Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the other cosignatories on putting forward the two amendments in this group. My only concern is what time commitment and resources would be required of the local authorities, given the fact that they are very heavily challenged at this time. I pay tribute to the lead local authorities, especially on the work they are doing on flood prevention, which is already a major resource commitment timewise. I know it has made a big difference already in areas such as north Yorkshire, which I am most familiar with, where we do have a number of functional flood plains. Across the country, the advice of the Environment Agency is not always pursued.

As regards the habitats directive, we need a firm steer from the Government on how we are going to steer this path, where we have the retained EU law Bill where, presumably, we are going to park the habitats directive on one side. But there is a possibility here, through this group of amendments, for nature recovery strategies to try to achieve a balance.

I end by saying that my noble friend is only too aware of my commitment to farming and ensuring that, within nature recovery, farming is recognised as a major contributor to these strategies.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as in the register. I came in to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, because I thought I liked the wording of her amendment. Having listened to her and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, I am absolutely convinced of the justice of their case. As my noble friend will know, one of the most crucial parts of the Environment Act is local nature recovery strategies—it is what it is all about in many ways. At the moment, the Bill says merely that local authorities must “have regard to” it. We all know—the lawyers present will explain no doubt ad nauseum and for a reasonable fee—that “having regard to” is fairly meaningless in many ways. A local authority could “have regard to” a local nature recovery strategy and then find a dozen reasons to reject it, because they had regard to it but for this reason or that reason did not wish to pursue it.

I particularly like the wording here, which does not seem to tie local authorities’ hands. It says that they

“must ensure that their development plan (taken as a whole) incorporates such policies and proposals so as to deliver the objectives of the local nature recovery strategy”.

It does not tell them what to do or how to do it; it just says that they have a free hand to invent their own policies that deliver the objectives of local nature recovery strategies. I ask my noble friend the Minister: what is the point of us developing local nature recovery strategies at a national level if they are not going to be implemented locally in local development plans?

I do not think that my noble friend is right that there will be great additional cost to local authorities in doing this—I can see nothing here to suggest that—but, if local nature recovery strategies are to work as every single person in this Chamber wants them to, the wording of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, is probably the only way to deliver that. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could explain to me what the problem is with the noble Baroness’s wording.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support these amendments. The noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Willis, have made an absolutely convincing and compelling case for strengthening the responsibility of local planning authorities to consider local nature recovery strategies.

This is exactly the arrangement that the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, set out when he was trying to persuade us not to press our amendments on this issue to a vote during the passage of the Environment Bill. At that time, he made it clear that the Government viewed local nature recovery strategies as key to identifying where action for nature and the environment would have the most impact. He went on to make it clear that Defra was working with the then Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to develop planning reforms that would contain a defining role for local nature recovery strategies and set them at the heart of decision-making. Obviously, there have been some changes in government and some movement on this since then, but that does not alter the nature of the pledges that were given at that time.

Since then, we have made good progress on establishing a network of local nature recovery strategies around the country. They are getting on with the job of surveying their local biodiversity priorities, providing crucial local data and mapping their local habitats. Their local knowledge and insight are proving crucial in identifying what action and resources can best be targeted. Through their partnership in stakeholder roles, they are also bringing together a wide group of interests to support a local strategic biodiversity recovery plan. However, what is the point of them doing all this work if local planning authorities can simply override their work and priorities? If we are not careful, those involved in drawing up these strategies will quickly become disillusioned and this will be seen as yet another talking shop.

This matters because, as we know, we have crucial statutory targets; for example, to halt the decline of species abundance by 2030, to deliver on our COP commitment to protect 30% of land and nature by 2030, and to deliver the many nature recovery targets set out in the environmental improvement plan. These are simply not going to happen unless local planning authorities put nature recovery at the heart of their decision-making. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, pointed out, there is widespread support for greater weighting to be placed on these local biodiversity recovery plans. There is also a real concern that, when it comes to the crunch, those nature recovery strategies will once again slide down the list of priorities and be seen as a second-tier concern.

I am grateful for the Minister’s letter to me and my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone on this issue. Again, she flagged up that the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023 commits to publishing guidance on how local nature recovery strategies can be reflected in local plans. As we have heard, we have received statutory guidance since then; however, it does not answer the central challenge that, unless we have wording along the lines of Amendment 184ZA or something very similar, the current imbalance will continue and local nature recovery strategies will not play their deserved and necessary part in decision-making.

This is not a total determination but about getting the balance right and ensuring that local nature recovery strategies are part of the decision-making. I am very pleased to hear so much support for these amendments from around the Chamber today. I hope that the Minister is hearing that strong case and can reassure us that the Government will take this away and come back with a stronger commitment, along the lines of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.