Climate and Nature Bill

Roz Savage Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Climate and Nature Bill has been four years in the making. The enormous amount of support that it has garnered from campaigners, trade unions, scientists, faith leaders, non-governmental organisations, businesses and especially young people means that it is both an honour and an enormous responsibility to set out what it entails, what it adds to existing law and why I believe it addresses the most important existential challenge of our generation: the intertwined climate and nature crises.

This country has signed up to various international commitments, but we still have work to do to fully connect them to real and measurable action. We need to close the ambition gap between what is needed and what is promised, and the delivery gap between what is promised and what is actually happening. That is what the Bill aims to do, because too many metrics are still heading in the wrong direction.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is important, as the hon. Lady has underlined, that we move forward together. She has not mentioned the National Farmers Union. Can she reassure me and others in the House that the National Farmers Union, and the Ulster Farmers Union in Northern Ireland, are happy with the Bill and accept the impact that its proposals will have on them?

[Dr Savage]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I would be delighted to have that conversation with representatives of the NFU in Northern Ireland and to reassure them on that point.

As an environmental campaigner for the past 22 years, it has sometimes been easy for me to fall into doomism. Wild fires have ravaged Los Angeles, floods have devastated Valencia and the recently elected leader of the free world is urging us to “drill, baby, drill” in the name of making America great again, but I do not believe that doomism is helpful. Yes, the best time to take bold action on climate and nature would have been 50 years ago, but the second best time is now.

The Bill is very ambitious for a private Member’s Bill, but not ambitious enough for a climate and nature Bill. It is not trying to be over-ambitious or pretending to be a silver bullet, but it aspires to answer the question: from where we are now, what is the right next step to take? The Bill’s guiding principle is that we have a duty to be good ancestors. Now that we know what we know about the impact that human activity is having on the liveability of our planet, how do we strike the right balance between present and future thriving? How do we ensure that we are not stealing health, wealth and wellbeing from generations not yet born? While we enrich our lives, how do we ensure we do not impoverish future lives? What do we want our legacy to be—a world with a strip mine next to a rubbish tip next to a shopping mall, or a world with clean air and drinkable rivers, regenerated soils and vibrant oceans, teeming with wildlife and alive with birdsong?

As I speak, I am looking around to spot my three young friends in the Gallery—Polly, Amber and Bobby from Gloucestershire youth climate group. I spoke to the group recently and, by chance, bumped into them on the train into London this morning. When I was their age, I was blissfully ignorant of the looming environmental crisis: they do not have that luxury. They, and the rest of their generation, will face the consequences of our choice here today. I want to be able to look into their eyes after today’s debate and feel proud that this House rose to the challenge, that we did what was necessary, rather than what was politically expedient, and that we pledged to protect their future.

What is in the Climate and Nature Bill? The Bill has been drafted by world-leading climate scientists, ecologists and conservationists, and aims to deliver an integrated plan to tackle the twin climate and nature crises. It would bring massive benefits for local communities, including my constituents in the South Cotswolds: improving the air we breathe; giving us clean water to drink, swim and row in; revitalising local populations of cherished wildlife, such as voles, otters, kingfishers and shrews; and providing cheap energy bills, warmer homes, green jobs, better food and happier lives.

The Bill would create a joined-up strategy for the UK to tackle the interconnected climate and nature crises together. It is the only proposed or actual piece of legislation to create the link between the UK’s responses to climate change and nature loss. We cannot solve one without tackling the other. We risk making each crisis worse if they are tackled in silos, so the Bill supports a whole-of-Government approach to prevent the issues becoming siloed. Everything in nature is connected with everything else in nature, but sadly not everything in Government is connected with everything else in Government, but it needs to be. Housing, transport and even health are inter-related with climate and nature, so we need a strategy that transcends departmental boundaries.

The CAN Bill would enshrine international commitments made by the UK into national legislation to cut emissions and to restore nature by 2030, as outlined in the global biodiversity framework. The Bill would bring the UK public along with that agenda via a climate and nature assembly, which is key to ensuring that all voices from across our country are heard, enabling workers to transition to low-carbon jobs and ensuring vulnerable communities are protected. It provides for a fair and just transition that does not come at the expense of the rest of the world. For centuries Britian prospered by exploiting resources overseas: animal, vegetable, mineral and human. The Bill requires the accounting for our environmental footprint to be honest, taking into account the carbon emissions and impacts on nature that are incurred overseas in producing the goods and services that we enjoy. It is disingenuous to offshore most of our manufacturing, and then congratulate ourselves for having reduced our environmental impact.

I am delighted to say that the Bill has a long history of being supported by the party now in government. I trust that their ecological concern while in opposition has survived their transition into power, as they are now in a position to act on their pledges. Labour Members may try to tell us that His Majesty’s Government are already doing everything that is in the Bill, but looking at the metrics, we are still far adrift of where we need to be. Ultimately, our future will not be determined by our strategies and intentions—nature cares only about results.

The Office for Environmental Protection recently published its progress report on the Government’s environmental improvement plan. It found that the Government are largely off track in achieving their legal environmental commitments. I acknowledge that this Government have been in power for less than seven months, so I do not hold them entirely responsible for that state of affairs. But I struggle to see how expanding our airports by approving two new runways will help them get back on track. The OEP assessment shows that on their current trajectory the Government will meet only four of their 40 environmental targets.

The “State of Nature” report 2023 showed that nearly one in six species are at risk of being lost from Great Britian, and the UK now has less than half its biodiversity remaining. Out of the wildlife habitats assessed, only one in seven were found to be in good condition. Only one in 14 woodlands and a quarter of peatlands were in good ecological state. None of the seafloor around the UK was in good condition. Just 44% of woodland is sustainably managed, and only half of fish stocks are sustainably harvested.

It is my view that the Government need to prioritise three things. The first is support for nature-friendly farming. Around 70% of land in England is used for agriculture. Supporting farmers to manage their land in a nature-friendly way will deliver significant environmental improvement at scale.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

The key stewards of our landscape for hundreds of years have been our farmers: no one has done more to make our countryside as beautiful as it is or has a bigger stake in protecting its health for the future. Does my hon. Friend agree that the path to net zero and sustainable local food production lies through our farming community, with the support provided by the Bill? If we are to get the best from our farmers, it is time to use rather more carrots and fewer sticks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Savage]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Reports by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that nature-friendly farming schemes can be a major pathway for first halting, and then reversing, the decline in species abundance, as well as delivering the majority of habitat creation needed to meet the UK Government’s nature and climate targets.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I congratulate her on bringing forward this important legislation. Like many farms in Glastonbury and Somerton, Camel Hill farm’s focus on regenerative farming has improved soil quality and nature loss. However, the farming budget has seen a real-term funding cut after inflation since 2007, leaving farmers trying to restore nature with reduced support.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. If we are to get Members in—we all see how many are present in the Chamber—interventions will have to be short and not pre-prepared speeches. There is plenty of time for those who have put their names down to speak. Members should not use up the time of the hon. Member for South Cotswolds for her opening.

[Dr Savage]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and applaud her for her work as an effective spokesperson on behalf of the farming community. Indeed, she pre-empted what I was about to say. Farmers should be properly rewarded for restoring soils, planting hedgerows and reducing pesticide use, with an expanded nature-friendly farming budget at the upcoming comprehensive spending review. They need a clear long-term strategy from the Government so that they are able to plan and invest accordingly.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this Bill forward. Does she recognise that the sustainable farming incentive is moving to rewarding farmers who are further towards the bottom of the scale, rather than at the high end of it as we would wish to see? To reward farmers for rotation of crops, for example, seems to be going back to the 18th century rather than ensuring a high level of stewardship.

[Dr Savage]

My understanding, as a non-farmer, is that crop rotation is an effective way to regenerate soil.

The second priority is to create more joined-up space for nature on land. Through the global biodiversity frame-work, the Government have committed to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030. With less than five years to meet that target, a Wildlife and Countryside Link report states that the amount of land in England effectively protected for nature has fallen to less than 3%. The Government should put 30 by 30 at the heart of upcoming planning reforms, to ensure that all development is playing an active role in nature recovery, and expand the protected sites network by designating more significant and rare natural habitats, such as ancient woodlands and chalk streams.

My third point is about the urgency of delivery, because urgency is lacking in the implementation of positive actions. The OEP states that the rate of tree planting needs to increase substantially to achieve woodland creation goals. Meanwhile, long-awaited major initiatives such as a UK chemicals strategy and land use framework, and the national action plan on the sustainable use of pesticides, as well as the ban on the sale of horticultural peat and the reintroduction of species such as the beaver, are delayed.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I say a big thank you to the hon. Lady for her excellent speech—this is clearly something that she is passionate about, and has been for a long time. Does she agree that tree planting is hugely important? Trees are part of our biodiversity, but they also give life to us, and I celebrate the work that Harlow council did in planting 5,000 trees across Harlow.

[Dr Savage]

I applaud the fantastic work being done in Harlow to increase the number of trees. They are indeed life-enhancing and valuable self-contained ecosystems.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for having engaged with me about her Bill. She shared with me the frustrations she has had in discussing its contents with the Government. Can we get to the key issue here? She talks about urgency, but is it true that the Government are intent on kicking the Bill into the long grass because they do not want to be seen to be opposing it, yet they do not really support it?

[Dr Savage]

That is not my interpretation of the Government’s position, and we have had some fruitful conversations.

I shall move on briefly to the climate. While two sectors in climate—power and greenhouse gas removals—are on course to meet or even exceed the required emissions reductions, significant challenges remain in agriculture and land use, transport, and heat and building.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Some have queried the urgency or indeed the need to reduce emissions from fossil fuels, but does my hon. Friend not agree that, with 250 people in Somerset alone estimated to die early from air pollution according to Public Health England, there are other reasons why we urgently need to reduce carbon emissions?

[Dr Savage]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend that we cannot go wrong in moving away from fossil fuels, given the implications for air quality as well as for the climate. I call on the Government to commit significant additional funding to support farmers in environmental delivery on the least productive agricultural land.

Transport has the biggest gap of all sectors between confirmed policy and the emissions reductions needed. We need to improve public transport, reduce bus fares, increase provision for walking and cycling, and decarbonise the freight sector.

Much more needs to be done on buildings and clean heat, too. In the Budget, the Chancellor pledged an initial £3.4 billion towards household energy efficiency and heat decarbonisation, but the current warm homes plan falls short of the pace and scale needed. A strong future homes standard needs to be introduced this year, mandating technologies such as solar photovoltaic, as per the New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill—the sunshine Bill—introduced by my Gloucestershire neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson).

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Member for what she is doing with the Bill. When talking about the future of housing and properties, we often focus on energy and water. Does she agree that it is important to focus on rainwater harvesting and what can be done in that sense, too?

[Dr Savage]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman that the right thing to do is to be much more intelligent in our use of water, which will reduce the demand for clean water and reduce run-off from rainfall, which is becoming increasingly heavy as climate change kicks in.

The most significant addition that the Climate and Nature Bill would make to the existing strategy is its joined-up approach. Of the words in its title, perhaps the most important is “and”. Many people are aware that a changing climate is damaging nature. The wildfires in California this year have claimed millions of trees and thousands of homes. We see expanding deserts, melting ice caps and British moorlands on fire. We see natural cycles getting out of sync, so that newly hatched birds, insects and amphibians no longer find their favourite foods available when they need them.

We are less aware of how the loss of nature, the cutting down of forests, the warming of the oceans and intensive agriculture affect climate. It is a two-way relationship. Forests, oceans and soils are some of our most effective allies for natural carbon capture and sequestration. Healthy soil, along with trees, re-wiggled rivers and water meadows, helps to mitigate flooding and run-off, which are on the increase with ever more intense rainfall. Nature’s ability to perform this moderating role and regulate climate is being compromised by the rate at which we are destroying it. We are damaging nature’s capacity to self-regulate by killing, reducing, polluting and compromising natural ecosystems. Activities such as deep-sea mining threaten to make extinct species that we have not even discovered yet—species that we may one day find to be enormously useful to humanity.

We often hear that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. “Nature-depleted” is a rather sterile phrase. What does it actually mean? Many of the alarming stats on nature use 1970 as a baseline—just a couple of years after I was born. I remember a time when if we put bread out on the back lawn, within a minute, dozens of starlings would be squabbling over the crusts. I cannot even remember the last time I saw a starling.

Heading off on holidays in my father’s Triumph 1200, we would have to stop while he cleaned squashed insects off the windscreen. We do not have to do that any more. We often saw hedgehogs. Okay, they were mostly squashed on the road, because it turns out that a fear response of curling up in a ball is not all that effective when the threat is an oncoming car, but I ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House: when did you last see a hedgehog? The collapse in the hedgehog population is not entirely due to roadkill. They lost their habitats, their sources of food and their ability to range and forage as woodlands were cut down and urban gardens were fenced in.

If the first half of my life—perhaps the first two thirds, on a less optimistic estimate—has seen such huge damage inflicted on our natural world, I hope that in the rest of my life I will see nature put well back on the path to recovery. One of my team members is expecting a baby in May, and I would like to commit to Poppy’s future daughter that by the time she is five years old we will have halted the degradation of nature and that at least 30% of land and coastal waters will be protected. I would like to promise that unborn little girl that by the time she is 25, we will have reversed nature loss and will be living in harmony with nature, as stated in the global biodiversity framework.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend on behalf of those on the Liberal Democrat Benches for her truly impassioned speech and for her work on the Bill. Chichester harbour has lost 58% of its saltmarsh since 1946—the equivalent of three football pitches every year. Does she agree that that needs to stop today to ensure that that national landscape and site of special scientific interest is protected for generations to come?

[Dr Savage]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I know Chichester harbour well and absolutely agree that this is vital work.

There is hope. Nature is enormously resilient and has an amazing capacity to regenerate when we give it a chance. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ appropriately named Hope farm has demonstrated that food production can coexist with benefits to wildlife: breeding bird populations there increased by 177% over a 12-year period. We need to encourage people to get involved—a new kind of land army working together for nature. We need to unlock the local knowledge, energy and passion for nature that I see every day in my constituency of South Cotswolds. I am sure every hon. Member in the Chamber has seen it, regardless of whether their constituency is rural or urban.

One of my especially passionate constituents, Jonathan Whittaker, put together the “Shroud for Nature”, an art piece made of 13 double bedsheets covered with heartfelt messages about the Climate and Nature Bill. I have chosen a few of those messages to read out today. They are:

“Care for the planet. Not just for this generation but the next ones. It’s your responsibility to make sure I have a home. I am twelve years old.”

“We all come from nature, by destroying it we are destroying ourselves.”

“When will those in power listen and commit? No nature, no us!”

and

“What you do today will change my life forever.”

That is from William, who is 10 years old. They continue:

“We have the solutions; we have the skill. Are we willing to make the change?”

and

“Leave politics aside. Make changes for humankind.”

Now we have a little poem dedicated to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

“Secretary of State Steve Reed, do us a good deed”—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I appreciate that the hon. Lady is quoting from a poem, but we do not refer to right hon. and hon. Members by name in the Chamber. Can we please ensure that the courtesies of the House are observed?

[Dr Savage]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As the poem will no longer rhyme, I shall move on to its second half. It continues:

“Make the powers pay, and make the waters clean for our play.”

I had better skip the next quote too, as it refers to the Prime Minister rather too directly. I hope that the next line will not get me into further trouble:

“We blooming elected you! Listen to us!”

To end on a more positive note:

“You have a chance to do something important and good. SO DO IT.”

Back on to safer ground, I would like to conclude with a few words about why this Bill matters so much to me personally. After I had my environmental wake-up call 22 years ago, I wanted to find a way to draw attention to my environmental message. For reasons best known to myself, it seemed like a good idea at the time to embark on a series of massive ocean crossings alone in a rowboat, using my expeditions as a campaigning platform to get my message across through blogs, social media, podcasts, talks and books.

For seven years, I rode solo across three oceans—the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian. At the risk of stating the obvious, it was really, really hard. I spent up to five months alone at sea, rowing for 12 hours a day. What kept me going was my sense that our environmental crisis is literally the most important issue on the face of the planet.

I learned a lot on the ocean, and I would like to share three insights that are relevant here. First, the Earth is surprisingly small. I managed to row across a large portion of it at something less than walking speed in just 520 days and nights. This small blue dot is now having to support 8 billion of us and our ever-increasingly materialistic lifestyle, with all the extraction, pollution and waste that entails.

Secondly, nature is incredibly powerful. There is nothing quite like being alone in a 7-metre rowboat in the middle of a storm to make that very apparent. We may think we have nature tamed, but we do not. The recent wildfires, floods and other not-so-natural disasters have made that very clear. Even movie star wealth has not been enough to save homes from the flames. As a species, we have only been on this Earth for the blink of an eye, but we have transformed it out of all recognition. We have gobbled our way through its resources in a way that is by any definition unsustainable. There are laws of humans and there are laws of nature. Whether or not the Bill makes it into human law, for sure the laws of nature will ultimately prevail.

Thirdly, on my journeys I saw the human face of climate change. When I stopped at the Republic of Kiribati on my way across the Pacific, I had a lengthy conversation with the President. With only one point of land more than 6 feet above sea level, his island nation faces existential risk. Later that year, I saw him at COP15 in Copenhagen, just as the talks had fallen apart. Fifteen years later, we are still not on track to save the Republic of Kiribati. How would we feel if our island nation—where we were born, where we had grown up and where our ancestors were buried—was about to disappear beneath the waves?

The Bill is about more than targets and strategies; it is a covenant with the natural world and with future generations. It is our promise to threatened species like the turtle dove, the hazel dormouse and the red squirrel; to the black poplar, the paperbark maple and the star magnolia; to the European eel, the Atlantic salmon and the Arctic char that we will not abandon them to extinction.

Taking bold action on climate and nature is the best way for the Government to demonstrate true global leadership and do what is right, knowing that in the long run the cost of inaction is far, far greater than the cost of action. Are we willing today to do what is required in the long term, rather than what is expedient in the short term? Are we willing to do not what is politically possible, but what is scientifically necessary to ensure a future for our planet? The choice is ours, and the time is now. Let us be the generation who chose to save our natural world, not the generation who stood by and watched it die.

Nature knows no borders. It does not recognise our political divisions. It is time to write a new chapter in our nation’s story—one where we finally understand that in saving climate and nature, we save ourselves.

I invite my colleagues to look up at my young friends in the Gallery: look them in the eye, and show them we are willing to do the right thing for their future. I commend this Bill to the House.

Climate and Nature Bill

Roz Savage Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Carla Denyer]

I am on my final sentence. Let us set aside party allegiances for a moment. We can show bold leadership together.

[Dr Savage]

I admire the hon. Member’s passion and commitment to the cause. I am afraid I was not in the Chamber to hear the beginning of her speech, but from what I have been able to gather, let me take the opportunity to set the record straight. I very much believe that we do need cross-party consensus. I have been willing and eager to have conversations with the Government. I have been an environmental campaigner for the last 20 years. I have tried the placard-waving and I have marched in the streets. That has an important role to play, but there is a reason that I chose to come to this place: to take the policy approach. As the third party, the only way we can do that is by working with the Government.

[Carla Denyer]

With the greatest of respect to the hon. Member, taking a Bill containing binding legislation to Committee stage for line-by-line scrutiny is not placard-waving. Voting for the Bill today is voting for a liveable future. I hope that is what we all choose.