Environment Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th July 2021 Lords Chamber

I thank all noble Lords for their impassioned and informed contributions to this hugely important debate. As I have set out, the Government believe that without the ability to update our conservation laws where the evidence suggests that it is necessary to meet our ambitions and our new legally binding targets, our ambitions for nature may end up being constrained. Clause 106, in conjunction with Clause 105, will ensure that our conservation regulations can contribute to meeting the tough challenges that we set for ourselves as we seek to restore nature in this country. I listened carefully to the debate and legitimate and understandable concerns have been raised, but I hope that I have gone some way towards reassuring noble Lords about the Government’s intentions for these powers, because that is what this comes down to: our intention to improve the conservation status of protected habitats and species across the country and to improve our ability to deliver on those wider ambitions. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

I have received two requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose.

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

My Lords, I was not intending to speak to this group of amendments, especially as I was keen to keep the Minister sweet for my tree amendments in the next group, but I have become increasingly worried and suspicious. I support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and want to ask the Minister about the Government’s intentions.

Why the Government would want to put their head into this particular lions’ den mystifies me. Why were the clauses to weaken the habitat regulations introduced without consultation, late in the day in May? The habitat regulations, with protections for SACs and SPAs, are one of the jewels in the crown of EU environmental legislation. Even for Brexiteers there are such things, one of them being the habitats regulations. They give protection for the very small number of the most important priority sites and species, and there are only about 900 across the whole four nations of the UK. Quite a lot of them are in Scotland and out to sea, so it is not as if you would be falling over SPAs and SACs on every street corner and being prevented from doing anything as a result. We know that their protections are much valued by the public. They are also a bit of a coup for the UK. The UK led on negotiating these protections into EU law originally. It was the Prime Minister’s dad who played a substantial role in that, so threatening the habitats regulations is tantamount to a declaration of war. Why would the Government invite this sort of conflict? That is what is worrying me.

Clause 105 says that there will be no diminution of the habitats regulations’ requirements, but the judgment on this is left to the Minister, and, although he will consult and bring proposals to Parliament, he will to some extent mark his own homework—so noble Lords can see why I am suspicious. Speeches like that of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, stir up that suspicion even further. The government proposals could quite easily be set alongside and be complementary to the habitats regulations’ requirements. The requirement to meet the Environment Bill targets and the environmental improvement plan targets could be additional and not instead of the habitats regulations’ requirements. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, very clearly pointed out that they are not the same requirements.

In fact, of the targets that we discussed earlier in Committee, the one that the Government are prepared to move on is on species abundance, which is about species numbers, rather than habitats or sites. So the habitats regulations’ protection for these most important habitats and sites is still required. Why do the Government want to junk one of the decent pieces of EU legislation? Is it simply because it is a European law? Is the Minister being forced into sweeping the ground for a set of planning proposals that have not been seen across government yet, let alone by your Lordships or the public?

In these circumstances, Clause 106 ought to be deleted from the Bill—it is a pig in a poke, and we do not know enough about what is going to come in its wake. Above all, I would like to hear from the Minister why the Government are stepping into this maelstrom—because it will be one—and how the changes that they plan to make could be made more transparent so that your Lordships could be enabled to decide whether or not to be suspicious. I would also like to hear why we cannot have what the Minister is proposing as an addition to the existing habitats regulations’ requirements, rather than instead of them.

--- Later in debate ---

Schedule 15 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 257E. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Clause 108: Local highway authorities in England to consult before felling street trees

Amendment 257E

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