Environment Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment very strongly. I speak as the chair of the Adaptation Committee of the Committee on Climate Change. In June this year, we gave our advice to the Government on climate risks faced by the UK, and three of our eight urgent priorities are to do with the impacts of the changing climate on our soils—so it is not just those historic and current farming practices but the fact that our soils now have to put up with droughts, floods, high temperatures and wildfires. Of course, these are unfortunately only going to get worse. This means that we are giving them a very hard time—yet we are expecting them to sequester carbon and support the 30,000 to 50,000 hectares of trees that we need to be planting per annum to meet net zero, and we are expecting them to support increased food productivity to make room for planting those trees. We are expecting a lot from our soils; they need the support of this amendment.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and I was pleased to do so because I, like others who have spoken, realise the importance of soil. In fact, I doubt that there is anyone in this Chamber today who does not appreciate that.

The question is whether we should put this where it is on the face of the Bill. As has already been said, my noble friend Lord Caithness’s amendment about a soil strategy will come later. I am very taken with the idea of putting this in the Bill. However, I have one note of caution. The next amendment, which I will speak to, will put in something else that I think is a priority, and I dare say that there are plenty of, or quite a few, others that people could put forward as priorities—we have our own pet subjects. I really want to hear from my noble friend the Minister—I know that he believes in this—what Defra and the Government are taking seriously about this and how they will deal with it. This may not be the way to put it forward in the Bill, but at the moment it seems like the best way. I am very taken with my noble friend Lord Caithness’s amendment that we will come to later, which might be a better alternative. That said, I shall listen to what my noble friend says.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I urge the noble Lord, Lord Randall, to be of good cheer and believe that this is the solution—because it seems to me that we have heard, from many noble Lords of high esteem, just how important soil is as a fundamental part of the environment. Indeed, two of the Government’s priorities in Clause 1(3), “water” and “biodiversity”, are crucially dependent on soils, apart from anything else. It is true to say that, as well as very many noble Lords being able to lay down the case very clearly for soil being part of the Government’s priority list, the Government themselves have said that: in their 25-year environment plan, they mentioned soil quality 17 times, so it does not seem to me to beyond the wit of man to believe that that looks like a bit of a priority and probably ought to be in this list.

I know that, in Committee, the Minister said that the science will not let us measure soil health, but there has been research on soil quality for the last 50 years, and lots of measures have been put forward as indicators of soil health, ranging from microbes to organic matter to earthworms. The Government just need to make a stab at a basket of indicators and get on with measuring and incentivising improvement.

Although I have banged on for many years about government needing to incentivise people to produce outcomes, in this particular case I want to recant from that and ask for the reverse practice, which is to incentivise practices that have a proven effect for good on soil health. If we can get farmers, land managers and others who have an impact on the soil to do the right things, good soil quality will result.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, talked about a few of those things, such as minimum tillage, crop rotations, applications of manures and composts, use of cover crops and effective management of field margins. If farmers and land managers were incentivised to do all of those, we would be almost absolutely guaranteed to be improving the health of the soil. As such, I urge the Minister: soil health is too important to say, “It is too difficult” and to leave it out of the Government’s priority list.

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Moved by

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge]

3: Clause 1, page 2, line 4, at end insert—
“(e) light pollution.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment aims to set a commitment to act on matters which relate to light pollution that are currently omitted from this Bill. It aims to ensure that the Government must produce targets to reduce levels of light pollution in England.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 3 in my name is also in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, to whom I am grateful. I declare my environmental and conservation interests as on the register, and it is also relevant—although not registerable—that I am a member of Buglife, the invertebrate NGO. Perhaps one of the flies which have been annoying my noble friend Lord Deben is an agent.

Artificial lights disrupt the world’s ecosystems, human health and, I submit, society in general. Most of the earth’s population is affected by light pollution, as 80% live under skyglow, and very few in the UK can experience a natural night sky from where they live. Those few who do see a night sky naturally without light pollution are amazed by what they see on a clear night.

Light pollution is increasing from a variety of sources, including residences, public infrastructure such as lighting along motorways, and industrial activity such as energy infrastructure. Ironically, the rapid switch to LEDs is contributing to the installation of brighter lights, in places increasing light pollution and missing the opportunity to reduce it. That is ironic because LED is much better for the environment if used appropriately.

The 25-year plan for the environment states:

“We must ensure that noise and light pollution are managed effectively.”


However, no indication of how existing light pollution will be reduced has been proposed by Her Majesty’s Government. As far as I can see, the Environment Bill does not currently offer a suitable location for this form of pollution to be addressed. The amendment would ensure that the Government set out how they will reduce light pollution levels.

In Committee, 12 noble Lords spoke in favour of my very similar amendment on light pollution, covering a range of issues including the impact on invertebrates, astronomy, human health and bats, among other things. I was extremely grateful for their powerful arguments and I am extremely grateful for the many who support today’s amendment in the Chamber and elsewhere. Noble Lords shared their own experience of light pollution and provided compelling reasons why this issue should be included in the Bill.

In his reply, my noble friend the Minister did not seem to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence of environmental and health damage. His response, as drafted, was disappointingly focused rather narrowly on uncertainty about whether it has been proved that light pollution is the main driver of insect loss. That is one of the main reasons why I tabled this amendment: because I do not think we had a proper discussion of some of the other harmful effects of light pollution. Perhaps his department was unaware of the recent science review “Light pollution is a driver of insect declines”, published by Owens and others in 2020. Since that debate, many noble Lords may have seen that newly published evidence has confirmed that light pollution has a negative effect on local moth populations. The response given in Committee also did not address the other issues raised in the debate or recognise the cross-departmental benefits that reducing light pollution would bring.

In recent years, evidence of the impacts of light pollution on species and ecosystems has grown and consolidated. Increased artificial light at night is now directly linked to measurable negative impacts on energy consumption, human health, and wildlife such as bats, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and plants. As I mentioned in Committee, noble Lords who saw the David Attenborough documentary will have seen turtles, instead of going towards the moon as they go back to sea, going back to some taverna on a Greek shore. This resulted in many of their deaths.

Unnecessary artificial light increases financial costs and contributes to greenhouse emissions. I submit that light pollution should be treated with the same disdain with which we treat other forms of pollution. As I mentioned, recent studies from Germany suggest that a third of insects attracted to street lights and other fixed-light sources will die. This results in the death of an estimated 100 billion insects in Germany every summer. As many noble Lords will recognise, insects are an incredibly important part of our whole ecosystem.

My amendment aims to set a commitment to act on matters relating to light pollution that are currently omitted from the Bill and would ensure that the Government must produce targets to reduce levels of light pollution in England. I will not go through all the examples I have written down, because I think that many people know them for themselves; besides which, we are a little pressed for time. However, speaking as a trustee of the Bat Conservation Trust, I know that artificial lighting can cause many problems for bats, including disrupting their roosting and feeding behaviour and their movement through the landscape. In the worst cases, that can directly harm these protected species. Even hedgehogs have been shown to avoid lighting, restricting their movements in areas of high artificial light.

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[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, for his Amendment 3.

As my noble friend campaigned for, the Bill requires the Government to set a legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030, and we will talk more about that shortly. But to meet a species abundance target we will need to address the multiple interacting causes of nature’s decline, including light pollution. This does not mean that we need to or should set targets for each and every cause of nature’s decline. The species abundance target will drive the right mix of policies and actions. For light pollution, this includes measures such as planning system controls for street lighting improvements. Through the designation of the dark sky reserves that a number of noble Lords mentioned, we are also working to protect exceptional nocturnal environments that bring great natural, educational and cultural enjoyment to members of the public.

The noble Lord, Lord Randall, made a compelling case, as he did in Committee. I should start by saying that if I appear to play down the importance of light pollution, the seriousness of the issue or its impacts on a whole range of things, including biodiversity, that certainly was not my intention. I say that in response to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Khan, as well. The noble Lord powerfully summarised the impacts of light pollution. He gave the example of insects in Germany, the turtle hatchlings which a number of us saw on that powerful Attenborough programme, and bats. I also saw the Buglife briefing, which was full of examples as to why this is such an important issue. I thank the noble Lord for bringing some of those recent papers to my attention. I can tell him that my officials are already in touch with many of the academics and researchers behind that work, as well as with the NGOs that have been cited by him and others. That work is happening.

Although I cannot accept the amendment, I can commit to the noble Lord that we will continue to take action both to minimise risks and to improve our understanding of the impact of light pollution. We will continue discussions with PHE—Public Health England—and DHSC, focusing on the impact of light pollution on human health and the best approaches with which to tackle it. I am also happy to relay the noble Lord’s points on the planning system and light pollution to ministerial counterparts in MHCLG, and I will ensure that his remarks both now and from a couple of months ago are conveyed to them.

It is probably worth noting that the National Planning Policy Framework includes consideration of the impact of light pollution from artificial light on local amenity, intrinsically dark landscapes and nature conservation, but I do not think anyone pretends that this is an issue that has historically received the attention that it should. I hope that, using his powerful words, I will be able to move things a bit in MHCLG. I am also happy to confirm that we will continue to work with our academic partners to keep emerging evidence under review, and the Government can set a target in secondary legislation if it is judged to be the best way to deliver long-term environmental outcomes and subject to this review.

I hope this has reassured noble Lords that the Government are taking serious action to act against light pollution and that they agree that these amendments are therefore not necessary. I hope this reassures noble Lords and I beg the noble Lord, Lord Randall, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to thank my noble friend the Minister very much. He has gone a lot further than he was able to in Committee, and for that I am very grateful. I am also extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have lent their support and spoken in this debate. It is a very important issue and something that we will continue to hear about. While the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, is looking for UFOs, I tend to look for the drones from the Whips’ Office to keep an eye on me at these crucial stages of Report. So far, they have managed to keep away from me.

As I said, I am extremely grateful; we have had a good debate. I think the things my noble friend has said about the other departments are also very important, particularly planning. I have attended many planning meetings over the years, and I am not sure that that has ever really come up. Perhaps that is another tool that some people, when they are having big developments, should look at. So there are some good things. As the noble Lord opposite said, we cannot vote on everything. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.