Pet Travel

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Ms Ali—I do not think I have had that pleasure before. What a lovely subject to be debating: cats. I do not know whether you are a cat owner, Ms Ali.

[Rushanara Ali (in the Chair)]

No.

[Rebecca Pow]

You are not; but a lot of us here are. Those who are not are missing out, I think—hands up for cats. I did not get the name of the shadow Minister’s cat.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am afraid my cat has been 25 years gone, but I and the Minister’s colleague the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) have frequently mentioned Brian, who unfortunately was a female cat—I was not entirely accurate in my identification.

[Rebecca Pow]

And we are still talking about Brian, the female cat, 25 years on, which is pretty good, isn’t it?

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

If anybody were tempted to adopt a cat, I am sure they could approach Cats Protection. When I adopted Louie, I did it virtually. The adoption of cats did not stop during the pandemic, and they make such wonderful companions.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend. While we are talking about how wonderful they are, I have to mention my two cats, Mr Tipps and Raffa. The lovely lady who goes into my house to feed them when I am not there has literally just sent me two pictures of them so that I know they are okay—I think they are basically in command when I am not there, having a great time.

We are a nation of dog lovers and cat lovers, are we not? I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) for securing this debate. She is a great champion for cats, being chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on cats, and she has a lot of in-depth knowledge of this subject, so I thank her for securing the debate. I personally take all issues relating to the welfare of animals—particularly things such as puppy smuggling, other illegal importations and low welfare movements of pets—extremely seriously. There is an abhorrent trade going on out there. I believe that, as a Back Bencher, I worked with my hon. Friend; indeed, I was co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for animal welfare. Interestingly, as I think the shadow Minister will agree, a lot of the measures in the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill relate to the issues we talked about up to five years ago. Those things, which are a manifesto commitment, are now coming forward in that Bill, cracking down on these ghastly practices, particularly puppy smuggling and low welfare issues. I am very pleased that we are seeing that action happen now.

My hon. Friend will be familiar with the significant changes that I am proposing we make to the existing rules on the non-commercial movement and the commercial importation of cats, dogs and ferrets—do not leave out the ferrets, Ms Ali. We know that there is evidence that traders abuse our pet travel rules, illicitly using them to bring in lots of puppies at once to maximise profit. The welfare of those puppies is frequently compromised—we have all seen some really ghastly footage of what is going on. Indeed, I have friends who have brought a dog without any idea at all that they came through illegal channels, so that definitely needs cracking down on.

The Bill aims to tackle the issue by reducing the number of pets—dogs, cats and ferrets—that can travel in one non-commercial movement from five per person to five per vehicle, or three per person if people are travelling on foot or by air, to prevent unscrupulous traders from exploiting our pet travel rules. Air travel was raised by the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), who does not have a cat—although I think that, having heard this debate, he might be going home to get one.

[Peter Grant]

I could not honestly tell the Minister how many cats have owned me in the past. When the last one went to the big cattery in the sky, the reason we chose not to get another one was precisely that we were not happy at having to impose on neighbours to look after them when we were away and did not feel it was fair on the cat to take it with us. It is not that I would not like to have a cat; it is just that we thought it was not fair on the cats to be left to look after the house on their own when we were not there.

[Rebecca Pow]

That is a really important point for pet owners, and it is why I do not have a dog—it simply would not be fair to leave it. I think that cats are rather more independent, although I have to rely on a neighbour to come in and out, so the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Even though people can now get self-feed mechanisms and watch on their phone to see whether the cats have taken the food, I want a human to come in and see my cats every day, because I think they like it. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes was talking about air travel. Obviously, all pets travelling into GB have to be checked for compliance with the necessary health and documentary requirements prior to entry. To facilitate those checks, all pets entering GB airports must be transported safely and securely to the pet-checking facility. In practice, that means that most pets are required to travel by air to GB as manifest cargo, and we do not have any immediate plans to change the process by which pets—cats, dogs and ferrets—may enter GB by air. I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware of that. Interestingly, when one was allowed to travel freely, my daughter travelled to Majorca with a friend’s dog. The dog was next to her on the plane, in a proper bag, which I find extraordinary. I have never seen that before, but it was all totally legal and had all the right paperwork. The dog was literally sitting on the seat next to her.

Back to the Bill. As I have said, it aims to tackle these issues by reducing the allowed number of pets from five per person to five per vehicle, and to three per person if one is travelling on foot. We completed extensive research and engagement with various stakeholders to determine a suitable limit that would disrupt the illegal trade while diminishing the impact on genuine owners travelling with their pets under the pet rules. The Bill also includes an enabling power to make regulations about the importation of pet animals in Great Britain, for the purpose of promoting animal welfare. That will enable us to go further in the future and explore measures such as increasing the minimum age at which animals can be moved for non-commercial purposes or commercially imported into Great Britain, prohibiting the importation of heavily pregnant dams and animals that have been subjected to mutilations, such as ear-cropping and tail-docking. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall welcomes all the measures in the Bill, as she said. The Bill has completed its Committee stage in the House of Commons, as we have heard, and we are now awaiting a date for Report.

In August, the Government launched an eight-week consultation on our proposed restrictions to the commercial and non-commercial movement of pets in Great Britain. The consultation focused largely on dogs and included proposals to prohibit the commercial importation and non-commercial movement of puppies under six months, dogs that have undergone non-exempted mutilations such as cropped ears and docked tails, and dogs that are over 42 days pregnant. We have proposed a limited number of exceptions to the measures that were laid out within the consultation, which also sought views on the enforcement regime, the process for seizing and detaining animals that are suspected of being illegally imported, and whether the maximum penalty should be increased.

The consultation has now closed, and we have received an incredible 14,000 responses from a wide range of stakeholders and members of the public. We are analysing all the responses to the consultation and will publish a summary in due course. That will allow us to take on board the views of the public and interested groups, such as Cats Protection, to shape future policy. We will continue to work closely with all the stakeholders before the introduction of the legislation to ensure that the final measures are well considered and led by the latest evidence.

We are finally getting to cats. I fully acknowledge the concerns that have been raised about extending the measures to cats, and I am also aware that a number of stakeholders are calling for us to raise the minimum age at which kittens can be imported and to ban the importation of heavily pregnant and declawed cats. I absolutely agree with hon. Members who have mentioned that horrific activity, which is illegal in the UK. We did not propose those measures in the consultation because there is limited evidence of a significant illegal trade in cats, or significant numbers of low welfare movements.

Going into some of the stats, the number of movements of cats into Great Britain is much lower than for dogs. In 2020, cats made up 9% of the total commercial movements of cats, dogs and ferrets to Great Britain, although that was a 2% increase from 2019 and I acknowledge the point made about cat ownership rocketing during lockdown. Dogs travelling by the same rules made up 91% of the total movements. Non-commercial movements of cats are also much lower than those of dogs. In 2020, 12% of the corresponding non-commercial movements into Great Britain were of cats, while dogs made up 88% of the total movements over the same period. We are also not seeing the same issues with young kittens and pregnant cats being imported. In 2020, only 17 kittens under 15 weeks—and zero pregnant cats—were seized and detained.

The consultation obviously sought views on whether that was the right approach. I note the comments made and will definitely pass them to the Minister who is bringing forward the Bill, particularly about pregnant cats, the specialist breeds, and that de-clawing mutilation issue.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

There is a possibility for an amendment in the other place to ensure that we are not back here in five years’ time because the situation with dogs has been addressed, but the situation with cats has escalated to the level that we now see with dogs. We perhaps need to prepare for the future.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very clear point. Obviously, the details of the consultation will be analysed. A lot of views were put forward, and I obviously want to give reassurances that the issue will be fully considered and the response will be published.

One or two Members mentioned enforcement, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency works collaboratively with Border Force and other operational partners at ports, airports, and inland, sharing intelligence to enforce the pet travel scheme, disrupt illegal imports and seize non-compliant animals. The enabling power in the Bill allows the Government to make provisions about the enforcement of any new prohibitions brought in under the power. In addition, APHA has the ability, under existing legislation, to undertake checks on pets, including documentary, identity and physical checks.

We do not propose to make fundamental changes to the enforcement regime as we believe the network of agencies and stakeholders who work on puppy smuggling are doing a good job. We operate one of the most rigorous and robust pet-checking regimes in Europe, and all non-commercial dogs, cats and ferrets entering Great Britain on approved routes—every route other than via the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Crown Dependencies—under the pet travel rules undergo 100% documentary and identity checks by authorised pet checkers.

My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall is correct that commercial movements of cats, dogs and ferrets into Great Britain from the European Union must soon enter Great Britain via a designated border control post. Under the Government’s phased border strategy, post-import checks on commercial cats, dogs and ferrets from the EU are due to be replaced with border control post risk-based checks when sufficient capacity allows. All third-country—so non-EU—shipments are currently checked at the border control post prior to entry. That will continue. As I mentioned, APHA will continue to work collaboratively with Border Force and other operational partners to share intelligence to disrupt this illegal trade.

[Daniel Zeichner]

rose—

[Rebecca Pow]

I will take the intervention, but first I want to say a little more that might answer the question the hon. Gentleman is about to ask. He raised the issues —as did our SNP colleague, the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant)—of the part 2 third country status. The UK has been formally listed as a part 2 third country for the purposes of the EU pet travel scheme, which means that new rules post the transition period now apply to pet movement from Great Britain to the EU and Northern Ireland. These rules are set out in the EU pet travel scheme.

We are committed to simplifying pet movements. As set out in the July ’21 Command Paper, we seek a new balance with the EU that would allow pets that meet UK standards to move more freely. DEFRA recognises the undue impact that these changes are having on many people, including pet owners and assistance dog users. DEFRA has been clear that there are no animal health or biosecurity justifications for those additional rules for travel to the EU, and we seek agreement with the EU Commission on awarding GB part 1 listed status and recognition of the UK’s tapeworm-free status. Achieving them would obviously alleviate the most onerous pet travel rules for all travellers. We see no valid animal health reasons for those not to be granted.

[Daniel Zeichner]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will give way now. I hope that I have already answered the impending question.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am very grateful to the Minister. Does she agree that these extra burdens—the £150, the 10 days—make life much more difficult for many of our constituents?

[Rebecca Pow]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. That is why DEFRA is working hard on the issue. We already have one of the most rigorous pet-checking regimes, to protect our biosecurity. We have submitted a detailed technical case setting that out. We continue to engage with the EU to come up with a much more workable situation.

You will be pleased to hear, Ms Ali, that I am going to wind up my speech. I reassure hon. Members and my hon. Friends that the Government’s commitment to protecting and enhancing the welfare of animals is uppermost. I believe we have already achieved a great deal, but we want to go further, hence the introduction of the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill. We want to ensure that all animals are afforded the care, protection and respect that they deserve. I am proud of the work going on through the Bill and the measures that the Government have already taken. I reassure Members that officials are working hard behind the scenes. That consultation is being analysed and will be published shortly.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall for introducing it. I think we all agree that we are a nation of pet lovers, and cat lovers in particular. Once the debate is over, I will be heading for the train to get back to see my two cats.

Water Companies: Sewage Discharge

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

It is, as ever, an absolute pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Paisley. I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this heated debate, and those people who signed the petition. Although I really respect the strength of feeling—the passion—in the petition, I want to say at the outset that I believe it was probably started when the social media campaign was whipped up. I am sorry, but a lot of misinformation was indeed spread, so we need to get over that and ensure that it never happens again.

I do understand the passion about this issue, which I think we all share. Quite frankly, I am personally also horrified by a lot of what we have seen. That is why I am so proud that, as an Environment Minister, I have made water quality a priority; indeed, so have this Government. As was so eloquently said by a number of Government Members, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), we now have a chain of actions that will deal with this. Many of them, of course, are triggered through the world-leading Environment Act. I was sorry, whatever the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), says—I do, as he knows, have great respect for him—that our Labour colleagues did not, in the end, vote to make that law to get water companies to reduce harm from storm sewage overflows. The tables were turned, and for that I am sorry. I think we need to get over that, too, and we all need to move on—

[Helen Hayes]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

So I am not going to take an intervention on that.

I will also say that the issue is devolved. I thank the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for introducing the debate. As she knows, it is for individual Governments to have their own powers, although Wales joins a great many of the powers in the Act.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I am leading the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, but it is a UK-wide issue, which I hope the Minister will work with the devolved nations to address.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for that; we are at pains to work with the devolved Administrations, because water does not have boundaries. I increasingly want to do exactly that, so I hand out an offer to do more. On misinformation, although I am not defending the quality of our rivers, it is comparable to that of rivers in densely populated areas of Europe.

The storm overflows system is an old Victorian plumbing system, which in many cases is not fit for purpose given our growing population, climate change and the frequent heavy extreme weather incidents that we are getting. Many hon. Members have made reference to the fact that the whole system needs improving.

I have been clear that storm sewage overflows, which are supposed to be for emergency use, are used far too frequently, which is absolutely unacceptable. I have said that frequently. We are the first Government to take decisive action on storm overflows through the Environment Act. I established the storm overflows taskforce to look into the issue and to inform us. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), who did great work on the Bill Committee, for recognising that.

The petition calls for the elimination of storm overflows, which is a commendable ambition.

[Helen Hayes]

The Minister said at the start of her remarks that she thought the petition had probably been started in response to the social media campaign. To clarify, it was started more than six months ago and indeed, the Government published their response to it on 5 May.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for clarifying. As I said, I share the passion of the people who signed the petition, so I am not arguing about that.

The petition calls for the complete elimination of storm overflows. We need to look at how possible that is and what the function of overflows is in emergency situations. We need to look at the whole issue in the round. The recently published storm overflows evidence project report shed some light on that and the costs that we are looking at. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport keeps asking about that, but he can read all about it in an independent survey published on gov.uk. It highlights that the cost of complete elimination would be between £350 billion and £600 billion.

When we are looking at all those things, we also need to consider all the other things that we have to deal with in terms of water, such as phosphates, nitrates and soil in the water. Several right hon. Friends rightly referred to that and how complicated the picture is. We are dealing with it, as we need to.

Work is under way on that timeframe to reduce and potentially eliminate overflows. The hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) made some interesting points about consumer involvement and bringing the public along so that they understand what we are doing. Water companies consult consumers but, of course, that does not change their obligation to meet their requirements and regulations in law.

That is where the Government’s direction to Ofwat, the regulator, is important. We have just produced our draft strategic policy, in which we flagged the issue of storm overflows and reducing the harm for the first time. We also put the environment at the top of the agenda. I am sure we all share the view that that is the right thing to do.

The issue of enforcement has been raised several times. Action is taken and must be taken, but I understand the frustration about how long it can take. The Southern Water enforcement took years, but the fine was £90 million, which sent a clear message. Thames Water has also had some significant fines, but it is now spending £4.4 billion on the Thames Tideway Tunnel. That will be a game changer, rightly treating sewage that goes into the Thames. We have seen progress, although that is not to say that we do not need to go a great deal further.

We have seen some action. The shadow Minister keeps asking, “What is happening now?” There is some action. Yes, we need more, but through the taskforce we instigated a call for action that is happening right now. Importantly, water companies are spending £144 million in additional investment on storm overflows in the period 2020 to 2025, on top of the £3 billion they are already spending on the environment.

[Luke Pollard]

Can the Minister square these two challenges? She has told us that it is going to cost us £660 billion, but also that if water companies spend £144 million now, that is sufficient to deal with it. Those are two very different extremes. Why is more not being spent now? How is such a paltry sum supposed to deal with a problem that just moments ago she said could cost £660 billion?

[Rebecca Pow]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman is really listening to what I am saying. What I said is that the water companies have taken some action now to start to invest in some of the facilities that they need. I did not say that they were doing everything that they needed to do, but my point was that they are not waiting until the next price review.

I mentioned the strategic policy statement to Ofwat, the regulator, which is crucial. Just last week, we set out on a legal footing in the Environment Act a statutory requirement for water companies to progressively reduce the harm from sewage from these overflows. The Act refers to harm not just to the environment, but to “public health.” That is something new that we added that was not even in the Duke of Wellington’s amendment, and that I think all hon. Members here will welcome, especially those who have bathing areas in their constituencies. All credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley, who mentioned the bathing area in Keighley being the first inland bathing area.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) talked about Warleigh Weir, which I know because lots of my school friends used to go swimming there when I was at school in Bath. I am horrified at the data she gave and I would be interested in hearing more about that. If she wants to apply for a bathing water quality safety test, it is clear how to do that. Indeed, we write to local authorities every year to ask if they have an area they would like to put forward. I am happy to help progress that, if it is at all possible.

In the Environment Act, of which I am very proud, there are so many things, including a whole page of duties, plans and monitoring. The hon. Member for Gower mentioned the important need for data, which she is absolutely right about. To really tackle these issues, we have to know what is going on. We do not need to wait for ages. We can start, but we still need the data. There are timelines for monitoring and reporting, and a system that holds water companies to account if they do not do the right thing. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for all the work that he has done. He fully understands the data issue, which is so important. Crucially, every water company now has to produce a sewage management plan—they did not have to do so before—and that will help.

Water companies have been mentioned so much that last week I called them in—I mentioned this on the Floor of the House—before we thrashed out the final amendments. I read the Riot Act to them about the need, and the expectation, for them to do better. We need to work with them to make sure that that happens, and we have been very clear that if we do not see action, we will take enforcement action. There are clear enforcement powers through the EA, which issues the permits; through the regulator and through Government in the new power in the Environment Act; and ultimately through the Office for Environmental Protection, so the system is now in place.

I thank all right hon. and hon. Friends and hon. Members. We share a concern about water quality. Water is the stuff of life. It is precious. It is our lifeblood, as is soil—another of my favourite subjects. It is our duty to look after it. I will conclude by saying that it is a very complex issue, and my right hon. Friends the Members for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) and for Basingstoke have talked about the need to pull together other Departments and talk about the building requirements. We are indeed carrying out a review on the sustainable drainage systems, as set out in schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which will include the right to connect. It is really important that we pull all those things together.

I do not often agree with the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but he is absolutely right about semi-permeable driveways and membranes. I am a gardener, and I have talked about that issue forever.

The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) should visit the living lab at Salford University, which is amazing. What it shows people about greywater harvesting, underwater tanks and green walls is brilliant. It is in her constituency, and I have visited it.

On that note, I hope I have made it clear that the Government are taking the issue very seriously. The measures are in place but there is, of course, more to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 582336, relating to the discharge of sewage by water companies.

Environment Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

I beg to move, That this House insists on its amendments 31A and 31B and disagrees with Lords amendment 31C.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 33B, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendment 45B, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Government motion that this House insists on its amendments 75A and 75B, Lords amendment 75C, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 85D and 85E.

[Rebecca Pow]

I am delighted to be here in the House for what I really hope will be the final time discussing the Bill, even though I have quite relished my involvement with it. It has been quite a journey, but here we are with a Bill that does so much to set us on a sustainable trajectory for future challenges: tackling air, water, and waste pollution; improving our environment on a scale never before done; and stemming the tide of biodiversity loss and restoring nature. The sum of all these parts is groundbreaking.

I turn first to Lords amendments 31C and 75C, tabled by the noble Lord Krebs and Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick in the other place, and amendments 31A, 31B, 75A and 75B, which the Government are insisting on today. I wish to put a number of points on the record in the knowledge that ministerial statements in Hansard could be drawn on by the courts as a legitimate aid to statutory interpretation in the future.

The office for environmental protection is and must be an independent body capable of holding public authorities to account for their environmental responsibilities, including through the use of its enforcement functions. That is why the Government have given the OEP a remit and powers of unprecedented breadth in the Bill. For the OEP to work effectively, it must act strategically and take action only when there is an environmental and public interest in doing so. On that point, everyone is agreed.

As the Secretary of State is ultimately accountable for the OEP’s performance and use of public funds, the Government consider that the accountability power in clause 24 is necessary to ensure that the body continues to use public resources effectively to achieve the greatest public good. However, I must be clear that the content of guidance is limited to the areas of the OEP’s enforcement policy listed in clause 22(6). It cannot be used to direct the OEP as to the content of any report it might produce or any advice to the Government. Indeed, it cannot be used as a power of direction at all. It would also be inappropriate for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on specific matters relating to the enforcement of environmental law against the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, given that there would be a conflict of interest. I do not want to be disingenuous: the OEP would be expected to have regard to any guidance issued, but it will retain the ability and discretion to make its own decisions, and will not be bound to act in accordance with the guidance where it has clear reasons not to do so.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am going to rattle on. We have one hour only, but I will respond in my closing speech as much as I can to any issues that arise.

Many in this place and the other place have previously raised concerns that the Secretary of State might be able to use guidance to preclude the OEP from investigating a broad category of individual cases or subject areas, such as a nuclear power station. I must say, unequivocally, that it is our view that the power could not lawfully be used in that way. Any guidance issued must be consistent with the duty in paragraph 17 of schedule 1 for the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to protect the independence of the OEP. Any guidance that diverted OEP scrutiny away from entire policy areas, outside of existing statutory steers on prioritisation, would not be in keeping with that duty. This is not a power that could be used simply to divert the OEP away from investigating issues that could be in some way inconvenient to the Government. The provision for guidance on how the OEP intends to exercise its functions means that the guidance will, by its nature, be on the OEP’s approach to those issues, rather than defining specific areas to prioritise or deprioritise.

The OEP will operate with a very high degree of independence, especially when it comes to making individual enforcement decisions. In exercising its discretion in individual cases, the OEP would need to have regard to all relevant factors, but must ultimately take all its decisions objectively, impartially and independently of Government. Furthermore, the Environment Bill already provides that the OEP should focus on cases that have national implications. Guidance could not be issued that went against the existing provisions, but it could instead add further detail. However, it will remain up to the OEP, within the framework provided by the Bill and any guidance, to determine whether cases that have a discrete local impact also have national implications, or for some other reason have sufficiently broad or widespread impact to be considered serious, or to be prioritised for the purposes of its enforcement functions.

It is important to note that the Secretary of State is also able to offer guidance on how the OEP should respect the integrity of other bodies and existing statutory regimes. With such a broad remit, the OEP will be able to scrutinise all public authorities, including many expert scientific bodies. This ability will be important for it to be able to take a broad view and identify systemic issues.

I am sure the OEP will be extremely effective, but it will be a relatively small body with a broad remit. The decisions of organisations such as the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, which employs hundreds of world-leading marine scientists, will be based on deep expertise and often highly technical scientific data. The OEP will need to be mindful of that in its own decision making when scrutinising such bodies. It is important to get the balance right to maintain confidence and integrity within existing regimes, and guidance could help to address that. We believe the power is important to ensure accountability, so that the OEP can contribute to delivering environmental improvements in the way I think we all agree it should: by acting strategically not just in the short term, but long into the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

rose—

[Rebecca Pow]

I hope that might answer the point the hon. Member was going to ask.

Draft guidance will need to be laid before both Houses for 21 days. During that time, either House will be able to review the guidance and make recommendations or resolutions to which the Government must respond. Select Committees, such as the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee, may also wish to take the opportunity to scrutinise the guidance, and Ministers would be obliged to respond to them in the usual manner.

I turn now to Lords amendment 33B on environmental review, tabled by the noble Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu that I am tabling today. On environmental review, the key area of debate has been the remedies available in the event a breach of environmental law if that is confirmed by the court. At the heart of the issue has always been the fact that through environmental review the OEP will have the ability to bring cases to court outside standard judicial review time limits, potentially long after the decisions in question have been taken. For that reason, the Government have maintained that bespoke provision is necessary to ensure certainty and fairness for third parties who have acted in line with decisions made by public bodies, and to protect good administration.

The OEP may pursue cases for enforcement action only if it considers that the conduct in question would constitute a “serious” failure to comply with environmental law. Clause 22(7) states that the OEP must have regard, among other things,

“to the particular importance of prioritising cases that it considers have or may have national implications.”

The OEP will have discretion to interpret those criteria, setting out its approach in its enforcement policy, but it follows, in the Government’s view, that cases which have only a local concern, for example most individual planning and environmental permitting decisions, are unlikely to have sufficiently broad or widespread impact to be prioritised. The OEP could pursue such cases if it considers they are indicative of a broader or more systemic issue or failure, or if especially serious harm has or may result from the potential failure. The OEP, for example, could consider it in relation to the destruction of a nationally important population of a rare and protected species, but it should not be the norm.

However, we have listened to and carefully considered the views and concerns raised in this House and in the other place, and agree it is important that the protections are balanced with the need to prevent or mitigate serious environmental harm. As such, I am pleased to be able to propose an amendment in lieu, which strikes that important balance. In introducing it to the House, I must repeat my earlier acknowledgement that ministerial statements in Hansard could be drawn on by the courts as a legitimate aid to statutory interpretation in future. The amendment will ensure that a high bar is still set for the granting of remedies where third parties may be affected. This is set out in condition A of our amendment. But, critically, it will also provide that, even where condition A is not met, if the court is satisfied that it is necessary in order to prevent or mitigate serious damage to the natural environment or human health, and there is an exceptional public interest reason to do so, the court will be able to grant a remedy. This is set out in condition B. It gives the court discretion to undertake a real and meaningful, albeit weighted, balancing exercise. It means that there would no longer be a blanket prohibition on the granting of remedies where third parties are likely to suffer substantial hardship or prejudice.

In the rare cases where third parties may be affected, however, I would like to illustrate how this provision could operate with an example. Potentially, on an environmental review, the court could rule that an environmental permit had been granted to a factory operator with such inadequate conditions that it was unlawful. If the court concluded that condition A was not met, because substantial hardship to the factory operator would be likely to result from quashing the permit, it would turn to condition B. If, in the absence of a quashing order, it is likely that the factory would continue to release harmful air pollutants with serious impacts for the health of the local population, the court may conclude that it is necessary to grant a remedy in order to prevent or mitigate serious damage to the natural environment or human health. At this point, the court would need to weigh the public interest in preventing serious harm against the public interest in preventing substantial hardship occurring to the third party. In order to grant a remedy, the court would need to be satisfied that the public interest in preventing this serious harm substantially outweighed the interest in preventing hardship, thereby constituting an “exceptional public interest reason” to grant the remedy.

In such cases, where severe damage to the environment or people’s health could occur or continue if no remedy was granted, the court may choose to grant a remedy. Given the types of serious cases that the OEP is likely to bring, we consider that this test strikes the appropriate balance. I have every faith that it will do so and that the amendment will therefore be a valuable addition to the OEP’s enforcement framework as a whole. I hope that the amendment provides reassurance that the Government are thoroughly committed to protecting against environmental harms through the OEP’s enforcement functions, and that the House will support it today.

I turn to what I believe most people are waiting for: the issue of storm overflows. I hope that colleagues will bear with me while I set out our position, because I believe that this is extremely important. So many people have spoken to and contacted me constantly about this whole process and I will take questions at the end, if that is okay, because we are so tight for time.

I have been clear that the frequency with which sewage is discharged from storm overflows into our waters is absolutely unacceptable. It is a credit to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and the campaigning of many others that the phrase “storm overflow” is now used 47 times on the face of the Bill. However, I recognise that many hon. Members wanted to see more, and I am pleased to have tabled a further amendment that says that water companies “must” secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impact of discharges from their storm overflows. In this legal drafting, the word “must” means that we are placing a direct legal duty on water companies to do this. That is really crucial. Water companies will have a simple choice: reduce sewage discharges or face the consequences—that is, strong enforcement action.

Turning back to the specific amendment from the Duke of Wellington, we have redrafted it to ensure that it has proper legal effect and there is more effective implementation, and we have gone further in places. I have had much discussion with the Duke of Wellington —I greatly respect and value that—and I would like to clarify a number of points. This amendment places a clear legal duty on water companies to deliver improvements —something that the Duke particularly pressed for. Indeed, ours is a stronger duty than in his wording. Our amendment will ensure that they have to take the necessary steps relative to the size of the problem. We have taken the “progressive” reduction wording from the Lords amendment. “Progressive” means that water companies must continue to take action even after the next price review period and even after they have achieved a significant reduction and tackled high-priority sites, as required in the draft policy statement to the regulator, Ofwat.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will not take any interventions, because I just want to get this on the record, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind—I know that he is passionate about this whole environmental issue.

I am aware of some wildly inaccurate claims that have been circulating online for the past so many days that we are somehow legalising the dumping of raw sewage—we are not. Our amendment goes further than the Lords amendment by legally specifying that “adverse impacts” includes impacts both on the environment and on public health—for bathers, canoeists and so forth. Enforcement was a key part of the Duke’s amendment and our version goes further, because it will dock in with the existing enforcement regime in the Water Industry Act 1991. Ofwat can issue enforcement notices that can direct specific actions or fine companies up to 10% of their annual turnover, running to millions of pounds. If we do not see sufficient progress from water companies, Ofwat and the Government will be able to take enforcement action, and we will not hesitate to do so. Not only that—under other provisions in the Bill, the OEP will be able to take enforcement action against the Environment Agency or Ofwat or, indeed, the Government, should it feel that any of us are not adequately discharging our duties.

There has been much debate about the costs required to eliminate sewage discharges from storm overflows. Last week, the Storm Overflows Taskforce, which I set up, published research on this issue. It estimated that the complete elimination of sewage discharges through storm overflows in England, which many are calling for more broadly, is likely to cost between approximately £350 billion and £600 billion. That could mean up to £1,000 on bills every year. There are important discussions to be had about the best way to address this important issue while protecting bill payers, and this very morning, I called the CEOs of all the water companies in to a meeting. They assured me that they recognise the need for urgent action. We must see better performance from them and I will be watching the progress closely, as indeed, will the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

I would much very like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow and the Duke of Wellington for their tireless efforts on this issue. Today, I am asking the House to vote in support of the Government: you will be voting directly—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

No, I will not be voting at all.

[Rebecca Pow]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker—that is a pity. My fault—I got carried away. Today, I am asking the House to vote in support of the Government, and this means a vote directly to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas, with greater protection for our waters than ever before.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Here we are again—it is 648 days since the Environment Bill was first introduced to Parliament and we are still here debating it, trying to get bolder action from Ministers on the environment, climate and nature. Ministers, I am afraid, are still dragging their heels in not introducing the bold action that we need—particularly against the routine discharge of raw sewage into rivers—still favouring a weaker watchdog than they should be.

In the middle of a climate and ecological crisis and at the very time that the UK is hosting COP26, this is generational injustice in action. We need to see bolder action. There was no mention from the Chancellor in the Budget of climate or nature. In fact, there were cuts to domestic flying duty, coupled with the Prime Minister flying from Glasgow to London on a private jet. I am sure that the Minister will have joined me when we came back from COP in travelling by train, rather than flying, and the Prime Minister should have done so as well. It is a wrong, bad, outdated message to say, “Do as I say. Don’t do as I do”, but I am afraid that that is what we are used to. It sets an appalling example for the world that the Prime Minister did not take the train instead of taking the plane, and it is up to us here to sort that out.

Britain is, again, the dirty man of Europe. Not one English river is in a healthy condition; not one meets good chemical standards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I will finish within a minute and 20 seconds, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let us just focus on the sewage, then, given that that is the time available to us.

We have, thanks to the Government amendment, now a duty on water companies to progressively reduce the amount of sewage discharged through storm overflows —but there are no targets for either volume or timescale. That leaves water companies with the power to continue doing what they do now. This amendment is something to get Conservative Back Benchers off the hook, rather than to give water companies the direction they need.

I represent the English Lake District. I am disgusted that there is raw sewage being dumped into Lake Windermere for 71 days, collectively, in any given year. This amendment will do nothing to stop that. Currently, a water company dumps 40% of all the phosphates in Windermere. If that goes down to 39%, there is no measure to say whether that is okay, so I assume the water companies will think that it is okay.

What about timescale? What if the amount goes down over five years or over 10 years? All the Government amendment does is give the Back Benchers of the Conservative party an excuse to write to their constituents and say, “There has been further movement in the right direction.” It allows the Government to let the water companies off the hook, while doing nothing at all to demand what is necessary to clean up our lakes and our rivers.

[Rebecca Pow]

We have been two and a quarter years bringing this enormous Bill through Parliament. I want to thank all hon. Members and hon. Friends for their contributions, particularly those who have approached me personally over the past few days: my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Jacob Young), for Workington (Mark Jenkinson), for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for Devizes (Danny Kruger), for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton), for Yeovil (Mr Fysh), for Havant (Alan Mak), for Keighley (Robbie Moore), for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) and for Watford (Dean Russell).

I also thank many others from all around our coasts, including my hon. Friends the Members for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) and for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie). If I have left anybody out, I will be writing to them—[Interruption.] And my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely). Yes, we will be looking at ecological sites and bathing waters first when we bring in the storm overflows legislation. That should placate the wild swimmer from the Opposition Benches, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard).

I have outlined in enormous detail why we should vote for these amendments—

Thames in Oxford: Bathing Water Status

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

It is a pleasure, as ever, to see you in the Chair, Dame Angela. I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for raising this issue on behalf of her constituents. Of course, it is an issue that many people are talking about. I like the image of her in her wetsuit and I am sorry she did not get to use it. I am a bit of a coward when it comes to the cold. I always wear my wetsuit, even in high summer in Cornwall when I go to the bathing water areas there, which I recommend. It’s great.

The hon. Lady knows—at least, I hope she is getting the message—that the Government have made improving our water quality an absolute priority, and it is a personal priority of mine. I hope colleagues understand that. I worked closely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) on what was going to be a private Member’s Bill and we rolled it over into the Environment Bill. I have worked with other Members here. My door is always open to talk about these issues, because we want to improve our water quality. I am sure the hon. Lady knows that I have put the water companies on notice. They are under the microscope and things need to improve.

I will touch on the Environment Bill, although the hon. Lady promised that we would not get bogged down in that. She knows that we voted through six pages of measures in the Environment Bill the other day when I was at the Dispatch Box in the main Chamber, and they were all things to improve water quality and to tackle sewage pollution in particular. I made it crystal clear to the water companies that what has been happening is unacceptable.

The Government have also introduced new environment measures that will require water companies to report in as near real time as possible on storm sewage overflows—in fact, within an hour of their being used. That will make a significant difference to how the Environment Agency can then enforce those measures. Those things will be positive. As well as all the other measures introduced in the Bill, the Government announced in the other place the other day that we will further strengthen the Bill with an amendment to ensure that water companies secure a progressive reduction in the adverse effects of the discharges. We have worked very closely with colleagues on that, and we are going in the right direction. All that gold-plates what we have already flagged to the regulator, Ofwat, in the draft policy statement. It has to make it a top priority for water companies to reduce their use of storm sewage overflows, which is the first time a Government have done that. Also, DEFRA has to produce a plan for all that by September 2022. So movement is happening, and it needs to.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon talked about water quality in detail, and there are many pressures on our water environment that affect it. It is not just storm sewage overflows. It all relates to our growing population, intensive farming, climate change, chemical use and so forth. We need to collectively address all those things in order to return our water to its near natural state. The Government are determined to do that. I put on the record that £30 billion has already been invested by the water companies since 1990, and they have achieved a significant reduction in phosphates and ammonia, but there is a lot more still to do.

The hon. Lady mentioned enforcement, and I am pleased to say that we have provided additional funding for the EA to increase farm inspections nationwide over the next 18 months. That will include an extra 50 inspectors carrying out more than 1,000 inspections this financial year. They will target areas of particular concern initially—for example, the River Wye, the Solent, the Somerset levels in my constituency, and Lyme bay. We have also committed additional funding for extra catchment-sensitive officers to work on the ground to tackle land use on the agricultural side, which also impacts on our pollution. We have support for farmers to help deliver on that.

The bathing water issue is obviously the crux of the debate. There are more than 400 designated bathing waters in England, mostly around the coast, because we are an island. That is a difference between France and us. They are managed to protect the public’s health. The EA regularly takes samples and tests the bacteria level because the water needs to be clean and safe for swimmers. We recently introduced a new measure for water companies to monitor those sites all year round and give data, which is very useful for swimmers, surfers and others. There has been good progress over the past 30 years, but there is clearly more to be done.

More than £2.5 billion has been invested by English water companies to improve bathing water since privatisation. Figures in those bathing areas are good on the whole: 98.3% of bathing waters in England pass the minimum test and, of those, 70% achieved excellent ratings. That compares with 28% in 1990. I was an environment correspondent in the west region and regularly reported on those sites. I can confirm that things have improved since those days, but there is certainly more to do.

We welcome applications for bathing water designations for both coastal and inland sites. They are used by many people and we believe more people would use them. Coronavirus has demonstrated how valuable they are. When an application is received, it is reviewed against Government criteria, which are on the gov.uk site. If it meets those criteria, a consultation is run, as happened in the Wharfe area, as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) will know. Following that, a final decision is made about whether the site can be designated. If so, the aim is to designate it the following season.

If a site were to receive the designation of bathing water status, the EA is enabled to spring into action and look at what is needed to improve the water quality to meet the standards set by the regulation. It could add a requirement to the water industry natural environment programme—WINEP as we call it—for funding for the next price review, for example. If necessary, the EA assessment could include discussing options with Ofwat, to explore bringing forward investment. There are measures, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon well knows.

As has been mentioned, this year my Department designated the River Wharfe in Ilkley. We are currently considering the application, received just two weeks ago, from Oxford City Council. We received letters of support from the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon and for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), as well as from Thames Water, making clear how proactively it wants to support this, which is welcome.

I met the chief executive at my chalk stream restoration strategy launch recently, and she told me how determined the company is to get to grips with the storm sewage overflows. It has made a commitment to get close to real-time notifications on all discharges, and expects to have that up and running by 2022. That will obviously be significant for this application. The point is that water quality will not change overnight; it will not be instant. That is why all the other actions to reduce the overall levels of pollution, taken by farmers, landowners, the industry and other combinations, are so important. Multiple organisations will be involved, as they are in the Ilkley area.

We heard references to some other areas. I am heartened that we are getting those other applications because it means we can genuinely get moving. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley for the work he is pushing on that. Similarly, I look forward to hearing from my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow about the River Teme application and the work that he is doing; he is doing such good work on this issue. I have already met the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) about Windermere.

Local authorities have been able to apply for bathing water status since 2013 and every year my Department writes to them to ask them if they would like to put forward a site. Interestingly, how many such applications do hon. Members think we have had since 2013? Five. Obviously, each application is considered, and of those five applications four have gone forward. So this is a new world of bathing water that we are looking at.

[Robbie Moore]

Anyone can submit an application, as we saw in Ilkley, where it was not the local authority that submitted the application; it was our hard-working, dedicated campaign group that was at the forefront in submitting that application. I just wanted to reiterate the point that this process is open to everyone to get involved with.

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

Order. We are talking about bathing water in the Thames at the moment. I have given some leeway, but let us not stray too far.

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you very much, Dame Angela, for getting us back on track and enabling us to get back to Oxford. However, my hon. Friend made a very good point and we genuinely understand everybody’s strength of feeling about swimming in their local area.

[Tim Farron]

I am very much guided by your words, Dame Angela. I was very interested to hear what the Minister said about the number of applications made by local authorities; the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) made the point that other people can also make applications. However, is the Minister saying that—whether it is the Thames, Windermere, a river in Kent or any other river or waterway—if local authorities make a request for bathing site status for one of their waterways, that request will be taken seriously and considered?

[Rebecca Pow]

I had hoped that I had already made that clear. There is a process, which is set out on the gov.uk website. What has to be done and the procedures that have to be gone through are set out very clearly. Then there is a consultation and consideration of the feasibility of an application.

However, I must reiterate that there are other requirements, which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon mentioned. There is also a particular emphasis on safety; for example, will life-saving equipment be provided? Is there space for all the people who might turn up and will they be provided for, with parking spaces, cafés and toilets? All those things then become part of the whole discussion about whether a site is a suitable area for bathing. As I say, safety—keeping people safe when they are swimming—is obviously a really key issue.

I will wind up there. As a Government, we recognise the real health benefits of healthy waters and the importance of managing them well. Of course, all this links in to everything we are doing this very week at COP26 to have a healthy, sustainable planet on which we can all live and thrive.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

1. What steps he is taking to help ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged into rivers and inland waterways.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

I have been absolutely crystal clear that the amount of sewage discharged by water companies into our rivers is unacceptable. We have our Environment Bill and our strategic policy statement which, for the very first time by any Government, directs the regulator to ensure that water companies tackle sewage discharges, so we are right on it. We have strengthened the Environment Bill to get a new duty on water companies to progressively reduce discharges. Last week, we voted through six pages of measures to stop raw sewage going into our watercourses.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

Despite bizarre assurances that the Government have been working on their U-turn for weeks, it was the public outcry about sewage being pumped into waterways that forced a change of mind by the Government. In Gower, the number of people enjoying the sea and swimming in Caswell bay and Langland bay has increased, as many Members know, especially during covid. What work is the Minister doing to work with devolved Governments to ensure that the whole United Kingdom is protected for people to swim and enjoy?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes, it is a beautiful part of the world. We have to remember that water issues are devolved, so water companies are working in their own ways, but it is absolutely right that they need to work together across our borders. We are at pains to make that clear. Indeed, there were measures in the Environment Bill to highlight the fact that partnership working is so important. All the measures in the Bill will make a significant difference to any of this pollution going into the river. I remind her that a fifth of the pollution is from sewage, but four fifths is from agricultural pollution and waste treatment works. We are also working on very strong measures on this issue, not only through the Environment Bill, but through the farming rules for water.

[Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister and Secretary of State for meeting me and concerned colleagues earlier this week on this issue. Only a few days ago, we had a discharge into the Walney channel. For the avoidance of doubt, can the Minister please lay out the fact that the amendment we are putting forward to the Environment Bill will drive down discharges such as this and increase penalties and liabilities on water companies that are acting irresponsibly?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for coming to the meeting earlier this week to explain what is a very complicated picture. It has to be tackled from so many angles, which is why I mentioned agriculture just now—it is not just one source. We have the measures in the Bill and the six pages of measures we added to improve reporting, monitoring, duties and governance to check on the actions that water companies are taking. Those are in the Bill, but this overarching new duty to direct water companies to progressively reduce sewage will make the real difference. It puts into law what we have already directed Ofwat, the regulator, to do.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Days from COP26, I must tell the Minister that the episode with raw sewage has not done Britain’s reputation going into that conference any good. The Government whipping their own MPs to vote against an amendment to end the routine discharge of raw sewage does nothing to build confidence and has rightly sparked a public outcry. Raw sewage is being routinely discharged today, right now and every single day throughout COP26. When the Minister talks about progressive reductions, can she say how much raw sewage will be progressively reduced each and every year? Importantly, when will this disgusting practice come to an end?

[Rebecca Pow]

I want to make it clear that a lot of what we have heard in the social media storm has been whipped up, and there are a great many untruths flying around. We all spoke last week, after all the tributes to dear Sir David Amess, about a better form of government that is more respectful. Actually, I would like us to pick that up, because a lot of people have not seen it over this issue. The amendment, as it was worded by the Duke of Edinburgh—[Interruption.] Sorry, I will correct that right now. The amendment of the Duke of Wellington, with whom I have had many meetings, would have legally bound Ministers to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged from overflows, eliminating them. That would have involved the complete separation of the sewerage system. We have data, which I believe will be published today, that shows that that could cost between £300 billion and £600 billion. We had to be mindful of that. The hon. Gentleman asks when these things will start happening. They are happening already. Some £3 billion is already being spent by the water companies to stop sewage going into our rivers. The measures in the Bill will further add to that.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to the Minister that I recognise her passion, but we are 10 minutes in and we are on question 1. We are not going to get very far. If she can speed up her answers, it will help me. We now to come to a question from Kate Osborne, who is not here, so I expect the Minister to reply on that basis, then I will go to Ian Byrne.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

6. What steps he is taking to strengthen UK environmental protections ahead of COP26.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

Our vanguard Environment Bill demonstrates how much we are doing on that—more than any other country. This will be groundbreaking legislation and as we build back greener from the pandemic it will transform how we protect our environment and will better protect our resources—our air, our water and, of course, our soil.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware of the policy on biodiversity net gain, which is due to come in in the next couple of years. I and many other Members have been pressing to accelerate the introduction of this wonderful policy. Can the Minister give any update on the Department’s thoughts on whether we can bring forward implementation of biodiversity net gain?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his work on this, because it is going to be a very important part of how we increase our protections and protect more nature. We have the target to protect and halt the decline of species abundance by 2030. Local authorities will play a key part in delivering that through their planning services and it is important that we work with them to give them the time to get this under way.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

The UK is among the most nature-depleted countries in the world and the decline is not slowing. The Government have made a deliberate decision not to announce any concrete targets to reverse it until October next year, long after COP26, and are instead focusing on cutting the costs of internal flights rather than cutting rail fares. Does the Minister think this undermines the Government’s credibility at the conference this weekend?

[Rebecca Pow]

No.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to encourage the use of navigable waterways for freight traffic; and if he will make a statement.

[Mr Speaker]

Does any Minister want it?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

Of course I want it, especially when it is from that particular Member; he is always at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions and I thank him for that.

The Government are providing £20 million through the Department for Transport’s mode shift freight grant schemes in 2021-22 to support rail and water freight services on routes where they deliver environment benefits over road haulage but are more expensive to operate. Responsibility for the operational matters and management of the inland waterways rests with the relevant navigation authority and Ministers have no role in that.

[Michael Fabricant]

I thank the Minister very much for her reply, and for her kind comments about me, which I thought were rather nice.

The all-party group on waterways, which I have the honour of chairing, has identified that about 1,500 miles of our 5,000 miles of navigable waterways are suitable for freight. In addition to the measures the Minister has just outlined, has her Department given any thought to reintroducing the freight facility grants for wharfs and handling facilities?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am genuinely interested in my hon. Friend’s work. This area comes under Department for Transport responsibilities; it does not have any plans as such to reinstate the freight facilities grant in England, but the Government are of course very interested in the shift to getting freight transported in other ways. The fund I mentioned earlier has mostly gone to rail because the case has to be made for whether it is better to do it by water, so I recommend that my hon. Friend gets in there and makes that case, remembering of course the other great benefits of waterways, especially through cities, for health and wellbeing.

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

8. What recent discussions he has had with the (a) Prime Minister and (b) US Administration on agricultural exports to the United States.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to prevent further biodiversity loss.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

The powerful new measures in our world-leading Environment Bill, alongside substantial funding and incentives to protect and restore nature, represent a step change in our ambition. Our commitment to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030 while setting a historic legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance underlines our intent on all this. Internationally, we are playing a leading role in developing an ambitious new global biodiversity framework under the convention on biological diversity, making nature a top priority for our COP26 presidency.

[Claire Coutinho]

Today is the memorial for Peter Ainsworth, my predecessor in East Surrey, who was Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee and on the board of the Environment Agency. I am sure that the Minister, like me, would like to pay tribute to all his work in this area.

Ahead of the Surrey-wide virtual COP summit tonight, will the Minister update the House on the work that has been conducted on the possibility of a new “wild belt” designation, which would protect biodiversity across the country?

[Rebecca Pow]

We, too, obviously pay tribute to all the great work that Peter Ainsworth did, particularly in this area.

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and wish her every success with her virtual Surrey-wide COP26 climate summit. Many other colleagues are doing similar, really great events. DEFRA is working very closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on how future planning reforms could make a really big difference to our environmental outcomes. Protections, including those in particular areas—urban areas and such—will all come under that microscope. The Government will publish their response to the planning White Paper in due course.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The marine environment can play a huge role in climate mitigation, with blue carbon held in native oyster reefs, kelp forests, seagrass, salt marshes and so on. What are the Government doing to scale up the rewilding of our seas for biodiversity and blue carbon, an issue on which we could show global leadership at COP26 and at the convention next year?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that really important point. Everything we are doing on protections relates to both land and sea, with the protection of 30% of the land and 30% of the sea. We are gathering more data on blue carbon. We do not have quite enough data yet to factor it into all our calculations, but we mean to do so. She is absolutely right that our kelp beds and salt marshes can make a great contribution, and a great deal of work is being done on that. Indeed, many of our flood resilience squads are linking in with such restoration projects.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

T3. May I confirm that the Secretary of State and his team are aware of the Isle of Wight’s achievement of UNESCO biosphere reserve status and of our desire to work with the Government on new landscape designations that recognise the Island’s unique sea life, landscape, rare flora, fauna, birds, butterflies and animal species?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

My hon. Friend is such a great champion for the Isle of Wight. He never ceases to collar me in the corridor to talk about it. He is right that it is an amazing biosphere. He will know that Natural England has started to develop an England-wide assessment to identify further landscape conservation enhancement needs, looking at potential areas of outstanding natural beauty and so on. I urge him to keep that dialogue open.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

T4. I welcome the Government’s commitment to restoring peat bogs. What support, financial and otherwise, will be given to Lindow Moss in my constituency?

[Rebecca Pow]

We are providing £15 million for peatland restoration through our nature for climate fund. A lot of that money has already started to be dispensed to projects. We announced £16 million for projects between Cornwall and Northumberland. It is competitive and one has to put a good case, but if my right hon. Friend wants to consider making applications for Lindow Moss it would be well worth looking at.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I will return to the fishing dispute in my urgent question that you have kindly granted, Mr Speaker.

There are significant concerns that any introduction of gene editing to the Scottish food chain could be a huge nail in the coffin for sales to the EU, with the divergence of standards leading to further loss of the European market and the risk of Scotland’s reputation for high-quality food and drink production being tainted by association. What recent impact assessment has been conducted on changing trading standards in Scotland and the ability to trade with the EU in future?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

With adverse weather and flooding again affecting Cumbria and other areas in the north, will the Secretary of State join me in thanking everyone on the ground from the Environment Agency, local government, emergency services and volunteers? Can he reassure my constituents in Penrith and The Border that the Environment Agency will continue to have the funding and support that it needs to help, protect and support communities vulnerable to flooding?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend is right. There has been an amber warning in his area and we are keeping a very close eye on it. All the systems are in place through the Environment Agency; I hope he will agree that it gives a really professional service. We thank all its staff, and all the people in the area, for what they are doing. Please will he ensure that his constituents are all involved in the alert systems and have all the warnings available? It is really important to bring communities on board with us.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. That was not quick enough. We have got the question—I call the Minister.

[Rebecca Pow]

What was the question? [Laughter.]

[George Eustice]

I, too, am regularly contacted by schools in my constituency raising concerns around plastics. We have banned certain single-use plastics, we have introduced levies on carrier bags, and our extended producer responsibility scheme will reduce plastics further.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

Team Stroud is setting up the all-party parliamentary group for wetlands with WWT Slimbridge. Will the Minister join me in supporting the investment in nature and the importance of blue carbon habitat creation?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am so pleased to hear about the project; I absolutely support it and would love to visit. Wetlands are so important, on so many grounds. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust does superb work: carbon capture, flood storage, biodiversity, nature—it does it all.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Sewage Pollution: Whitburn

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

It is a pleasure, as ever, Madam Deputy Speaker, to see you in the Chair. I thank the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for securing this debate on sewage pollution. Sewage is obviously quite a topic this week. I do not know whether securing this debate was a coincidence, but it is certainly the subject in which we have all been much immersed. Water quality is a Government priority and it has been one of my personal priorities since becoming the Environment Minister.

I want to get something very clear at the outset, as there were some somewhat aggressive comments right at the beginning of the hon. Member’s speech. This Government are totally committed to protecting the environment—that is why we are bringing forward the Environment Bill, a landmark piece of legislation—and totally committed to protecting our seas. Spurious comments made about the Government voting to allow raw sewage into the sea are completely inaccurate, as has now been pointed out on many fronts.

A really aggressive social media campaign is being run on this, to the detriment of many MPs, including death threats. We all need to act with a little more kindness and respect in this Chamber. We voted for six pages of measures in the Environment Bill when I was here last week at the Dispatch Box, and they are all things that will prevent raw sewage from going into the sea.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I would like to correct some of the Minister’s points. I was not aggressive; I was stating facts. I am very disappointed that people have had death threats, and of course I would not condone that. I was simply relaying facts and what happened in last week’s votes. If the Government were confident about last week’s votes, why on earth have they U-turned?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Member for that. There has been no U-turn whatever. As I said, we have six pages of clauses in the Environment Bill committing to reducing sewage in our watercourses, all with essential steps that we have to take in order to fully tackle this whole issue. We have now announced a legal duty on water companies to take action to reduce harm from overflows. I am going to outline all the overall measures that we are dedicated to in this Government. There has been no U-turn whatever. Again, that is spurious spinning of the facts. I want to get that on the record.

I will talk a little about the sewer systems, to get all that clear. Many of our sewer systems are combined systems where sewage is combined with rainwater. During and after heavy and prolonged rain, the capacity of combined sewer systems can be exceeded. Storm overflows were a design feature of the Victorian sewers. They act as a release valve to discharge excess sewage in rainwater into the rivers and the sea if the capacity of the sewage system is exceeded. This protects properties from flooding and from sewage backing up in these kinds of extreme weather. Historically, they were designed only to be used in very infrequent, exceptional weather, but water companies are now relying on them far too often. Water companies have failed to adequately reduce sewage discharges. That is unacceptable, and I have said so unequivocally. That is why we are taking action, particularly through the Environment Bill.

I want to lay out the sources of pollution that we are dealing with in our rivers and marine spaces. The largest contributor to water pollution is agriculture—that is, 40% of pollution—and the water industry accounts for 36% of water pollution. Of that, a fifth is from the storm sewage overflows, but four fifths is from water that is already treated in treatment works and goes into the river. A lot of that contains too much phosphate, for example, which is one of the things polluting our rivers. That is just to get this into perspective.

Clearly, action is necessary to tackle the issue on all fronts. That is why we are asking the water industry to do so much more on the environment. However, I want to put on the record that investment in this area since privatisation has been over £30 billion, so the water industry has actually invested a lot of money since 1990. Some £3.1 billion is being invested in storm overflows between 2020 and 2025. But to tackle the increasing pressures on our water environment, we really do need to do more. Reducing the frequency of the use of the storm sewage discharges is really important. On those grounds, I recently set up the storm overflow taskforce, which was tasked with a whole lot of assessments but also reporting back on what the cost of total elimination of the storm overflow outflows would be, as well as on a range of other combinations in reducing their use.

I want to take issue again with the stats. Nobody gave spurious statistics about this. The taskforce’s report is shortly to be published. I will share some stats with the hon. Member as she raised the issue and we need to get the record straight on that as well.

To reduce these overflows to zero, the taskforce has come back after much research to say that the cost would be between £150 billion and £300 billion. That would be done through increasing the size of the infrastructure, but there would still probably be some use of the overflows if we have massive storms. If we then wanted to completely separate our system so that we had one pipe for rainwater and one pipe for sewage, the taskforce estimate, after much research, that that would cost between £350 billion and £600 billion. The hon. Lady will be able to see that data clearly published, potentially tomorrow. We are happy to share that data with her just to get that really clear.

I have referred to some of the other measures that we are implementing to show we are determined as a Government to tackle the issue. We have set a new set of strategic priorities for the industry’s regulator, Ofwat. It is the first time any Government have set the direction in which water companies must take steps to significantly reduce the frequency and volume of sewage discharges from storm overflows. The regulator should ensure that funding should be approved to let the water companies do that. That is a really important point. As the Environment Secretary set out yesterday, we will now put that instruction on a firm legal footing. So no U-turns have occurred; this work was all in train. That direction will be enshrined in law.

I will just look in detail at the comprehensive measures we already voted for last week in the Environment Bill, which demonstrate we mean business on tackling storm sewage overflows. Together with the legal duty, the direction to Ofwat and the targets that will be set on water quality, the Bill will make a significant difference. Last week, on 20 October, the Government put forward six pages of new law on this issue, of which the hon. Member should be completely aware. Just in case she is not, I will run through what those things were.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

The Minister is being very generous. I am fully aware of what is in the Environment Bill. This debate this evening is about a particular issue that has been ongoing in my constituency for more than 20 years. I was hoping that the Minister would come here tonight to discuss that, not what the Government are going to do in the future. She is already aware of the problems at Whitburn; we have corresponded about it repeatedly. I would like to know what action will be taken for me and my constituents, because this problem is ruining our beach and has been for decades.

[Rebecca Pow]

I am very well aware of that, but it was the hon. Member who started on all these other, much wider areas, so I thought I would set the record straight. The point is—I will get to her area—that all these measures should and will make a difference in her area. That is the point.

There is a duty on the Government to publish a plan before September 2022 to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows, a duty on the Government to report to Parliament on implementing the plan, a duty on water companies to publish data on the storm overflow operation on an annual basis, and a duty on the Environment Agency to publish data on storm overflows from water companies.

Further amendments set clear objectives, such as a duty on water companies to report discharges occurring and ceasing in near real-time—within an hour. That should really help in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and she should be on that to make sure it happens. There is also a duty on water companies to put gadgetry up and downstream of the outflows to monitor them. Again, that will genuinely help if there is still a problem in her area.

We are looking at schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 on sustainable urban drainage and we are bringing in sewerage management plans. The water company in the hon. Lady’s area, like every water company, will now have to produce drainage and sewerage management plans so we can clearly see their power of direction and how they will reduce the use of storm overflows.

I now turn to the bit the hon. Lady has been waiting for on Whitburn. I hear what she said. My intelligence tells me that a great deal of work has been done in her area to intercept storm overflows and decrease the frequency of the discharges. I believe there is an out-to-sea discharge that is 1.5 km out.

The sewage interceptor scheme that protects the bathing waters that the hon. Lady mentioned was completed in 2017, as she said, at a cost of £10 million. The idea was to tackle any sewage discharges. The scheme includes a combination of storm water storage, removing surface water in sewers, and sustainable urban drainage systems—including, interestingly, rainwater gardens at some local schools. The stats tell us that the bathing waters have continued to receive excellent quality status, which is what we want for our bathing waters.

The stats and the intelligence that the hon. Lady has recounted tonight are contrary to the data that I have. On those grounds, I would be very happy to meet her to look at what she is saying. I am the Environment Minister and I care about water quality, so I am genuinely slightly mortified to hear that different data. Clearly, a lot of parties are involved and she seems to have engaged with many of them. I am happy to meet her, as I will any Member of Parliament who comes to me with any environmental issue that I think is not right. I will leave it there.

Question put and agreed to.

COP26: Limiting Global Temperature Rises

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

Temperatures are certainly rising in this Chamber, which demonstrates the passion for the issue on both sides. We have some varying and different views, but we all agree that this is a crisis that we have to tackle. Today’s debate highlights how critical COP26 is in securing the commitments we need to keep the temperature rises that are so affecting climate change to 1.5° of warming, and to bring us towards our goals of the Paris agreement and the UN framework convention on climate change.

Although I respect the passion of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), and her leaning for the agenda—indeed, we worked closely together on much of it over the years when I was a Back Bencher—I was dismayed by her total negativity. I thank Members on the Government Benches for their positivity about the agenda, as well as the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) who made a positive speech.

Before I turn to the international agenda, I want to thank our local groups and initiatives for their work on the ground, such as the Bishop’s Stortford Climate Group, the Gloucestershire tree planters, Climate Action Ilkley, my own Somerset UK Youth Parliament and the projects that were mentioned in Islington North. They are doing so much on this agenda. It is important to bring the people with us, and we can.

To go back to COP26, ahead of the event the President-designate and Ministers have been asking countries to deliver on our four key goals: emission reductions, adaptation, finance and working together. On emissions, when the UK took over the COP26 presidency, less than 30% of the global economy was covered by a net zero target, and now 80% of the global economy has a net zero or a carbon neutrality commitment and over 100 countries have submitted or enhanced their 2030 targets. I call that good progress.

Increasing ambition and action on adaptation is an absolutely key COP26 priority, with actions backing it up, and the adaptation action coalition is working on sharing knowledge and good practices. Finance, which has been heavily touched on today, is absolutely key to this agenda. The $100 billion that developed countries have committed to is about trust, and it is critical in helping developing countries to transition to cleaner economies and to protect those worst affected by the impacts of climate change. I think all hon. Members and my hon. Friends across these Benches understand that.

By the way, we will actually spend more in percentage terms on international development than America, Japan and Canada, contrary to some of the things being spread by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. We have a huge focus on finance. We have doubled our international climate finance to at least £11.6 billion between 2020 and 2025. We have two new finance initiatives under way for biodiversity funding.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will not give way, because I do not have much time, sadly.

Some 75 financial institutions representing €12 trillion have committed to protecting and restoring biodiversity investment in relation to climate change, and the Green Climate Fund is providing $9 billion to restore ecosystems. I very much hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) said about climate finance transparency. I think this is all so important.

We have seen significant progress at the UN General Assembly. The UN has committed to doubling funding to $11.4 billion, which was followed by announcements from the European Commission, Denmark, Sweden, Monaco, Canada, Japan, Germany, the UK, France and the EU. So there is a great deal going on on this agenda, which is not to say that more is not also needed. The COP President-designate has been liaising with countries around the world to get them on board, and to get them to share their commitments because, as everyone has said today, this is not just about the UK.

We are seeing extreme weather conditions all around us, with extreme flooding, wildfires and, even here, flash floods, as well as the terrible climate-induced famine in Madagascar that was referred to eloquently. This has really focused the mind—has it not?—on the fact that this is real, and we have to deal with it. That brings me to how our net zero strategy demonstrates that this Government understand that. This is moving us to clean power, with hundreds of thousands of well-paid jobs on this agenda, and leveraging in £90 billion of private investment.

[Bob Seely]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I will not give way.

Contrary to what the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) said, there is a skills and training agenda to back this up. People from the oil industry are already transitioning to the offshore wind, and indeed to geothermal power in Cornwall. I went to have a look at that myself, and what an exciting project that is and could be.

The Prime Minister did such good work at the G7. Just this week, he announced at the global investment summit 18 new trade and investment deals, which will support green growth and create at least another 30,000 new jobs across the UK, thanks to £9.7 billion of foreign investment. It has been quite a week.

That brings me to nature. We must not forget that, because the other side of the climate change coin is biodiversity loss. That is where I come in as the nature recovery Minister, and it is why this Government have made that such a priority. We have committed in law to halt the decline of species abundance by 2030. No other country has done this. It is an amazing commitment, and we should not forget it.

We worked further on the Environment Bill in this House last night, and I think that that shows what a priority nature recovery is. The convention on biological diversity from COP15, and the Kunming declaration, also committed to bending the curve on biodiversity loss. So much is going on, and our nature-based solution work in this country is committed to demonstrating, at home, that we can use nature to tackle climate change. That then brings so many other benefits and spinoffs in holding water, restoring flooding, and so much else.

At COP26 we have a nature day, which we are making an absolute priority. We will also focus on deforestation around the world, as that is an important part of what we will be doing. The forest, agriculture and commodity trade dialogue will be under way at COP26, as will the US lowering emissions by accelerating the forest finance initiative. We are taking action on climate change. We are leading by example and we are bringing others with us. Yes, it is an emergency and we have to do something about it, but we cannot be continuously negative. We have to be positive, lead by example, and take advantage of the opportunity in Glasgow.

Environment Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 2, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 3, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 12, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 28, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 31, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendment 33, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 75, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendments 4 to 11, 13 to 27, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 64, 69 and 70.

[Rebecca Pow]

I am delighted to be cracking on with the Environment Bill. It has dominated my whole life as an Environment Minister, but I hope we all agree that it has only got the stronger for it. Make no mistake that this is a landmark piece of legislation that will increase our resource efficiency and biodiversity, drive improvements in air and water quality, and put us on the sustainable trajectory for the future that I believe we all want and need.

Even though the Bill has not been before the House for some time, it has grown, developed and strengthened in that time. My officials have been working tirelessly with all others involved to bring forward a whole range of measures in the Bill. We have already launched five local nature recovery strategy pilots, we have appointed Dame Glenys Stacey as chair-designate of the office for environmental protection, and we have consulted on the extended producer responsibility, the deposit return scheme and consistent recycling collections in England.

The Bill is packed with positive measures, but I am delighted that the Government have improved it even further. [Interruption.] There is lots of agreement from the Opposition Benches—excellent. Lords amendment 4 and its consequential amendments will require the Secretary of State to set a new, historic, legally binding target to halt the decline of species by 2030. That is a bold, vital and world-leading commitment. It forms the core of the Government’s pledge to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.

In the same vein, the Government acknowledge that the climate and biodiversity situation is an emergency. I am very pleased to say that that was referenced by the Prime Minister himself, who pledged to

“meet the global climate emergency”

in his foreword to the net zero strategy, which was published just yesterday. However, addressing those twin challenges requires action rather than declarations, which is why the Government are acting now. We have committed to set a new historic legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I genuinely thank the Minister for all the incredible work she has done. She talks about the importance of biodiversity. Does she understand that I found it a little frustrating that the Government did not look in a better way and more closely at my amendment, which would have closed the loophole on sites of special scientific interest? Currently, the loophole allows an SSSI to effectively be concreted over, damaging the biodiversity she wishes to protect. Even at this late stage, will the Government look again at that SSSI amendment, please?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. Obviously, we take SSSIs extremely seriously under their designations. There is a set pathway for SSSIs and for looking after them, but I think he will agree, if he listens to what I have to say, that the Bill contains some very strong measures on biodiversity, which are much needed and will help us to that trajectory of restoring nature.

I was saying that we have a legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance. The UK was also the first economy to set a target of net zero emissions by 2050. Our target for the sixth carbon budget is world-leading. The “Net Zero Strategy” published yesterday builds on the 10-point plan, the energy White Paper, the transport decarbonisation plan, the hydrogen strategy, and the heat and building strategy, setting out our ambitious plans across all key sectors of the economy to reach net zero. This is an all-in approach.

Of course, it is not just our domestic approach that counts. Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss is our No. 1 international priority, which is why we are driving forward our COP26 presidency and playing a leading role in developing an ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework due to be adopted at the convention on biological diversity COP15. Therefore, putting the declaration in Lords amendment 1 in law, although well-intentioned, is not necessary.

Lords amendment 2 would require the Government to set a legally binding target on soil health. I would like to be clear with the House and the other place that we are currently considering how to develop the appropriate means of measuring soil health, which could be used to inform a future soils target. However, we do not yet have the reliable metrics needed to set a robust target by October next year and to measure its progress. If we accepted the amendment, we could be committing to doing something that we cannot deliver or might not even know if we have delivered. I am sure hon. Members and hon. Friends would agree that that is not a sensible approach.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am a little concerned to hear the Minister say that they are still not ready to go ahead. From my recollection of the past few years, we talked about this issue in the Agriculture Public Bill Committee and when this Bill was in Committee. Has work actually started on this and how long does she think the programme of work will take? Why is it taking so long?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am pleased that the hon. Member, like me, is deeply passionate about soil. I think I held the first ever debate on soil in Parliament when I was a Back Bencher. It is something that I am personally very keen on. We believe we cannot commit to set the actual target until we have that baseline of robust metrics. We consulted and are working very widely with experts and specialists. Indeed, a range of pilots, tests and trials are running related to soil. Instead, I can provide reassurance that the Government, as announced in the other place on Report, will be bringing forward a soil health action plan for England. It will provide a clear strategic direction to develop a healthy soil indicator, soil structure methodology and a soil health monitoring scheme. All those things are absolutely necessary before we can set the actual target, but there is a huge amount of work going on, on the soil agenda. I am personally pushing that forward, as is the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), with whom I am working very closely on this matter.

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

I know the Minister is personally committed to the soil agenda—I remember sitting with her on the Environmental Audit Committee—and I am sure she shares my concern about this being hugely delayed. She talks about the action plan, but the draft outline will not even be consulted on until spring next year. What can we do to try to speed that up? It is a massively serious issue, as she knows, yet the signals from the Government are that they are treating it with complacency.

[Rebecca Pow]

I completely disagree with the hon. Lady, although I am listening to what she is saying. There is no complacency whatever on this. In fact, soil will be one of the top priorities in our new environmental land management and sustainable farming initiative schemes. So it will be prioritised. It is the stuff of life. All farmers and landowners understand that we have to get it right. The soil health action plan will absolutely drive that forward, as have action plans in many other areas, such as peat. We are now bringing that all into being, so I can categorically say that this will happen. I really hope that that gives her some reassurance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for presenting the Bill. We really do need to get to this target quickly. We also have the situation whereby the World Health Organisation is reducing the amount of PM_2.5 that can be in the atmosphere. Are the Government taking this very seriously—not only the target that we have had all along but the new target that the WHO is setting?

[Rebecca Pow]

My hon. Friend takes a huge amount of interest in this issue and I know my officials met him very recently to discuss the detail.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Rebecca Pow]

I am just going to answer this question.

Yes, the WHO has already lowered what it thinks is the safe limit, which I think demonstrates how complicated the issue is. It would be wrong to set a number on the face of the Bill without being absolutely certain that it was the right one—as my hon. Friend understands. I have spent a great deal of time on this issue with academics and scientists, and I am happy to share with others if that is helpful. We must make sure we get this right before we set the target. To be clear, to achieve even the 10 micrograms per metre squared in our cities would require significant change in all our lives. It would likely introduce policies aimed at restricting traffic kilometres by as much as 50% or more, a total ban on solid fuel burning including wood, and significant changes to farming practices to reduce ammonia, which reacts in the air to form particulate matter.

[Mr Sheerman]

In the spirit of what we all felt and discussed after the tragedy of last week, I feel passionate about all these issues but I am determined to be good-tempered and pleasant to everyone in the whole of the debate. Along those lines, I have a passionate interest in clean air and have worked in this area for 27 years—I started an organisation called the Westminster Commission for Road Air Quality 27 years ago. The fact of the matter is, however, that this is glacially slow movement. We are poisoning pregnant women, older people and children in every town and city. Why are we not committed to sustainable development goals? Why do we not have a sustainable development community in every town and city? It all seems so glacially slow. I can almost see the spectral vision of Lord Lawson at the back there—that is what really worries me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and for all his work in this area. In the spirit of being friendly, I have a smile on my face, but I would say that we are not moving slowly. He did not even reference the clean air strategy, which the WHO commended as being a world-leading piece of legislation. That is already bringing in measures across the country. There is also the £3.6 billion in the nitrogen oxide programme. The new air quality Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill)—who is sitting here, has a very big health interest. We are taking this extremely seriously. We need to look at the wider context and the Bill will then set the two targets—not just the average target, but the population exposure target, which is really important.

[Geraint Davies]

Given that the World Health Organisation had a target of 10 micrograms per cubic metre, which we are asking for in this amendment, and it is now 5 micrograms, does that not show that the only direction is down? Ten micrograms is a minimum standard that we surely need to achieve both to save tens of thousands of lives and to tell the world, through COP26—8.7 million people are dying every year of air pollution—that global Britain means showcasing the fact that we are willing to provide legally binding targets to deliver on public health, care costs, productivity and a cleaner, greener, better world.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. We have met many, many times and we share a common interest in this issue. We are not arguing about its importance—[Interruption.] He is encouraging me—I thank him, but I do not need any encouragement actually; we realise how serious this is. The point is that we will be setting the target and we will be showing the world. We will announce that target next October, but we will consult on it before that. It would be wrong to set, for example, a specific number, if, indeed, we found that that number should be lower. I will leave it there.

We have to have a public consultation on this issue and we will do so early next year. Members of the public will want to understand not only the health impacts, but what impacts the measures that will be taken will have on their life. But we will not be sitting around. The consultation will allow us to bring forward the final target in October, and we cannot miss that target.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I understand that the Minister wants a consultation. I see good sense in that if we are to take the public with us, and I understand that she may be concerned about setting targets now. However, in areas such as mine—not inner cities, but suburban constituencies—there is a real issue with particulate pollution. We have a real problem with hotspots. Even if we are having a consultation until October, for heaven’s sake, can we not have a hotspots policy specifically to target areas where particulates are clearly high already? At least if we were doing that, it would be a reassurance to many of my constituents.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but we already have our clean air strategy, as I said, and our local authority fund, which we have recently increased by millions. I urge him to have a look at that fund and I urge his authority to apply. Many authorities are already taking their own measures because they know, for example, where the hotspots are. He makes a very sound point and the exposure target will really help those hotspots, which is why it is so important.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). Further to the point about air pollution and working with the public, is the Minister also aware of the potentially significant business opportunities for vehicle and, indeed, cycle manufacturers in shifting to a low-pollution approach? As the hon. Gentleman said, local authorities are natural partners, but there are also partners in the private sector that could benefit hugely if the Government were able to make a clearer statement and agree at an earlier point with the WHO’s target.

[Rebecca Pow]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a keen runner and gets out and about, probably on his bicycle as well, and he makes a very good point. This is why our net zero strategy, our road to decarbonisation for transport and the £2 billion that we have invested in cycling and walkways are so important. All those funds are being incorporated when local authorities apply for their budgets to deal with their hotspots. The clean air zone areas, which we are bringing in across the country, take advantage of exactly the opportunities that he raises.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Minister is being generous and kind in giving way again. Has she seen the experiment in the cities of Oxford and London, where air quality detectors are on every waste truck? Every week, waste trucks go to every house in every street in the country. If we put those on every waste truck—and it is cheap—we would know the hotspots and the British public would know very quickly what sort of atmosphere their children were growing up in and what air we are breathing. Will she have a serious look at that and, in the process, discuss it with Sir Stephen Holgate, who is such a magnificent expert on all that?

[Rebecca Pow]

I would suggest a meeting with the new air quality Minister—actually, I meet Sir Stephen Holgate regularly, as he is one of our advisers. We are increasing monitoring across the country for exactly the purposes that the hon. Gentleman mentions: the better the data, the more we know what action we can take.

The targets that we are working on are being carefully approached with experts such as Sir Stephen Holgate, as well as others from Imperial College London and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. We have two expert panels: the air quality expert group, chaired by Professor Alastair Lewis, and the committee on the medical effects of air pollutants, chaired by Anna Hansell of the University of Leicester. That will ensure that we get the targets right and that they are informed by the latest atmospheric science and health evidence. We will, of course, share those findings with the World Health Organisation.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

I am going to plough on for a bit, because I think I have been pretty generous so far. The two targets that we will set—a concentration target and a population exposure reduction target—will work together to both reduce PM_2.5 in areas with the highest levels and drive the continuous improvement that we need. A focus on reducing population exposure, not just a concentration-based target, recognises that there is no safe level of PM_2.5, and a scientific approach is absolutely the right way to go. We recognise that this will not be easy and that we need to engage with society to bring it along with us.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The Minister is a doughty champion on this issue so I rise with some degree of trepidation. May I ask her one question? The data is all going in one direction. Do the Government have the power, if they see something so pressing, not to have to engage with consultation, so they can just say, “On the face of this, it is absolutely clear that the time for action is now. We don’t have to consult—just get on and do it”? Is that within her arsenal?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, but I think we would have as many critics for not consulting as we did for consulting, so that is the right way to go because there are always other views. I think we have agreed how important it is by saying that we have to set a target. Not only are we setting one target, but we have agreed to set two, and there can be all sorts of other targets within that.

[Simon Hoare]

I was not criticising the decision that the Minister has taken to consult on this issue. I merely inquire, in a spirit of curiosity, whether she as the Minister or the Secretary of State have the power—to use at some point—to set aside any requirement for consultation and just to act? Theoretically, is that power there?

[Rebecca Pow]

I imagine my hon. Friend knows the answer to that.

[Simon Hoare]

I do not.

[Rebecca Pow]

The method we choose is to consult and to take expert advice in everything we do, particularly in a Department such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is rooted in science. I will move on now, and I hope that I have made it very clear throughout all this discussion about air quality that, for the reasons I have laid out, we cannot support this amendment.

To turn to amendment 12, I would like to reiterate much of what Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park said in the other place. Our world-leading targets framework will drive action by successive Governments to protect and enhance our natural world. Introducing legally binding interim targets, as the amendment proposes, would be both unnecessary and detrimental to our targets framework and our environmental ambitions. The amendment would undermine the long-term nature of the targets framework: it would force us to meet legally binding targets every five years on complex environmental systems.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

We are so delighted to see my hon. Friend in this role, taking the Bill through, but why does she think that there is a temptation for Parliament to legislate for targets, which the Government seem to find very unhelpful? Will she reflect on the fact that the public at large are getting very little hard data or measured metrics about how we are doing onr4321a achieving all these goals? Perhaps the answer is not to legislate for more targets, but for the Government to acknowledge that they need to do much better at accumulating data and presenting it to the public, so that the public are engaged and have more confidence in what the Government are doing.

[Rebecca Pow]

Data is key, and science is key. As I mentioned—and I was slightly disparaged—that is why we want to do the soil health monitoring: to gather the data. When I talk later about storm sewage overflows, the House will hear that our approach is very much about getting the data. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the more we can explain things to the public, the better. Personally, I do not think that we do that enough. Perhaps the press could help us.

We were talking about interim targets. Certain habitats take a very long time to change or recover, such as peat bogs, native woodlands and the marine environment. Five years would potentially be too short to get a result. This should not be just a tick-box exercise towards a five-yearly target. The Bill’s very robust statutory cycle of monitoring, annual reporting and five-yearly reviews, combined with regular scrutiny from the office for environmental protection, will ensure that we meet the interim targets set in the environmental improvement plans.

Hon. Members who were on the Bill Committee will be well aware of the whole process of reporting, monitoring and feeding back, which is constant. It comes under scrutiny as well, so even though an interim target is not legally binding, we will still be held to account for meeting it and heading towards it. If it is not right or if we are not making enough progress, the OEP will certainly have something to say about it, and indeed so will Parliament when we come to report on it. I recognise the concerns raised by peers, but it is our view that the changes made in the other place would lead to a detrimental impact on the enhancement of the environment and should be reversed.

I turn to Lords amendment 28, which I have been informed by the parliamentary authorities invokes financial privilege, but on which I still wish to reiterate the Government’s position. The Bill embeds environmental principles that will guide future policy making to protect the environment. The Government firmly maintain that exempting some limited areas from the duty to have regard provides flexibility in relation to finances, defence and national security.

First, the exemption for the armed forces, defence and national security remains essential to provide vital flexibility to preserve the nation’s protection and security. Defence land and defence policy are fundamentally linked. If the duty were applied to defence policy or Ministry of Defence land, it could result in legal challenges that could slow our ability to respond to urgent threats.

Secondly, applying the duty to taxation would constrain Treasury Ministers’ ability to alter our financial position to respond to the changing needs of our public finances. The Treasury’s world-leading Green Book already mandates the consideration of environmental impacts, climate change and natural capital in spending. That applies to spending bids from Departments, including for a fiscal event.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rebecca Pow]

For the last time, and then I will need to make some progress.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am very conscious that a lot of Members want to speak and that the debate has to finish at 4.36 pm, so I think we need to bear that in mind.

[Caroline Lucas]

Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is only my second intervention, and it will be my last for the moment.

On environmental principles, may I ask the Minister about the consultation on the policy statement? As I understand it, the Government’s response to it is still delayed. Can she tell us when we can expect to see it and why it has been delayed for so long?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Member for that question. In true Government-speak, I will say “shortly” and move on.

I make it clear that the exemption for

“spending or the allocation of resources”

refers to central spending decisions only. Individual policies that involve spending by Departments will still need to have due regard to the policy statement. Spending review and fiscal event decisions must be taken with consideration to a wide range of policy priorities, including macroeconomic issues that are too remote from the environmental principles for those principles to be directly applicable. For example, principles such as “polluter pays” cannot be applied to the allocation of overall departmental budgets.

I turn to the office for environmental protection. Lords amendments 31 and 75 would remove, respectively, the power for the Secretary of State to offer guidance to the OEP and the equivalent power for Ministers in Northern Ireland. I reiterate the Government’s commitment to establishing the OEP as an independent body. However, as the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible to Parliament for the OEP, the guidance power is required to ensure that there is appropriate accountability and that the OEP continues to operate effectively.

I acknowledge the concerns that have been raised about the power for the Secretary of State to issue guidance for the OEP. Our Government amendment (b) will therefore reintroduce the additional provision, first added in the other place, to ensure that Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly can scrutinise draft guidance before it is issued. The Secretary of State must respond before final guidance can be laid and have effect. The guidance power is not a power of direction; it will simply ensure that there is appropriate accountability and that the OEP continues to operate effectively. That is why the Government believe that it should remain part of the Bill.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

What would happen if the Northern Ireland Assembly said that it did not agree with the legislation proposed here? Would Westminster overrule it?

[Rebecca Pow]

Northern Ireland is included in this, but it has to decide whether it wants to commence the powers. It is up to it to do so.

Lords amendment 33 relates to the OEP’s enforcement powers—a complex issue, but an important one. I want to be clear with the House about what the amendment would do: it would remove protections for third parties brought into the OEP’s process of environmental review that have been specifically designed in recognition of the unique nature of this type of legal challenge. That is unacceptable. The OEP will be able to bring cases to court, potentially long after the decisions in question have been taken and outside the standard judicial review limits. Impacts on third parties must therefore be considered.

To give an example, quashing planning permission or consent for a block of flats many months or years after the decision was taken, when significant building works might already have commenced, would result in substantial hardship. We need to ensure that the key principles of fairness and certainty are upheld for third parties who have acted in good faith on the basis of certain decisions. The amendment would offer no such protections for third parties, so we cannot accept it.

I will conclude by briefly mentioning other Government amendments made in the Lords in relation to devolution, which I hope this House will support. Those amendments will, among other things, promote co-operation between the OEP and devolved environmental governance bodies and create clarity and consistency on the use of the environmental principles across the Union.

I am pleased to be backing the Environment Bill

Royal Assent

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measure:

Health and Social Care Levy Act 2021

Compensation (London Capital & Finance plc and Fraud Compensation Fund) Act 2021

Safeguarding (Code of Practice) Measure 2021.

Environment Bill

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I very much echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) said about air pollution. Earlier, the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), mentioned that the Mayor of Bristol had spoken of the M32 going right into the heart of the city. It is the border between my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire). It goes through those inner-city areas, and we know that children living in those areas are particularly at risk.

When we have discussed that in various Select Committees and during the passage of Bills, I have found the Minister’s attempted justification for not adopting the World Health Organisation targets very weak, and I am afraid that the same is true today. Surely people’s right to have a log-burning stove is more than outweighed by the fact that there are 40,000 deaths a year because of air pollution. Surely that is far more important. However, other Members have more than done justice to the need to back the Lords on their air pollution amendments, so I want to talk briefly about Lords amendment 1, which has not been spoken about much.

There is no question but that we are in the midst of climate and ecological emergencies that simply are not being taken seriously enough, not just by the Government but by many others who, through their actions, are contributing to the problem and not helping to find solutions. I am usually quite sceptical about the value of grand declarations if they are not backed up by action—and often they are not backed up by action—but I think that formal recognition in the Bill of the gravity of the situation could make a difference.

We have led the way on that in Bristol. We formally declared a climate emergency in 2018 and a biodiversity emergency in February last year. As a result, we have a wide-ranging “one city” ecological emergency strategy, which serves as a blueprint for action on that front. Really, that is what it is about—not just making the declaration, but using that declaration as a way of stressing the urgency and driving action.

I support the Lords amendments on the office for environmental protection. The Bill should have been in force, and the OEP ready for action, for the end of the Brexit transition period. There is just no excuse for the Government’s delays and prevarications—or, it has to be said, for their reneging on their promise to base the OEP in Bristol, which I will not stop reminding them about. We have ended up with precisely the sort of governance gap that many of us warned about, which is shameful. However, now that we are where we are, we ought to accept the Lords amendments, which would ensure that the OEP is independent in nature, that it is able to properly hold Ministers to account for environmental wrongdoing, and that it has control over its own budget.

Finally, the fact that we are so far away from meeting our environmental obligations on air pollution, water quality—I think that will come up in the next group of amendments—and protection of biodiversity only reinforces the case for a strong OEP and more accountability for Ministers. However, there is nothing in the Bill to compel Ministers to act early to meet targets or take action where interim targets are missed. We have these long-term targets way into the future—we have a 25-year environment plan—but if we do not have binding interim targets, it is so easy to kick things into the long grass and say that we are working towards a date at some distant point in the future. We then find that that distant point in the future is suddenly upon us and nothing has been done to ensure that we reach the targets.

Lords amendment 12 would ensure that there are binding interim targets in the Bill, which is so important for our ability to hold the Government to account and to see incremental change that will get us to our final ambition. That needs to be kept in the Bill.

[Rebecca Pow]

With the leave of the House, I will respond to the debate. May I reiterate the condolences that have been expressed? I was not able to be in the Chamber earlier. I have not worn my environmental leaf suit today, as a mark of respect to those two great men—Sir David Amess, who did so much on animal welfare, which is very relevant to my Department, and James Brokenshire. I think we all feel the same about them. We are proud to have known them, and we send our condolences to their families. I am terribly sorry.

I thank all hon. Members across the House for their contributions. As ever, whatever our differences, we listen to what has been said and work very closely together on these matters. I will whizz through some of the questions and comments that were raised before summing up.

Let me refer first to the comments by the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), just to get the devolution issue clarified. She talked about this Government not respecting the Scottish Government. The power of the Scottish Parliament to legislate respects the exercising of reserved functions by Ministers of the Crown. That was tested recently in the Supreme Court, which agreed with the Government. That judgment by the Supreme Court directly supports Lords amendment 29, tabled by the Government.

[Deidre Brock]

rose—

[Rebecca Pow]

I am going to leave it there, because I have so many comments to get through.

I want to refer now to particular questions and comments raised about the OEP. We heard some comparisons with the EU, in particular from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), with whom we have had some very constructive discussions, as he said—I thank him for those comments. The OEP’s enforcement powers are different but will operate more effectively than those of the European Commission. The OEP will be able to liaise directly with the public body in question—that does not happen with the European Commission—to investigate and resolve alleged serious breaches of environmental law in a more timely and targeted manner.

On environmental review, the OEP can apply for judicial review remedies, such as mandatory quashing orders, subject to appropriate safeguards. That will work to ensure compliance with environmental law. The Court of Justice of the EU cannot issue those kinds of remedies to member states, so we truly believe the OEP is stronger, not weaker.

The right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) mentioned the guidance power. Paragraph 17 of schedule 1 already requires that:

“In exercising functions in respect of the OEP, the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to protect its independence.”

The guidance power does not grant the Secretary of State any ability to intervene in decision making about specific or individual cases. The OEP does not have to follow the guidance where it has clear reasons not to do so. It has to provide its own enforcement policy. I think Dame Glenys would take issue with the idea that she is somehow heading up a weaker organisation. I do not think she would have taken on the job if she felt that that was the case.

On the biodiversity emergency, we have set a duty to set an additional legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. If that—not to mention the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday—does not demonstrate that we understand there is an emergency I do not know what else does.

Soil was mentioned by a number of colleagues, all of whom agreed that we need data. Our soil health action plan, to pick up on the points made by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), demonstrates that we really mean business with soil. Many of our other policies will be about working on soil health. It is not just about what is in the Bill; it is about all our wider policies whereby we are taking soil health extremely seriously.

Air quality was rightly raised by many hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), and the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale and for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi). On what is the right number for the target, I reiterate that whatever the WHO said—whether 10 micrograms per metre cubed or now five—its analysis has not and did not outline a pathway to achieve that target. That is why it is so important that we gather the evidence and the science. I was so pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton himself pointed that out and agreed that this is the right approach. So many people today have mentioned the importance of getting the evidence and the data right.

I listened to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, but I assure him that we are not waiting for targets to be set to tackle the problem of air pollution. We are taking action now. One example is the legislation to phase out the sale of house coal and small volumes of wet wood, and to introduce emission standards for manufactured solid fuels for domestic burning across England. That was one of the big steps we have taken to cut down on PM_2.5.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am grateful for what the Minister says. Will she meet me to discuss the sort of mechanism we were talking about, so we might get a better focus on this issue?

[Rebecca Pow]

I hear what my hon. Friend says and I will reiterate that to the new Minister with responsibility for air quality. My hon. Friend makes good points. Many other measures are in place connected to our air quality strategy, but he may be right that they need to be pulled together in a clearer way. We acted on many of the measures on which the coroner gave us guidance after the very tragic case of Ella Kissi-Debrah. Our hearts go out to that family, and I am thankful for all the input.

Regarding amendment 1, I must reiterate that actions are what are necessary to combat the climate and biodiversity emergency, not legal declarations. On amendment 2, the soil health action plan will provide strategic direction to develop the metrics that we need for the soil health target, and I point hon. Members to the written ministerial statement on that. On amendment 3, we will continue to collaborate with experts to ensure that the consultation on air targets is based on the best evidence. In setting targets, we need to carry out detailed modelling, as I said.

Amendment 12 fundamentally undermines the long-term nature of the targets framework. It removes necessary flexibility and forces us to meet legally binding targets every five years on complex environmental issues. Regarding amendment 28, the Government firmly maintain the position that exempting some limited areas from the duty to “have due regard” provides necessary flexibility in relation to finances, defence and national security.

Turning to amendments 31 and 75, I must stress that the guidance power is required to ensure appropriate accountability for the OEP. Finally, amendment 33 is not acceptable because it removes all protections for third parties who were brought into the OEP’s process of environmental review. The Government are confident of their position on these matters and I hope that Members will support us in returning this position to the other place, so that we get our world-leading legislation onto the statute book.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Just to explain the process, I am anticipating five votes; the first vote will take 10 minutes and the others, consecutively, eight minutes, so I really would not go too far from the Lobbies. There will be three from the Labour party, one from the Lib Dems and one from the Scottish National party. If Deirdre Brock would approach the Chair while the first Division is taking place, I will explain the process for the SNP Division, because it is a bit more complicated.

Lords amendment 1 disagreed to.

Lords amendment 2 disagreed to.

Clause 2

Environmental targets: particulate matter

Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 3.—(Rebecca Pow.)

--- Later in debate ---

Protection of pollinators from pesticides

[Rebecca Pow]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 43.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 45, and Government amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendment 65, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 66, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 67, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (e) in lieu.

Lords amendment 94, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 95, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 46 to 63, 71 to 74, and 91 to 93.

[Rebecca Pow]

As we turn to amendments focused on the protection of nature, I would like to remind the House of some of the significant changes that the Government have made to the Bill since its introduction, which I hope hon. Members support. We have extended the requirement for biodiversity net gain to cover nationally significant infrastructure projects, which ensures that new nationally significant infrastructure projects, such as new roads, railways or airports, must contribute to our vision of a nature-positive future. That will also enable the Government to extend net gain to major projects in the marine environment once a suitable approach has been developed.

We have added a power to increase the period for which habitat must be maintained beyond 30 years across the whole net gain policy. The Secretary of State must keep under review whether the period could be increased. We have made it a legal requirement for the Government to produce guidance on how local planning authorities should have regard to local nature recovery strategies.

I turn to storm overflows. All the detail that I am about to outline demonstrates an absolute commitment to tackling the environmental harm caused by storm sewage overflows, on which we have taken significant action. Lords amendment 45, the majority of which has been put forward by the Government—I urge hon. Members to look at it—introduces an entire new chapter to the Water Industry Act 1991 on storm overflows to address that. It places a statutory requirement on the Government to produce a plan to reduce discharges from storm overflows and their adverse impacts before 1 September 2022, and commits the Government to taking action and reporting on progress to Parliament. We will also be required to produce a report on the actions that would be needed to eliminate discharges from storm overflows in England, and their costs and benefits, before 1 September 2022.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I certainly support the direction of Lords amendment 45. However, I want to ask the Minister why she is omitting lines 7 to 14 of the original amendment introduced by the Duke of Wellington in the other place, which would put a legal duty on water companies to take immediate action to tackle sewage pollution and so forth. Why has she taken some of the teeth out of this amendment?

[Rebecca Pow]

I hear what the hon. Member says, and for once I am really pleased that she almost supports what we are doing. I am outlining what we have put into the Bill since it was last here to demonstrate how we will be reducing the harm from these sewage storm overflows. The cumulative impact of all this will be to actually address the issue that we all so want to address. Crucially, we will have sewerage management plans in which water companies will have to explain and detail how they are going to be delivering a resilient sewerage system. We expect those plans to include considered actions for reducing storm overflows and their harm in line with the ambition set out in the Bill.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

As there is a lot of concern about this on both sides of the House, can the Minister give us some encouragement about what pace of change we can look forward to under her proposals? I think people want some reassurance that this is going to be tackled quite soon.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that, and honestly, people are coming up to me left, right and centre about this. I feel as strongly about it as everybody else, so I am so pleased we have got this into the Bill. I have to say that a lot of it is thanks to working with my right hon. Friend the Member for—[Hon. Members: “Ludlow.”] I have been to Ludlow, but I have a lot of data in my head! I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) would agree that we have worked unbelievably constructively to get what was going to be in his private Member’s Bill into this Bill, which is absolutely the right thing to do. I hope we are demonstrating that this is happening quickly. For example, we are requiring water companies to put in monitors above and below every storm sewage overflow to monitor the data. They will have to start that right now, because the sewerage plans coming forward in the Bill are already under way.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

The Minister will know that I am one of the people who keeps talking to her about this, and I pay tribute to her for all the work she has done on it. Yes, there are all these duties to report, to produce plans and so on, which is great, but should there not also be a duty on the water companies to actually do something, rather than just to report on what they have or have not achieved? If amendment (a) to Lords amendment 45 succeeds, will she consider whether it is possible to have a more tightly drawn, concise and effective duty on water companies?

[Rebecca Pow]

We have been speaking about this. I hear what my right hon. and learned Friend is saying, and I am listening. I am going to say that there is a dialogue, but I will leave it at that. However, there is so much more that will help with this issue, and the wider issue of water pollution, than what is in this Bill. I think he would agree that there are a lot of water issues to be dealt with that the water companies will be held to account for. One of the very strong things we are doing, which is not in the Bill, is producing our draft policy statement to Ofwat, the regulator. For the first time ever, we have put at the top of the agenda that it will have to get the water companies to address storm sewage overflows. I think we would all agree that they are necessary in an emergency, but they have been used far too frequently. I hope by all of this we are demonstrating what are doing, and that is why I am taking so long going through it. It has not started right now—well, not all of it—but when it does start, it will make a huge difference to the progressive reduction of harm.

[Mr Dhesi]

As has been said, it is great to hear about these plans, and we have been hearing about them for some time. Once we set aside all the blurb and the peripheral extraneous issues being outlined, are there any targets or deadlines? When will all English rivers be sewage free?

[Rebecca Pow]

I would argue that it is not blurb. The way we direct such changes is through policies such as these, and they will start to happen immediately. Water companies are totally aware of the policies, and through such measures we will cut down on harmful sewage storm overflows. Under the Bill we must also set a range of water targets. We have set up the storm overflows taskforce, which will report early next year on what the target should be for elimination. We will also have targets in other important areas of water quality, including phosphates, nitrates, waste water—all those areas are important and will be tackled. That is coming down the tracks imminently.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

The Minister is bringing in a fantastic Bill, but it is sad that we are not implementing the measures that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) brought before the House in his private Member’s Bill. They would have made it illegal to have sewage discharges after a certain date. The question “when?” is the right one, and the balancing argument is about how much it would cost, and how much it would add to consumers’ water bills. Does the Minister have that data? Do we know how much would need to be invested in each water area, and how much that would impact on bills, so that we can quantify how long it would take to do at a reasonable pace? That is what we need to know. Perhaps there will be a compromise on this issue, but at the moment I am afraid I am likely to follow my right hon. Friend into the Lobby in support of the Lords amendment.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend. This is an important issue and we have thought about it. The Government will come back and report on the costs and benefits; we are doing a whole analysis of that. As an approximate estimate, to get rid of or eliminate storm sewage overflows would cost between—these are very wide figures—£150 billion and £660 billion. One must consider the cost of bills, because there will be an impact on those. That is why I made the point earlier that a lot of other areas in connection with our rivers and our water are really important. We must also deal with those, and it must be proportionate. My hon. Friend is right, and we will soon have the data from our storm overflows taskforce, and from our duty to report on what the cost benefits would be of completely eliminating storm overflows. Such things are used far too frequently, but they are also an emergency measure that should potentially always remain, just in case we have to deal with huge floods.

Another area of work that needs to be done—we are doing it—involves levelling up and what was MHCLG but is now DLUHC, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities,. It is about sustainable development and what we do with drain water, all the rest of the water, and separating out our systems. This is a cross-departmental issue, and we are tackling some really important matters in the Bill.

The Bill also requires us to set and achieve at least one target in the priority area of water. Our policy paper, which was published in August 2020, set out the objectives for the water targets we were considering. Those include reducing pollution from agriculture, waste water, abandoned metal mines, and reducing water demand. All those issues are significant to the whole area we are talking about.

Outside the Bill, we have committed to undertaking a review of the case for implementing schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 in England. That schedule would set mandatory build standards for sustainable drainage schemes on new developments, which so many people have been calling for. Those are not mandatory at the moment, but to really have an effect, they need to be. We are reviewing that and, based on what we find, we will be working with DLUHC on that very issue.

We have moved further; with Lords amendments 46, 47, and 74, we will require water companies to do near real-time reporting of storm overflows and water quality monitoring upstream and downstream of storm overflows and sewage disposal works so that we have fully transparent data. People called for transparency of data in the debate on the previous group of amendments, and we will have it in relation to the impact of those things on our waters.

The first part of Lords amendment 45, new section 141A of the Water Industry Act 1991, was introduced in the other place by the Duke of Wellington and seeks to place a duty on sewerage undertakers to progressively reduce the harm from storm overflows and to ensure compliance with that duty. We have listened carefully to Parliament and, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow will agree, we have moved on this matter more than anything else in the Bill. I hope that I have made clear everything that we are bringing forward.

That is not to say that we are not listening; we are. I am confident in all the things I have outlined, together with the draft policy statement for Ofwat, which states that we expect it to

“incentivise water companies to significantly reduce the frequency and volume of sewage discharges from storm overflows.”

That is the pointer for the water companies really needing to work on this issue. I know that a group of colleagues from the Portsmouth area are banking on that. They are working with the water companies in the area on pollution issues. They have brought all the bodies together in a partnership to tackle their sewage overflow issues, and they need what is in the Bill to point them in the right direction. We have their full support, and I commend them for all the work that they are doing. There is a whole group of colleagues doing that.

We have been clear that we want to see fewer discharges of untreated sewage into rivers, lakes and seas. I am personally determined to see that happen, and I am really proud of the actions we are taking. Lines 7 to 14 of Lords amendment 45 are therefore unnecessary, and I ask the House to support amendment (a) to leave them out.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

There are a number of sewage works on the River Wharfe upstream of my constituency, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore)—I see that he is in his place—and we both have bathing water quality issues because of that. It would be useful to know, using the example of Portsmouth that the Minister gave, how the Bill will help us unlock that with Yorkshire Water to ensure that people are not bathing, in effect, with effluent, which is what happens nearly every day on the River Wharfe.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was proud to be part of getting bathing water designation in Otley. It is the first inland bathing water area that we have designated—we have loads around the coast—and it was a great project. However, he makes a good point, and when we are setting targets for water quality, the bathing water quality issue will very much be part of that.

I turn to Lords amendment 43, which would require that pesticide use in Great Britain can be authorised only if a competent authority is satisfied that there will be no negative effect on the health of honeybees or wild pollinator populations. I am as keen a supporter of bees and pollinators as anyone else here; I garden for wildlife and I do not use pesticides. I listened very carefully to the debate on this issue in the other place, but I am confident that there is effective regulation of pesticides to avoid harm, including to pollinators. We have consulted on a draft national action plan on the sustainable use of pesticides, which aims to minimise the risks of pesticides to human health and the environment. We will publish a final national action plan for pesticides by the end of this year. Central to the plan will be support for integrated pest management. We are supporting a shift towards greater use of IPM techniques. IPM involves designing pesticides out of farming systems as far as possible and includes increased use of nature-based, low toxicity solutions and precision technologies to manage pests, all of which will benefit pollinators.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I just have a very quick question. It is important that the farming sector and the industry understand pesticides and co-operation in farming, as that happens every day. What discussions has the Minister had with the National Farmers Union, for example, to work alongside it and ensure it does not have any issues?

[Rebecca Pow]

We work incredibly closely with our farmers. We could not do any of what we are trying to do without bringing our farmers on board. After all, they manage, own or run at least 70% of the land. Many are already doing good really work on integrated pest management. With some of our new grants we have launched for innovation and tech in particular, we will be working with them to go further down this road, especially through our environmental land management scheme, sustainable farming incentive and so on.

Our healthy bees plan 2030 sets out how we will work with beekeepers and bee farmers to improve honeybee health, and we are improving our understanding, including by supporting a national pollinator monitoring programme. Alongside all that, current pesticide legislation requires that pesticide products and their active substances have

“no unacceptable effects on the environment…having particular regard to its impact on non-target species”

which includes impacts on bees and other effective pollinators such as hoverflies, moths and beetles. Risk assessments made for active substances are subject to public consultation and establish the key risks posed by pesticides. We continue to make decisions on pesticide use based on scientific risk assessment.

Turning to Lords amendment 65, biodiversity loss is a defining challenge for our generation and we must act now. This landmark Bill ramps up domestic action, including a requirement to set a legally binding target to halt species decline in England by 2030. The powers under clause 113 and 114 form an important part and support the ambition for domestic nature recovery. We will bring forward a nature recovery Green Paper before the end of the year, which will set out our approach to driving nature recovery in England. It will include consideration of the scope to amend the habitats regulations, as well as broader exploration of our approach to site designations and species protections.

In adapting our approach to nature conservation, I agree we must maintain and enhance protections. The powers have been tightly drafted and already contain strong safeguards. In exercising those powers, the Secretary of State must: have regard to the particular importance of furthering the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity; be satisfied that the changes do not reduce the level of environmental protection provided currently by the habitats regulations; and test this with Parliament and secure its approval through a vote. To be satisfied that there has been no reduction in protections, the Government have also publicly committed to consulting with the office for environmental protection and Government statutory nature advisers. We also remain bound by international nature conservation law and committed to those obligations. Therefore, I see no need for the amendment and I urge the House to oppose it.

Turning to Lords amendments 94 and 95, our world-leading due diligence measures will help to tackle illegal deforestation in supply chains by prohibiting larger businesses operating in the UK from using certain forest risk commodities, produced on land illegally occupied or used. Forest risk commodities are associated with wide-scale conversion of forest. Examples of those commodities include beef, cocoa, leather, soya, rubber and palm oil. This comes as the UK prepares to lead by example at COP26 in two weeks’ time.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Does the Minister not accept that legal deforestation is becoming as much of a problem as illegal deforestation? If it is deforestation per se of the Amazon, that is a bad thing. Bolsonaro is relaxing the rules in his country, and it is happening in other countries in the region as well, and as a result we are increasingly seeing products entering our supermarket supply chains that are linked to deforestation—there was a story last week about cheese being sold in UK supermarkets. That is bad regardless of whether the Government of the country authorised it or not.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady and take her point, but we have to work with other Governments to bring forward our legislation. Many of these countries—Brazil is a specific example—have protections but, in many cases, are not upholding them. This Bill will have an effect, if we can demonstrate that they are not upholding their protections and our products are coming from there. That all has to be in a transparent survey, and data has to be recorded by businesses, so the onus will actually also be on them, because they do not want to be seen to be selling products that are causing deforestation. We have worked extremely hard to get that provision into the Bill and we believe that it will help to make a difference on this issue.

Given the pioneering nature of the policy, we have included a statutory requirement for a review every two years to make sure that the policy is delivering as intended and that the things that are happening, exactly as the hon. Lady suggests, do not happen. However, conducting a review after just one year of the requirements coming into force, as the amendments require, does not provide sufficient time to understand the policy’s effectiveness.

[Simon Hoare]

Some months ago, my hon. Friend gave very generously of her time, with officials, to talk to my constituent Jim Bettle about the timber regulations, as she will remember. Can she say when the review of the UK timber regulations is envisaged, because that neatly ties in with what she is talking about?

[Rebecca Pow]

Yes. My hon. Friend’s constituent came specifically to talk about charcoal and those issues. We have our timber regulations already in place to deal with illegal deforestation. I cannot give my hon. Friend an exact date for any review of that, but I can get back to his office with further details, if he would like.

In simple terms, in respect of the amendments, there would be not be enough data to understand how the legislation impacts against our policy objectives in one year and businesses would just be submitting their first report on the due diligence exercise. We will instead need to focus our efforts in that vital first year on ensuring effective implementation and enforcement and making sure that regulated businesses understand and are meeting their responsibilities under this legislation. That is critical to the regulations having their intended effect.

[Alex Sobel]

As well as having deforestation goods enter the supply chain in the UK from the Amazon in Brazil, which is of vital importance, they are also coming from West Papua, Borneo, Indonesia and the Congo river basin, and a lot of it is legal, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said. We are seeking trade deals around the world. He do we ensure that businesses and Governments understand their obligations in the trade deals to ensure that we do not have further deforestation not just in Brazil, but in other countries?

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Obviously, our businesses will have an obligation under what we set in our Bill, but equally, there is a whole session devoted to this at COP26, discussing exactly the issues that he raises in the wider sphere of agriculture and forestry across the globe. I urge him to follow what happens there.

On Lords amendment 66, I am very pleased to announce that we will be taking action on ancient woodland, thanks to the persuasive arguments put forward by Baroness Young of Old Scone, who has been a champion for ancient woodland, as have many Members of this House. I also put on record the Government’s thanks to the Woodland Trust for its partnership and support in updating the ancient woodland inventory. It continues to champion the need for a detailed and up-to-date inventory of this irreplaceable habitat, which is much needed; I thank the trust for stepping in to do that work. It is music to my ears particularly, because I set up the all-party parliamentary group on ancient woodland and veteran trees with the Woodland Trust when I first came to this place as a Back Bencher. I know that the Secretary of State is also passionate about ancient woodland.

I can also announce that we will undertake a review of the national planning policy framework to ensure that it is being correctly implemented in the case of ancient and veteran trees and ancient woodland. Should the review conclude that implementation can be improved, we will look to strengthen the guidance to local authorities to ensure their understanding of the protections provided to ancient woodland.

Secondly, I am pleased to announce that we will consult on strengthening the wording of the national planning policy framework to better ensure the strongest protection of ancient woodland, while recognising the complex delivery challenges for major infrastructure.

Finally, we will amend the Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Direction 2021 alongside these reforms to require local planning authorities to consult the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities if they are minded to grant planning permission for developments affecting ancient woodland.

[John Redwood]

Is the Minister saying that if this change goes through, another HS2-type assault on ancient woodland would not be allowed, whereas the last one was?

[Rebecca Pow]

What it will mean is that, yes, there will be much more credence given to the value of ancient woodland. At the moment, ancient woodland does not necessarily win, because one can have the infrastructure, or whatever it is, if one can demonstrate that there are wholly exceptional reasons for getting rid of the ancient woodland. This approach will really strengthen the position: it is a really big commitment to ancient woodland, which is like our rainforest. We have to do something about it—and we are, which I hope will be welcomed.

[Simon Hoare]

Warmly welcomed.

[Rebecca Pow]

Thank you.

Although I must ask hon. Members to reject Lords amendment 66, I hope that they will support our approach and my announcement today, which will deliver effective action to protect our precious and irreplaceable ancient woodland.

The intention behind Lords amendment 67 is to introduce additional formality to the process for entering into conservation covenants and to require such agreements to contain specific terms. There is a balance to be struck: conservation covenants must be flexible tools and straightforward to create, but they must also be robust. It is important that they are not entered into lightly or without due consideration and forethought—sounds a bit like a marriage contract, doesn’t it?

Having reflected on concerns raised in the other place, and with particular thanks to the Earl of Devon, we acknowledge that an additional layer of formality when entering into conservation covenants would provide some reassurance to landowners. We therefore propose an amendment in lieu to require that conservation covenant agreements be executed as deeds. Government guidance in this space will also be drafted to provide clear support on the relevant formalities required for conservation covenants.

I hope that hon. Friends and Members will support our proposals. I look forward to their contributions.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Before I start, I want to send condolences and thoughts on behalf of Plymouth to Sir David Amess’s family, his staff and his community. We have seen our fair share of tragedy over the summer in Plymouth, and Plymouth stands with Southend at this time.

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Let me finish by saying that we must use the Bill, once it is passed—I know that time is of the essence—to put as much pressure as possible on our utility companies to put in that investment. They owe it to our constituents and to the environment to clean up the river system.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. It has been a heated session, but I think that shows how strongly we feel about these issues.

I will touch first on storm overflows, which dominated the session. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for his moving and powerful words, as ever. I have great sympathy with him, because I too have been wading in effluent for quite some time now. I take what he says. We also heard vociferous speeches from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas); my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton); my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), who truly outlined the complexities of dealing with the storm overflow issue—it is not straightforward and there is not one answer; my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards), who was very clear in what she said; my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore); and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

I have listed all the things that we are doing on this issue that were not in the Bill before. This is all new. We have the statutory plan that the Government have to produce on discharges, we have the new duty on water companies to publish data on overflows, we have reporting processes, and the water companies have a duty to monitor water quality. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), also spoke powerfully on this issue. We have had much conversation about it, and I think we are coming from the same place, but I say to him that we also have the drainage and sewerage management plans, which will set out how the water companies will manage their sewerage systems, and the Government have been really clear that we expect storm overflows to be addressed in those plans. That is very clear in the explanatory notes.

One Member asked, “What’s happening right now?” From now until 2025, water companies will invest just over £7 billion on environmental improvements in England, and £3 billion of that will be spent on storm overflow improvements. This work is starting now, and it is really important to flag that. It is not the case that nothing is happening; there is a great deal happening, but there will be a great deal more happening as a result of the Bill.

We believe that new section 141A of the Water Industry Act 1991 introduced by Lords amendment 45 is redundant, and I ask the House to agree to our amendment (a) to leave out lines 7 to 14 of that Lords amendment. I will say, though, that we are listening. We have listened all along and we have acted all along. The Government are absolutely committed to reducing sewage in our water. Nobody thinks sewage in water is a good idea, and I hope we have demonstrated that we have been very strong on that.

Let me quickly correct something that I mentioned about ancient woodland in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who is no longer in his seat. On the NPPF, in relation to policy under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, that would not bind decisions under the Transport and Works Act 1992 on hybrid Bills. I just wanted to correct that. However, I can reassure the House that biodiversity net gain will cover nationally significant infrastructure projects. That is very important.

Pesticides were talked about a great deal. We have listened carefully, but I am confident that we have got the correct existing regulations in terms of bees and all our pollinators. I hope everyone agrees that we are bringing through some very strong and exciting measures on the protection of ancient woodlands, which I announced together. I hope the House will support our amendment in lieu on conservation covenants, which will provide reassurance to landowners. We are not supporting Lords amendments 94 and 95. On Lords amendment 65, we will be publishing a nature recovery Green Paper that will set out robust protections for the future.

On those grounds, I really hope the House will support our position tonight. I thank everyone for their contributions to this debate.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 43.

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Charges for single use plastic items

[Rebecca Pow]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 85.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 85, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.

Lords amendments 36 to 42, 44, 68, 76 to 84, and 86 to 90.

[Rebecca Pow]

I am very happy to finish these proceedings on a really positive note. I am delighted to offer amendments in lieu of Lords amendment 85 to expand the scope of the single-use items charge. Amendment (a) will allow the charge to be imposed on single-use items made from any material, not just plastic. This charge will help us to future-proof the Bill and protect the environment for generations to come by providing a powerful tool to incentivise the right shifts towards more reusable alternatives to single-use items and towards a circular economy. We want to take this opportunity to strengthen our hand and encourage citizens to reduce, recycle and reuse.

I also urge the House to accept the relatively technical amendments made to the Bill in the Lords that will improve both the Bill and delivery. They will support the swifter and more effective implementation and operation of extended producer responsibility measures, allow consistency in enforcement powers for waste tracking in Scotland, and provide clarity on the exercise of search and seizure powers for waste crime. We have also accepted all the recommendations of the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and the remaining amendments implement those recommendations.

[Luke Pollard]

I am glad that the Minister has listened to the concerns that were expressed about the throwaway economy and the throwaway culture that we have seen. Since the pandemic hit us, much of the progress that had been made in addressing single-use plastics has gone into reverse, with more single-use plastics being used and more being disposed of, including the emerging threat to much wildlife of PPE being disposed of in an inappropriate way. I am glad that the Minister has taken action to listen to the concerns of the Lords, which will now include extension of the single-use charge to other items that accompany this. That is a positive step and Labour Members support her in doing so. I invite her to look again at some of the other aspects around this that we have discussed today.

It is important to finish this Bill soon. It is an okay Bill—it is bit meh—but we do need the measures in it to be put in place soon. I know that it will be considered again by our friends in the Lords next week.

I invite the Minister to have words with those programming Government business to see whether this Bill can be brought back before COP26. Although I would like this Bill to go much faster and further, and although there are bits that are clearly insufficient, it is a step forward. Besides, I know that the Minister has plenty of press releases saying, “Landmark Environment Bill” ready to be sent, and I would hate to think that she would not get a chance to do so before COP26. I would be grateful if she brought forward those measures beforehand, but the Opposition welcome this positive step forward to address our throwaway culture.

Lords amendment 85 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) to (c) made in lieu of Lords amendment 85.

Lords amendments 36 to 42, 44, 68, 76 to 84, and 86 to 90 agreed to.

Ordered, That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendments 1, 2, 3, 12, 28, 33, 43, 65, 66, 94 and 95;

That Rebecca Pow, Selaine Saxby, Heather Wheeler, Ruth Edwards, Luke Pollard, Mary Glindon and Deidre Brock be members of the Committee;

That Rebecca Pow be the Chair of the Committee;

That three be the quorum of the Committee.

That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(Michael Tomlinson.)

Question agreed to.

Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.

Soil Health Action Plan for England

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)]

This statement follows the recent announcement made by my noble Friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park on 8 September 2021 on the Government’s commitment to publish a new soil health action plan for England and to outline further details on this upcoming plan.



Soil is a rich ecosystem and the soil health action plan will take a natural capital approach to improving its health by considering the numerous biological, chemical and physical attributes of soil. It will support sustainable management of soil by bringing together a range of actions to improve and protect the health of our soil. This will include delivering key ecosystem services and wider benefits and outcomes such as increased biodiversity, carbon storage, food production and flood mitigation. It will also provide certainty to farmers and land managers around the acceptable condition of all soil types.



The action plan will ensure England’s soil is sustainably managed by 2030 demonstrating leadership in delivering a coherent plan for soil health. It will focus on preventing soil degradation and improving soil health, and look at how land management practices and planning can be adapted to help protect soil from the impact of climate change.



The sustainable farming incentive is a key focus of the action plan and will support sustainable approaches to farm husbandry that deliver for the environment and improve soil health. This could include the introduction of herbal leys, and the use of grass-legume mixtures or cover crops. Healthy soil can also support farm productivity.



The action plan will include the development of a healthy soil indicator, soil structure monitoring methodology and a soil health monitoring scheme to help land managers and farmers track the health of our soil over time and the impact of their management practices. These actions will create a robust baseline from which we can monitor improvements in soil health, identify trends and support informed policy decisions, including any future environmental targets for soil health. The action plan will also outline how soil health improvements will help deliver against our wider environmental targets, including our historic 2030 target to halt the decline in species abundance.



The soil health action plan for England will provide a single, strategic approach to achieving these multiple outcomes and driving improved soil health across England, and we currently intend to consult on the framework next spring.

[HCWS326]