 2, line 16, at end insert—
“(10) Without prejudice to subsection (6), the global footprint target is required to be met with regard to ecosystem conversion and degradation, and to deforestation and forest degradation, by 31 December 2020.”
Amendment 78, in clause 44, page 27, line 24, at end insert—
“‘global footprint’ means—
(a) direct and indirect environmental harm, caused by, and
(b) human rights violations arising in connection with the production, transportation or other handling of goods which are imported, manufactured, processed, or sold (whether for the production of other goods or otherwise), including but not limited to direct and indirect harm associated with—”.
Amendments 76 to 78 are intrinsically linked with new clause 5, which we will come to, which is about the enforcement mechanism and due diligence in supply chains that would allow us to ensure that actions takes place. I will try to separate the amendments from the new clause and return to this issue in a bit more detail when we get to the new clause.
Amendment 76 would add “global footprint” to the four priority areas in which a long-term target must be set. As the Minister is aware, the target is only in respect of at least one matter within each priority area. Some people may think, at first glance, our ability to know what the global picture will look like over a long period is limited, particularly given the uncertainties we face. However, as the Minister will know, this measure is about trying to drill down and find an action we can take in each priority area.
Amendment 77 is not about long-term targets but about a very short-term target we could address on ecosystem conversion, degradation, deforestation and forest degradation by the end of the year. I will come in a moment to why the date given is important. Amendment 78 would define “global footprint”, and we will come later to new clause 5, on due diligence in the supply chain, which is really important.
The amendments in the group address the climate and ecological emergencies that we all recognise. The 25-year environment plan commits to leaving a lighter footprint on the global environment, but that is not supported in any way by legislation. The overseas impact of our consumption, production and, I would add, financial investment—banks lending to the companies that are doing these things—is partly about the embedded carbon and water in the products that we produce and consume, but it is also about the depletion of natural resources, including deforestation, and it often comes with a human cost, too. We hear about indigenous people being displaced from their land and we hear terrible cases of environmental defenders being murdered or disappeared, particularly in Latin America. We hear about modern slavery in the food supply chain, or exploitation of workers.
I took part in a debate last year or the year before—I lose track of time in this place—linking up World Food Day and modern slavery. The cheap food that we consume comes at a cost. Sometimes, that is an environmental cost. Often, it is at a cost to the people who work within the food system.
If we need an economic reason to pursue this agenda, as opposed to just caring about the environment and climate change, the World Economic Forum “Global Risks Report 2020” ranks environmental risk as the greatest systemic threat to our global economy, although I suspect that the report may have been published before coronavirus hit us. It says that the decline of natural assets will cost the world at least £368 billion a year, which adds up to almost £8 trillion by 2050, and the UK will suffer some of the biggest financial losses because of our trading patterns, consumption and so on.
As we all know, the extraction and processing of natural resources globally has accelerated over the past two decades. It accounts for more than 90% of our biodiversity loss and water stress and around a half of our climate impacts. That is having a particular impact on the world’s forest.
From other debates, we know about the importance of our land and our oceans in terms of carbon mitigation—acting as natural carbon sinks. Land and oceans could offer as much as one third of carbon mitigation needed globally by 2030, to contain global warming at 1.5°. We have had that debate in the UK, about tree planting and peatlands and so on, but obviously, the huge forests of the world, such as the Amazon, are incredibly important. However, the world’s intact tropical forests are now absorbing a third less carbon than they did in the 1990s, owing to the impact of higher temperatures, droughts and deforestation. In the 1990s, the carbon uptake from those forests used to be equivalent to about 17% of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities. That figure has now sunk to around 6% of global emissions in the last decade. If dramatic action is not taken now to halt deforestation, tropical forests may even become a source of additional carbon into the world’s atmosphere by the 2060s.
Much of this global deforestation is the result of agricultural production. Some 77% of agricultural land is currently used for livestock, through pasture grazing and the production of animal feed, such as soya. Soya imports represent almost half of Europe’s deforestation footprint, and around 90% of that is used for animal feed. Many of the products that we consume in the European market, particularly embedded soya in meat and dairy, as well as palm oil, cocoa, pulp and paper, are directly or indirectly connected through the supply chain with deforestation and human rights abuses in some of the most precious and biodiverse ecosystems across the world, including the Amazon and Indonesian forests. For example, 95% of the chickens slaughtered in the UK each year are intensively farmed—a model of production that relies on industrial animal feed containing soya.
The solution is to stop deforestation and to give significant areas back to nature. The 2015 United Nations New York declaration on forests committed to restoring an area of forests and croplands larger than the size of India by 2030. We need three significant interventions to meet that goal.
The first is significantly to reduce global meat and dairy consumption and to give large areas of existing agricultural land back to nature. Another is to end the use of crop-based biofuels, to prevent further land conversion away from high-quality natural ecosystems. We also need to clean up global supply chains, to limit deforestation, which new clause 5 particularly addresses. This is one way that the UK can show leadership as we approach COP26. It would also show leadership towards one of the draft targets for the Convention on Biological Diversity at Kunming in China later this year, if that goes ahead.
I thank hon. Members for their contributions on this really key subject. I remind the Committee that the Bill gives us the power to set long-term legally binding targets on any matter relating to the natural environment.
I will pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East about the 25-year environment plan, which is of course the first environmental improvement plan under the Bill. That plan talks about “leaving a lighter footprint” and the whole of chapter 6 is about,
“Protecting and improving our global environment”.
That is there in writing and I assure the Committee that the power in the Bill to set long-term legally binding targets on any matter relating to the natural environment allows us to set targets on our global environmental footprint.
I know that the 25-year plan will be incorporated as the first environmental plan, but my point was that by adding amendment 76 and the fifth priority on the global footprint, we would ensure that the Bill specifies that global footprint targets would have to be set. Simply referring to the 25-year plan is just warm words rather than any clear commitment to action.
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He speaks with a great deal of knowledge about worldwide issues, as he always does in the Chamber.
On the grounds of what I have said, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
I will have to go back and read what the Minister said, because I am rather confused. She seems to be jumping around all over the place. On one hand, she says a global footprint target can be included in the Bill and cites some good things that have happened through volunteer initiatives and through companies—perhaps with a bit of Government pressure on them—to say that such things can be done. On the other hand, she says that we cannot possibly put it in the Bill.
I point out that amendment 77 is designed to ensure that there is an end-of-year target, which was previously a commitment. The Government have said in various different forums that they would achieve that, so it is a bit late now to say, “We need to worry about the metrics, and we need to be working on this, that and the other.”
I tried to intervene on the Minister because I wanted to ask her about the GRI recommendations, which will come forward on 30 March. If it recommends that the provision should be in the Environment Bill, will the Minister commit to table amendments that reflect the GRI recommendations? As she would not let me intervene to ask her about that, she is very welcome to intervene and tell me whether that is the case. It might affect whether I decide to push anything to a vote.
I will intervene very briefly. I reiterate that we await the outcome of the recommendations and will consider them very carefully. Getting the metrics right is absolutely crucial, as is every target in the Bill. I said strongly that there is a power in the Bill to set targets on our global environmental footprint. I shall leave it there.
As I said, I want to revisit that, because I thought the Minister was making an argument against being able to pursue targets. She did not adequately make the case for not having the specific priority of a global footprint target, but we will return to that when we discuss new clause 5, which is a comprehensive clause about due diligence in the supply chain and how we enforce all this. We shall return to the debate then, rather than my pressing these issues to a vote now. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I beg to move amendment 178, in clause 1, page 1, line 17, at end insert—
“(3A) Targets set within the priority area of air quality must include targets for—
(a) the ambient 24 hour mean concentration of PM2.5 and PM10;
(b) average human exposure to PM2.5 and PM10; and
(c) annual emissions of NOx, ammonia, PM2.5, PM10, SO2 and non-methane volatile organic compounds.
(3B) Targets set within the priority area of water must include, but are not limited to, matters relating to—
(a) abstraction rates; and
(b) the chemical and biological status and monitoring of inland freshwater and the marine environment.
(3C) Targets set within the priority area of biodiversity must include, but are not limited to, matters relating to—
(a) the abundance, diversity and extinction risk of species; and
(b) the quality, extent and connectivity of habitats.
(3D) Targets set within the priority area of waste and resources must include, but are not limited to, matters relating to the reduction of overall material use and waste generation and pollution, including but not limited to plastics.”
We are now moving on to a debate on one of the most important elements of the Bill. I suspect it will take us beyond the break for lunch, but I will start my remarks. The amendment is designed to address the priority areas for environmental targets, which are set out in clause 1(3). Hon. Members can see that the stated policy areas are air quality, water, biodiversity, and resource efficiency and waste reduction. Other targets, particularly on PM2.5 air quality, are mentioned later in the Bill, but those are the priority areas for the purpose of the Bill.
Environment Bill (Sixth sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesI will give my speech then, Sir Roger.
The amendment would undermine the intention to ensure that we set targets via an open consultation process that allows sufficient time for relevant evidence to be gathered, scrutinised and tested. As part of that process, we intend to seek evidence from a wide range of stakeholder interests, carry out good quality scientific socioeconomic analysis, take advice from independent experts and conduct a public consultation, alongside the parliamentary scrutiny of the target SIs that I have mentioned many times before.
It is important that we get that right rather than rushing to set targets, so we do not want to bring the deadline forward from 31 October 2022. We have heard strong support for that approach from stakeholders, who are all keen to have time and space to contribute meaningfully to target development. It is critical that there is certainty about what our targets are by the time we review our environmental improvement plan. That is essential for us to set out appropriate interim targets—the ones that will get us to the long-term target—and consider what measures may be required to achieve both the interim and long-term targets. The review of the plan must happen by 31 January 2023, so to that end, the target deadline of 31 October 2022 works well.
The Committee should also note that 31 October 2022 is a deadline. It does not prevent us from setting a target earlier where we have robust evidence and have received the necessary input from experts, stakeholders and the public.
Can the Minister reassure us that the 2022 deadline does not mean that progress on those issues will not be made or that we cannot have interim targets before we reach the deadline? The whole thing is not being kicked off until 2022; we should still be doing our best to tackle the problem of clean air between now and then.
The target deadline of 31 October 2022 works well for us to report back on our first environmental improvement plan three months later. We hope that some consultations will start during the process, so work will be under way to improve the environment, take advice, set targets and so on. Work will be under way to start the ball rolling.
I beg to move amendment 82, in clause 4, page 3, line 24, at end insert
“and,
(c) interim targets are met.”
This amendment places a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the interim targets they set.
For the Committee’s further enlightenment, I can say that amendment 24 was in a different place in the provisional grouping. I landed my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West in it slightly by assuming that it would be debated under clause 2; it is actually a separate discussion. I am sorry to my hon. Friend for that, but he did a brilliant job under the circumstances.
Amendment 82 is deceptively small but makes an important point about interim targets in this piece of legislation. The Bill requires interim targets to be set on a five-yearly basis. In the environmental improvement plans, the Government are required to set out the steps they will take over a 15-year period to improve the natural environment. However, environmental improvement plans are not legally binding; they are simply policy documents.
Although the plans need to be reviewed, potentially updated every five years and reported on every year, that is not the same as legal accountability. Indeed, voluntary environmental targets have been badly missed on a number of occasions. The target set in 2010 to end the inclusion of peat in amateur gardening products by 2020 will be badly missed. The target set in 2011 for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to conserve 50%—by area—of England’s sites of special scientific interest by 2020 has been abandoned and replaced with a new target to ensure that 38.7% of SSSIs are in favourable condition, which is only just higher than the current level. A number of voluntary, interim and other targets have clearly been missed because they are just reporting objects; they do not have legal accountability.
Interim targets should be legally binding to guarantee that they will be delivered, and it is vital to have a robust legal framework in place to hold the Government and public authorities to account—not just in the long term, but in the short term. As things stand, the Government could in theory set a long-term, legally binding target for 2037, as suggested in the legislation, but then avoid having to do anything whatever about meeting it until 2036.
Amendment 82 would insert the phrase, “interim targets are met.” That would effectively place a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the interim targets that they set. In that context, it is no different from the provisions of the Climate Change Act, which I keep repeating as an example for us all to follow. Indeed, how the five-year carbon budgets work is an example for all of us to follow. They were set up by the Climate Change Act effectively as interim targets before the overall target set for 2050, which is now a 100% reduction; it was an 80% reduction in the original Act.
Those five-year targets are set by the independent body—the Committee on Climate Change—and the Government are required to meet them. If the Government cannot meet them, they are required to take measures to rectify the situation shortly afterwards. Therefore, there are far better mechanisms than those in the Bill to give interim targets real life and ensure they are not just exercises on a piece of paper.
It is important that the Secretary of State is given a duty to meet the targets, because that means that they will have to introduce mechanisms to ensure that they meet those targets. That is what we anticipate would happen as a subset of these measures.
We need to take interim targets seriously, as I am sure the Minister would agree. Indeed, it is not a question of whether we take them seriously; it is a question of how we take them seriously, in a way that ensures that they are credible, achievable, workable and play a full part in the process of getting to the eventual targets that we set at the start of the Bill.
I will be very brief. I entirely support what my hon. Friend says about the need for interim targets. We have seen how the carbon budgets work under the Climate Change Act. There is real concern that the timetable might be slipping and that we might not manage to meet the commitments in the next couple of carbon budgets, but at least there is a mechanism.
I know that we have the environmental improvement plans, and that there is a requirement to review them and potentially update them every five years. However, there are so many strategy documents and plans. If we look at peat, for example, my hon. Friend mentioned the fact that the target set in 2010 for ending the inclusion of peat in amateur garden products by the end of this year will be missed. I know that the Government have a peat strategy, and there are various other things kicking around that are mentioned every time we talk about peat. But there is a lack of focus, a lack of drive and a lack of certainty as to where the Government are heading on that issue. I feel that if we had legally binding interim targets in the Bill, that would give a sense of direction and it would be something against which we could hold the Government to account—more so than with what is currently proposed.
Regarding my last intervention on the Minister, I was trying to be helpful. I was just asking her to give a reassurance that all the efforts to clear up our air and to tackle air pollution are going on regardless; it is not just about setting this target and whether we set it for 2022 or 2020. That is one particular measure. All I am trying to say is that I am looking for reassurances that the Government will still be focused on cleaning up our air. All she has to do is say yes.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling this amendment. Very quickly, I can give assurances that of course work is ongoing to clean up our air, because we have our clean air strategy. A great many processes are being put in place through that strategy to tackle all the key pollutants that affect air quality. The measures in the Bill come on top of that. I hope that gives the reassurance that was sought.
It is of course critical that we achieve our long-term targets to deliver significant environmental improvement, and this framework provides strong assurances that we will do so. The Bill has this whole framework of robust statutory requirements for monitoring, reporting and reviewing, combined with the Office for Environmental Protection and parliamentary scrutiny, to ensure that meeting the interim targets is taken seriously, without the need for them to be legally binding.
Interim targets are there to help the trajectory towards meeting the long-term targets, to ensure that the Government are staying on track. We cannot simply set a long-term target for 2037 and forget about it. Through this cycle—the reporting requirement and the requirement to set out the interim target of up to five years—the Bill will ensure that the Government take early, regular steps to achieve the long-term targets and can be held to account. The OEP and Parliament will, of course, play their role too.
To be clear, we have a little mechanism called the triple lock, which is the key to driving short-term progress. The Government must have an environmental improvement plan, which sets out the steps they intend to take to improve the environment, and review it at least every five years. In step 2, the Government must report on progress towards achieving the targets every year. In step 3, the OEP will hold us to account on progress towards achieving the targets, and every year it can recommend how we could make better progress, if it thinks better progress needs to be made. The Government then have to respond.
If progress seems too slow, or is deemed to be too slow, the Government may need to develop new policies to make up for that when reviewing their EIPs. They will not wait until 2037 to do that; these things can be done as a continuous process, and that is important.
The shadow Minister rightly referred back to the Climate Change Act and the five-yearly carbon budgets, as did the hon. Member for Bristol East. He asked why, if the carbon budgets were legally binding, the interim targets are not. That is a good question, but of course the targets in the Environment Bill are quite different from carbon budgets. Carbon budgets relate to a single metric: the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions. These targets will be set on several different aspects of the natural environment.
As I am sure hon. Members will understand, that is very complicated; it is an interconnected system that is subject to natural factors as well as to human activity. Additionally, aspects of the natural environment such as water quality or soil health might respond more quickly to some things and more slowly to others, even with ambitious interventions. It is possible that the Government could adopt extremely ambitious measures and still miss their interim targets due to external factors.
What is important, in this case, is that a missed interim target is recognised and that the Government consider what is needed to get back on track. I am convinced that the system that is there to recognising that—the reporting, analysis and so on—will highlight it. There will be reporting through the EIPs, the targets and the OEP scrutiny, and the incorporation of any new interim targets or measures; it can all be looked at in the five-yearly review of the EIP. I believe there is a strong framework there already.
Finally, of course, the OEP will have the power to bring legal proceedings if the Government breach their environmental law duties, including their duty to achieve long-term targets. Of course, we cannot reach the long-term targets unless we have achieved the interim targets first. I hope I have been clear on that; I feel strongly that we have the right process here, and I hope the shadow Minister will kindly withdraw his amendment.
Environment Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(3 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberA number of my constituents have contacted me to stress that the Office for Environmental Protection should be an independent and powerful body capable of ensuring that the Government uphold environmental laws on everything from plastic pollution to air quality. They are concerned about clause 24 of the Bill and have pointed out that, if the Government have the power to tell the Office for Environmental Protection how to do its job, the office cannot be truly effective; I very much share their concerns. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has remarked that it is
“essential that every step is taken to ensure the Office for Environmental Protection is as independent from the Government as possible, to give the public confidence that the Government will be properly held to account on its duty to protect the environment.”
I therefore support amendment 23, which would delete clause 24.
The quality of the air we breathe is vital to our wellbeing. One of my constituents wrote to me last week to say that air pollution is a daily issue for her and others like her suffering with lung conditions. She told me how, on days when air pollution is high, her symptoms can flare up so badly that she is unable to leave her home. The Government have already committed to adopting a new binding target for PM2.5 through the Bill. However, as Friends of the Earth has pointed out, the Bill does not set a minimum level of ambition or a deadline for its achievements. Amendment 25 is intended to set parameters on the face of the Bill to ensure that the PM2.5 target for air quality will be at least as strict as the 2005 World Health Organisation guideline of below 10 micrograms per cubic metre, with an attainment deadline of 2030 at the latest.
I now turn to the matter of bees. I pay tribute to the work of Flourish at Ford Way in Upton for the work it does in keeping hives and producing excellent honey. More than 50,000 people have signed The Wildlife Trusts’ petition urging the Prime Minister to overturn the Environment Secretary’s recent authorisation of the emergency use of a bee-killing pesticide for farmers to use on sugar beet crops in England. That shows the real strength of public feeling on this issue.
Amendment 39 would require Ministers to allow parliamentary scrutiny of exemptions granted to allow plant protection products banned under retained EU law, such as neonicotinoid pesticides, where they are likely to impact bees and other species covered by an environmental improvement plan. In conclusion, I urge Members to back these key amendments to ensure the independence of the Office for Environmental Protection, improve air quality and protect bees.
I am glad that this Bill has finally returned to the Commons after months of delay. It has been a frustratingly long time since I took part in prelegislative scrutiny as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and it is nearly a year since I attended the first meeting of the Public Bill Committee. We are now told that we need to wait months more for the second day of Report stage and for the Bill to become law. The Bill should have been in place before the end of transition. Can we even be sure now that it will be in place before COP26? There is absolutely no excuse for the Government’s laxity, and one can only attribute it to a lack of ambition and urgency in tackling the nature and climate emergencies.
Leaving the EU without a fully functioning, properly resourced and independent Office for Environmental Protection that can take public authorities to court over the most serious breaches of environmental law leaves a regulatory gap, which so many of us warned against. We were promised that the Office for Environmental Protection would be located in Bristol, with the creation of 120 jobs. That was publicly reported, and I was told it by Ministers on more than one occasion, yet the Minister has today announced without a hint of shame—in fact, with more than a hint of smugness—that the OEP will be based in Worcester. She can rest assured that I will be seeking an explanation from her as to why this hugely disappointing and, given Bristol’s record, inexplicable decision was made.
This Bill is not all it could be and needs to be strengthened. Labour’s new clause 9 would place firm duties on officials to achieve and maintain biodiversity, human health and sustainable use of resources. New clause 1 would put a duty on public officials to act in accordance with environmental principles. Again, we were repeatedly told during prelegislative scrutiny that a policy statement on environmental principles would be published imminently, so where is it, or was that just another ploy to stave off awkward questioning at the time?
New clause 5 would set the equivalent of the net zero target for tackling the decline in nature by 2030, to begin to reverse the devastating losses we have seen in recent decades. We need such protections in law because, as we have seen repeatedly, the Government’s actions do not always match their words. For example, amendment 39, which would allow parliamentary scrutiny of the use of harmful pesticides such as bee-killing neonicotinoids, was tabled in response to the Government’s emergency authorisation of the use of those pesticides. Labour will always back good British farming practices and farmers but, faced with a devastating decline in biodiversity and our bee populations, we cannot uncritically give the green light, without scrutiny, to the use of harmful pesticides.
To conclude, the Bill needs to be better, the OEP needs to be stronger, and we need proper environmental governance in place without further delay. The natural world is in crisis and we must do all we can to address that, not just the bare minimum.
Order. Something is wrong with the sound. [Interruption.] It is not possible to go to the next person until we stop the video link that is not working. Is somebody listening to me? I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for the system not working properly and for him not knowing that it was not working. We will now go to Kerry McCarthy.
Labour’s new clause 8 would require the Secretary of State to take account of the waste hierarchy. From food waste to plastic pollution, the starting point should be to prevent waste from occurring in the first place. I hope that when this Bill reaches the other place, we will further debate our global carbon footprint and the need to bring proposals to COP26 to measure consumption, not just production. Promoting the circular economy should be at the absolute heart of any green recovery package. At present, we have disincentives to send waste to landfill but very few mechanisms to encourage compliance further up the hierarchy, and virtually no enforcement either, because the Environment Agency simply does not have the resources to do so.
Turning to the amendments on air pollution, we have heard about the tragic death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah, and we also know that covid has left many people extra-vulnerable with long-term damage to their lungs. As we mark today the horrific milestone of over 100,000 covid deaths and many more infected, I urge the Minister to think again on this. I support adopting the target on PM2.5; the suggestion that it would prevent higher ambition is ludicrous.
The Government have for too long tried to pass the buck to local councils; what we need is a comprehensive national strategy on air pollution to prevent any further tragedies. We also need urgent action from the Government on their decarbonisation of transport plan. I do not get any sense at the moment that the Government are joining the dots.
Finally, on chemicals and animal testing, with the Prime Minister suggesting in his first post-Brexit deal interview with The Telegraph that chemicals was one area where the UK could diverge from EU regulations, it is hardly surprising that people are deeply worried by the Secretary of State being given such sweeping powers to amend the legal framework. It leaves us wide open to the risk of damaging deregulation as a result of trade deals with countries with weaker systems and lower standards such as the United States of America, and the risk of the dumping of products on the UK market that fail to meet EU regulations. Amendment 24 would ensure non-regression from REACH, the EU regime, and allow scope to exceed those standards. A recent European Court of Justice ruling has reaffirmed that under REACH the principle of animal testing as a last resort must be fully respected and it is good that this is included as a protected principle in the Bill, but this is not reflected in current figures for animal testing; there is far too much duplication of testing and far too little data sharing. New clause 18 would require the Secretary of State to set targets to reduce animal testing and the suffering experienced by animals as a result, and I would thoroughly support that.
Let us not just agree to keep our current standards in this Bill, but try to raise our ambitions too.
The film “Dark Waters” shows just what goes wrong, with the disastrous consequences for human life, animal life, plant life and pollution, where there is a lack of regulation in the chemicals industry. Mark Ruffalo brilliantly played the lawyer who took on the might of DuPont and won on behalf of so many who were disadvantaged.
Of course, in this country we benefit from the highest chemical standards in the world—the previous regime made sure of that—and the industry rightly wants to maintain those standards and indeed build upon them. The industry in this country is worth £31.4 billion in exports and employs 102,000 people in well-paid jobs, and chemicals are in everyday products; in the Liverpool city region they are part of our car manufacturing sector and we have many fine chemical industry companies, including Blends Ltd and Contract Chemicals just a few miles outside my constituency. They want to maintain those high standards and they want to build on them; they want to build on them so that new products and services can be developed, and so that innovation in the recycling of plastics can be enhanced. To deliver on that agenda, they need the support of the Government through this Bill.
Unfortunately, we have already seen standards weakened through the changes to UK REACH, and powers in this Bill will give the Government the opportunity to further reduce them, leaving open the prospect of dumping lower-standard products, undermining the excellence of the industry in this country.
Industry here wants no divergence; it wants to solve the problem of the £1 billion cost to access the database that businesses need to be able to continue producing in this country. Unless these problems are resolved, we will see an impact on that £31.4 billion of exports, with companies given no choice but to move their manufacturing capacity to the continent of Europe.
There is much at stake here; there is much at stake in maintaining and enhancing those standards for human health, for animal health, for plant life and for British jobs. The Minister said that she has a good relationship with the industry. She can demonstrate that good relationship by supporting amendment 24.
Environment Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(3 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberDoes my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government’s proposals on planning reform will actually make the proposals in the Environment Bill on net gain and protecting habitats far more difficult, in that they are a developers’ charter and the wishes of local people are likely to be overridden?
My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is why Labour is arguing for a comprehensive, joined-up approach from Ministers, in which DEFRA’s policies align with those of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and with Treasury funding. They do not do so at the moment; we have a developers’ charter that does not match the protections that the Minister is talking about. I believe the Minister when she says she is passionate about this, but I just do not see that read-across in Government policy. The peripheralisation of DEFRA in the Government debate is not helping to protect our habitats when other Ministers are able to get away with habitat-destroying policies and seemingly all we have is a Minister patting himself on the back for this Bill. That is not enough, and I am glad my hon. Friend raised that example.
I am worried that the Government’s approach to species conservation is seemingly ad hoc and represents an unambitious approach that seems to have overtaken DEFRA. Labour’s amendment 46 demands a strategic approach to species conservation through protecting, restoring and creating habitats over a wider area to meet the needs of the individual species that are being protected. It acknowledges the vital role that species conservation can play in restoring biodiversity and enabling nature’s recovery. Indeed, it builds on Labour’s amendment to the Bill tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) at the last stage that would see a nature recovery by 2030. I welcome the steps forward on that but I would like to see more detail, because at the moment it seems like a good press release, but without enough action to ensure that the delivery is ensured.
Mr Speaker, you will know that I am a big fan of bees. I should declare an interest because my family keep bees on their farm in Cornwall. Since 1900, the UK has lost 13 of its 35 native species of bee. Bees are essential to our future on the planet, to pollinating crops and to the rich tapestry of biodiversity that depends on them. Bee health is non-negotiable; we must do all we can to protect our precious pollinators. On the first day on Report, the Conservatives voted down Labour’s amendment that would have restored the ban on bee-killing pesticides; on day 2 on Report—today—will the Government back or defeat Labour’s amendment 46 on species conservation? This really matters because bees really matter, and I think the concern is shared across party lines. The steps that the Minister has taken to support sugar beet farmers, especially in the east of England, is welcome. I want to support sugar beet farmers as well—I want to support British agriculture, which is especially needed given the risk of an Australian trade deal—but lifting the ban on bee-killing pesticides is not the answer. It will not help us in the long term.
Like many campaigners and stakeholders, we on the Opposition Benches are concerned that the overt focus on development in the explanatory narrative on clause 108 supplied by the Government suggests that it could fall into a worrying category. Labour’s amendment 46 seeks to correct that by putting nature-recovery objectives, underpinned by evidence, into the heart of the strategies and ensuring that each one abides by the mitigation hierarchy, starting with trying to conserve existing habitat and then moving to habitat compensation only when all other avenues have been exhausted. That will ensure that each strategy serves to recover a species, rather than greenlighting the destruction of existing habitats that are important to that species, in return for inadequate compensation elsewhere. Our amendment is common sense, it would strengthen the provisions in the name of the Secretary of State and, if passed, will show that this House cares about getting the most out of the Bill. I hope the Minister will give additional attention to those provisions when the Bill enters the other place.
On the other amendments that have been tabled on the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations and Government new clauses 21 and 22, I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)—she and I share an awful lot in common on this matter—because on the face of it we are minded to agree that we cannot rely on the Government not to dilute the environmental protections currently in the nature directives. I heard what the Minister had to say and think her heart is in the right place, but I want to see things put in law. She may not be a Minister forever and we need to make sure that whoever follows her will have the same zeal and encouragement. I am afraid that unless it is on the face of the Bill, there is a risk that that might not happen.
We support amendments 26 and 27, tabled by the Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), on deforestation, the extension of due diligence requirements to the finance sector and the strengthening of protection for local communities and indigenous peoples. That is a good example of a Select Committee Chair proposing something meaningful and important that might not always get the headlines. He is playing an important role and we encourage power to his elbow.
In conclusion, the Bill has been stuck for too long. I had hoped that the delay in bringing the Bill forward caused by the Government would have altered the Government’s pedestrian approach and resulted in bolder action, with more amendments to the Bill to take on the concerns of non-governmental organisations, stakeholders and, indeed, the constituents we all represent. But on air quality, it fails to put WHO targets into law. It fails to require enough trees or seagrass to be planted. It fails to look at our marine environment in a meaningful way. On targets, it is weak, and the difficult decisions required to hit net zero seem to be parked for future dates. It is absent on ocean protection, which is surely a key part of our environment as an island nation.
Labour’s amendments would strengthen the Bill. In all sincerity, I encourage the Minister to look closely at them, because they are good amendments. But that is precisely why I fear that the Government will Whip their MPs to vote against them. I do not think that Ministers want a strong, landmark Bill; I think they want a weak Bill that allows them the freedom to park difficult decisions, delay urgent action and act in their own best interests rather than the planet’s. This Bill is enough to look busy—to do something—but not enough to make meaningful change. It is in that grey area that a real danger lies: enough to convince the public that something is being done without fundamentally changing the outcomes at the end of it—to lull people into a false sense of security that change is happening and does not require the difficult decisions that we all in our hearts know are coming.
I would like to begin by praising the work of Wild Justice, whose members are far from ill- informed, absolutely passionate about nature conservation and do some excellent work. I was waiting for the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) to mention Labour’s amendment on peat burning. I know that is in the next group, but it was quite surprising that he—
Yes, well, perhaps the hon. Gentleman can come back for the next debate and make an intervention to show that he supports that amendment. [Interruption.] He can intervene on me, of course.
I would like to speak primarily in favour of amendments 26 and 27, tabled by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish); I believe that birthday congratulations are in order today. Deforestation, which destroys vital carbon stores and natural habitats, is both one of the central drivers of the climate emergency and a driver of the devastating decline in biodiversity. As we have heard, it also plays a role in displacing people from their land and leads to modern slavery and exploitative working practices. It is clear that we need a no-tolerance approach to any deforestation in our supply chains, legal or illegal.
The Bill comes before us in a slightly better state than its many previous incarnations due to the Government’s new proposals on due diligence in deforestation, but unfortunately they fall far short of what is needed. The primary issue is that they act only to eliminate illegal deforestation. That ignores the fact that some nations, most notably Bolsonaro’s Brazil, are chipping away at legal protections on deforestation and enforcement mechanisms to identify and prevent it. For instance, the Brazilian Parliament is set to approve new legislation dubbed “the destruction package” that will accelerate deforestation in the Amazon by providing an amnesty to land grabbers and allowing deforestation on indigenous lands for major construction projects. Preliminary WWF research shows that 2 million hectares of forest and natural ecosystems could be legally deforested in the Brazilian territories that supply soya to the UK.
This Bill is a unique opportunity to send a message to those states that fail to act to protect our planet. That is why I urge the Government to think again and to strengthen their proposals to include legal deforestation to show true climate leadership ahead of COP26. I am sure that, if we do not accept these amendments today, the noble peers in the other place will have strong words to say about that, and I hope they will send the Bill back to us suitably amended.
Amendment 27 would prevent financial services from working with firms linked to illegal forest-risk commodities. We cannot claim to be tough on deforestation if we allow British financial institutions to support firms linked to it. These damaging investments are deeply embedded in our economy and sometimes even in our own personal finances. Shocking analysis from Feedback published today shows that even the parliamentary pension fund has investments in companies such as JBS Investments that have been repeatedly linked to deforestation. It is not good that we are being drawn into complicity in this situation through our parliamentary pension fund. I therefore hope the Government will accept these amendments and begin to show global leadership.
I very much support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends on the Labour Front Bench, including new clause 25 calling on the Government to prepare a tree strategy for England. We are trying to do this in Bristol in terms of doubling the tree canopy and with our One City ecological emergency strategy, which I encourage other cities and towns to emulate. I also support amendment 22, which would embed the net gain of habitats in perpetuity. I urge colleagues across the House to accept these amendments. If we fail to do that today, as I said, I am sure that the noble Lords in the other place will take up these causes with their customary vigour.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this landmark Bill, which aims to ensure that the environment is at the heart of Government policy. I am pleased that it intends to better conserve our environment, tackle biodiversity loss and regenerate parts of our great countryside.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for his tireless efforts on environmental issues, including his work on food labelling and environmental sustainability. I was very proud, in the previous Parliament, to co-sponsor his Bill on that matter, much of the contents of which are set to come back to this House later today. This, along with new clause 4, demonstrates that so much more can be done to strengthen our commitments to the environment by protecting vulnerable species. I welcome the Minister’s statements today and her commitment to review ways that we can reverse the decline in hedgehog numbers.
I think we can also help the population to make informed choices. Recently, I visited Rodbaston College in my Stafford constituency. I was delighted to tour the animal zone, where a number of my young constituents are learning to work with a variety of animals, learning how to protect our native species such as the otter and learning to train for careers in conservation. New clause 4, which aims to insert hedgehogs into the Bill as a protected species, is an important reminder of how interconnected nature is, and the important need to retain and to protect species such as the hedgehog.
It may surprise some people to know that a key factor in the reduction of the number of hedgehogs is in fact keeping gardens too tidy and the lack of wildlife corridors in fenced-in gardens. Last week, I was pleased to re-form the all-party parliamentary group for fruit, vegetables and horticulture, which I co-chair, and I led a conversation with Alan Titchmarsh, in which we discussed how gardeners can work with nature to improve habitats for other wildlife, including hedgehogs. New clause 21 aims to protect habitats better. I think we can all do our bit by providing wildlife corridors and creating hedgehog homes, as I have in my own garden. No Mow May is an initiative that is very popular with my constituents: people do absolutely nothing to their lawn in May, which can significantly improve the ecosystem of their garden. The wonderful thing about nature is that it wants to recover. We just need to give it the opportunity to do so.
I believe that the measures in this Bill lay the groundwork to significantly improve our environment. The Bill, particularly new clause 21, clearly demonstrates our Government’s commitment to protecting the unique and diverse habitats that we have in Britain. I was pleased recently to visit the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust’s Wolseley Centre to see at first hand its project to replicate a wide variety of habitats in Staffordshire, including woodlands, ponds, and wet and hay meadows. These habitats are providing homes for a range of flora and fauna. The measures in the Bill ensure that we can protect these for generations to come.
One of the reasons these steps are so effective and increase biodiversity is that we are helping other species in the ecosystem to thrive, which in turn leads to a richer and more resilient environment. That is why I believe it is so vital that we reverse the biodiversity loss we have already suffered in the UK, and that is why I welcome the focus in the Bill. I welcome the Bill along with the new clause I have discussed due to their aim to conserve our environment and increase biodiversity. We need to protect and improve our precious environment for generations to come.
Environment Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberI thank my hon. Friend for his comments. Obviously, we take SSSIs extremely seriously under their designations. There is a set pathway for SSSIs and for looking after them, but I think he will agree, if he listens to what I have to say, that the Bill contains some very strong measures on biodiversity, which are much needed and will help us to that trajectory of restoring nature.
I was saying that we have a legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance. The UK was also the first economy to set a target of net zero emissions by 2050. Our target for the sixth carbon budget is world-leading. The “Net Zero Strategy” published yesterday builds on the 10-point plan, the energy White Paper, the transport decarbonisation plan, the hydrogen strategy, and the heat and building strategy, setting out our ambitious plans across all key sectors of the economy to reach net zero. This is an all-in approach.
Of course, it is not just our domestic approach that counts. Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss is our No. 1 international priority, which is why we are driving forward our COP26 presidency and playing a leading role in developing an ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework due to be adopted at the convention on biological diversity COP15. Therefore, putting the declaration in Lords amendment 1 in law, although well-intentioned, is not necessary.
Lords amendment 2 would require the Government to set a legally binding target on soil health. I would like to be clear with the House and the other place that we are currently considering how to develop the appropriate means of measuring soil health, which could be used to inform a future soils target. However, we do not yet have the reliable metrics needed to set a robust target by October next year and to measure its progress. If we accepted the amendment, we could be committing to doing something that we cannot deliver or might not even know if we have delivered. I am sure hon. Members and hon. Friends would agree that that is not a sensible approach.
I am a little concerned to hear the Minister say that they are still not ready to go ahead. From my recollection of the past few years, we talked about this issue in the Agriculture Public Bill Committee and when this Bill was in Committee. Has work actually started on this and how long does she think the programme of work will take? Why is it taking so long?
I am pleased that the hon. Member, like me, is deeply passionate about soil. I think I held the first ever debate on soil in Parliament when I was a Back Bencher. It is something that I am personally very keen on. We believe we cannot commit to set the actual target until we have that baseline of robust metrics. We consulted and are working very widely with experts and specialists. Indeed, a range of pilots, tests and trials are running related to soil. Instead, I can provide reassurance that the Government, as announced in the other place on Report, will be bringing forward a soil health action plan for England. It will provide a clear strategic direction to develop a healthy soil indicator, soil structure methodology and a soil health monitoring scheme. All those things are absolutely necessary before we can set the actual target, but there is a huge amount of work going on, on the soil agenda. I am personally pushing that forward, as is the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), with whom I am working very closely on this matter.