Protecting and Restoring Wetlands

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. We work widely on the international stage. Indeed, some of our Blue Planet fund and our Darwin fund go to working on wetland areas internationally, particularly restoring mangroves and work on climate change. We are already doing a great deal, but we can always learn from other countries. It should be a reciprocal learning process, and we will continue to work like that.

Through our plan for water, which was launched last year to tackle pollution, water pollution, storm overflows, agricultural pollution, plastics pollution, road run-off, chemicals and pesticides, work is going on to create wetlands to help solve those problems. Work is also under way in a number of catchments on wastewater treatment works to take out the phosphates, which are affecting some of the wetlands. Therefore, we are taking out the nutrients, but we are enabling the creation of nature-based solutions, including wetlands, to help clean the water as well, and that was also well referred to.

Wetlands can also play an important role in reducing flood risk through natural management. I am talking about the creation of wetlands to reduce and slow the flow of water. Back in September 2023, the Environment Agency and DEFRA announced £25 million of funding for improving flood resilience through these nature-based solutions.

I just want to touch on sustainable drainage systems, which, oddly, are a subject very dear to my heart— I have banged on about them since I was on the Back Benches. We are making big progress on the SuDS, as my hon. Friend will know, working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Getting SuDS into all our developments can make such a big difference. Basically, SuDS are like mini wetlands within our urban habitats that can take the water and the run-off. They have myriad advantages in slowing the flow and reducing flooding, which is so nature diverse. I had a wonderful visit this week to the Bentley housing development in Finsbury Park, not very far away. All around the tower blocks were these SuDS, but they just looked like beautiful wetlands, which in fact is what they are. Many companies are already using them, and we are moving as a Government to get to that stage where SuDS have to be an integral part of our developments.

Wetlands can play an important role in addressing both the causes and the effect of climate change. That is why DEFRA is funding £300,000-worth of projects this financial year, to measure and verify the carbon storage potential of saltmarsh habitats, which, again, was raised by my hon. Friend. That will allow private investment to be leveraged through the saltmarsh carbon code. Basically, that means that a standard will be verified for carbon credits and for saltmarsh, which will then trigger a market and private finance can then be leveraged, much as we do with the peatland code. That is on the way, and I believe that is also one of my hon. Friend’s asks.

The Nature for Climate Fund is aiming to deliver the restoration of approximately 35,000 hectares of peatland by 2025. That is an area the size of Staffordshire. Somerset and many other areas are getting some of that money. This represents a tripling of historical average annual restoration funds for these areas. A great deal of that funding is going to the great north bog, a huge area that is currently being restored.

The England peat action plan sets out a strategic framework to improve management and protection of upland and lowland peatlands. We must not forget that all of those areas are basically wetlands. They are only effective wetlands when they are in a healthy state—basically wet—which is why we have to do this restoration work.

In the net zero strategy, we have committed to the aim of restoring approximately 280,000 hectares of peatland in England by 2050. That is building on that 35,000 hectares, which is well under way. And the £80 million green recovery challenge fund has also been a cornerstone in our efforts and has contributed to funding a range of nature-based solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation, including riverine, coastal, floodplain and grazing and marsh habitats. That fund, as many in this Chamber will know, was set up during covid to help with lots of the effects and to get people out into nature and the countryside, but also to create skills and jobs, and it is extremely successful.

We also recognise, as has been mentioned, the huge importance of improving access to both our green space and our blue space—blue space obviously being nature areas or space where there is water. Just what that means to us has been very eloquently outlined—my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) and others touched on this. That point was very well made, and it is why this Government are investing a great deal in access to nature, which includes both blue and green space. Through our projects and committing in our environmental improvement plan to a world where everyone should not be further than a 15-minute walk from nature, including wetlands, we are embedding all this into what we do. Today is a great day because we are one year on from the start of our environmental improvement plan and we are celebrating all the great things that we rolled out over this year for the environment, although with more to do, because we have a framework, we have a plan and we have the targets.

This is not only about Government money; we are driving to attract money from the private sector into all this investment in nature and nature recovery. That is a latent and expanding market and there is significant opportunity for wetlands in that space. We have already stimulated investment in wetland protection and through creating programmes such as our natural environment investment readiness fund, whose third round was launched in December. That offers grants of up to £100,000 to help farmers start some of these projects—re-wetting, re-establishing wetlands, and finding out what crops they can grow in these re-wetted wetlands, and what viable markets they might be able to tap into.

I want to thank everybody who contributed to this debate—there is genuine and huge interest in wetlands in Parliament in every party. I recognise the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud has done; she is a tremendous advocate, and I have listened closely to the points she has made. I think she admitted that we are doing a great deal more than she realised; that is because we recognise the importance of our wetlands. It is World Wetlands Day on Friday, and I hope everyone will be celebrating. People can watch my Instagram, with all those wonderful pictures from Slimbridge. I thank her very much again for her contribution on wetlands.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

What a lovely and fascinating debate to end the day on. Thank you and congratulations.

Question put and agreed to.