European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Mary Creagh Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: Second Day: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

New clause 12, which stands in my name and those of a number of other Members, seeks to guarantee our management of environmental protection after exit day. The environment has been in the news quite a lot recently. The members of the Cabinet all had reusable coffee cups following their meeting yesterday, although I think we shall need a little bit more from the Environment Agency than bamboo cups if we are to protect our environment after Brexit. I was delighted to receive your letter today, Mr Speaker, saying that the House of Commons Commission and the Administration Committee will be looking into how Parliament can reduce its plastic usage. Last Thursday the Government published their 25 Year Environment Plan. They were very clear about what they wanted to achieve, but there was absolute silence on how that was to be done.

A third of the acquis communautaire which applies in the UK is related to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—it has brought us huge environmental improvements—and 80% of our environmental protections originated in the EU. A third of those protections cannot simply be cut and pasted. The aim of new clause 12 is to prevent us from ending up with “zombie legislation”, no longer updated or enforced, and vulnerable to being quietly dropped at the stroke of a Minister’s pen. The Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair, called for a new environmental protection Act more than a year ago, and the new clause does the same today: it calls for legislation setting up a strong environmental protection agency to monitor and enforce standards, replacing the European Commission. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told my Committee in November that such a body would be needed. We await his proposals, but this must be done quickly.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What my hon. Friend has said is important for another reason. Environmental protection means development, and, as she will know, that means development jobs in towns such as Coventry. There is, for example, the electric car.

[Mary Creagh]

Absolutely. I was thrilled to learn that the electric black cab is being made in Coventry. It is great that Carbodies has a future.

It is important to drive that great innovation, that green growth, across the country. Let us take the example of waste. Twenty years ago we sent almost half our household waste to landfill; now we recycle almost half of it because of the EU’s waste framework directive. We will have no recycling targets after 2020 unless we adopt the EU’s target of 60% by 2030. We need that new environmental protection Act to set out waste targets: that will drive the innovation that we need in reprocessing.

We need reprocessing capacity urgently. As a result of the Chinese ban on the import of contaminated UK waste, 3 million tonnes of paper and 280,000 tonnes of plastic will no longer go to China, and we will have to do something with it on this island. A hard Brexit means that we could end paying tariffs on our waste exports, so exporting our waste to faraway countries will no longer be an option. The Environmental Services Association told my Committee that the industry had invested £5 billion in new infrastructure in the past five years, and could do so again, given the right policy environment. At present, however, there is the risk of a vacuum.

We hear the same story when it comes to cleaning up our beaches. The bathing water directive ended the discharge of untreated sewage into the sea and drove investment in the replacement of lead pipes. The European Investment Bank is the largest debt investor in the UK water industry, holding 13% of gross outstanding debt. There is a risk that, if we cannot gain access to EIB capital, there could be higher borrowing costs for water companies and higher water bills for consumers.

As for air quality, the EU has set out the targets that we should meet in the ambient air quality directive. We are currently missing those targets. I have been through the 58 impact assessments, and air quality does not feature in any of them, although it is one of the most pressing market failures that we face. There is no air quality industry, which is why it is neglected. We have had our final written warning from the Commission. The danger is that when we leave the EU we will not set ourselves stringent standards. There is no agency to set those standards, no agency to monitor them, and no agency to enforce them. The Prime Minister launched the environmental plan last week. She says she wants to phase out unnecessary plastics by 2042. I can tell her now that I am not waiting until I am 75 to clear up our environment. This House needs a vote on a strong environmental protection Act, and a strong environmental protection agency to make sure we pass on a decent environment to our children and grandchildren.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Time is short so I shall make just two brief comments.

First, I support amendment 59 and thank the SNP on taking the initiative on pulling that together. The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) made a compelling speech on the importance of remaining inside the single market and customs union, and I join him in appealing to Labour Front Benchers even at this eleventh hour to support it. As he and many other Members have said today, the Government have no mandate for the kind of extreme Brexit they are pursuing. The irony in the Labour Front-Bench position is that the NHS crisis or the inequality crisis or the housing crisis are all far harder to tackle if the UK is outside the single market and customs union.

My second point is to commend the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) on her speech on her new clause 12. I agree entirely with what she said. She says the environmental plan lacks a “how”. That is true, but, crucially, it also lacks a “when,” and a key question at the heart of my new clause 18 is about timing. The Government are in theory at least committed to bring forward this new domestic environmental regulator, which is supposed to set out the way in which environmental legislation will be enforced once Brexit happens, if it happens. I am concerned that there is nothing to guarantee that that new body will be in place by Brexit day.

We have had positive written statements. For example, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs explained in a written statement last week that the Government’s 25-year environmental plan will be underpinned by what he says is

“a comprehensive set of environmental principles”

to “ensure strong governance”. He also talks about consulting on setting up

“a world-leading environmental watchdog, an independent, statutory body, to hold Government to account for upholding environmental standards.”—[Official Report, 11 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 12WS.]

That is all very well, but what is not addressed is the question of timing, which is why my new clause 18 is so important.

We need to make sure that there is no so-called governance gap, and there is still a very real risk that, after Brexit day but before this new body comes into place, we will have a governance gap where environmental legislation that might well have been brought across from the EU to the UK still will not be enforceable. We will still not have that replacement for the Commission and the ECJ. We will end up with what has been called zombie legislation.

This new clause 18 is vital; we must not be left with that legal gap. We need legal certainty. That is what this provision will provide, and I urge the Government to think again about supporting it.