Climate and Ecology Bill [HL]

Lord Redesdale Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Redesdale]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, for being here today, because I know that, like me, she wanted to be at the parliamentary clay pigeon shooting. Without our excellent skills, I am afraid that the House of Lords is facing defeat. I also thank all those who support the Zero Hour campaign, including the many volunteers, the staff both past and present, and the scientists, lawyers and campaigners who have helped draft and make the case for this Bill.

I had a whole section written about the need to prevent climate change going above 1.5 degrees, but of course, since I wrote it, we have seen the projections for the heat next week. While many years ago we used to argue whether climate change existed and whether it was manmade, we are now looking at the health service suffering the effects of this. I hope that people will take the warnings as seriously as possible, because there could well be deaths due to the high temperatures. I do not think anyone can dispute that this is a climate change-related event and that it will probably take place far more regularly in the future. It certainly highlights the need for this Bill—or the Government’s adoption of the targets within it—and shows that this is of growing importance. It shows especially that this is not a radical piece of legislation; it is something that we really need to look at.

There is support across the UK nations to follow the science, increase environmental ambition and continue the national effort we have begun to decarbonise our society and bring about a nature-positive future. That is what this Bill would do. It has nine clauses that will require the UK Government, in partnership with the devolved Administrations and with the backing of the public, to deliver a joined-up, science-led environmental plan. In short, it would set the crucial framework for us to achieve net zero before irreversible tipping points are passed.

Research from the Natural History Museum ranks the UK home nations among the 12 most nature-depleted nations in the world, yet current legislation—the Environment Act—calls for the UK only to halt biodiversity loss. The problem with this is that, as we are already at such an appalling state of natural depletion, simply halting the decline at this point would be disastrous. Wildlife and Countryside Link has reported that the currently proposed long-term targets for wildlife could see nature in a far worse condition in 2042 than today.

This is why Clause 1 in the Climate and Ecology Bill would also impose duties on the UK Government to halt and reverse the UK’s

“overall contribution to the degradation and loss of nature in the United Kingdom and overseas by … increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations, habitats and ecosystems so that by 2030, and measured against a baseline of 2020, nature is visibly and measurably on the path of recovery”.

This would fulfil the UK’s obligation under the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity and its protocols.

Clause 2 would require the Government to

“publish and lay before Parliament a strategy … to achieve the objectives”

set out in Clause 1. This must include interim targets and impose a variety of restrictions, consistent with reducing the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions and

“restoring and expanding natural ecosystems”.

Clause 3 would require the Government to

“procure, by open tender, an expert independent body to establish a Climate and Nature Assembly … comprising a representative sample of the United Kingdom population.”

The assembly would then

“consider relevant expert advice and publish its recommendations for measures to be included”

in the Government’s strategy. I surmise that the Government are not very keen on assemblies. However, they have done great work in bringing together public opinion so that some of the difficult policies we are going to face, including changing people’s behaviour, are much more within the public ambit.

Clause 3 would also require the Climate Change Committee, the CCC, and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee to

“review the Assembly’s recommendations … and … publish a joint proposal for measures to be included in the strategy”.

The Government would then have to include in their strategy

“all recommendations by the Assembly that have the support of 66% or more of its members”,

where the recommendations are also jointly proposed by the CCC and the JNCC.

Clause 4 would impose a duty on the CCC and the JNCC to

“evaluate, monitor and report annually on the implementation of the strategy and on the achievement of the interim targets”.

In addition, the CCC would be required to

“recommend annual emissions budgets for each greenhouse gas for the United Kingdom, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”.

Clause 5 would provide a mechanism through which the devolved assemblies could give their approval to the targets imposed upon them and the strategy created by the UK Government. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are leading the way across many environmental areas, and I pay tribute especially to the proposed Scottish nature restoration target that is currently being consulted on.

Clause 6 would provide for a mechanism through which the UK Parliament could scrutinise the Government’s strategy and either approve it or require that it be amended if it is considered insufficient to achieve the objectives set out in Clause 1.

Clause 7 details financial provisions, including that expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Bill, should it receive Royal Assent, including for the implementation of the strategy, would be paid for out of money received from Parliament. It is important at this point to note that the amount of money we should be spending on climate change mitigation and adaptation will rise considerably if we do not hit our targets, and it is already taxing considerably the resources of the Environment Agency. The money put aside could be seen as expensive, but if we do not start looking at moving to a renewable economy, the price of gas will cause an enormous amount of hardship in the future, as it has in the present. Of course, every megawatt hour produced by renewable energy reduces our reliance on Russian gas.

Clause 8 details the terms used in the Bill and their interpretation, and Clause 9 provides the commencement and territorial extent of the Bill. It would apply to the whole UK and come into force on the day it received Royal Assent. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, and I thank her officials. I know that it is very difficult working in two areas, but it has ever been thus—DTI and Defra, then DECC and Defra and now BEIS and Defra—and I have worked with many of them in the past. I also thank so many noble Lords for taking part.

I was absolutely devastated by the Minister’s admission that the Government will not take this Bill in its entirety and give it time to take it forward, but I take note of all the reasons given and look forward to going into Committee and, perhaps, moving a couple of amendments to make it more agreeable to the Government taking it forward.

I thank all those who have taken part in the debate for the issues they have raised, including my noble friends Lord Oates and Lord Teverson, who raised the issues of the assembly. I take on board what the Minister said about there being real value in making sure that people understand the issues, because we will need a massive change in behaviour—indeed, this Chamber is quite cold at the moment, considering it is so hot outside, and that has an emission cost; in future, perhaps we will just have to change dress codes in the Chamber.

I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. I realise that the Church of England has done a great deal, and there is a role for many faith groups to raise this issue.

On the issue of red squirrels and the trials that the noble Baroness mentioned, the paste has been trialled in my woodland, because I have one of the few remaining populations of red squirrels on account of, over the past few years, the slaughtering of 27,500 grey squirrels in the local environment. The red squirrel is a key species, because it is quite likely that it will go extinct in England in the next couple of years without the work that is being carried out. That is through an invasive species, but climate change is having an effect on that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, raised the number of the targets that we failed to hit. One good thing that I recently heard is that the Climate Change Committee’s net-zero target for enough people to go vegetarian has been exceeded—and more than was expected to reduce the carbon count. I say to the Government that one of the areas that has been missed, especially on the Defra brief, is that permanent pasture can lock more carbon into the soil than trees. We have the issue that, if we are going to plant trees to save carbon, we need to ensure that it is done in the right place and in the right soil.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the fact that her honourable friend in another place Caroline Lucas brought this forward, and it was perhaps churlish of me not to acknowledge in my introductory speech the great deal of work that she has done in this area.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, for taking part from the Conservative Back Benches. It is often the case, especially at this time in the afternoon, that we do not get as many noble Lords from different parties, but she has shown that there is cross-party support, and I know that this is a major issue among many of her noble colleagues.

The noble Baroness, Lady Blake, raised the issue of energy efficiency, which is always underrepresented. I very much hope that her argument about reversing biodiversity loss means that Labour Party policy will be changed, maybe by introducing a clause on reversing biodiversity loss.

I do not think that we can carry on as business as usual, and I very much look forward to bringing this to Committee. The Minister raised the simplified energy and carbon reporting regime, on which I did some work with the Treasury before it was brought in. It is a fabulous way for companies to understand their emissions and what they can do about them. The problem associated with them is that there is no enforcement procedure, which means that a vast number of companies which could do this, and would want to do this, will just ignore it because there is a cost implication. I hope that we could have a discussion with BEIS about this. I hope to bring this back in Committee and beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.