Environment Bill

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on what was, I think, his first Bill in this House, and my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, as well as the Bill team, who went the extra mile. I particularly pay tribute to my noble friend for the amendments that he brought forward, which is always quite an achievement for a Minister in this place.

I would like to press him a little bit further on reaching a balance, particularly in catchment management and the prevention of combined sewer overflow, an issue to which I am sure we will be returning. We have already seen substantial floods in this country and elsewhere, no doubt due to climate change, and I welcome the provisions of this Bill that will undoubtedly help to reduce that in the future.

I support my noble friend the Duke of Montrose in his comments. I will raise these issues further in the context of the debate on the common frameworks agreement later today.

I want to take the opportunity to congratulate my noble friend the Minister on bringing us to this stage, and to wish the amendments that we have carried a safe passage back to us when the Bill returns to this House from next door.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, if I may, in view of the fact that my noble friend rightly linked this important Bill with the coming COP 26 conference, I warn Her Majesty’s Government not to be tempted to make announcements of targets to help COP 26 on its way which are unachievable for reasons of politics in a democracy or the realities of economic life.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said. This Bill has not been damaged or impaired during its passage through your Lordships’ House.

I endorse everything that has been said in the way of compliments to my noble friend Lord Goldsmith and what he himself has said about participation across the Floor of the House. This is not in any sense a party-political Bill. It is a Bill that concerns each and every one of us, and our families, for generations to come. Therefore, we do not want to engage in ping-pong.

If my noble friend is to achieve his ambition of getting this on the statute book before Glasgow, which I entirely support, it is important that the House of Commons does not attempt unnecessarily to delete amendments that do not damage but rather enhance the basic principles and objectives of the Bill. It would be a great pity if in a fortnight, on the virtual eve of the conference, we began to indulge in a battle between the two Houses.

This House has an enormous amount—a great wealth—of experience and expertise, and that was perhaps more evident on this Bill than on most others. I know my noble friend the Minister would agree that everybody who spoke did so in a constructive and supportive spirit, so I implore him to use all his powers of persuasion with his ministerial colleagues and others to ensure that the Bill, as it now stands, survives as near intact as possible. Then our Ministers and the president of the conference can go to Glasgow knowing that there is a perhaps unprecedented degree of cross-party support and agreement for a Bill that does indeed, as I said at the beginning, affect us all and our families.