Environment Bill

Debate between Maria Miller and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 26th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Every aspect of this Environment Bill will have an impact not only now, but for decades if not centuries, so I am pleased to see it return to the House because we cannot afford to wait. Inaction risks the lives of our children, grandchildren and future generations, and legislation on targets, plans and policies is essential to turn the tide. Yet, sadly, this Conservative Government have not shown the ambition needed, while pushing back responsibilities on legally binding targets for two decades and failing to put in place concrete protections for the environment from trade agreements. Given their current record for making promises and not delivering, forgive me if I am not surprised.

Sadly, my Slough constituents know the impact of the environment on their lives acutely. Slough has the second highest death rate from the deadly air pollutant PM_2.5. While excellent work is being done at local level by Slough Borough Council, with its low emission strategy and air quality action plan, if nothing further is done at a macro level by Government, we will continue to breathe these dangerous levels of pollution. So can the Minister outline why the Tories voted down the Labour party’s attempts to write World Health Organisation air pollution limits into this Bill?

It seems as though Government rhetoric far outweighs action when it comes to the environment. This is epitomised by the England trees action plan, with targets being missed, staggeringly, by over 50%. This has a real impact because, being a densely populated urban area, Slough has the lowest level of tree canopy in Berkshire and is below the national minimum target of 20% tree cover. While the Labour council with its limited resources is planting 9,000 trees locally, again, more must be done nationally by providing adequate funding, direction and resources to local authorities. As the WWF rightly notes, this Bill does

“not go far enough to protect the world’s forests and other critical natural ecosystems.”

How can the Minister and the Government allow this to continue?

Sadly, this trend extends to biodiversity and species conservation, with very real consequences for my constituency and our planet. Another local project I recently visited, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, has seen this in Slough’s Salt Hill stream:

“Fish were dying. It was clogged up with old car tyres, carrier bags and household waste. Water quality had deteriorated and its future looked bleak.”

However, its incredible work with the community has meant improved water quality, new homes for wildlife, and engagement and education for local people, but it should never have got to this point. Why are the Government so slow to act to stop the ecological devastation brought about by the continual discharge of untreated sewage, plastics and other effluents into our rivers and oceans?

Nationally, over the past 10 years, wildlife in Britain has seen a 44% decline in species, with some charities calling it a “lost decade for nature”. Again, targets have been woefully missed. The Government conceded last year that they have failed on two thirds of targets agreed at the convention on biological diversity in 2010, but analysis by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds later showed that on six of those targets the UK has actually gone backwards. We must set ourselves ambitious targets and ensure accountability so that they are achieved. This is not the time for complacency, and we should be under no illusion: warm words will not tackle the pressing environmental and climate crises that we are facing as a society.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendment 41. It is a probing amendment, which aims to strengthen this important Bill further by including a provision to enable local planning authorities to take unlawful tree felling and a lack of compliance with restocking orders into account when considering planning applications. I thank my former researcher, Annabel Jones, for her work in making the case for change that I am presenting today.

I very much welcome the work that my hon. Friend the Minister has done to make sure that the Bill is the groundbreaking measure that is before us today. I also give my wholehearted support to new clauses 26 and 27, which my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) tabled. He spoke eloquently about the need for that change.

I want to focus my remarks on the provisions about tree protection. The Government should be applauded for the trees action plan and the measures in the Bill, which have significantly strengthened protection for one of our vital pieces of green infrastructure. I particularly welcome schedule 15, which directly addresses some of the problems that my residents experienced when a group of landowners illegally felled more than 600 trees, causing environmental devastation in what was an environmental buffer zone. With the Government’s support, the Forestry Commission used its enforcement powers to issue restocking orders, but the landowners did not comply with much of that. Under the Government’s new proposals, enforcement would be much tougher and that is welcome. However, I look forward to the Minister’s response to my amendment to see if we could strengthen it further.

The problem is not unique to Basingstoke. The illegal felling of trees is on the increase and a common motive is taking advantage of the housing development value of the land. In recent years, there have been countless flagrant breaches of felling regulations. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight mentioned a case in his constituency, but there are other cases—in the New Forest, Swansea, Horley and Langley—where trees have been unlawfully felled and in some cases not replanted, even after enforcement action from the courts.

Landowners flout the law because they think can get away with it. Schedule 15 roundly deals with cynical actions by landowners by allowing the courts to reissue planning notices, but amendment 41 is designed to create even more of a disincentive for landowners to flout the law by amending the Town and Country Planning Act to allow local planning authorities to take into account unlawful tree felling and a lack of compliance when considering planning applications. I hope that the Minister can consider that today because I and many of my constituents feel that it is inherently wrong for landowners to profit financially from their unlawful deforestation of land. I hope that this probing amendment will capture her attention and I am keen to hear her response.