European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. The environmental principles were debated at length in Committee and again on Report. Then, as the noble Lord said, the Minister assured us that a consultation document would be forthcoming before Third Reading. Indeed, it was published last Thursday. In paragraph 9, on page 2, it states:

“This consultation explores the functions of a new, independent, statutory environmental body to hold government to account on the environment and support our longer term objective on this, to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than that in which we inherited it”.


This has been the stated aim of the Secretary of State on many occasions, and the aspiration is covered in the 25-year environment plan. He further aspires to have a world-leading environmental watchdog to safeguard the environment. I fear that this accountable body proposed in the Environmental Principles and Governance consultation falls a very long way short of being a world leader. Neither will it deliver the fine words in paragraph 9 of the document.

As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has already demonstrated, advisory notices are not likely to bring polluters to book, nor safeguard the habitats and environments of the countryside and towns that we hold so dear. This is far weaker than the current arrangements through which the European Commission has the power to initiate court action to remedy breaches of environmental law. A world-leading watchdog needs strong legal powers, not merely the ability to make suggestions and issue advisory notices.

The weakness of the powers, functions and scope of the consultation is disappointing. The amendment seeks to remedy that by insisting that environmental law be complied with. While it may often be possible to ensure compliance without recourse to the courts, an effective watchdog will need a range of meaningful legal powers, including the power to initiate court action.

It is essential for the new institution to engage closely with those affected by environmental problems, but the consultation document does not even commit to receiving complaints from the public. This represents a backward step from the complaints process currently in place. Additionally, the consultation is limited in its jurisdiction and suggests that the remit will apply only to central government, and not to other public authorities.

Restricting the enforcement role to central government will take away important safeguards, and risks alienating communities from those responsible for looking after their local environs. It will not be possible to challenge those who make the decisions that affect people and nature directly and personally. The few teeth the watchdog has will fail once people realise that it cannot help them solve the environmental problems they face. The amendment makes it clear that the watchdog and the principles should apply to public authorities in general, rather than only to central government.

Although the publication of the consultation is welcome, it does not provide the reassurances and certainty that many stakeholders had been expecting. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, it contains no commitment to enshrine environmental principles such as the precautionary principle and the “polluter pays” principle in the forthcoming Bill. Instead, we can look forward to a “policy statement”. Previous experience of policy statements in relation to biodiversity is that they have proved ineffective.

The Government have promised a world-leading environmental watchdog and enhanced environmental standards after Brexit, yet, in practice, the consultation proposes to give the environment less protection after Brexit than exists now. The status of the environmental principles is at risk of being downgraded and the proposals for a new watchdog are far from world-leading.

There is no timescale for the Government to publish their response to the consultation, nor can we be assured that the environment Bill will appear in the autumn. There are many examples of government proposals stalling, including there still being no clarity on when the Government intend to announce the next steps following their call for evidence on the important issue of corporate liability. The consultation closed in March 2017 and the response has yet to be published.

The Government wish us to be the first generation to really make a difference to the environment. The clue to how the environment will be protected and saved is in the word “generation”. That means all of us—not just Cabinet Ministers and the Government, not just Members of the other place, nor even just Members sitting in your Lordships’ Chamber today. Nor is it to be left to the public, who have had the decline in the state of the environment brought to their attention so vividly by Sir David Attenborough.

We cannot afford to leave a gap in environmental legislation that might allow irreparable harm to be done. Every single one of us must play our part, but we will not be able to safeguard our environmental assets—living and breathing, growing and archaeological —if the watchdog on which we rely has no teeth to operate. We have an opportunity today to act; I urge your Lordships to take it.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the climate change committee. That is why I strongly support the amendment. We see here exactly what played out during the debates on the climate change committee.

I want first to thank the Government for a serious attempt to move in the direction we wanted. My noble friend and I have not always agreed, but what he promised in the sense of a real contribution has been made. What we have to say now is only in sadness rather than out of any antagonism. My noble friend Lord Framlingham, who followed me in part of my former constituency, really cannot say that this is an irrelevant amendment, because we are talking about what the Government have placed before us. This is part of the withdrawal Bill; it has nothing to do with our pro or anti-Brexit position.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

Of course not.

[Lord Deben]

If my noble friend is going to say that, I shall find it rather difficult to move towards him, because it is not; I speak as chairman of the climate committee because it is not. The reason I speak is simply this: we were promised that we would pass into UK law all the protections that we have as members of the European Union, so that, on the day after our leaving, we would be in the same position in respect of those protections. Under the present arrangements, we will not be.

As I say, this repeats what happened with the climate change legislation. The then Government were in favour of it in general, but when it came to the detailed powers, the Treasury opposed it. The Minister in Defra, or at least its equivalent in those times—it was then the Minister at the Department of Energy and Climate Change—was in favour of those powers. That battle was fought in the then Government, and they decided that they would not give the powers until we were able to show that there were enough Labour Members to give a majority in the House of Commons so that they would have to give way. Happily, it therefore became an all-party Bill that we can all claim credit for, passed by the Labour Government and ultimately supported by every party in Parliament.

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

No, I am not going to give way. The noble Lord has already had several opportunities to intervene, and he does not have the support of the House behind him.

[Lord Deben]

Would the noble Baroness please give way? It is sensible in debate to give way, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, will be allowed to intervene.

[Lord Framlingham]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. The point that I am making—

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[Lord Callanan]

Yes. All current processes will continue until the end of the implementation period.

The Government have acted as a responsible Government should. They have done what this House invariably asks them to do by setting out a range of options and inviting views to inform policy through the consultation process.

[Lord Deben]

Does my noble friend mean that, until the end of 2020, we would be able to take an enforcement action to the European Court? If he does not mean that, the system does not continue and the Government do have to put into the Bill an alternative. But if he does mean that, it is a revelation.

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, as we have announced on numerous occasions, there will be further legislation to consider this matter when we have completed—