Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it does not seem that long ago that we discussed these types of issues on the Agriculture Bill. My noble friend is a skilled and subtle operator in Parliament and did not dive in on the issue of footpaths and their creation. Footpaths and access to the countryside inspire in people either a Messianic gleam—“This is where you should go”—or a grating of teeth because you hate the person who is planning the path. The advantage of this approach is that you are looking at it as a whole. If you are trying to make sure that people have some access to the countryside and put it in a plan, you stand a chance, albeit a slim one, of getting rid of these quite silly and childish arguments. We should have access.

The comments of my noble friend bring this down to the fact that we should have access. There is a benefit to you and a way out, and this cuts into other agendas. I will not expand on this for long, because I will have another opportunity later in Committee, but the fact is that, if you want a fitter and healthier society, you should give people some access. Opportunities for gentle exercise are there for those of a more advanced age, but—why not?—if you want to run up that hill, off you go. We need to make sure that people have opportunities to use and enjoy the countryside. That will enhance people’s buy-in, because they will see what is there. There is also a chance that they will see the problems that other people have in making sure that the countryside works to deliver a good environment and to produce food; it is all there.

I hope that when the Minister comes to answer he will make sure that he embraces the idea that things come together. We all know that Ministers are very keen on working across government so long as their department is dominant and their scheme is the one having the final say. I have seen dozens of documents that state, “Yes, the other departments should really do what we say, but we don’t impose upon them to actually do it”. The Government should get a plan together that makes people co-operate. I would be interested—maybe I will get a chance to expand on this later—to see how the various bits of government will communicate, what is required here, and what they can expect.

Also, when the Government encourage people to enjoy the environment, they should take into account little things, such as whether there is a bus service to walking facilities or whether everybody has to pile into a car, go down small roads and clog up the local infrastructure. Things such as this matter. You have to get in there and make sure that there is some form of communication. This is a good idea.

I also cannot resist saying that we have a bit of a parliamentary evolution; it is now “may” and “must”, as opposed to “may” and “shall”. Maybe that is a step forward—or are we just going to a new cliché? I do not know. But if we are moving things into these areas, it will be interesting to see what the Government are going to say and what the priorities are, because good intentions have far too often been the paving stones of the road to hell.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my two amendments in this group are Amendments 9 and 57. Amendment 9 adds “connecting people with nature” to the priority areas in Clause 1(3), and Amendment 57 looks at the environmental improvement plans and adds “understanding” and “participation” to “enjoyment” in Clause 7(5).

Clause 1(3) lists the priority areas of air quality, water, biodiversity, resource efficiency and waste reduction. If we are giving priority to all those areas, we will be asking people to make substantial changes to the way they behave: to use less water; to drive less; to drive slower cars; to make fewer demands on the environment and the food they eat; to spend much more time recycling than they do at the moment; and doubtless other changes too. People need a motivation to do that, and the underlying motivation surely has to come from reconnecting people with nature, so that they value it and feel part of it, and it will therefore come into the equation when they are considering whether to go along with and support the changes the Government are proposing. There have been a number of changes recently where those proposing them have not chosen to take people with them. There is growing opposition to low-traffic neighbourhoods, for instance, because people were never involved, consulted or taken with them, and there was no underlying motivation for the improvement of the common environment.

It is silly to make those entirely desirable changes in a way which conjures opposition. Stonewall has done this with trans rights. It does not have to be this way. It means that those proposing change must take long steps to involve people in the reasons for those changes, and the underlying motivations. In the case of subsection (3), the underlying motivation is a love of and connection with nature. We know that people are capable of that because we can see it all around us, in those people who are connected. We know from that, and from research, how much well-being and how much joy and pleasure—at a very low cost to the environment—comes from having a deep love and understanding of nature. It really ought to be the underpinning value in subsection (3), and it ought not—coming to the environmental improvement plans—be just about the enjoyment of nature. This is not a passive thing, like a television show, but something which people need to be part of. I hope that the changes I propose will find favour with the Government. They will make everything else they are trying to do much more effective when it comes to putting it into practice.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw.

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for half of his question. He got to the point of echoing some of the concerns which were raised by previous speakers. Because we did not get to the substance of his question, I would be happy to arrange to contact him tomorrow with a view to discussing the issue—whatever it is—with my officials.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his responses to my amendments, but if he wants an example of how a connection with nature could be measured, he need not look further than the Glover review. Proposal 8, as I remember, is a night under the stars in a national landscape for every child; that is a pretty good target to aim at, and one which would go a long way toward achieving what I would like to see achieved at least over the long term. Once a child has done that sort of thing, they tend to bring their parents back, if it is properly organised.

I understand the difficulties that my noble friend faces, but there are things that, given the incentive of something in the Bill, could be done. An information system, for instance—a decent national online database of parks—would be something which people could use, and would then be a vehicle for the countryside code and enable areas to be set aside during the nesting season or lambing season, so that the relationship between the rambler and the farmer could be better moderated. There are things which the Government could do in this area if they set their mind to it. I have been really encouraged by what Natural England has been saying in this area. If the Government have a change of heart, I shall be delighted.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I can reassure my noble friend that it does not require the Government to have a change of heart, as we fully support access to nature for all the reasons which have been described so well by so many noble Lords. Indeed, just a few months ago the Defra Secretary committed £4 million for a project aimed at tackling mental ill-health through green social prescribing, which goes to the heart of some of the issues raised today. We want everyone to have access to a healthy, abundant and diverse environment, and the Environment Bill as a whole is an attempt to try to improve both our environment and access and enjoyment of it. Of course, we have much more to do and I am interested in the examples he has cited.

Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

15: Clause 1, page 2, line 5, at end insert—
“(c) the reasons why that particular target and that particular date have been chosen, and the evidence on which those choices have been based.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is to enable people affected by the targets to understand how they have been arrived at.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 15. The targets the Government intend to set will impose substantial costs and obligations on us, one way or another. Any costs imposed on a business ends up with the consumer. These may well require substantial changes in our behaviour. I would like the Government to commit to empowering us, to taking us along with the process they have followed in arriving at those targets, and to telling us why they have chosen those targets and accompanying dates. I would also like them to set out in full and make accessible to us the evidence on which those targets are based.

If we empower people in this way, they become fellows—people who are with us in setting out to tackle the problem, rather than being compelled, often unwillingly, to go along with government diktats. The more we can persuade people, the more we can take them with us, the easier it will be and the further we can go. I would like a system which would clearly incentivise the production of evidence. Where it is weak—regarding the harm done by microplastics, for example—there should be a clear incentive for the Government to sponsor research and investigation to underpin any target they may wish to put in place.

We have a history of legislating in this area based on inadequate evidence. For instance, the original decision to ban tungsten lightbulbs in favour of other systems was based on the idea that the heat they create is wasted. In this country, this is only true during four months of the year; during the other eight months, the heat is extremely useful. The decision to allow only low-powered vacuum cleaners was based on extremely thin evidence and may well have resulted in people expending a lot more energy and time than would have been necessary, had they had higher-powered vacuum cleaners. If we are to use resources effectively in dealing with pollution and other problems, we absolutely must base it on evidence. This evidence, and our thinking, must be shared with the people we want to take along with that decision.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords I shall speak chiefly to Amendments 16 and 18 in my name. I also want briefly to support the sentiments behind Amendment 15 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. However, generally speaking, history shows us that, as more evidence is collected, regulations and restrictions are far too weak at the outset and need to be strengthened further. I question the two examples he gave but I will not disappear into the weeds of those details.

I also support Amendment 43 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, to which my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has added her name. This partly relates to my amendments. Amendment 43 talks about a statutory duty to meet interim targets. My two amendments—particularly Amendment 16—say that there should be

“at least one interim target”.

We are talking about targets of 15 years or more.

I asked the House of Lords Library—it is an invaluable resource, and I thank it—to find out how many Secretaries of State in the last 100 years held that single post for more than 10 years. It came up with a list of two: Gordon Brown, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, both of whom were Chancellors. No other Secretary of State held that post for longer than 10 years.

This is a question of responsibility and of people taking action, and being able to demonstrate that they are taking action, over a relatively short period of time. I will not reopen Monday’s debate about our being in a climate, biodiversity and environmental crisis. We are in a crisis, and we need action quickly. Fifteen years is a very long time. If the target is that far away—a minimum of three Governments away and, based on current case studies, perhaps considerably more—it is very easy for it not to be addressed and for no real progress to be made. That is why I am suggesting at least one interim target in those 15 years.

That brings me to my second amendment, Amendment 18, which states that these long-term targets should be no longer than 20 years. In my reading of the Bill—I should be very interested if anyone can tell me I am wrong; I do not claim to be a lawyer—it says that targets will be at least 15 years away; there is no maximum target. The Bill—we are talking about what is written in it—could allow the Government to set a 50-year target for water pollution or biodiversity, which, of course, is no kind of target at all.

These amendments are small and modest, and I am not necessarily wedded to the numbers in them. They are an attempt to open up the debate about the fact that we cannot just say, “Right, here’s a 15-year target, and we can all sit back and worry in 12 years’ time where we have got to.” We need targets set with appropriate reporting towards them. I point out a situation where we have interim targets set. This is by the Committee on Climate Change. In its most recent reports, it has set out the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, which run from 2023 to 2027 and 2028 to 2032 respectively. We are not on track to meet either of those. That demonstrates the importance of setting statutory interim targets and committing to their delivery.

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I hope that I have at least gone some way towards reassuring noble Lords, and I ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the support that I have received from my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.

I am also mostly happy with what my noble friend the Minister has said. It sounds like a good standard Civil Service practice, but I very much hope that, when the time comes, he will go beyond just publishing a summary of the evidence. This ought to be something people can engage with in detail. They ought to be able to see exactly what has been said, to read the underlying research papers, to go in depth into the evidence that has been collected and, with the help of organisations with expertise in these matters, be able to criticise on a level basis the targets that have been set and suggest improvements, with good reasons. That will come if the Government are fully open about the basis on which they have reached their targets. However, my noble friend will not be surprised that I am greatly encouraged by what he has said, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 15 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

17: Clause 1, page 2, line 7, at end insert—
“(5A) Regulations under this section must make provision about undertaking research into the reasons why a target is not being met, regionally or nationally.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is to make sure that the reasons why targets are not being met is understood and evidenced so that remedies can be accurately and efficiently targeted.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

When the Government come to review the performance against targets, I very much hope that they will commit to undertake detailed research into the reasons why the targets have not been met, not only nationally but regionally, because for most of them the underlying reasons will be significant at a local level but perhaps not so nationally.

To take the example of air pollution in Eastbourne, where I live, we often record quite high figures, but no one has the slightest idea why. There does not seem to be that much traffic; we do not seem to be in a place where you would expect fumes to be trapped; there is not a lot of wood-burning going on. We end up ascribing things to container ships in the channel. However, all this is soluble if we do a bit of research. Every bit of this pollution has a chemical signature. With some money put into it, we would know quite rapidly what lay at the root of the problems we experienced and could therefore accurately understand what we should be doing over the next planned period to reduce it.

Without that sort of research, we are operating blind. We are operating on a set of national suppositions as to where this pollution comes from—diesel engines, wood-burning stoves, whatever—none of which has any obvious application locally. However, it is locally that the efforts must be made to reduce it. In this amendment, I ask the Minister to put us in a position to take effective action locally to drive through the achievement of his targets. I beg to move.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the amendment in my name suggests that the Government should be talking to other bits of government when creating policy. Its wording might go back to some earlier bits of this clause—nearly one and half days into this, we are not half way through the first clause, but that is quite normal for the start of a Bill. I am thinking here about some of the targets on recreation and enjoyment of the countryside. If I do not like it, I should have stood up earlier and said, “Move it”, but we are where we are.

The Department of Health has a considerable investment in, and has spent a lot of time, making sure that people take exercise. The countryside is an incredibly good potential facility for getting more people to take exercise in a pleasant manner. They will not do it if the environment they are in is unpleasant, dangerous or difficult to reach. We can go on in this way for quite a long time. Will these two departments work together coherently? We may discover from the Minister that “They should possibly consult, that is definitely a good idea”, but in reality they will not, because we have two people defending their own little bailiwicks—“This is where we have authority; this is where you have authority—get your tanks off my lawn.” They might throw a few expletives in there as well, because that is the normal relationship. People like to be in control of what they are doing.

This is an attempt to make sure that two bits of government that should be working together are doing so. It might be the case that we go back and put in a couple more amendments about the new office for health promotion—by naming it I might be expanding this slightly—but if we are to make sure that activity can take place outside, we must know what is going on.

On the other hand, if you are suggesting that everybody should go out and march up and down hills, you have to know how much damage you will do to the environment in certain circumstances and whether that should not happen for environmental reasons. We have talked about mountain bikes ripping up paths, and will talk about it again. We will talk about where walkers are and where they should not be. All these things should be discussed sensibly in government, with somebody having some duty to make sure there is some form of coherent whole coming out of this.

I could expand at considerable length about certain well-meaning groups in the countryside finding themselves totally at the throats of other well-meaning groups in the countryside. They all want similar things but none are prepared to compromise—“And, by the way, we normally fight, don’t we?”. Okay, I will say it: the canoeists and the anglers. If we are going through this, we need some form of guidance from government to make sure they will work together. I suggest that giving some idea of how this will happen in future would not hurt the Bill in any way.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. I call the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, may I press the Minister a bit further on the local nature of pollution, particularly air and water? To pick another example, phosphate in rivers can be a problem, but in the southern Hampshire rivers it is a particular problem because of the sensitivity of the estuarine ecologies to excess phosphate, whereas it might not be such a problem in another ecology. In that circumstance, it becomes crucial to know where the phosphate is coming from; how much comes from agriculture and sewage; which particular bits of land it comes off; and what practices are available to reduce it and are effective in reducing it in those circumstances. That needs a local level of focus and research, and I did not hear anything in his answer—and indeed there was a good deal to worry about in what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said—which gave me a clue about where that evidence can come from.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. In addition to the answer I gave the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, where new skills are needed—and, as the noble Lord says, new skills will be needed—we are committing, and we have committed throughout the Bill, to support local authorities, delivery partners and other relevant stakeholders in properly developing or, if necessary, acquiring those skills. There is no doubt that there is a gap, but our commitment is that, with government support, we will ensure that it is filled.

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. This is relevant where the contaminant or the issue that we are talking about crosses the border. Sorry, that is a clumsy answer. Where the issue crosses the border—and an example was put to us by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead—that is where the complication arises. So, if the problem, if there is a problem, is contained one country or another, or one region or another, I think the question that the noble Baroness has asked would be moot. Where the pollution or the problem crosses the border, my understanding is that the targets that are set in this Bill, by this Parliament, are the targets that would prevail. I will have to write to her to confirm that. She raises an important point and I want to make sure that the answer I give is correct, so I will get back to her and I will publish the answer in the Library.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the support I have received from my noble friend Lord Caithness, and the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Krebs. I remain concerned. Perhaps it is inevitable, in the structure of government, that it can find the funds to create a target and do that well, but to promise money for a few years down the road to see if that has actually turned out well, and why it has not, is a much harder thing for Governments to do. However, I accept my noble friend’s assurances.

I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, on costs and how we need to look at them and not just the benefits—again, not just initially, but on how it works out. What is happening? What effects are the target having? What costs actually turn out to be real? It can be really difficult to predict what negative effects a policy will have, because people find all sorts of interesting ways of adapting to it. A lot of the things one fears do not, in the event, happen, and other things do happen that one had not expected. It is very important to have a process where you revisit initial assumptions and really question how the process is going.

I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was saying. It really echoes an amendment I was chasing yesterday, on connecting people with nature. If you do not give, in the structure of what you are doing, a real incentive—a focus on being connected, one department to another, together with the people—those things get neglected because we have set out other priorities. I hope this is a general area that we will return to on Report, but for now I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 17 withdrawn.

Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Amendment 95 creates a duty for the OEP to set out in its strategy how it intends to interact with devolved environmental governance bodies, as defined in the Bill. It will promote co-operation between the OEP and devolved environmental governance bodies, and respect the devolution settlements by imposing this duty on the OEP only. Government Amendment 95 complements other measures in this Bill that enable the OEP to share relevant information with equivalent bodies and require it to consult them on any matters relevant to their functions.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has outlined the importance of consultation with devolved counterparts in previous debates, and I hope that this government amendment will therefore be welcomed by him, in particular. This is a crucial addition to these other measures, which together will ensure that the OEP and devolved bodies can co-ordinate their functions effectively for the benefit of our environment across the union.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 96 in my name has nothing to do with Amendment 95 but, for the convenience of the Whips’ Office, has been grouped with it.

In this legislation and many other policies, we aim to accomplish substantial changes in people’s behaviour. Particularly when it comes to keeping the heat down, we are faced with immediate disbenefits—things we are asking of people to make their lives worse or different. Therefore, we need to find a way of taking people with us, of explaining to and sharing decisions with them, to have their confidence and mean that they, with us, will take the decisions we need to take. The fundamentals of this are that we should be telling the truth, being transparent and trusting the public. Those are the virtues that I would like to see inculcated into the OEP.

The amendment asks that we gather research and information, because it is hard to find what you want if you are an ordinary member of the public or someone trying to put together an understanding that would allow them to critique government policy, to end up as an informed supporter or to offer helpful suggestions. Secondly, we should make it open, because far too much vital information is hidden behind paywalls. Thirdly, we should make it clear how the evidence supports government policies because, that way, people can see why they should be lining up behind the Government.

Absent that, we will get a lot of policies that sound nice but whose outcomes are suboptimal, and we will lose public support. Take an easy example: recycling. We all sort of want to do it but, when the council turns up outside my door, it smashes the glass into the paper. How is that recycled? Is it recycled or does it just go off to the incinerator? What is the truth? What is actually happening to justify all the effort that I have put in to separating one lot of rubbish from another? I cannot find the answer to that, but it ought to be easy.

Take another example: plant-based diets. We are told they save lives, alleviate hunger, reduce climate change, save water and minimise land use. That makes sense; there are obvious reasons to cut out the middle cow, go straight to the source of the energy and process it ourselves. That way, we ought to have much less impact on the planet. I have been indulging in an experiment, because my daughter went vegan at Christmas, and I record my thanks to Yotam Ottolenghi for making that a process that I have been able to endure.

However, you soon come to notice that milk from a cow is 90p a litre and milk from an oat is £1.80 a litre. If the plant-based diet arguments were right, it ought to be 45p a litre. Some of the difference may be down to rapacious Swedish capitalists outfoxing socially minded British supermarkets, but not that much. The problem is that we are not being offered information on the whole system costs; we are being offered information that cherry-picks things and leads us to make suboptimal decisions.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

I have had one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his explanation of the reasons why he cannot go down the road that I would like him to go down. I suspect that, after I have studied them, I will fully accept them. However, it seems to me that, one way or another, we have to find a way to empower ordinary people to make these decisions and not leave this as something which is happening to them—particularly if, at the end of the day, we will be asking them to pay more for things or to not have things that they have at the moment.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I simply say that I very strongly agree, and that will remain a focus of the Government.

Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

I much regret the length of time that I have had to spend on the details of quite a technical part of the Bill. The Bill is 250 pages, and I can assure your Lordships that my first draft of this speech was considerably longer than the one that I have delivered. I am incredibly grateful for the help of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, which has looked forensically at this part of the Bill. Freedom of information is at risk and I hope for a detailed response from the Minister to show why I am wrong. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I entirely share the concerns expressed with such clarity by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I am a total devotee of freedom of information; indeed, I managed to get a Second Reading of my Freedom of Information Bill in the House of Lords on 10 February 1999, rather in advance of the Government’s own. As the Minister knows from our previous discussions, I am also a total devotee of openness. Both those concerns of mine are engaged by the Bill as it is now written.

When it comes to environmental information, we ought to be more open, not less. Environmental information is so much a public matter and of such widespread individual public concern that we should not be looking, simply for the convenience of the system, to hide it away. I very much look forward to the Minister’s explanation of why the Bill is written as it is.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope to speak quite briefly on this issue. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Rooker for spelling out the case so thoroughly and for raising the important question of transparency. He has rightly underlined the importance of open government and of the OEP being seen to act in the public interest. That is particularly true on environmental matters, where in the past there has been a tendency to cover up environmental damage and pollution, and those accused have deliberately drawn out proceedings to delay prosecution.

As it stands, the Bill contains two prohibitions on disclosure of information. The first appears to override the existing right of access to information under the environmental information regulations. The second appears to contravene the Aarhus convention, the international treaty that underpins the EIR.

Under the Bill, the OEP has a clear obligation to monitor progress in environmental protection and investigate complaints of serious failure by public bodies, but it seems that the OEP could not disclose information obtained for these purposes unless the supplier of the information consented. Similarly, information obtained during the OEP’s enforcement activity would be kept secret until the OEP decided to take no further action. That appears to be much more of a blanket ban than the current provision of the EIR, which limits disclosure only if it would

“adversely affect the course of justice”.

The Explanatory Notes take a different view, claiming that Clause 42 is compliant with the Aarhus convention, but it creates a caveat based on a “confidentiality of proceedings” exception. It is not clear how that will be defined.

To avoid any confusion on the important issue of public access to information, and to protect the OEP from accusations of unnecessary secrecy, it makes sense to clarify in the Bill that the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and connected freedom of information Acts take precedence. We therefore welcome the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Wills that have been ably moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker. I hope the Minister will see the sense in these amendments, which would provide useful clarification of our obligations under national and international law.

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[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is not only producers who have to have regard to resource efficiency; it is also the Government. It is really important in devising regulations in this sort of area that we look at the overall effect of what we are asking people to do and, in particular, what we are asking companies to do to make sure that the end effect of what we are regulating is an improvement and not a disimprovement.

We have seen, for instance, in the case of washing machines and dishwashers, regulations regarding their use of energy, but we have done nothing to regulate how long these machines last. If you are replacing a machine every five years because it has fallen to bits, that surely is part of the resources being consumed by the process. It ought to have been part of the regulations and something that we should look at. We will come to this question when we look at deposit return schemes.

If we are instituting a deposit return scheme on something where we already collect 85% efficiently, and it is only the remaining 15% that are causing problems, then by creating a system that puts a lot of extra costs on society in recycling the existing 85% in a different, less efficient manner, we are not achieving an overall benefit. What is sauce for the goose is very much sauce for the gander.

Looking at the other amendments in this group, I think that the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, would result in regulation that was extremely resource efficient. The small one-off costs for producers after that would lead to a very substantial reduction in costs for the sewerage undertakings. That is what we ought to be aiming for: a good, big overall benefit. We should not be looking at little bits of the process; we have to look at the benefits and the costs that will be imposed by the regulation as a whole.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I want to speak to my own Amendment 128, which goes back even further into the depths of this Bill to Schedule 6. It is a probing amendment in many ways, and very mild, just to tease out where the Government stand on this. Although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said so well, this seems to be a very technical area, these issues are absolutely essential in making the future circular economy, and everything we want in terms of resource efficiency, actually to work and become public friendly—and the way that it faces the public becoming friendly as well.

It comes down to labels. We have had some mention of labels already, particularly from my noble friends Lady Scott and Lord Bradshaw. What I am trying to get at here is that there are provisions, rightly, for the Secretary of State to be able to make regulations about such things as labels on products, but what it does not do is suggest that there should be some consistency about that labelling so that we all find that interface useful, friendly and usable.

I am thinking of two other areas in particular. When I put the laundry into the washing machine at home, there is the occasional garment that I do not have a clue how it should be washed. So what do I do? I look at the label on the garment that has all those little symbols that tell me how I should wash this—at what temperature and all that sort of information. It might tell me not to wash it at all, but to dry-clean it instead. Over the years, I have got to know those symbols. Everybody else has: they are actually fairly international rather than national; I am not even asking for them to be international. Through that, we get to know what we should do.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who mentioned electrical appliances. Whether it be a dishwasher or a dryer, they also have labels that give an energy efficiency rating. That has been so successful that we have had to reinvent or restate what the most efficient levels are, because people have got to know them and simply go for green rather than red.

This amendment is merely offering a suggestion to the Government. It would give the Secretary of State the power to ensure that labelling on goods in the system that will become part of the circular economy is consistent, so that everybody gets to understand the symbols and they are therefore effective. We should not have a wide range of different labels from different manufacturers, or different systems, which would confuse consumers. In labelling, we need consistency, good design and systems that have been tried and tested, and last. As, I think, my noble friend Lady Scott said, this will make sure that people who want to do right can achieve that.

Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. Like my noble friend Lord Caithness, I support the thrust of both these amendments, though neither goes far enough, in my opinion, including my noble friend’s amendment.

Amendment 149 applies only to retailers generating more than 10 tonnes of food waste and in stores of more than 400 square metres. I would reduce those sizes by half and apply them to everyone producing food waste: retailers, manufacturers and the catering industry. We have no idea of the extent of food waste in the catering industry. Today’s uneaten roast chicken should be tomorrow’s soup or curry.

Similarly, Amendment 149A in the name of my noble friend Lord Caithness is absolutely right in concept, especially the idea of reducing food waste across the whole supermarket supply chain. We often concentrate on the food that is unsold in shops at closing time, but we really need to tackle the rejected misshapen carrots, the less-than-perfectly shaped tomatoes and all the other food that is thrown away before it gets to the shops or caterers. A lot of organisations, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, referred, usually charities, are seeking to use up food before supermarkets throw it away. My noble friend Lord Caithness is right to seek to reduce all food waste across the supply chain, before it gets to the ultimate shop or caterer.

In my opinion, it is wrong to set the bar at supermarkets with a turnover of £1 billion. That is too high. I would apply it to all retailers, manufacturers and catering outlets with a turnover of more than £200 million. As an aside, if I may say so—probably improperly—I hope there is still a Morrisons supermarket in five years’ time we can apply it to, after the vulture capitalists have loaded it with debt, robbed the pension fund and asset-stripped it. But that is possibly for another day.

Neither of the amendments deals with the appalling waste of food in our homes but, again, that is not a discussion for the Bill today. If my noble friend the Minister cannot accept the amendments, I hope he will stress to all those in the food supply business that at some point, the Government will be bearing down on them to drastically reduce all food waste at all points in the food supply chain and across all food outlets.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Blencathra is quite right to point up food waste at home. Here in Eastbourne, we have a universal system to deal with that, and a pair of them is nesting on the roof above me as I speak: very little goes to waste here. But on the broader front, yes, we absolutely must not accept the idea of waste. This comes back to the point I was making on previous amendments: the necessity of looking at things in the round. One of the prime ways to reduce waste is plastic packaging. The less you use plastic packaging, the more food waste you generate. We need to look at things as a whole, not at little bits. Within the area of food that, however packaged, has reached or is reaching the end of its shelf life, we indeed need to make it compulsory that it is offered to people, particularly charities, so that they can distribute it as it is needed and that, if there is no market there for it, that it is used in the most efficient way possible. By doing that, we will generate efficient ways to use it.

The other day, I came across a fascinating company called C3 BIOTECH, which is using biotechnology to convert food waste into useful fuels and other materials. These things flourish because we create the circumstances in which they can. If we do not mandate that people deal effectively with food waste, it just gets thrown away and the opportunity to do better things never arises. It is really important that the Government take action in this area. I wish the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, well: if not in the detail of its drafting, very much in its spirit.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on their excellent amendments. They are really good but, sadly, I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. That is not something I usually do, but he is absolutely right: we must go even further on these issues. Food waste is a scourge on our society, We should be horribly embarrassed about it. Unfortunately, we are trying to get the Government to catch up, and I just do not know how we can do that; they are so far behind the general public on such issues.

I slightly disagree about how much individuals can do, because this is not an issue for individual behaviour change. A bit of education, perhaps: teaching people not to take those large packs of something that will end up with half rotting in the fridge, or whatever, but generally, this is for businesses—supermarkets—and for the Government to start legislating. These two amendments do quite a comprehensive job of covering all the issues: the waste hierarchy, practical solutions such as producing feedstock, setting targets and reporting.

I volunteered for a homeless charity for some years. Every Monday morning, I would go out on a very early tea run. Some companies, mainly cafés such as Costa, gave us their food from the day before to distribute to the homeless, which was very welcome. One Christmas, a big supermarket gave us 25 turkeys, which was a little more than we could handle and took quite a bit of redistribution. It happens from time to time, but we must make it normal to do that, so that nobody thinks it is okay to put waste food in a bin.

Personally, I think the Government would be well advised to accept these amendments. It is only by going after supermarkets and businesses that we can actually change the way we treat food waste.

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[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to support the idea that we should go for 20 miles per hour speed limits. The consequences of accidents at 20 miles per hour are much reduced. It makes for a much friendlier environment for walking and cycling and, as the noble Baroness said, it absolutely results in improvements in air quality. We do not need the centres of our towns and cities to be places of rush and danger, particularly with the decline in the viability of our high streets. We want them to be places where people feel comfortable, enjoy being and want to go to for all sorts of reasons. It ought to be easy and conventional. It ought to be the rule that, where people are numerous and we want them to be at ease, we go for a 20 miles per hour speed limit. It is absolutely justified in terms of the objectives of this Bill.

So far as air quality generally is concerned, I come back to the point, which I made in earlier debates, that we must have better research. We are quite capable of it. It is not very helpful to talk about PM2.5 as if this is some universal characteristic; it is just a size. It does not tell you anything about where the particles came from and what, therefore, can be done to reduce their concentration. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, pointed out, in some places lockdown resulted in sharp drops in nitrogen oxides and other such pollutants but no drop in PM2.5, so what is going on here? Were the particulates really coming from diesel engines, or have we, again, been barking up the wrong tree? It is not difficult to find the answer. All you have to do is pick out individual particles, analyse them and find out what their origins are. A particle that comes from burning wood is very different from a particle that comes from diesel—at least on average. A particle from emissions from a heavy industrial source is very different from one from a light engine. We need to do this research, and we need to do it locally, so that we can undertake actions that make a difference.

The main difficulty that I have with the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, is that they seem to assume the sources of pollution are all local. How do we know unless we have done the research? If we do the research, that immediately gives us the moral and intellectual authority to take action against a particular source of pollution. If we just generalise about these things, we will end up hitting lots of imaginary enemies as well—perhaps—as a real one. It is really important that we get the level of research well up. We should make it local and consistent so that we really understand what is going on when it comes to air pollution.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has withdrawn so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I call the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I would be very grateful if the Minister—in writing if not immediately—could let me know what steps the Government have taken or intend to take to enable local action in this area? My particular concern, as ever, is the town of Eastbourne. We are told from time to time that our air quality is bad; we are never told why. What support can the Government offer for properly testing the air pollution we are said to have, so that we can have a proper diagnosis of where it is coming from and therefore direct our local efforts accurately at dealing with it?

Similarly, the current system for trying to get speed limits moved to 20 miles per hour is very time-consuming and difficult and imposes a lot of burdens on the higher county authority. Is there not some simpler way in which an expression of local will might convert into something happening without the need for deep, long consultations? This is a matter of policy and of the direction we want to take a community in. It really should not have to justify itself at every cobblestone.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. I think I answered in general terms how much the Bill enables greater local action on air pollution by improving local air quality management frameworks and ensuring that responsibility for addressing air pollution is shared across local government structures and other relevant public authorities. If I can offer him more detail, I commit to writing to him. On that last subject, the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, asked two questions that I failed to answer: traffic management in Northern Ireland is a devolved issue and I would of course be very happy to meet the noble Baroness to discuss further matters.

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[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I too support Amendment 279 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester. Steam locomotives, in particular, and the associated steam engines employed elsewhere are generally now maintained to the highest standards by the most enthusiastic people, and they bring lots of tourists into the most remote areas of the country. The effect on the areas where these railways and other such things operate is immense. Many areas such as north Wales would be immeasurably harmed if the use of steam locomotives was banned. I want simply to say that I support Amendment 279 with enthusiasm. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, said that he has received assurances from the Minister. I hope this is true, and I agree with him that including this in the Bill would be something we would all look back on with pride.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I want to address two aspects of Amendments 157 to 159. First, looking at the underlying clause, what do the Government intend to use these provisions for? Once a motor vehicle has been out in the world for a while, it tends to have drifted a long way away from the ability of the original manufacturer to do anything about it. Is the clause saying that a second-hand car that someone cheerfully bought a year or two ago will be hauled in and scrapped? If so, where is the provision for compensation? If that is not what the clause means, what does it mean?

Secondly, I will take the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, a bit further. If we are looking at aspects of our lives that emit a lot more carbon dioxide than they need to, why are we not looking at cement? Standard cement is a very heavy emitter of carbon, and inevitably so, as it involves taking the carbon dioxide out of limestone. But, as the Romans knew, you can get a very strong material by mixing about 70% standard cement with 30% volcanic ash, in the Romans’ case, or in our case maybe steel slag. You can get a material which is just as strong and durable, yet there does not appear to be any focus on doing that. I hope it will be possible to pursue this with officials between now and Report, to help us understand in which bits of our lives it is considered important that we focus on CO₂ reduction, which bits are to be left alone and, in each case, why.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about exactly what this provision in the Bill refers to. The word “recall” usually implies some kind of faulty manufacture which does not live up to the technical specifications. It can also mean something that, when manufactured, seemed safe but has since been proved to be unsafe. At what point has a fault that develops in a motor vehicle got nothing to do with the original manufacture? It could be due to the way it has been used or misused.

When I first read this, I thought that I entirely understood why the Government wanted this clause in the Bill, because I thought that it referred to a series of incidents a few years ago where some car manufacturers made false claims about the environmental emissions efficiency of their vehicles. They went further than that: they taught them to cheat in the emissions tests that we were then following as EU standards—we are still following the same set of tests, but we refer to them rather differently now. At the time, I was aware that the UK Government took rather less strenuous action on this than some other Governments. Therefore, as a result of various government statements, I was led to believe that perhaps the Government did not have the powers that they felt were necessary. When I first read this part of the Bill, I thought that it was a very reasonable requirement by the Government that they should want more powers to deal with this.

It is rather difficult to get through to the true meaning of this because so much of it is going to be left to regulations. If you read this section of the Explanatory Memorandum, it has sentence after sentence saying to us “This is going to be left to regulations” and “That is going to be left to regulations”. It is such a bald original statement with so much to be filled in by regulations. So I look forward to the Minister’s explanation as to exactly what the Government are concerned about.

However, if I am right on that, can I then ask the Minister why the recall is restricted, apparently, to motor vehicles? It seems to me like a remarkable lack of imagination to do so, because manufacturers of component parts in trains, ships and aircraft will have as great an incentive to cut corners, misrepresent or downright cheat in the future as car manufacturers have had in the past. The environmental restrictions and limits that have been placed on car manufacturers in the past will very soon come to aviation, shipping and the rail services, so there is every reason to apply this throughout the transport industry. I ask the Minister to explain why that has not been done so far. I support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in his amendments.

Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I very much support the idea that the automatic right of connection should end. We really need an arrangement that puts pressure on developers to make their developments as friendly to the water system as possible, and an automatic right of connection obviously does not achieve that—so that should be a very fruitful direction to go in.

Has my noble friend looked at the Hampshire County Council nitrates credit scheme? This is a scheme it is putting together so that new housing developments in Hampshire, which would otherwise add to the nitrate burden in rivers and therefore to nitrate pollution in the estuary, can offset that additional pollution by purchasing farmland, which is currently a substantial source of nitrates, and taking that out of production. This is an interesting idea, but I very much hope my noble friend will look at integrating such schemes into the overall direction of the Bill.

First, I do not think it is a good idea that developers should have a simple way around their obligations. They ought to be doing things internal to the development to reduce pollution and the stress on the water system. To allow them to buy their way out of it does not seem desirable. On the other side of things, if we are to take land out of production for these purposes, that absolutely ought to be integrated with the other schemes happening in the Bill—forestry, rewilding, biodiversity gain and so on—not just something that happens randomly on the side. I very much hope that between now and Report my noble friend will be able to take an interest in what Hampshire is up to.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, making biodiversity net gain a mandatory requirement for most development is a good thing, though it will need several safeguards. Extending the net gain provision to nationally significant infrastructure is welcome, and I congratulate the Minister on that amendment. However, I believe that we need Amendment 194C in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch, to also include major infrastructure projects consented in other ways, including hybrid Bills, Transport and Works Act orders and whatever the new consenting mechanisms are that the Government invent in the new planning Bill. It is a pity that we have not yet seen the proposals arising from the consultation on planning. Can the Minister give us an indication of when we will see the Government’s proposals for planning? It would be extremely disappointing if major projects such as HS2 and East West Rail were not required to deliver biodiversity net gain.

I know that, latterly, HS2 has opted voluntarily to deliver biodiversity net gain on some of its later sections, if you can call being frog-marched into this by the NGOs, local protest groups and the Government a voluntary agreement. These big government-sponsored, taxpayer-supported and highly controversial projects should be like Pharaoh’s wife and be obligated to deliver the highest standards of biodiversity net gain. Of course, HS2 can never deliver biodiversity net gain as long as it is damaging ancient woodland, which is an irreplaceable habitat and therefore represents an irreplaceable biodiversity loss.

The Minister kindly wrote to noble Lords last week about HS2 in response to issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham. His letter, alas, fuelled my concerns about the potential misuse of the term “biodiversity net gain.” He indicated that HS2 phase 2b—Crewe to Manchester—would deliver biodiversity net gain, but he then went on to say that, because ancient woodland could not be replaced, it would simply be out of the scope of the net gain objective for HS2. Therefore, HS2 will be able to boast publicly of being a net gain project, while still being the single biggest cause of damage to our declining and irreplaceable ancient woodland. This is, frankly, misleading if not mendacious. Defra, we understand, is planning a consultation, expected to start this summer, on the development of regulations and guidance on irreplaceable habitats. Can the Minister assure the House that the regulations and guidance will not allow projects that are, in reality, not delivering net gain to portray themselves as net gain projects?

Biodiversity net gain needs other safeguards. Amendment 198A in my name would make sure that existing and possibly long-standing nature sites and habitats were not simply regarded as tradeable for newly created sites elsewhere—as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, possibly quite far elsewhere—under the net gain provisions. My amendment would ensure that the mitigation hierarchy had been followed. I am sure that noble Lords read the mitigation hierarchy every night before they go to bed, but I shall explain.

The mitigation hierarchy is part of the National Planning Policy Framework and outlines a set of principles that local planning authorities should work through in determining whether to approve a planning application impacting on biodiversity. It is a sort of stepwise, catechism approach. First, developers would be asked to seek to avoid impacts on biodiversity and, if that was not possible, to minimise them and then take onsite measures to rehabilitate or restore biodiversity, before finally resorting to offsetting residual, unavoidable impacts offsite. Can the Minister assure the Committee that the mitigation hierarchy will remain a requirement of the planning system and that there will be sufficient safeguards to ensure that offsite net gain is a last, not a first, resort under the net gain and planning provisions? It is on both the net gain and the changes in the planning system that the Minister needs to assure us.

A further strengthening of the net gain provisions is required. This is pointed out by my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch, supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, in Amendments 196 and 201AZB. They would require habitats created under net gain to be maintained in perpetuity rather than only for 30 years. Previous speakers have debated this. The reality is that some created habitats will only just get going in 30 years; they certainly will not have reached the richness, complexity and resilience of long-standing habitats. The Government’s carbon scheme requires woodland sites created for carbon storage to persist for 100 years, so if it is possible to get that sort of longevity for a site despite changes of hands and ownership and the length of the policy, why can we not do it for biodiversity net gain?

We must not get into the crazy position that arose in south Wales with the extension of the M5 over the sensitive wetland sites in the Gwent Levels. Compensation habitat was created but, when the M4 relief road proposals came forward 20 years later, they planned to go straight through the compensation habitat. Mercifully, the Welsh Government reacted magnificently and rejected the plans. We do not want serial decimation of net gain habitat. Can the Minister assure the Committee that habitat created in the interests of net gain will not be allowed to disappear after 30 years? Will he accept the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch?

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have four amendments in this group. Amendment 201AA is about setting standards for the quality and content of information about biodiversity gain. This is an area where there are currently considerable problems. You are supposed to be able to get an expert to judge, for instance, the quality of a grassland. If you ask four different experts, you will probably get four different answers. There are no standards. There are no benchmarks.

Since we are moving to a situation of knowing what quality we are starting with and what quality we wish to end up with, we have to do this in a way that is measurable and verifiable. Therefore, I am keen that the Government should set objective and usable standards and have them in public so that people can refer to them and argue with them at the time when planning permission is being discussed and so that, 20 years down the road, we can judge whether what has been agreed is being maintained and do so consistently without having to wish for the luck of having chosen the right expert. In this context, I am keen that the state of a particular environment should be judged in the right season. It is obviously impossible in January to know what the quality of a particular bit of chalk grassland is; it has to be judged at a time of year when the plants and insects are in evidence.

Amendment 201AB is about how biodiversity gain should be audited. If we are to require something to be kept going for 30 years, somebody has to keep an eye on it. If we want that to happen, we have to provide the funds up front so that it can. I am not at all clear how the Government envisage an obligation to maintain a site being checked up on in practice.

Amendment 201AC comes back to a subject discussed previously by the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle: how we secure that these obligations are enforceable in practice. To my mind, the obligations have to stick to the land. It has to be something that is enforceable against whoever owns the land at that particular time, whether that be a freeholder or a leaseholder, so that there is always somebody with sufficient interest that they will notice that they have to do something, be aware of the consequences of a notice to improve and take action. I cannot see anything in the current arrangement that will make sure that biodiversity gain sites, particularly those that are part of the land being developed—that is, small local sites, which are not part of major biodiversity gain trading sites but little local things tucked away that will be hard to notice—are kept going. We need something that will do that. I hope that somewhere in the Bill is a requirement that biodiversity gain on those sorts of local sites should be congruent with the local nature recovery strategy. I have missed that; I have not tabled an amendment about it, but I would love to have the Minister confirm to me that that will be the case.

I very much support what has been said about making biodiversity gain exist in perpetuity. I do not think of it as unchangeable but, if something happens that damages that gain, the system should swing into action again and the person doing the damage should be required to provide additional gain elsewhere or on the same site in much the same way as if they were doing an original development. I cannot see the point in things ending in 30 years. It is pointless. It is not what we are talking about; we are talking about changing things for ever, so let us say that.

I know that my noble friend the Minister has been sent a copy of a paper by my honourable friend Bim Afolami; I hope that he will find the opportunity, now or in correspondence, to comment on it. Mr Afolami is concerned that the Government’s plans for introducing biodiversity gain are much too slow and that opportunity should be given to those authorities that want to move faster to get going straightaway. Not everyone will be in a position to do that, but some of us will be ready. I do not see the point in holding back for two years just because not everything is ready. If the Government let those of us who are ready move early, a lot will be learned from our experience that can then be built into the procedure that opens up for everybody after the initial two years.

In particular, to pick up on an amendment which we will not see, because it went down too late, from my noble friend Lord Ridley and myself, I think there is a lot to be said for enabling—authorising—the automated creation of biodiversity gain statements and suggestions for small developers. If we do not do something to really help small developers, they will be hit by very large costs relative to the size of the development in getting a biodiversity gain statement together. We need to make it easier for them, but if we are making it easy for them, we need quality, and I think the suggestions in my right honourable friend’s letter address that. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us that small sites will not end up being low quality or we will not end up deterring small builders by imposing on them obligations which are not proportionate to the size of their development.

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

On the first point, my noble friend is absolutely right. My comments relate to the fact—it is a fact, there is no doubt—that our biodiversity has decreased very sharply in recent decades and continues to go down. That is why our goal is to bend that curve so that, instead of going down, we start to increase biodiversity.

At the same time, the UK is, I believe, doing more work internationally—not just by wagging its finger but through example—than any other country in the world. If you compare what we are doing on nature with, for example, what is proposed by the new Administration in the United States or any other country in Europe, I would say that we are miles ahead in our ambitions and in what we are doing with our international climate finance and ODA. We were the first country to deal with things such as our fossil fuel subsidies and our land use subsidies. Our campaigns internationally, not least the 30by30 initiative, are changing the debate around nature. I am very proud of where we are in the debate but, like everywhere in the world, we have an enormous amount of work to do to translate that into action on the ground.

My noble friend’s second point is very interesting, and one that I shall have to come back to him on for any details. My only observation would be that a proper net gain project is not going to be about one species, it will be about the habitat that supports that species. Even if climate change were to render the conditions too difficult for that particular species, you will not have no gain—you will still have gain on that side as a consequence of the habitat improvement. He raises a very interesting point; it is one that merits thought and I will think about it.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his comprehensive replies, but there are a number of areas I would like him to expand on—if he chooses, by correspondence. In the case of the first, it may be best to have an online meeting, should that be possible.

I would really like to walk through with him what happens if we have a medium-sized housing development with on-site diversity gain and, 10 years later, someone questions whether that gain has been maintained, or even achieved. What information will be available to that person? How will they, in practice, be able to challenge it? Exactly what will that information look like? Professional good practice guidelines do not seem a very strong basis for challenging whether something comes up to standard; they are pretty woolly at the moment. Will something be set that can actually be judged against?

If there is a question over whether the gain has been maintained, who will be responsible for taking action? How can an ordinary citizen kick them into taking action? Where, in practice, will the money from a housing estate of maybe a couple of hundred houses be extracted from to make good the lack of performance? How is this actually going to work? As I said, this may be best dealt with as a meeting, but if the Minister chooses to burst into print on it, I shall be delighted.

Secondly, can my noble friend share with us his concerns about perpetuity rather than 30 years? There are lots of aspects of land where perpetuity is normal. No one expects to get out from under an SSSI or building listing, and I do not expect to get out from under the covenants that apply locally to the Duke of Devonshire. Those go with the land and one expects them to be there forever. If one has made improvement to the biodiversity of a piece of land, maintaining that forever or compensating for a failure to do that by providing additional biodiversity elsewhere or onsite seems to fit well with perpetuity, and I cannot comprehend where this opposition is coming from in practice. We are all [Inaudible].

Thirdly, can the Minister answer on whether the biodiversity gain in a particular development will be linked to the local nature recovery strategy or be independent from it, and if it is linked, how does it work?

Lastly, I should be grateful to understand the Minister’s response to the letter that the department has received from my right honourable friend Bim Afolami.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

Minister, I think that it is your turn now.

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

205A: Clause 95, page 96, line 18, at end insert—
“(1ZA) Such consideration must include consideration of empowering relevant civil society organisations to further the general biodiversity objective, in particular by breeding and releasing native animals.”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to enable discussion of how the regeneration of the populations of those insects and other animals that have become locally or nationally extinct can be sped up.

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[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, in addition to moving Amendment 205A, I shall speak to the other amendments in the group.

If one is setting out to restore nature in a bit of the countryside, it is dead easy to restore the plants. Almost every native British plant—certainly all the common and half-common ones—are available from a number of seed sources. All you have to do is plant the seeds or, if you are that bit keener, to grow the seeds on in the garden and then plant out plugs. There is no difficulty in doing it and no laws against it. It is a process widely used to bring nature back into farms, and we are all used to it.

When it comes to animals, it is much harder. Of course, some big animals introduce themselves. I do not know any way of keeping a fox out of a bit of territory, and mice and similar mammals seem to move pretty well. But when it comes to glow-worms, crickets, soil animals generally and even lizards and frogs, that is not the case. These animals just do not have the ability to move across gaps in countryside. They have not evolved a widely mobile strategy. If I want glow-worms back somewhere, I have to put them there; they will not come to me.

The BBC celebrates, as do I, a glow-worm reintroduction process under way at the moment to add 500 glow-worms in two sites over two years. That is ridiculous. It is a pathetic level of ambition. We ought to be distributing millions of glow-worms to tens of thousands of sites to get a decent effect on nature and to get things back to where they should be if we had looked after nature.

This sort of process absolutely needs to be properly controlled, which is what I am trying to achieve through the amendments I propose. We need not small, underfunded, academic efforts to introduce one or two little bits of nature back but something much larger, more widespread and popular. We do it for plants; we ought to be able to do it for animals. That is what I aim to do in Amendments 205A and 257D.

Amendment 253 looks at land that has been seriously rewilded and asks whether we can take that rewilding just one bit further. If a rabbit or deer dies in a rewilded estate, the carcass lies where it is and is consumed by whatever carrion eaters are around, be they beetles, fungi or birds, but that is not true of the stock used to maintain the landscape within a rewilding scenario. If a sheep or cow dies, the carcass has to be removed. If we want the rewilding to be truly natural, we ought to explore the possibility of leaving that carcass to be consumed in a natural way.

This is already being done in Holland. A month ago, I sent my noble friend some detailed information on what happens there. I would very much like the opportunity to explore with him whether this might be a relaxation we can bring into the UK. Again, things need to be done in a controlled way. You do not want an animal with a serious disease left out as a carcass, but all that is required in Holland is a veterinary inspection. That seems to work well. I hope we can do the same here. I beg to move.

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[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am always happy to receive a letter from my noble friend. I will address the subjects that I raise in these amendments in reverse order. I understand what he is saying about fallen stock, but I very much hope that the authorities in this country will take a careful look at what the Dutch authorities have done. They have proceeded in a very cautious and sensible way, and they have not encountered a great deal of problems. As I say, there is veterinary inspection of the carcass before it is left. It is not something done at random.

In any rewilding situation, quite a lot of large animals die naturally and are left naturally, because they are not part of the harsh, farmed population, as it were. This is not that big a step if it is done carefully. Perhaps it is something that can be done in small steps, so that we see how it goes, but we ought not to be afraid of creating a truly wild environment. As with the introduction of wolves or lynx, it is a decision to take carefully—I am not sure that the residents of Eastbourne would fancy having an eagle owl circling over their prams, but, none the less, it is something that we should think through and explore. In other parts of the world, we are encouraging people to keep tigers going; that is a different measure of risk that we are asking people to take. We ought to be conscious of what we are asking of ourselves compared with what we are asking of other people.

So far as dealing with common native species is concerned, yes, a thousand grasshoppers is wonderful, but why a thousand? Why not 10 million? That is particularly true when you are talking about things such as glow-worms and crickets, which really do not move far as adults, and where the larval species do not spread a great distance and are probably incapable of crossing a road, and so large areas of the country are—within our lifetimes and probably for several centuries—effectively inaccessible to natural rewilding and natural reintroduction, however many natural corridors we introduce. Where species are known not to be a danger to ecosystems and are a natural part of ecosystems where they exist, and the problem is that we have wiped out most of them, we really ought to do something about that. The key is allowing breeding on a large scale. This will not happen if we restrict it, as I say, to academic exercises that think we should celebrate 500 glow-worms or a thousand grasshoppers. That is not the level of challenge that we have.

I agree that we ought to move carefully: we ought to move with advice. None of this should be done without, say, the local wildlife trust saying: “Yep. Okay, we’re happy with that”. Any organisation involved in breeding ought to be carefully supervised. We need to get the public involved in these things and allow them to say: “I want lizards in my garden”, “I want a slow worm in my garden”, or “I want to see glow-worms in the park when I go for a walk at night. Can I have that?” The way to get nature back on the scale that we need is to say okay, let us do that. I very much hope that the species reintroductions task force will bend its mind to that at some stage. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 205A withdrawn.

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[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with care to what the two noble Baronesses have said, and I support their arguments. They made some very valid points.

I am speaking to my two amendments in this grouping. Amendment 210A simply requires that Natural England has particular regard to nature-friendly farming. It has to

“have regard to … local nature recovery strategy, and … any relevant species conservation strategy or protected site strategy prepared by Natural England.”

One thing that has been missing in a lot of our debate over six days is the role of the human being in all this. We have talked a lot about biodiversity and what we can do to increase it, but what matters just as much is the role of the farmer and the landowner, because they are going to implement the policy. I was thrilled when my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, said on the amendment we have just discussed on biodiversity net gain, words to the effect of: “We are able to farm in a nature-friendly way.” I thought: “Good. My noble friend and I are on the right track together.” It is hugely important.

At the moment there is a Nature Friendly Farming Network that thousands of farmers have joined; it is doing tremendously good work for the environment at very little extra cost to the taxpayer—and sometimes at a cost to their own pockets. These are exactly the sort of people we need to encourage. The farmers are not particularly pleased with this Government at the moment. There is far too much uncertainty and change and, as we all know, the age of the average farmer is so high that they are finding it hard to adapt to all the pressures. I was really pleased by what my noble friend said, and I hope he will consider the amendment about biodiversity. The Bill cannot just be seen in isolation. We have to involve the human being—the farmer and the landowner. They are the people who will alter things on the ground.

Besides the Nature Friendly Farming Network, there is of course the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. We often talk about the UK being a world leader. We have on our own shores a world leader in this organisation. It has demonstration farms in Scotland and England, and has farmed for biodiversity for many years. It advises individual farmers and clusters of farmers, and does an awful lot of work for Defra. I urge my noble friend to visit its Allerton project. He and I have spoken about this before. The work and scientific research it does are so important. We cannot now take for granted everything I learned when I was a boy and a young man, working on the farms and the land. To convince the rest of the country, we have to have it scientifically proven. This is what the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has been doing so well. I hope that my noble friend, besides talking to us, will spare time between now and the next stage to visit it in Leicestershire. It would be an easy half day for him, and I think it would be very beneficial.

I turn now to Amendment 293, to which I am a signatory. It is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and is on a subject that both she and I have been going on about for quite a long time: the land use strategy for England. Perhaps we need no better excuse for introducing this amendment than what the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said about Horsham District Council and the problems it faces. I have said it before, and I will just briefly repeat myself: the Climate Change Committee reckons that we will have to transfer about 21% of our agricultural land out of farming. To feed ourselves, we will have to increase productivity by 10%. We all know that productivity has been flatlining in agriculture for many years, so this is going to be a hugely serious problem to try to tackle.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, will wax much more lyrical than I will on this, so I will not say very much except that it is again about the human input into this. There are so many pressures now on the countryside: the building of new railways, new developments and housing schemes and, I repeat yet again, the threatened planning Bill, which is coming our way next year. That frightens me because it will undo quite a lot of the good in this Bill and in our climate change agenda. We will have to support these farmers and accept that they have got to increase their productivity.

We have talked about land being lost for biodiversity net gain. That is another pressure on the countryside. Surely, it is high time that England followed the lead of the other countries in the UK—Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—in producing a plan of how it will use the land. It is the only way that we will make progress in a sensible way without having constant fights at all levels. We need a strategy from the Government: should we actually be farming our grade 1 Lincolnshire fen farms, which we are told have very few harvests left? Every time they are farmed, they are perhaps one of the greatest emitters of carbon in the agricultural sector. It is a terrible thought that our grade 1 land might not be farmable or should not be farmed, but we need to address that now before it is too late. I therefore give my full support to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, to get a land use strategy for England.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to be part of this group and to be supporting the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, in her Amendment 209. If we are to have nature recovery strategies, they have to be followed. I touched on this in a previous group in relation to biodiversity gain and planning consents. If that great source of nature improvement is done willy-nilly, with no reference at all to the nature recovery strategy, what is the point of the nature recovery strategy? This is one of the main ways in which things are going to improve. Why is it disconnected? Amendment 209 from the noble Baroness would reconnect it and other things in a most useful way.

My own amendments in this group are aimed at seeking remedies to things which seem to me, from my experience locally, not to be working as well as they might be and which could be made to work better, under the structures proposed in this Bill, with a bit of additional power. First, I observe that, within the land owned by the local council, there are substantial SSSIs which are supposed to be chalk downland and which are actually largely bramble. How has that come about? I think it has come about because the negotiations on what should be done are conducted between a council that is extremely willing but short of money and Natural England, which understands that and does not see the purpose of pushing a long-term relationship harder than it reasonably can. The net result is that things go gently backwards.

Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, who spoke with her typical authority and strong logic. I declare my interests as set out in the register, particularly those in respect of agriculture and as chair of UK Squirrel Accord, of which more later.

I shall speak to Amendment 260A, which stands in my name, and Amendment 259 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. One plank of this Bill is afforestation. We have heard much throughout the many days of debate on the Bill about the benefits of carbon capture and the biodiversity dividend of afforestation. It is worth recalling that the level of afforestation in the United Kingdom in 1919, just after the First World War, was just 5%. Today, it is 13%, but the 2021 EU factsheet on afforestation for the EU shows that it is 37% afforested. In his very good speech at Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington pointed out that it is important to balance food production with forestry on our limited land area, but I still feel that 13% is the wrong number and needs to go up significantly. I agree with many others who have said that over the course of our many days.

The problem is that simply planting trees is not enough. Amendment 260A is about the management of the main animal damage threats, while Amendment 259 is its biosecurity analogue. The squirrel problem is very simple in that grey squirrels ring-bark trees between the ages of about 10 and 40 and suck out the sap. This damages the trees and kills many of them. UK Squirrel Accord was formed five or six years ago to try to combat this at a UK level. It comprises the four Governments, their nature agencies, the main voluntary bodies and the main commercial sector bodies. There are 40 signatories overall. It seeks to co-ordinate not only communication among those bodies so that everybody knows what is going on but the use of science in controlling squirrels, and that science will of course be able to be used for the control of deer.

The key thing at the moment is the fertility control project, which is getting to the end of its third year at the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s main laboratories just outside York. The project will do exactly what it says on the tin, which is to control the fertility of grey squirrels and therefore shrink their numbers dramatically.

This year saw a very interesting piece of academic research by the Royal Forestry Society on the level of the problem that the grey squirrel poses to afforestation. It is called An Analysis of the Cost of Grey Squirrel Damage to Woodland. It is quite a lengthy report, and I shall not give your Lordships all the details, but 777 land managers were surveyed. They said clearly that the greatest threat to them in trying to grow woodland was the grey squirrel, and 56% of them said that they were experiencing damage quotients of between 35% and 100%, with only 14% feeling that the damage quotient was less than 5%. I should say in addition that the oak tree, which is one of the most iconic species for our country, is the greatest supporter of biodiversity, with some 2,000 species supported by oak trees.

The UK Squirrel Accord and its associated voluntary bodies are extremely worried about there being safe zones for squirrels because some people do nothing. The biggest problems we see in those safe zones are patrolled by Amendment 260A. First, if you have been in receipt of a grant or if you are a public body—this is a very big problem—you must comply with the animal damage protection standard. If you are somebody else, you will be encouraged to comply with it. Given those who are interested enough to participate in the UK Squirrel Accord, I think people will obey that, but I feel that some motorway and railway agencies in particular are doing nothing at the moment and therefore have a lot of safe harbours for the squirrel.

I will say a brief word on the cost of compliance. I congratulate the National Forest Company, which has employed volunteers to help with some of its control issues, greatly reducing any costs that may be involved. I believe there is a significant number of volunteers—the UK Squirrel Accord is very much in touch with them—who would assist with that and therefore help with the cost element.

I turn briefly to Amendment 259. I feel that the science will get there for Amendment 260A in the end, and we will have sufficient scientific weapons to be able to reduce the level of grey squirrels in the country so that it will be commercially possible to plant broadleaf trees in the south of England again. We will hear about that from later speakers. The difficulty is that the disease problems associated with importing trees, particularly pest problems such as the oak processionary moth, fill me with an appalling dread. Here I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said just a moment ago. It is important to be a bit like a Chinese doctor and act before some of these problems arise, and act very strongly indeed. Both these amendments are enabling provisions for afforestation. We will not get there without them.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very pleased to be able to follow the noble Earl. I declare an interest as an owner of a plantation on an ancient woodland site, mostly replanted in 1986. I reckon that my cumulative loss to squirrels is about 60%. There are areas of the wood where nothing has survived except the coppice regrowth, and a lot of that is damaged. I have been trying to control squirrels throughout that time. This is a really serious problem if we want to take trees seriously, particularly if we want them to be commercial. I therefore very much support Amendment 260A. It would be a really useful way to go, getting us all working together in the same direction.

Deer are important too. Those who know the border between Wiltshire and Dorset will know the troubles the RSPB has had in Garston Wood with the herd of fallow deer it had there. It got zero regeneration at the end of the day because there were just too many deer. It has now excluded them, which is not fun for the local farmers, but at least it solves the RSPB’s problem. However, generally we have to recognise our position in this ecosystem. We are very important as the top predators—the controller of what happens with herbivorous activity—and if we want particular species and kinds of things to grow, we must act on that responsibility.

We need to start to understand how regeneration is working around us. Oak regeneration does not seem to be happening at all, something that is echoed by other people in the south of England. I do not know what circumstances need to change to make the ecology right for that. These are things that, with a big ambition for forestry, we need to understand. We do not want to have to be for ever planting trees; we ought to be able to rely on a pattern of regeneration.

I am very much in favour of the direction of Amendment 259. We need to be quite strict about the diseases that we let into this country. We have a very limited degree of biodiversity when it comes to trees and shrubs; we have about 30 different ones, around one-tenth of what an ideal temperate woodland would have by way of variety—courtesy of the Ice Ages, mostly, and the opening of the Channel but also, subsequent to that, the effect that man has on restricting the natural movement of plant species. We need, as the Forestry Commission is setting out to do, to improve our genomic diversity within species as well as the number of species that we have.

While I do not at all resent the activities of the Romans and others in bringing across chestnuts, for instance, or the buddleia in my garden—a cousin to many that are spread over the south downs—I do not think additional biodiversity hurts us. We are a very impoverished ecosystem and should be able to stand some introductions—but not, please, diseases. We have seen the devastation caused by ash dieback around here in Eastbourne. With a limited ecosystem, each disease is a big hit, and we do not want to risk more of that because it will take a very long time before we have a more diverse forest population.

However, I am not convinced by Amendment 258. As I said, I own a plantation on an ancient woodland site, and an SSSI designation would be a disaster. There is so much needed to do to make it better. The point of an SSSI is that you pick on a bit of landscape that is as you wish it to be, and the focus is then on keeping it as it is and making it difficult for people to change it. A plantation on an ancient woodland site means a lot of restoration to do, and you do not need the level of bureaucracy that goes with being an SSSI. I would be happy to have something to give it greater protection against invasion by planners but not something that stops the woodland owner from making it a better wood.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this group on the subject of trees. As we know from the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the Woodland Trust, which I think she chairs, only some 7% of our woodland is in good condition. We have a very small percentage of cover—13%—as has been noted by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and ancient woodland covers roughly 2.5% of our area.

I have put my name to Amendments 260 and 283, but I shall start with some comments on Amendments 258 and 259 about ancient woodlands and SSSIs. I very much take the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in that SSSIs can be complicated areas involving many rules. One issue that we have not tackled in the Bill, and which appals me, is that—if I have this right—the target by which to get 75% of SSSIs in good condition is 2045. I am sure the Minister will put me right if I am wrong, but it is an atrocious statement of where we are and where we intend to be if that is the case. Having said that, I can say on behalf of my colleagues that we would very much welcome this sort of amendment, even if it were not drafted exactly as at present.

--- Later in debate ---

I welcome the steps that the Government are taking regarding illegal deforestation; however, Governments could make legal deforestation that is currently illegal in order to circumvent new measures—then we would have a problem. We should also be taking into consideration the many other issues surrounding this general subject; I think particularly of the cutting down of primary forest for biomass both in Europe and indeed in the US and Canada. These are difficult issues, perhaps too complex for us to include in this Bill, but we must address them. What we can do is ensure that we have full parliamentary accountability.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group: Amendments 263 and 265. I thoroughly welcome the Government’s approach in this area. We have a responsibility as the consumers of forest products to make sure that they are sourced in a way we are comfortable with. To keep blindly consuming, say, palm oil without regard to the consequences is to take less than our responsibility for what is happening. It is our demand that is driving the production, and it is therefore our responsibility. We need to find ways in which we can exercise that responsibility without encroaching on the national rights of the people doing the producing. For instance, in the case of palm oil, I think it is entirely reasonable to ask that it is produced without further encroachment on virgin forest. My Amendment 263 suggests that we should also include peatlands and wetlands within that definition of “forest”. Both of these are environments that palm oil plantations can encroach on. They are both environments of great ecological significance, and we should therefore have as much interest in them as we do in a forest.

In order to know what is going on in response to our demand for palm oil, we need some information. The obvious information we have access to is satellite records, but they are not much use unless you can tie them to what is happening on the ground. We will need some form of baseline—I hope very much that COP 26 may provide that—or a map of where things are so that change can be measured from that. We need to be conscious of the fact that it is not necessarily the big boys doing the encroaching. It can be small farmers, subsistence farmers or people working out a small living who make the first cut, and then the big boys come in behind them, reward them and move them on to the next patch of virgin forest. What we need to watch is not some small detail but the overall effect, so that we know that palm oil sourced from a particular area or country has been done so ethically.

Amendment 265 deals with how we might make that work. I am suggesting that we should be able to give our approval to an organisation such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil so that we can use it as an internationally recognised collaborative method of telling us which sources of palm oil are ethical. Then we should build some reward into that system. I am sure we would come up against the WTO again, but, as we have discussed before this evening, we need the WTO to become responsive to environmental imperatives. If a country is producing ethically farmed palm oil, we should be able to reward it with a premium, which should then go back into the process of making sure that palm oil is ethical and supporting the people producing it on those terms, so that we get a virtuous circle.

Those are my two suggestions for how we might make things more effective than they appear to be in the Bill. It is important that we look for a system that does not just deal with the import of the primary product but enables us to get at imports that contain substantial amounts of the product; otherwise, we just disadvantage our own producers. Working through something like a round table or an import tariff scheme would allow us to do that.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 264A. The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was very keen to speak on this amendment, to which he added his name, but for technical reasons was unable to do so.

I congratulate the Government on their attempt to tackle the alarming rate of deforestation. They plan to do this by prohibiting the use of certain commodities associated with illegal—I emphasise the word—deforestation and by requiring large companies to undertake due diligence and report on their activities in the relevant areas. I emphasise the word illegal because here lies the risk; the Bill as it stands risks incentivising Governments to change their laws to make sure that far greater deforestation—perhaps all of it—becomes legal. This Environment Bill will then have little or no benefit in preventing deforestation. I know this is not the intention of the Government, but I ask the Minister to consider most carefully the risk of leaving Schedule 16 as it stands.

As other noble Lords know, deforestation is a huge global problem and solving it has to be a top priority for COP 26. Just a couple of statistics will make the point. In 2020 alone, primary humid tropical forest loss covered some 4.2 million hectares—an area the size of the Netherlands. Paragraphs 2(1) and 2(2) of Schedule 16 make it clear that, as long as local laws are complied with, commodities grown on land where forest has been cleared can be traded commercially by UK companies. However, deforestation behind UK imports of commodities accounts for an area of tree loss almost the size of the entire UK. This year has seen the highest deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon in over a decade. This will only get worse without this amendment.

Apart from the Bill as it stands incentivising Governments to legalise deforestation in their own countries, even now a third of tropical deforestation is defined as legal and will not be tackled by Schedule 16, unless it is amended. Scientists in Brazil tell us:

“Currently in Brazil, approximately 88 million hectares … 4 times the size of the UK, could be cleared legally on private properties under Brazilian forest law.”


Another major issue is that laws relating to land use, forests and commodity production are often uncertain, inconsistent or poorly implemented, making the determination of legality very difficult, time-consuming, expensive or virtually impossible. Schedule 16 as it stands risks bogging down UK courts with difficult questions about the interpretation and application of foreign laws.

I know the Government have absolutely no wish to impose these problems on our industries. If they accept this amendment, they will surely provide clarity, consistency and certainty for UK businesses and for the countries of origin where deforestation is currently taking place. Leading UK companies have appealed to the Government to support a more rigorous standard than that set out in Schedule 16.

I thank the head of the Bill team and four other officials for the very helpful meeting we had on Thursday. They argued that 70% of deforestation for agriculture is illegal. Yes, but 30% is legal. Also, this is changing as we speak. The Brazilian Government are in the process of legalising forest lands. Paulo from Brazil, at a highly informative Global Witness meeting—I thank Global Witness for its incredible help on this—referred to a recent forest code which has legalised 12 million hectares of forest and a legislative package that will retrospectively legalise deforestation. The Bill encourages further legalisation to circumvent laws based on legality. This is dangerous. I understand that, despite all these issues, the Government want to work with producer countries to improve governance. This approach assumes that we are dealing with Governments who share our values—sadly, we are not.

Paulo from Brazil was appealing to the UK—appealing to me to appeal to the Minister, I should say—to introduce a strong law to prevent commercial activity based on deforested land, whether legal or illegal. He is deeply concerned about his Government’s determination to undermine our legality-based legislation.

Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is my pleasure to welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. I had not actually realised that he was not here because I have seen him so often on screen. It is good to see him.

I have a slight confession to make. When I first looked at these amendments, all my working class instincts—which have served me quite well over the past 70 years—started coming out about supporting something that seemed sensible but was from a landowner, and then another landowner came in with another amendment. However, I fought down those suspicions and in fact I welcome the concept of new conservation covenants in the Bill.

I would probably benefit from some more explanation. I know the noble Earl, Lord Devon, gave an extremely comprehensive introduction to this topic, but I still have a few small queries. However, I want to put on record the Green group’s support for these amendments. They appear to be an essential tool for modifying the law of land ownership towards a greener system that understands that land is the primary source of all real wealth, which is held in trust by humans on behalf of all species and future generations.

Regarding the noble Earl’s introductory speech, the minute that anyone uses words like “offsetting” and “market”, all my green instincts come out. I have a slight problem with those words because both those things normally mean a complete scam as far as environmental issues are concerned.

This would be a landmark change to the law because it expands on some traditions in English land law—common land, public rights of way and other traditional rights and obligations arising under various circumstances—but the amendments in this group also highlight some of the real difficulties of the law of the land. So much of land law is focused on formalities, and if the necessary formalities are not met then everything can unravel.

Amendments 266, 267 and 268 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, focus on the formalities needed for a valid conservation covenant. This is where I would like a little more explanation, particularly if the noble Earl is going to push them through to the next stage.

Amendment 276 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, probes another issue, one that I find quite perplexing, the question of why Clause 125(8) explicitly states that

“the Secretary of State has no liability with respect to performance of any obligation … under the covenant”

during any time that the Secretary of State is custodian of the covenant. Why have the Government chosen that approach? If they are not responsible during this time, who is? Will these important natural sites go untended, unmanaged and uncared-for into abandonment? Unless the Government can give some convincing reason, it seems that Amendment 276 would be an important change to the Bill—in fact, to law—to ensure that these covenants are upheld and natural sites protected.

I once again commend the inclusion of these covenants in the Bill, and I hope noble Lords can iron out these few small queries so that the covenants work as effectively as possible.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I share all the reservations expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Devon. In dealing with perpetuity in this section of the Bill, the Government seem quite laid back about it, whereas my suggestion of perpetuity earlier on in the Bill caused an attack of the heebie-jeebies. I find this strange because here we are dealing with individual farmers, who, as the noble Earl pointed out, may often be vulnerable, while in the case of biodiversity gain we are dealing, by and large, with professional builders, who are in a completely different position when it comes to understanding the law and in the state of their finances. In both cases, I support perpetuity but when it comes to dealing with individual farmers, we must have something which is much more cautious and much safer.

I agree with the noble Earl that there really is no place in this system for commercial enterprise. Nature changes. What happens in the course of perpetuity—what the right action is—is going to move; it is never static. If there is a conservation obligation—say, to keep a certain number of ground-nesting birds in a particular space—and 10 years later a big badger sett is established next door and it is no longer a place where ground-nesting birds can survive, we need to be able to alter the covenant and adapt it to the changed circumstances. If we have a commercial entity in place, which perhaps is only after gain at that stage—it may not be looking to do more or to continue in the business—the poor farmer is going to be in a very poor place indeed.

The holders of these covenants ought to be organisations which are likely to continue, and to value their reputation. for a very long time and which are likely to want to continue to enter into new covenants on the basis of their reputation. There are quite a number of big conservation-oriented organisations that that would apply to. It should not be a matter for commerce.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I have received one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am comforted, to some extent, by what my noble friend has said, but I very much hope that I might be included in the meeting that she proposes between officials and the noble Earl.

It is extremely important to get the practical application of this system right. In particular, I remain extremely cautious about broadening the ambit of responsible bodies to include organisations which are fundamentally commercial. What is needed here are bodies that are fundamentally ecological—that have an established long-term interest in getting the ecology of an area right. National parks obviously come within that—that is not a problem, as far as I can see—but something with a more commercial bent, however ecologically expert it is, seems a very questionable road to go down and likely to result in a great deal of heartache.

When it comes to my own meeting with officials, I will certainly be interested in the way in which perpetuity is so comfortable to them here but is such a problem when it comes to biodiversity gain. I cannot see the logic that goes through here. Biodiversity gain is, by and large, negotiated with people who are well informed, well set up and, in particular, stand to make a large amount of money from a transaction where the costs of the biodiversity gain are not going to be substantial. Here, we are dealing with people who are in a very different relationship with the responsible body.

Perpetuity seems to me to be right, because we are trying to do something for the very long term—but it has to be perpetuity with flexibility. To have perpetuity without flexibility, as we have here, or flexibility without perpetuity, as we have with biodiversity gain, seems the wrong road to go down. I very much hope that we will make some progress on that between now and Report.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I believe that the Government and my noble friend are in agreement on the criteria for selecting a responsible body, whose main purpose or function must relate to conservation. I would be delighted to include him in a future meeting with the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and officials and perhaps we could address some other concerns at that meeting.

Environment Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I would like to thank all noble Lords for another important debate and to reassure the House that the Government view this matter as one of the utmost seriousness. As I have set out in previous debates that we have had on this issue, we are committed, through this Bill, to set at least two air quality targets. They will complement each other to fundamentally reduce air pollution in the worst areas, while driving continuous progress to benefit the health of all citizens across England.

Turning first to Amendment 4, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, I would like to thank her for the time she has given me over the past few weeks, discussing this and other issues. I know she has also met with my officials and Professor Alastair Lewis, chair of the Air Quality Expert Group, to better understand all the other work we are doing on PM2.5. I thank her for her time in all those meetings.

I will start by reiterating the assurance provided in Committee, first, that the Government want stretching and ambitious targets, like everyone who has spoken in the House today, and, secondly, that the Government are following a robust and evidence-based process to set those air quality targets, which will focus on delivering the greatest possible public health benefits.

The Government are committed to working with internationally renowned experts to deliver evidence to inform air quality targets. We regularly engage with independent expert groups, such as the Air Quality Expert Group and the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, to ensure the process is informed by their advice and reflects the latest evidence, which includes WHO air quality guidelines.

In July, advice from the Air Quality Expert Group and the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants was published. This showed that both groups support the proposal to set a concentration target and an exposure reduction target for PM2.5, though both acknowledged the difficulty in setting targets in this area. The Air Quality Expert Group highlighted the substantial challenges associated with modelling future PM2.5 concentrations, a point made by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, including the many uncertainties and significant unknowns. For example, as our climate changes, the potential to reduce PM2.5 concentration also changes, because climate and weather strongly influence pollution levels. We may experience more rain and wind, which disperse pollutants and clean the air, or conversely more heatwaves, which lock in and exacerbate pollution. Some sources of pollution, such as shipping in the English Channel, require work with international partners to reduce emissions. This point was also made earlier.

As we take action to reach net zero, policies such as active travel will have co-benefits, but others may create tensions, as we see with anaerobic digestion and biomass burning. Many of these issues are not easily resolved or modelled, and this demonstrates why we should not be pre-empting or short-cutting the evidence required to underpin long-term target-setting decisions. While it is absolutely necessary to continue to achieve reductions in key pollutants in the air we breathe, the inherent complexity and diverse range of sources of PM2.5—both natural and manmade—means that significant reductions are much more difficult to achieve in practice.

Before setting these targets, it is vital to ensure that both the Government and the public understand the kinds of actions needed and the restrictions which may be required for them to be achieved. This is why we will be consulting on proposed targets and actions required, which may include significant changes to how we heat our homes and travel within towns and cities, early in 2022.

I will briefly respond to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about the timetable slipping. On the assumption that the Bill becomes law in its current form, or even in an amended form, allowing the timelines to slip would be a breach in law. We would be breaking the law and that is not something the Government could do, so we will not see this timeline slipping.

We are still working to understand the full mix of policies and measures that would be required to meet the WHO guideline of 10 micrograms per cubic metre, but we know that a range of restrictions on activities are likely to be needed in urban areas to meet any ambitious target. Meeting 10 micrograms would likely require policies, as I said in previous debates, including

“reducing traffic kilometres across our cities by as much as 50%”

and

“a total ban on solid fuel burning”.

As I said in Committee, I do not think it is

“right for us to set a target … that would impact millions of people and thousands of businesses”—[Official Report, 23/6/21; cols. 306-7.]

without first levelling with people about what would be needed and ensuring that we bring them with us in understanding the health benefits of achieving that target. Without fully understanding the policies needed to meet such a limit, we cannot know where the burdens of these policies will fall.

To date, this debate has focused primarily on the concentration target but, again, I remind noble Lords that we are setting two targets that will work side by side. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, we have to set a long-term target under Clause 1 and the PM2.5 target under Clause 2. It is not a choice we have; it is inherent in the Bill. This dual-target approach is strongly supported by experts.

In addition to the concentration target, we are developing a new type of target that focuses on reducing people’s exposure to pollution. The population exposure reduction target will be a more important driver for achieving health benefits, both at national and local level. Experts tell us, and a number of speakers today have made plain, that there are no safe limits for PM2.5.

The long-term exposure reduction target will drive a process of continuous improvement to reduce people’s exposure across the whole country, even in locations where the concentration target has been achieved. It will inform how local interventions need to be targeted, particularly where the most people are exposed to elevated levels of pollution. The concentration target that we have spent much time debating serves to provide a general minimum standard and will focus on reducing levels where concentrations are highest, but it is not by any stretch the whole story.

As I have repeatedly set out in debate, in letters to the House and in meetings over the past year, we are working at pace on this. But it would not be right for us in this House to set a target without understanding the measures needed to meet it and bringing the public on board. The Government are therefore not able to accept this amendment.

Amendment 12 was also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I assure her that, as air is part of the definition of the natural environment, it already falls within the scope of the significant improvement test. In future EIP reviews, we expect new evidence—including updated WHO guidelines, emerging scientific evidence and the like—to be relevant to an assessment of whether further measures are needed to meet interim and long-term targets. The intent of the noble Baroness’s amendment is therefore already delivered by the Bill as drafted and I ask her not to press it.

On Amendment 54, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, I thank him for meeting me and Rosamund Kissi-Debrah the week before last. I can say only that if I was not already convinced of the urgency of the case, I certainly would have been by that conversation. Rosamund is an extraordinary campaigner and speaks with huge authority; of course, what happened to Ella is heartbreaking on every level.

In setting these air quality targets, it is as crucial to have a scientifically reliable understanding of the pollution sources and their dispersion as it is to have in place sufficient means to monitor progress and assess compliance. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that the Government are working extensively with experts to seek advice on this and that the details of the targets, including monitoring requirements, will be set out in secondary legislation following a public consultation.

Making sure that information about air pollution is publicly available is clearly important; we already have legal obligations to do so. We do this through a range of channels, in particular the UK-AIR website, which carries an air quality five-day forecast and live information about pollution levels around the country. We are committed to improving the accessibility and usefulness of that information to a wider range of users, and we will undertake a thorough and comprehensive review of the UK-AIR website and the daily air quality index to ensure that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

In addition, the Government are funding work with health professionals in a number of therapeutic areas to develop advice for patients about air pollution. They are also looking at working with relevant health charities in longer-term campaigns aimed specifically at the most vulnerable groups.

The amendments tabled by my noble colleagues are hugely important contributions to this debate. I think we all agree that air pollution, particularly fine particulate matter, needs to be reduced urgently to protect the nation’s health. We know that, in setting both the concentration target and the population exposure reduction target, we need to be ambitious. Indeed, we are determined to be ambitious; that is a view shared right across government.

However, we also have to be realistic in how we set that ambition and consider the practical challenges and costs before enshrining new targets in legislation. It is so important to bring society with us and therefore consult properly and meaningfully on the measures that we are likely to need to implement to achieve those significant reductions in air pollutant levels in the future; that is something we will have to do.

I hope that I have managed to reassure at least some noble Lords of the seriousness with which we take this issue, and I beg them not to press their amendments.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, could he confirm that I understood him aright that the current situation, where we do not know the origin of 80% of the particulate matter, is not satisfactory and that the Government will fund more and better research so that we have a grip on where this is coming from?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

That is a really important point. In this debate and previous debates, I have said that our knowledge base is not complete, and it needs to be much more complete. It may not ever be totally complete, but the Government—particularly Defra, working with the Department for Transport and Public Health England—are researching the issue exhaustively, with a view to informing the targets that we are obliged to set in the short term.