Environmental Principles Policy Statement

Lord Kamall Excerpts
Monday 9th January 2023

(1 year, 4 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Benyon Portrait Lord Benyon (Con)
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The noble Lord made the point I was trying to make, in a converse way, rather better than I did. I hope that we will continue to work together on these policies.

Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Con)
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My Lords, my noble friend the Minister and many other noble Lords referred to the precautionary principle. Sadly lacking is the idea of innovation. Could we not look more at that, particularly when it comes to the prevention principle?

Lord Benyon Portrait Lord Benyon (Con)
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My noble friend makes a very good point. We are concerned here with transposing the five key principles that underpinned all environmental law when we were in the European Union to the basis that was set out in the Environment Act. He is entirely right that hard-wired in government policy-making we need a belief that we are supporting innovation in all its forms. That strays into environmental policy-making as well.