Environmental Principles Policy Statement

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. We are concerned here with transposing the five key principles that underpinned all environmental law when we were in the European Union to the basis that was set out in the Environment Act. He is entirely right that hard-wired in government policy-making we need a belief that we are supporting innovation in all its forms. That strays into environmental policy-making as well.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, given that Defra has an issue about being on time with legislative requirements, what chance is there, if any, that it will be able to replace all the European legislation that is supposed to be repealed by the end of this year under the Bill repealing EU legislation? I suggest there is no chance whatever of replacing those 2,000 or 4,000 pieces of legislation.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

It is considerably fewer than that. I am hot from a meeting where we were just discussing this, and we think there is a lot we can do. Some of them are complete no-brainers, such as trying to decide on policy for the export of olives or lemons, or on how Danish fishermen fish in Norwegian waters. Those sorts of things can be set aside. We want to retain and, if possible, improve those that underpin our environmental policies so that, if anything, they give better protections. I have great confidence that we can achieve that.