Environment Bill

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 11 and will speak to Amendment 14 in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Parminter, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. Both amendments are designed to ensure that the important environmental plans and targets established by the Bill drive strong and effective action. The Bill introduces an important suite of legally binding, long-term environmental improvement targets and provides for these to be guided by five-year interim milestones. Unlike those in the Climate Change Act, these interim milestones are not binding requirements.

In Committee, the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, Lady Hayman, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Parminter, the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, made a persuasive case for these interim targets to be statutory. They cited evidence—lists of non-statutory targets missed, such as those for biodiversity, contrasted with the success and focus of the Climate Change Act. They highlighted human behaviour; a statutory duty in five years’ time will get more focus than one in 20 years’ time—or, as Allegra Stratton, the No. 10 climate spokesperson, has said, 2050 is “too far away”,

“we have to feel the … urgency of now.”

They stressed the need for urgent action. Nature takes time to respond, and there is no hockey stick from new technologies enabling back-ended action. They emphasised the value of transparency; statutory interim targets make progress more visible and the OEP’s role more effective. They quoted business, with the Aldersgate Group’s support for statutory interim targets that give business certainty to invest and act. In short, they outlined a compelling case.

However, the Minister was not persuaded. He responded that interim targets would

“undermine the long-term … targets framework”—[Official Report, 23/6/21; col. 268.]

across political cycles. This perplexes me, because the Climate Change Act demonstrates quite the opposite—that statutory interim targets maintain focus and pressure as Ministers and Governments change. He said that, without statutory targets, Governments might take more ambitious action; it is also perplexing that one might think that statutory targets prevent greater ambition. He said they would lead to “rushed policy-making”. I do not understand how it would be possible to set robust, achievable, science-based, long-term targets—as the Bill rightly requires—without identifying the steps needed to get there. This is exactly how the Climate Change Committee works. The original 80% target and the net zero recommendation could not have been made with any credibility without an analysis of the pathways to achieve them.

The Minister rightly said that we are dealing with complex, living “non-linear systems”. Indeed we are. In my experience as a scientist, it is easier to predict the impact of actions to support such systems over a five-year timescale than it is to predict outcomes in 15 or 20 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, reminded us on Monday. The Minister said it discourages large-scale change for a focus on quick wins. I might agree with this if we were talking about a five-year target alone, but evidence shows the effectiveness of the combination of statutory interim targets and a legislated long-term goal. I sincerely hope the Government will reconsider their position on statutory interim targets, because the evidence is clear. They would help ensure that the excellent intent of this important Bill is delivered.

I will very briefly turn to Amendment 14. This amendment strengthens environmental improvement plans by linking them clearly to the proposed measures and targets under the Bill and by requiring the Government not just to take steps to improve the natural environment but specifically to set out policies and proposals. Without this clear link to specific measures and delivery of targets, there is a risk that environmental improvement plans will resemble our current national adaptation plan—long descriptions of process with few time-bound actions.

This requirement to set out policies and proposals is the wording in the Climate Change Act. This has led in recent months to a stream of major policy announcements across government departments, including the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan, the transport decarbonisation strategy, the hydrogen strategy, the industrial decarbonisation strategy and the anticipated net-zero strategy—an impressive list, referred to by the Minister on Monday. These are truly important developments for the climate. Do nature and the environment not deserve the same? “Yes” is the message we have heard in many speeches in this debate. The Minister was reassuring in his response on this issue in Committee. I hope he will now accept that we must turn steps into policies and proposals and give nature the focus and funding across government that it so urgently needs.

Binding five-yearly targets on our way to critical long-term goals are such an important issue in terms of the urgency of now that I may wish to test the opinion of the House.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to say why I added my name to this amendment. The Bill currently lacks a coherent interlocking scheme, and these amendments seek to deal with that. It is right to warmly acknowledge the huge progress made by the Minister, but as he has said so clearly, the costs of much of this are not yet understood by the public and there are still obvious strong lobbies that will seek delay.

It is therefore very important that there be a coherent scheme with interlocking interim targets, environment improvement plans and long-term targets. I warmly thank the Minister that we have legally enforceable, long-term targets. It is good that we have them, but the really difficult decisions relate to interim targets. They do not easily fit into the short-term electoral cycle; they are not something a politician or decision-maker can say is for a future generation, years and years away. Interim targets are the here and now. Nothing much has changed, as one can see from the great Victorian novelists, “Yes, Minister” or, more tangibly, the targets that have been missed to date. That is why I so strongly support providing for the practical nature of legally binding interim targets.

There is another matter to which, as a legislature, we should have regard: we ought not to be passing aspirational, vague legislation, but legislation which is clear and sets clear duties so that people know where they stand and so that the Government can be held to account. The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, has dealt eloquently with the arguments made by the Government. There is no need for me to add anything to her observations.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 11 and 14, but actually rise to speak to Amendment 13 in my name. The background to this is an amendment I put down in Committee specifically in relation to trees, tree-planting and tree health. It asked the Government to ensure that an annual report was made to Parliament on how far we had got in achieving the target set in the Bill. Obviously, what is applicable to trees is applicable to every target in this Bill—a whole range of targets will eventually be put forward and I will not go through them all.

The Bill as it stands now says there must be a review within five years of the first review. I suggest that the situation is now so urgent that Parliament needs to consider every year how far we have got towards achieving or failing to meet that target. We are all agreed that there is huge urgency to this, and we need to keep the pressure on year by year in Parliament.

I will never forget a meeting in Singapore in 2020, when one of the major issues facing the world was third-world debt. At the end of the meeting, people from the developing world looked at their diaries and said, “Perhaps we could meet again in three years’ time”, when suddenly a friend of mine—for whom this was literally a matter of life and death in his country—erupted with huge righteous anger which still echoes in my mind. I am not myself given to righteous anger, but I am sure that countries where people are literally now dying as a result of what is happening would have that same anger.

I will not divide the House on this as we have quite enough votes anyway. But I would like the Minister to consider seriously—sharing the sense of the urgency of this, as he does—bringing forward a government amendment to ensure that Parliament has a chance to look at the targets in this Bill every year in order to see how close we are to achieving them, or to what extent we are failing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, we are all being very diffident this evening. I apologise because I did not speak at Second Reading or in Committee on this Bill, but I am as concerned as my noble friend Lord Duncan and the two noble Lords on the Cross-Benches about the way this Bill is going to deal with this particular subject. Unless this amendment is made to the Bill, we will be the poorer for it.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I spoke to and signed the amendment in Committee. I entirely support the new wording. I said in Committee that the judges could be trusted. The Government might have had a little doubt about some of it but, with the changes to the clause, I cannot see what greater protection any Government could legitimately seek.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and we wholeheartedly support it. My particular concern is around the planning issue, which the noble Lord, Lord Duncan of Springbank, has rightly articulated. My worry is that the Government have introduced the provisions they have because they fear that there is currently too much weight given to environmental protection in the planning system. That is something we must oppose. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said that it

“biases the scales of justice”—[Official Report, 30/6/21; col. 810.]

and changes the balance away from the environment. That is the problem and that is why we on these Benches support this amendment.