Environment Bill

Lord Krebs Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB) [V]]

My Lords, this Bill is both welcomed and long overdue. It could give us the basis for reversing decades of careless mistreatment of our natural environment and the opportunity to enjoy cleaner air and rivers and restore degraded habitats and biodiversity.

As my noble friend Lord Cameron mentioned earlier, in 1973, when we joined the European Union, we were labelled the dirty man of Europe. We have made significant process since then, largely as a result of EU rules and enforcement, but there is still a long way to go. It is said that this Bill will help us go further, but I remain to be convinced. To explain why, I want to focus on biodiversity—or nature, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, prefers to call it.

The UK is one of the most depleted countries in the world in terms of biodiversity. The Natural History Museum has calculated an index of biodiversity intactness. Using this measure of the health of our natural environment, we rank 189th in the world, and we are bottom of the G7 countries. In the past 10 years, 41% of our bird species have decreased and 15% of our wildlife is threatened with extinction. The dreadful state of our nature is at least in part a result of living in a densely populated country in which nearly three-quarters of our land is used for farming or the built environment. We have simply squeezed nature out of its home.

I am therefore very pleased to learn that the Government intend to introduce legally binding targets for restoring biodiversity through this Bill. However, the Government have set targets for halting nature’s decline before and failed to meet them. For instance, in 2010 the Government signed up to the so-called Aichi targets under the global convention on diversity. In 2019, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee found that we had made insufficient progress on 14 out of 19 targets. Furthermore, in 2020 the JNCC reported that only about half the sites of special scientific interest in this country are in favourable condition and that there has been no improvement in this score over the past 15 years. So, forgive me if I sound a bit sceptical, but I would like the Minister to explain why we should believe any new commitments to meet biodiversity targets, given the Government’s past record of failure.

At the same time, I hope the Minister can unpack a bit more of the detail. First, will the targets involve halting the decline of particular species, taxonomic groups or habitats, or all three? Secondly, do the Government know what actions they will have to take to restore nature? Many of the initiatives supported under Pillar 2 of the common agricultural policy failed to enhance nature because they were not based on good science—a point just made by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton. Will the Government be able to avoid making the same mistakes? Where is the science going to come from?

Thirdly, how will the Government calculate the trade-offs that will inevitably have to be made? Creating more space for nature means less space for human activity, be it space for producing food, building houses, roads or businesses—a point made by my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington. Fourthly, and more particularly, proposed new Schedule 7A to the 1990 Act refers to a “biodiversity metric”. I hope the Minister can shed light on how this is to be calculated. For example, how many stone-curlews equal one purple emperor?

Last but not least, what the sanctions be if the Government fail to meet their biodiversity targets? We have been told that the new office for environmental protection will hold public authorities, including Ministers, to account. I share the Minister’s respect and admiration for the chair, Dame Glenys Stacey. However, as we have heard this afternoon, there is a tide of expert legal opinion that the Bill does not give the OEP sufficient powers or independence to fulfil its role. These points have been eloquently explained by my noble friend Lord Anderson of Ipswich and others. I would also like to acknowledge a meeting I had with the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and Tim Buley QC to discuss these points.

In sum, I like the declared intentions of the Bill. I know the Minister is committed to improving our environment, but there is still a great deal of work to be done to explain how this will be achieved. I look forward to working with him and other noble Lords as we debate and improve this important Bill.