Environment Bill (First sitting)

Richard Graham Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q But you would also support interim targets further downstream?

Edward Lockhart-Mummery: We definitely support strengthening the targets. This is something we have discussed a lot in our group, and there are slightly different views of exactly how you do it. Some people would support the targets’ being legally binding, and others say that the final targets should be legally binding, but on the interim targets there needs to be more transparency. Then, if an interim target is not met, it could be that it triggers more of a reporting process, where the Government say, “We have missed the interim target. This is why, and this is what we’re doing about it,” rather than their being legally binding.

Potentially, if you made those interim targets legally binding, it could have perverse effects. Government might be a little less ambitious in setting interim targets, because it is always harder to know exactly what you are going to be able to do in the shorter term, particularly when some things require a lot of capital investment. If the target is to increase recycling rates, that requires a lot of capital investment or whatever.

There are some questions about exactly how you would set those interim targets. Because they are nearer term, it is more likely that the same Government will be in power when they are met, so what you do not want is for them to end up being very unambitious in setting the targets. A transparency mechanism would certainly be very good.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Q Can I come back to Mr Baxter first? In the brief you gave us before this sitting began, you mentioned two ways that you thought the Bill could be improved. Although you raised earlier the importance of the selection or election of the OEP chairman and so on, your focus in the written evidence was more on structural issues. Could you flesh out what you meant by

“enhancing the coherence between the different governance elements so they are mutually supportive and aligned to drive environmental improvement to a common purpose”?

That sounds like management-speak. Can you try to bring it alive and explain what you really have in mind and what the benefits of it are?

Martin Baxter: Certainly. There are three key elements in the governance section of the Bill. First is the process for setting legally binding targets, and underpinning that is the significant improvement test in the natural environment. The environmental principles have a slightly different objective, on environmental protection and sustainable development. The Office for Environmental Protection has a different set of objectives as well. We think there is a real opportunity to set a common purpose in terms of clear objectives, as Ed has outlined, and to point all aspects of the governance process into achieving those. That is where we think you could get far greater coherence and cohesion between the different elements.

[Richard Graham]

Q Can I just explore that a bit more? On page 13, in part 1, the principle objective of the OEP is pretty clear:

“to contribute to—

(a) environmental protection, and

(b) the improvement of the natural environment.”

Page 1 of the Bill is about making provision to improve the natural environment and environmental protection. Those two seem to be very closely aligned, are then not?

Martin Baxter: In part, they are, but they could be further brought together. The real test of the targets and the EIPs is whether significant environmental improvement is being met. It is that test that underlies why we are setting targets and it forms the basis on which environmental principles will be applied, potentially, and also the role of the OEP. We think that could provide greater cohesion, via all things pointing to that common purpose.

[Richard Graham]

Q Mr Lockhart-Mummery, you said early on that the Bill needed clear objectives at the beginning. Given what Mr Baxter has just said, do I take it that you want to see a fleshed-out opening paragraph that talks about not just improving the natural environment but what the benefits that we are looking for from that should be?

Edward Lockhart-Mummery: Exactly. Improving the natural environment is a good start. That could be clearer. For example, improving health is not there clearly in “improving the natural environment”, yet quite a lot that we would want to do—improving air quality, nature and so forth—is about health. Being really clear that this is also about health and wellbeing is important. Then there is sustainable resource use. At the moment, there is a big focus on single-use plastics, very rightly. If, in the very short term, we only thought about single-use plastics, we would not necessarily drive holistic sustainability overall. We might rush out of plastics into aluminium or other things, whereas what we really want to know is, right at the top, that this is about using the resources that we have sustainably. If that is clear at the top of the Bill, everything drives that. We do not take siloed short-term decisions, but we are clear that when we are setting targets we are looking to use our resources sustainably overall to contribute to a healthy, resilient, biodiverse natural environment, to health and to wellbeing for everyone. Those three objectives capture almost everything you could want to do through this Bill, alongside decarbonisation, which is the territory of the Climate Change Act 2008, but both are mutually supportive.

[Richard Graham]

Q That sounds as if what both of you are saying is that you want to see an introductory paragraph that lays out, before the stuff that is quite process-y, the benefits that we are trying to drive out through this Environment Bill a bit more clearly.

Ms Norberg, your earlier statement was slightly different. It was less on the ambitions of what the output would be and more on further improvements to strengthen the regulatory framework and the target-setting process. There is quite a lot of detail in terms of the targets and interim targets, is there not? How much more process can a Bill really have?

Signe Norberg: I would begin by saying that we also support Broadway’s ask around an objective. We thoroughly support that because we think it gives the long-term direction—which is set out here, but an objective would provide a little more detail. In terms of the processes around interim targets and the target-setting process, this is not so much about adding in more process—as you say, what we have is already quite a heavy process document—but more about clarifying some aspects, which would be quite welcome. We have touched a little today on the interim targets. It is not about changing them but about maybe clarifying that when intermediate targets look to be off track, there is recourse to put them back on track or the Secretary of State looks at how we will get back on track by updating them. There is a little bit there, but this is about adding further language to clarify a point like that. This is not about adding further process; it is more about adding clarification.

[The Chair]

Q Thank you very much. Mr Graham, I am conscious of the fact that there are a number of other Members who want to come in. I cannot allow one Member to dominate the entire proceedings.

I am going to do something now that I should have done at the beginning—I apologise for this. Before I bring in Deidre Brock, will Ms Norberg and one or others of you gentlemen, very briefly, identify whose interests you represent?

Signe Norberg: We represent an alliance of businesses, non-governmental organisations and academic institutions. They cover several different industries, work across economies and have scale. We look at their specific industries. All of that comes together to create a holistic environment for businesses and the natural environmental flow.

Edward Lockhart-Mummery: The Broadway Initiative brings together the mainstream business organisations across sectors from the Federation of Small Businesses to the CBI, as well as groups covering each important sector that touches on the environment. That is our core group. We also work with professional bodies such as the IEMA and academic bodies, and we work closely with environmental groups. We are committed to the outcomes committed to by the Government through the 25-year plan and net zero. We are keen to explore how we can really make that work through the economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)]

Q Mr Poole, you spoke a lot about trust and transparency, and the Bill has a careful balance between detail and direction, but a lot of details will be prescribed through secondary legislation. I just wanted to garner your opinions on the importance of public consultation, so that we can garner expert views to develop detailed policies through secondary legislation.

Andrew Poole: I come back to the point I keep making, which is that small businesses are signed up to this—in the broad concept. They want to do the right thing for the environment. They are human beings. What is increasingly important is that they want to demonstrate to their customers that they are doing the right thing. They are aligned with the broad concept of the Bill.

When it comes to those granular details, that is obviously what is going to make or break the Bill. Government must see small businesses as a partner for delivery at every stage where those decision have to be made. I suggest that the outcomes of this Bill will not be achieved without a fully engaged small business community playing a very active role in it. It is a plea to policy makers and legislators that small business views are taken into account fully when those decisions get made, at each stage.

[Richard Graham]

Q Can I come back, Mr Curtois, to your earlier point that you thought there was masses in the Bill in terms of recycling, but less on residual waste and how that should be treated. What would you hope to see in the Bill that would cover that?

Martin Curtois: The situation in the UK in terms of residual waste is that it is virtually impossible to export refuse-derived fuel now in a viable way, because particularly in mainland Europe the cost of that is making it prohibitive. For obvious reasons, landfill is at the bottom of the waste hierarchy, and from what I can see from the resources and waste strategy the overall aim is to prevent waste where possible, recycle more and landfill next to nothing.

So we have got to recognise that even though recycling will hopefully continue to go up—ultimately I think the aim is to get, possibly, to 65%—there is something that has not yet really been covered in depth in the resources and waste strategy, which is that we need to do something with the residual waste. We operate 10 energy recovery facilities within the UK, three of which have district heating. Bearing in mind the plans that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has for a heat road map, which I think is proposed for June, there is a role, which we need at least to recognise, for energy recovery, preferably with heat decarbonisation.

We are addressing the issue that the waste has to go somewhere. The landfills are running out. Therefore we need to do something with it that will also help us with generating electricity, given the fact that there will be even more intense pressure on the grid because of the number of electric cars that we obviously hope for, to reduce our carbon impact. There should be at least some recognition that it is an important component of the overall mix.

[Richard Graham]

Q Can I ask Mr Bellamy a separate question? It is really about your members and their attitudes to eliminating avoidable waste of all kinds. Do you think the introduction of charges for any single-use plastic item will incentivise a shift towards the direction that the Government want to go in, or do you think your members will resist that?

David Bellamy: The question of avoidable waste is a little bit open to interpretation, in our estimation. It may warrant a definition in the Bill. We suggest that that material might not be recoverable in any shape or form, or it might not be replaceable by something else.

[Richard Graham]

Q Would you support the traffic light system, which clearly identifies for every consumer exactly which bit of plastic can be recycled and which cannot?

David Bellamy: We support a binary labelling system to that effect. We have not looked at a traffic light scheme as such. The current proposal is more of a descriptor-based labelling system, which basically says that something can or cannot be recycled. We strongly support the concept of a binary system.

[Richard Graham]

Q Andrew, can your members respond to the challenge with the speed that is needed to achieve these net carbon targets?

Andrew Poole: The truth is that some will, and some will not. We have tried to highlight, across the piece, in terms of these environmental challenges, the requirement to understand the business audience in more detail. Small businesses are very different. There are myriad different types of organisation. We consistently challenge policy makers on that requirement to understand in more detail the business audience that is being affected. If there are any requirements or opportunities to provide support to small businesses, that support should be targeted to those businesses that are least able to adapt. The more time that businesses are given to adapt and change the way they do things, the more likely they are to achieve those changes.

[Richard Graham]

In one way—

[The Chair]

Mr Graham, I am sorry, but I going to take a brief, final question from Ruth Edwards. I have tried to get everybody in. This will be the final question.