Environmental Projects

Lord Snape Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend makes a good point: we want to tackle delays in the planning system to support economic recovery, but that does not mean weakening our environmental protections. We can speed up developments while still maintaining the strong protection for the species he highlights, such as the great crested newt.

[Lord Snape (Lab) [V]]

Does the Minister share the widespread disappointment that, despite the Prime Minister’s green rhetoric on Tuesday, there was no mention of the Conservative Party’s manifesto commitment to spend around £9 billion on a countrywide house insulation scheme? Instead we have promises to spend around £100 million on new road schemes. Does the Minister agree that such schemes inevitably cause more pollution and congestion, are in no way helpful to cutting emissions and certainly do not assist the Government in meeting their published target of being carbon-neutral by 2030?

[Lord Callanan]

No, I do not agree with the noble Lord. Local road schemes can contribute to reducing congestion in many areas. We are still committed to our manifesto commitment of home insulation. The noble Lord will want to watch this space for further announcements.