Rivers Authorities and Land Drainage Bill (First sitting)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Monday 11th March 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. It is worth saying that, even though the Committee has a south-west majority, those people with a south-west link, even if they represent a different part of the country, are very welcome as well.

That question relates to the patchwork quilt of responsibilities that is the underlying context for rivers authorities. How will these new authorities work with different local authorities? My hon. Friend is entirely right that we are moving to an era where we want fewer carbon-intensive end-of-pipe solutions, which are both expensive for those who pay for them and have a large carbon impact in their construction. Lower-carbon interventions, such as the re-wetting of peat bogs or the planting of more trees, are frequently required in an area other than where flooding takes place. I would be grateful if the Minister addressed that.

Proposed new section 21F provides powers to acquire and dispose of property. I am working on the assumption that those powers will be deployed in the same way as local councils deploy them at the moment, with authority and judgment. I would be grateful if the Minister set that out for the record. I am interested to know whether the Minister is confident that the Secretary of State’s framework under proposed new section 21G will not inhibit the autonomy of rivers authorities in relation to how those powers are implemented.

On proposed new sections 21H and 21A, we hope that rivers authorities will be a success and that there will be no need to abolish them, but it is useful to look ahead at all scenarios when creating them in the first place, so what criteria will there be for abolishing a rivers authority? Will there be any scrutiny or appeals in relation to that? A concern from time spent observing the coalition Government is that many bodies were swept away and some of the people who relied on those bodies did not have a say in the process, so I would like to understand how that might work.

It is important, when we talk about flooding, to recognise that with the advent of additional flood planning when new developments come through, those new developments are well protected, but bringing forward flood defences for new developments sometimes means that communities that were not previously affected by flooding now will be. It would be useful to get a sense of how rivers authorities, which will look at flooding in the wider sense, will have an eye on not only the area that they cover, but the impact of their work on other areas.

We have no opposition to the clause, but I would be grateful if those questions could be clarified.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey, and I thank all hon. Members present for taking an interest. The Government support the Bill and all the clauses and amendments that will be discussed today.

It is fair to say that the creation of the rivers authority came about because of the situation in Somerset. To answer the question about pilot authorities, Somerset has effectively had a shadow rivers authority running, so I would expect any learnings to be taken from what has happened there to other councils. If communities wish to come forward and take advantage of these powers, we will consider them, but as it stands the only expression of interest so far is from Somerset, which is the reason the Bill has arisen.

It is worth pointing out to the Committee that one of the reasons for creating this wider opportunity for other people to come forward was to avoid the political difficulty of what is called a hybrid Bill to create a specific authority, which can take anywhere between five and 10 years to get through, if it ever does. The Bill provides that opportunity, but it is not the Government’s intention to go around proactively creating rivers authorities. However, the door will be open if there is local support to do that.

Quite a lot of the powers will be set out in regulations. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome talked about the majority of members being from the local authorities comprising the rivers authority. It could be the case that every single member is from those local authorities, but it might make sense to put the Environment Agency on as a member. That will vary from area to area. As things stand, that level of detail has yet to be discussed with the councils from Somerset, but it is something that the Government are open to and it is important that we have that consultation discussion up front.

On the coastal situation, obviously Somerset has a coast. The Bill is intended to address the issue that was identified of a special coming together of a series of rivers, particularly in the levels, which can create a particular situation. All of those rivers are in Somerset and do not go across authorities. However, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon, a rivers authority would be required to complement and work with neighbouring areas, as he would expect.

It is important to point out to the hon. Member for Leeds North West that these areas can cover more than one local authority area, so a rivers authority could go across borders if it was deemed appropriate by the councils that wanted to take it forward. The Bill is not prescriptive about there being only one local authority; as I say, there will be ongoing collaboration. I stress that this is not about trying to replace things, but about complementing what already exists by pulling together this new authority concept, which can have a separate precept on a council tax bill. In order to have that privilege, of course the rivers authority will be subject to the elements of local government legislation that were set out.

I do not think that public access to meetings is written into the Bill, but if it were necessary and it needed to be in legislation, I am sure it could be put into the statutory instrument that will be required to create the Somerset Rivers Authority. In effect, the authority would be subject to investigation by the local government ombudsman for England, so protections are in place to ensure there is accountability.

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[David Warburton]

I am grateful in many ways to my hon. Friend for his exceptionally important intervention. He is absolutely right that the drainage boards do tremendous work and are vital. We are lucky to have them. One of the important things about the Bill is that it will facilitate other places’ setting them up—something which they are unable to do at the moment.

In total there are 112 internal drainage boards across England, which cover some 1.2 million hectares—around 10% of the land. The work they do protects 600,000 people and nearly 900,000 properties. They operate and maintain over 500 pumping stations and 22,000 km of watercourse, which is slightly further than from this room to New Zealand. Those are incredible numbers, but there is scope to increase that local support and allow more of the country to benefit. However, to enable this support to be available where it is wanted and where it is appropriate, the Land Drainage Act 1991 needs to change.

Internal drainage boards are funded by the areas they serve. Drainage rates are paid by agricultural landowners, and the special levy is paid by local district or unitary councils, which in turn recoup these costs. Under the Land Drainage Act 1991, the proportion of IDBs’ expenses raised by drainage rates is equal to the agricultural proportion of land values in an internal drainage district. In turn, the proportion of expenses raised by the special levy is proportionate to the value of all other land in the internal drainage district.

The calculations that IDBs are required to carry out, in order to apportion the payment of their expenses between the drainage rate and the special levy, depend on an assessment by each IDB of the relative value of agricultural land and buildings, and the value of other land. However, the assessment of the value of other land in internal drainage districts currently depends on data from 1990, which, unfortunately, in many instances is missing or incomplete. This prevents the creation of new IDBs or the expansion of existing ones.

This part of the Bill amends the Land Drainage Act 1991, to enable new data to be used by internal drainage boards when calculating the value of other lands, if they elect to do so, thereby addressing the current barrier to creating or expanding IDBs. Clause 2 amends section 37 of the Land Drainage Act 1991 to enable the Secretary of State to make regulations that provide an alternative methodology for calculating the value of other land. The regulations will be made subject to the affirmative procedure. In the new regulations, the Secretary of State will be able to provide a methodology for calculating the value of other land by making use of data that is not only available and complete, but more up to date.

Among other things, proposed new subsection (5ZB) of the 1991 Act will allow the regulations to make provision about methods to be applied or factors to be taken into account in valuing other land. This proposed subsection allows the regulations to provide for internal drainage boards to elect to have the regulations apply to them and to specify a procedure for making such an election. The IDBs would not have to adopt the new methodology; the Bill provides them with the ability to adopt it if they wish. That benefits those that do not wish to change their procedures; if they do nothing, nothing will change.

IDBs will need access to information from the Valuation Office Agency—the executive agency of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—to calculate the value of other land using a new methodology set out in regulations. Clause 3 provides a power enabling the VOA to share revenue and customs information with IDBs—

[Dr Coffey]

I encourage my hon. Friend to leave the IDBs for the next part of his speech.

[David Warburton]

Before speaking to clause 3, I need to address amendment 1—which I was just about to do, obviously. Since I introduced the Bill, new data protection legislation—the Data Protection Act 2018—has come into force, and the amendment updates the Bill to reflect that. Rather than simply changing the year of the Act mentioned, the amendment refers to data protection legislation as defined in section 3 of the 2018 Act, which means that it incorporates other related and relevant data protection legislation, including the general data protection regulation and related secondary legislation.

Returning to clause 3, proposed new section 37A(5) of the 1991 Act enables the appropriate national authority—the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers—to update and/or amend references to qualifying persons and/or qualifying purposes by regulations to be made under the affirmative procedure. Proposed new subsection (8) ensures that such regulations may be made only with the consent of the commissioners for HMRC.

New section 37B provides restrictions on onward disclosure of Revenue and Customs information. In essence, all onward disclosure is prohibited unless it meets certain criteria, as set out in subsection (1). Subsection (2) sets out the circumstances under which information may not be disclosed by the VOA without the consent of the commissioners for HMRC. It is an offence if a person contravenes the first two subsections by disclosing information relating to a person whose identity is specified in or can be deduced from such a disclosure, as is set out in subsection (4). The associated penalty of imprisonment, a fine or both is set out in subsection (6). Finally, new section 37C sets out further provisions about disclosure of information under the previous new sections, such as the conditions under which the data issued by the VOA would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

While clause 2 amends the Land Drainage Act 1991 in respect of calculating the value of other land, clause 4 makes amendments in respect of calculating the value of chargeable land—namely, agricultural land and buildings. Clause 4 inserts new section 41A into the 1991 Act, enabling the Secretary of State to make regulations, again by the affirmative procedure, to establish an alternative methodology for calculating the value of chargeable land. Although the issue of missing or incomplete data does not affect the 1991 Act’s method for calculating the value of chargeable land, the change is necessary to reduce the risk of imbalance on either side of the apportionment calculation. The Secretary of State will be able, within the new regulations, to provide a new methodology for calculating the value of chargeable land that makes use of more recent data than that dating back some 30 years.

New section 41A(3) allows the regulations to make provision about the methods to be applied or the factors to be taken into account in valuing chargeable property, including land. As before, subsection (9) allows the regulations to provide for IDBs to elect that the regulations apply to them and to specify the procedure for making such election. As I mentioned in respect of clause 2, that means that they can determine whether to adopt the new methodology and, if they do not wish to do so, nothing will change. Together, the changes will enable new, complete, available data to be used to provide alternative, fair methodologies for the calculations, which fairly apportion payment of IDB expenses between the drainage rate and the special levy.

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[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I will be brief and will begin, as others have, by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome on bringing the Bill forward. When a number of constituents wrote to me urging that I support it, I wrote back confident that it would face either the chop or the Chope. However, it has got through, which we should all be grateful for. According to the Association of British Insurers, my constituency is the most likely in the country to flood, and in 2013 it did so, which is why the Minister is spending £100 million on a flood barrier for it. I am as grateful for that as I am for the five IDBs that work in my constituency.

I want to ask two brief questions. First, the Bill is clearly aimed at the south-west, and I will not pretend for a moment that I begrudge that. However, I would like some reassurance that the IDBs in my constituency that work so well together could, if they wanted, avail themselves of the opportunity to form a rivers authority. Would the Government look favourably on that sort of thing? I say that without wishing to indicate that those IDBs necessarily want to do so, but that option is working well for Somerset in its shadow form and will hopefully work well in the future. I would like to think that we, too, could have that potential benefit.

Secondly, as the expansion of areas that are rated for IDBs is permitted elsewhere in the country, and since we all know that drainage boards work and that their benefits often extend well beyond the areas that pay for them, I hope that the expansion of IDBs will reach not just Somerset but other areas. Unfortunately, councils such as mine in Boston are often affected financially by necessary and sensible rises in drainage rates filtering through to their bottom line. That effectively means that borough councils cannot responsibly raise taxes as much as they wish to, because the 2% cap on council tax might be disproportionately taken up by that rise in drainage rates. A rivers authority is one way of solving that problem, but it strikes me that it is not the only way.

I commend this excellent Bill, and the excellent Member who has brought it forward. I hope that he and the Minister will be able to tell me that it is not only the south-west that will benefit from it.

[Dr Coffey]

To answer the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, internal drainage boards operate in a quite different way. Effectively, cash comes from local councils, which appoint people to them, and there are people who have to pay the drainage rates—that relates to agricultural land. They carry out their own elections and make decisions together. The local businesses will be ones that are concerned with agricultural land, and they run their own election process. I hope that that provides the hon. Gentleman with some reassurance.

I am conscious of the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness that there is not a separate way of accounting for the item in question on the council tax bill. I am sure he recognises that it is not possible under the Bill to change the existing arrangements by which councils might want to show clearly how money is raised, or, indeed, other aspects of the referendum. However, I assure him that if people in his area, working with the councils, want to come forward on the matter of a rivers authority, it would be open to them to do so if they believed that the benefits would outweigh those of their current arrangement.

I reiterate that the Government support the changes. In my area the East Suffolk internal drainage board operates exceptionally well and, with the de-maining pilot, will take on further responsibilities for certain rivers in the area, with no extra cost to councils or indeed agricultural landowners. I believe that IDBs are generally a force for good. They are a key part of the Cumbria flood action plan.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the Minister for injecting her expertise and local knowledge into the debate. Does she agree that the Somerset IDBs do a complicated job representing landowners, as well as a great job on the conservation front? What is amazing about the Somerset levels is that they are an internationally famous wetland site and the largest area of lowland wetland grassland in the UK. Huge populations of wading birds come there. We have three IDBs in Somerset and they have just jointly produced a biodiversity action plan. It is all part and parcel of why we need to control the water and why the Bill is so important. It is not just about people and businesses, but about wildlife.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which just goes to show how committed farmers and landowners are to improving and enhancing the natural environment in whatever way they can. The flow of water can have a significant impact on nature, and not only in landlocked areas. Members with coastal constituencies will be aware of saltmarsh and intertidal habitats that are critical for the conservation of many special species. I agree with my hon. Friend and support the work going on in Somerset.

[David Warburton]

I am grateful to the Minister for fielding all the questions so well. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane is well known as a passionate advocate of environmental matters. She is right that the Somerset biodiversity action plan is exciting and that the IDBs will play an integral part in ensuring that our splendid Somerset heritage is maintained.

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[The Chair]

May I say that the Public Bill Office has that message?

[Dr Coffey]

The Government support the Bill.

Draft Waste (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Waste (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. The need for the statutory instrument arises as the UK leaves the European Union, as provided for by the result of the 2016 referendum and as subsequently agreed by Parliament. In line with the European Union (Withdrawal Act) 2018, the regulations simply make technical legal amendments to maintain the effectiveness and continuity of UK legislation that would otherwise be left partially inoperable, so that following our exit from the EU, the law will continue to function as it does today. I assure the Committee that the adjustments represent no change in policy and will have no impact on businesses or the public.

The matters under consideration are devolved, but the four Administrations have agreed to make most of the necessary changes through the statutory instrument, so its territorial extent and application is the United Kingdom. That said, the following amendments do not cover the whole United Kingdom.

First, in part 2, the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which is amended by regulations 2 and 5, does not extend or apply to Northern Ireland. Secondly, Council decision 2003/33/EC, which is amended by regulation 15, does not form part of retained EU law in relation to Scotland, as the requirements of that decision have previously been implemented directly in Scottish domestic legislation. Thirdly, of the new reporting requirements that replace the existing reporting requirements to the Commission, which I will cover later in my speech, a particular example refers to England only, as the devolved Administrations did not want that duty to apply to them in the instrument. We have worked with the devolved Administrations during the drafting of the instrument. They have all given their consent, as has the Scottish Parliament.

The instrument covers the waste management areas of waste batteries and accumulators, end-of-waste criteria, packaging waste, end-of-life vehicle destruction certification, landfill acceptance criteria, the classification of hazardous waste, the management of waste from extractive industries, and calculation methods for verifying compliance with recycling targets under article 11.2 of the waste framework directive.

To ensure operability, the instrument will make amendments to three waste-related Acts of Parliament and 14 related EU regulations and decisions. More broadly, as has often happened with such statutory instruments, a large number of the changes are due to amending references to the European Union, EU institutions and EU administrative processes to make them refer to their domestic equivalents in the UK, and to updating legal references to refer to relevant domestic legislation.

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

I thank the Minister for giving way and assure her that I will not keep her long. The end-of-life vehicles directive puts a sum of money in place to dispose of vehicles. Naturally, the statutory instrument only passes the legislation from European to British law, but further down the road, I would like the Minister to consider the cost of scrapping vehicles. Perhaps electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles could have a lesser charge, which would be yet another way to encourage people to use electric vehicles so that we improve our air quality in the long run.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting policy point, but he will recognise that the purpose of the instrument is not to generate new policy at this stage. That will be a matter for a future separate debate. I fully understand where he is coming from—he mentioned the matter in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee yesterday—but to keep the debate relevant to the statutory instrument, I suggest we talk about it another time.

[Neil Parish]

I understand.

[Dr Coffey]

A significant part of the instrument addresses the way in which references to EU directives will be applied after exit day. I now turn to the detail of the changes that are being made through the instrument.

In part 2, regulations 2 and 3 effectively bring references to the waste framework directive up to date with respect to part II of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Waste and Emissions Trading Act 2003. That is enabled by section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. Part 2 of the draft regulations therefore brings our existing regulations up to date with the correct references.

Part 3 comprises the substantial changes needed to make the retained law operable, with respect to primary legislation, after exit from the EU. That is the element directly relevant to the withdrawal Act. Regulation 4 considers the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989, which contains a specific power for the Secretary of State to exempt—by secondary legislation—a waste carrier operating in the UK from the need to be UK registered, based solely on meeting the legal requirements in other EU member states. That power has never been used and will be redundant upon exit so we are revoking it, but the existing general power to exempt registering when prescribed conditions are met will remain. I emphasise that all carriers operating in the UK will still need to meet the requirements set by UK competent authorities.

Regulation 5 inserts new section 75A into the Environmental Protection Act. The new section clarifies how the waste framework directive will be applied after exit to maintain the existing effect and operation of the law.

Regulation 6 contains two strands of amendments to the Waste and Emissions Trading Act 2003. Regulation 6(2) amends section 1 of that Act. It omits subsection (2), which referred to landfill targets contained in article 5.2 of the landfill directive, as those targets are already set out in domestic legislation. Subsection (4) is also amended to require the Secretary of State to consult the appropriate devolved Administration for each part of the UK before setting any new landfill targets or amending existing ones. That fully respects the devolution agreements as waste is a devolved matter. A similar change is made by regulation 6(3) to the secondary legislation-making power in section 23 of the 2003 Act. Regulation 6(4) amends section 37 of that Act, which defines waste for the purpose of the Act, and inserts new section 37A to provide modifications to clarify the way that the waste framework directive will be applied after exit, in order to maintain the existing effect and operation of the law.

Part 4 of the instrument makes amendments to and revocations of retained direct EU legislation. The lawyers have drafted the regulations by number in order of year, but I will speak to groups of new regulations that refer to specific waste-related subject areas. Chapter 1 of part 4 makes amendments to EU regulations. Regulations 8 and 10 of the instrument are about batteries. They make amendments to Commission regulation 1103/2010, which relates to capacity labelling of batteries, and to Commission regulation 493/2012 on the calculation of recycling efficiencies of the recycling processes of waste batteries and accumulators.

The amendments include replacing references to “Member States” with “The Secretary of State”, and defining “appropriate agency”, which would be the environmental regulators in England, Scotland and Wales, and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland. The amendments also insert modifications that clarify the way that the various EU directives referenced in those EU regulations will be applied after exit in order to maintain the existing effect and operation of the law.

Regulations 9, 11 and 12 cover waste criteria and make amendments to three EU regulations made under article 6.1 of the waste framework directive. Those three EU regulations provide criteria for determining when certain types of scrap metal, glass cullet and copper scrap cease to be waste. The required processes for businesses to achieve end of waste will not change as a result of the instrument. The assessment of end-of-waste status and the guidance provided by regulatory agencies will still apply as before.

The principal amendments made to those EU regulations insert modifications to the way that references to EU directives in those regulations are to be applied on and after exit day. For example, references to “Member States” are to be read as references to the “appropriate authority”, “competent authority” or “local authority”, which was responsible for the UK’s compliance with that obligation or was able to exercise that discretion before exit day. To be clear, those are not new burdens; they merely maintain the status quo about who does what currently.

In addition, the amendments account for the fact that environmental verification under the eco-management and audit scheme—known as EMAS—will no longer apply in the United Kingdom. Hon. Members who have regularly attended such Delegated Legislation Committees will know that the amendments relating to that scheme have already been passed by both Houses.

Chapter 2 covers EU decisions. Regulation 13 amends Commission decision 2000/532/EC, which contains a list of waste classifications for hazardous and non-hazardous waste. The amendments introduce modifications to clarify the way that various EU directives will be applied to maintain the existing effect and operation of the law.

Regulations 14 and 16 make amendments to decisions made under directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste relating to derogations for glass packaging and plastic crates and pallets. References to “Member States” will be replaced by the “Secretary of State”, references to “Community” will be replaced by the “United Kingdom”, and appropriate agencies defined as the regulator of each nation and DAERA in Northern Ireland. They also introduce modifications that clarify the way in which EU directives referenced in the legislation will be read.

Regulations 15 and 17 to 20 amend various decisions made under directives 1999/31/EC and 2006/21/EC relating to the landfilling of waste and extractive waste respectively. These amendments include replacing references to “Member States” with “The Secretary of State”, and references to “Community” with “the United Kingdom”, and provide certainty on definitions and defining the appropriate agency. Two amendments convert requirements to report information to the European Commission into a statutory duty to publish the same information reports. As before, they introduce modifications that clarify the way in which EU directives referenced in the legislation will be applied.

Regulation 21 relates to Commission decision 2011/753/EU on establishing rules and calculation methods for verifying compliance with a target set in the waste framework directive. Regulation 21(7) applies to England only. This is where we have amended article 5 of the decision so that it now requires the Secretary of State to publish the progress report on whether the current target to recycle 50% of household waste by 2020, set by article 11.2 of the waste framework directive, has been met in respect of England. The progress report must be published before 1 January 2022. The devolved Administrations did not want this duty to apply to them in this instrument.

In chapter 3 of part 4 and the schedule, the instrument revokes some directly applicable EU legislation on waste. Some of this legislation has been revoked because it is redundant in a domestic context, for example Commission decisions that set the format of questionnaires and data reports that EU member states complete and return to the Commission in relation to the implementation of EU directives.

Other pieces of the directly applicable EU legislation are being revoked because their requirements are already embedded in domestic legislation. For example, Commission decision 2003/138/EC covers material and component coding standards for end-of-life vehicles; and Commission decision 2002/151/EC relates to minimum standards for the certificate of destruction for those vehicles. In both cases, the requirements of those decisions are already set out fully in the End-of-Life Vehicles Regulations 2003.

This statutory instrument is long and technical, but as I said at the start, it does not change policy. It simply makes the rules that we have today applicable.

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[Dr Coffey]

It is a pleasure to respond to the questions, starting with the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk. The Government absolutely recognise the devolution arrangement. The hon. Member for Ipswich effectively complains that reporting requirements apply only to England, and is trying to get the UK Government to make sure other Administrations prepare reports. It is not our obligation to do so.

The 50% target is not advisory; it is already in domestic legislation, and that is not changing in any way. Such targets are not imposed on the United Kingdom; we vote for them in the Council. We also voted for the adoption of the circular economy package. We said in the resources and waste strategy that we intend to bring that package into effect, but the detail of the transposition of directives has yet to be resolved, because elements are still going through certain processes.

[Sandy Martin]

The Minister is well aware that, although it is certainly the case that EU targets are derived from decisions made by all EU members working together, which is why some of us believe that the EU is a fairly democratic body, none the less once those decisions have been made, they are imposed on the member states. Imposing something on a member state is very different.

[Dr Coffey]

I do not accept that—the decisions are not imposed on the United Kingdom. We have that system of decision making. It is a collaborative process at the moment, so they are certainly not imposed; we agree to them. That is why we put them into our legislation. The 50% target is already in domestic law.

The hon. Gentleman is right to praise Wales, which is ahead of the target already. At the moment, Scotland is the lowest of the four nations, but I know that active work is being done to improve that. We have already started to see improvements in Northern Ireland. I really hope that hon. Members are aware of the current consultations on how we are considering changing the recycling system, the exchange of producer responsibility, with the packaging recovery network process, and other fiscal measures that we believe will stimulate an increase in recycling.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the office for environmental protection is now going through pre-legislative scrutiny. The Secretary of State and I gave evidence yesterday to the Environment, Food And Rural Affairs Committee. We are due to give further evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee. We await their views, which we will consider as we go through to the next steps in the creation of the new body. It is worth pointing out that only the European Court has the ability to submit fines. To date, I am not aware of any fine that has been imposed on the United Kingdom regarding an environmental matter, although I recognise that we may have been on that journey in several places regarding infraction.

There is a desire to ensure that we improve recycling. I believe that the regulations do exactly what they are supposed to. As I said, we updated part 2 using the European Communities Act 1972. The rest of the regulations simply provide that what happens today will happen the day after exit day. It is important that we have that level of regulation, recognising the issues that have been raised about the challenges on what we need to do to ensure that we still have an effective waste system. I hope that the Committee will support the regulations.

Question put.

Draft Conservation of Habitats and Species (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Conservation of Habitats and Species (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. The draft regulations are among a number of statutory instruments under the affirmative procedure, to be considered as the UK leaves the European Union, and will ensure that legislation that protects biodiversity through the conservation of natural habitats and species of wild fauna and flora, and conserves wild bird populations, will continue to function after exit.

The draft regulations make technical legal amendments to maintain the effectiveness and continuity of legislation that would otherwise be left partially inoperable. The adjustments represent no changes of policy, nor will they have any impact on businesses or the public. The draft statutory instrument is introduced under the correcting powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and principally makes amendments to the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 and the Conservation of Offshore Marine Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 to address technical operability issues.

The territorial extent of the draft regulations is the United Kingdom, with some exceptions. Part 2 extends to England and Wales. Part 3 extends to England and Wales, but also extends certain provisions in certain circumstances to Scotland and Northern Ireland, in relation to certain specified reserved matters. As the implementation of biodiversity and nature conservation policy is a devolved matter, we have worked closely with the devolved Administrations on the regulations and on their respective instruments. Where the regulations relate to devolved matters they have given consent.

The Scottish Government and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland are making similar changes through their own secondary legislation. The Committee may be aware that we debated the DAERA measure in Committee on Monday, and it was passed by the House of Commons last night. The Scottish measure was debated in the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee yesterday.

Members of the Committee may be aware that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds expressed concern that management objectives for the new national network of protected sites established under the regulations with regard to special protection areas were not commensurate with the objectives for the EU Natura 2000 network of sites, which are being replaced under new regulations 16A and 18A. We had some back and forth legal debate between Government lawyers and the RSPB, and to make sure the position was absolutely clear the Secretary of State took the decision to withdraw the provision in question, and re-lay the measure after redrafting. That was to make it absolutely clear that existing protections for species of wild birds and their specially protected areas will continue when we exit the EU. That has been welcomed by the RSPB.

Part 2 of the draft regulations amends the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to ensure that species of wild birds found in or regularly visiting the UK, but not elsewhere in the EU, continue to be protected. Part 3 amends the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 covering England and Wales. Part 4 amends the Conservation of Offshore Marine Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 covering the United Kingdom’s offshore marine area. The changes in part 4 largely mirror the changes made in part 3.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

What is the impact if we do not pass the Fisheries Bill and we crash out of the EU? Would that have an impact on this statutory instrument?

[Dr Coffey]

The Government have no intention of crashing out of anywhere. It is important to state that the statutory instrument is not directly related to fishing. I am aware of the issues, because I have signed legislation with regard to fisheries in the past 48 hours, when for a few short days we did not have a Minister. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) is now in post. He was due to attend this Committee, before he was elevated. He has significant fishing interests in his constituency, and he will now be cracking on, I am sure.

Part 5 of the regulations amends the Offshore Petroleum Activities (Conservation of Habitats) Regulations 2001 with regard to the functions concerning imperative reasons of overriding public interest—often known as IROPI—and is consistent with changes made to the 2017 regulations.

The majority of changes under this instrument involve various terms in regulations or directives that relate to the EU being amended to be relevant to the UK. For example, the instrument removes references in the EU legislation to the UK as an EU member state. The five main changes mainly involve a transfer of functions from the European Commission to Ministers.

Sites designated in the UK under the nature directives are currently part of the EU’s Natura 2000 network. That is the contribution from the UK to what is called the Emerald network, which is run and administered by the Council of Europe, fulfilling the Bern convention. The sites in the UK will now form a national site network and will continue to fulfil the UK’s international biodiversity obligations. That was covered for Northern Ireland the other day, and it is being covered separately by the Scottish Parliament for Scotland, so we are dealing with other sites in the rest of the UK, as laid out. At the end of November last year, I wrote to the secretariat of the Bern convention, confirming that the sites would continue to form the UK’s contribution to the convention’s Emerald network of protected sites.

New regulations 16A and 18A set out ministerial responsibility to manage and, where necessary, adapt the national site network in co-operation with other Ministers. The network’s management objectives look to secure compliance with the overarching aims of the habitats and the wild birds directives, which will be in retained EU law.

This instrument transfers to Ministers functions relating to the designation of special areas of conservation that are currently undertaken by the Commission. Ministers will assess any new SAC designation proposals, acting on advice from the appropriate nature conservation body—Natural England in the case of the Government—and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and using existing criteria. Selection of those sites will continue to be based on the criteria in annex III of the habitats directive.

This instrument, at regulations 25 and 26, transfers to Ministers the role of the Commission to offer an opinion to local decision makers, such as local planning authorities, as to whether IROPI apply where a plan or project may adversely affect priority habitats but there is no feasible alternative. In doing that, Ministers will need to take account of the national interest and consult widely, including with devolved Administrations and the JNCC. I think it is worth sharing with the Committee, as I did on Monday, that there have been no instances of that ever happening in the UK. Nevertheless, the Commission currently has the power to offer an opinion, and we thought it important, for operability, that that be brought over and made a power of Ministers.

A new instrument-making power, in new regulation 145 of the conservation of habitats regulations and new regulation 84B of the offshore marine regulations, allows Ministers to make amendments to the annexes and schedules where those reflect technical and scientific progress. The devolved Administrations will have the same powers. In essence, this is a “keeping pace” approach. Quite regularly, we see certain changes and learn new and different things about a variety of issues in relation to habitats, species and birds, and it is important that we have the power to keep up to date. Any amendment under the provision would need to be supported by expert opinion. Once the statutory instrument is, as I hope, passed, we will set out in guidance the means by which Ministers will seek that expert input, including from our statutory advisers, before deciding on any amendment to the schedules and annexes.

To ensure transparency and accountability of environmental performance, new regulation 9A of the conservation of habitats regulations will require Ministers to report publicly on the implementation of the regulations in their jurisdictions within six years from the date of exit and every six years thereafter. The position is exactly the same now, and the Secretary of State will compile reports into a combined UK report within two years. The requirement for biennial reporting on the use of any permitted exemptions or derogations from the strict protections of habitats and species is maintained. As a contracting party to the Bern convention, from which the habitats directive arises, the UK will remain obliged under article 9 and resolution 8 of the convention to submit those reports to the secretariat.

The draft instrument will ensure that the strict protections that have been in place for many years for our most vulnerable habitats and species will be maintained once we leave the European Union. For that reason, I commend the draft instrument to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

I will start with the hon. Member for Stroud; he is right to be concerned about the impacts that pollution can have on the natural environment and biodiversity. The environmental damages regulations have already been covered in a separate SI, so that is already coming into UK law. He will be aware that the polluter pays principle is very much included in the principles under which this Government and the law in this country operate. The current protections that are there today will continue.

There will be different bodies to oversee this, because this is a devolved matter, so each of the four nations in the United Kingdom has its own regulator. However, we share between us the JNCC, which covers all four Governments and consequently is another way to provide that cohesiveness across the network. Ultimately, the United Kingdom Government—this Government—are responsible for our obligations to international treaties. That is why we will continue to work collectively with them.

To turn to the questions of the hon. Member for Workington, on reporting, the provisions to provide a composite report, including an evaluation of progress and of the contribution of the national site network, replicate the current legal requirement of the Commission. I have made it clear that the UK Government will pull together a summary and a composite report of the four different reports that will come from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The regulations require the reports to be published, which will allow transparency. There will also be parliamentary and public scrutiny. It may be the case that the future office of environmental protection wishes to scrutinise the reports as well. That element of transparency will open the door to scrutiny.

As a contracting party to the Bern convention, we will continue to report on conservation status, as I have laid out, including by submitting reports every two years on any exceptions. The role of the Bern secretariat, which I met last year, is to fulfil that. At the moment, I recognise that, in effect, the Commission largely does it on behalf of the Bern secretariat for member states of the European Union.

The hon. Lady asked about whether the measure is proportionate. I assure her that it is not the provision’s intention to reduce existing nature conservation protections in any way. I do not agree with Greener UK’s assertion about a legal error. The provision is not about the designation and management of sites, and therefore the permitting of certain activities, but about the overall management of the network across the country in the context of achieving status for species and habitats across their biogeographical area and within their natural range.

The new regulations place a wide duty on Ministers, in co-operation with other UK authorities, to manage and adapt the network and to maintain or, where appropriate, restore threatened and vulnerable habitats and species to favourable conservation status throughout their natural range. We can contribute to achieving that favourable conservation status only in proportion to how far the range of the threatened or vulnerable species and habitats falls within UK jurisdiction. In that respect, the provision reflects the requirement in article 3 of the habitats directive to have a coherent ecological network and to maintain and manage species and habitats, and for future Ministers to have regard to what is being done beyond UK borders to contribute most effectively to maintaining and restoring those features in their natural range.

I was surprised that Greener UK decided that the naming of the national site network was a significant issue. Regulation 4(2)(a) makes it clear that the national site network is made up of former Natura 2000 sites in the UK and any new sites we designate under the regulations. Sites will continue to be selected under the criteria set out in the annexes of the habitats directive and the birds directive, as they are retained in UK law, which makes them distinct from SSSIs.

It would not be appropriate to include Ramsar sites, because they are selected on different criteria. As a matter of policy, they are already protected in the same way as special areas of conservation and special protected areas, so including them would represent a legislative change and effect a change of policy, which is not the intention of any of the statutory instruments introduced under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

The “national site network” is a legal term for the purposes of the regulations. It will be open to UK Ministers to agree a distinct name for the network, in a similar way to the Natura 2000 or Emerald networks. We certainly do not need a legal power to do that. The marine protected area network already includes marine conservation zones, which were established under national legislation, and special areas of conservation or special protection areas, with marine components established under the EU directives, without giving rise to confusion.

I want to make it clear that I do not think Greener UK should worry so much about the legal term used in a statutory instrument. We will continue as we are and I hope to announce the latest tranche of marine conservation zones fairly soon. I hope people accept that what has been done under domestic legislation, rather than European legislation, is still part of our contribution to a wide variety of networks.

The hon. Lady talks, quite rightly, about the importance of our international obligations. The explanatory memorandum makes it clear that the UK will continue to meet its international commitments. It specifically refers to the Bern and Bonn conventions, because those are the basis of the habitats directive. The Bern convention deals with that directly. The Bonn convention, which is about migratory species, is also covered in helping to fulfil the habitats directive. We chose two of the most prominent international conventions of which we are already members. We will continue to fulfil our international obligations.

The hon. Lady referred to one of those international obligations—the convention on biodiversity. She is right to be concerned about the decline in natural biodiversity in this country and around the world. I believe that the actions and strategies that we are already developing and consulting on will really help us to reverse that turn. Those include conservation covenants, which we are consulting on at the moment, the nature-based networks, the net gain on biodiversity when we consider development, and the complete reform of what will effectively become the replacement for the common agricultural policy. Those actions and strategies will put the environment at the heart of how we help our farmers—who are, let us be candid, the original friends of the earth—in having that stewardship and rewarding them for it in the future.

I recognise the hon. Lady’s concerns, but I hope that while she may not agree with every policy—I understand why the Opposition may not always agree with the Government on every policy—she will recognise the efforts that we are making and our international work with the convention on biodiversity. I was pleased to visit the conference last year in the build-up to 2020. There is a real call to action around the world. I am delighted to say that the United Kingdom is playing and will play its part.

[The Chair]

I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Gloucester arrive just in time to shout “Aye”.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Conservation (Natural Habitats Etc.) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Conservation (Natural Habitats, etc.) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

[Dr Coffey]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. These are the two affirmative statutory instruments in my portfolio that extend and apply solely to Northern Ireland. These regulations relate only to Northern Ireland and concern devolved areas of policy, which would normally be dealt with by the devolved Administration at Stormont. Another Committee of the House will debate regulations on habitats applicable to other parts of the UK later this week, and the second of the two regulations to which I am speaking has already been considered and passed by Parliament in regard to England and Wales.

Because there is already a well-established body of separate Northern Ireland legislation in these two areas, having separate SIs will help to preserve the coherence of the Northern Ireland statute book. The UK Parliament is being asked to consider and pass these SIs in the absence of the Northern Ireland Assembly. That said, I am delighted—the Committee will not be surprised to know—that the civil service continues to operate fully in Northern Ireland and officials there have prepared these statutory instruments. I requested that we be joined by officials from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, to help answer any questions that members of the Committee may have.

These two sets of regulations are made under section 8 and paragraph 21(b) of schedule 7 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The Act retains EU-derived legislation in UK law. Section 8 of the Act enables regulations to be made to address deficiencies in EU-derived legislation, so that the law continues to be operable.

The Conservation (Natural Habitats, etc.) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 ensure that legislation protecting biodiversity through the conservation of natural habitats and species will continue to function after exit from the EU. The regulations make technical amendments to maintain the effectiveness and continuity of legislation that would otherwise be left partially inoperable. The amendments represent no changes of policy, nor will they have any impact on businesses or the public.

Part 2 amends the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, to ensure that species of wild birds found in or regularly visiting the UK, but not elsewhere in the EU, continue to be protected. Part 2 also includes a technical amendment to the Water (Northern Ireland) Order 1999. The change will ensure the operability of two powers within the order, to give effect to retained EU obligations.

Part 3 is the main focus of the regulation and amends the Conservation (Natural Habitats, etc.) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995. The 1995 regulations, together with the Wildlife (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, transposed the requirements of the habitats directive and the wild birds directive into Northern Ireland law. Various terms in the regulations or the directives that relate to the EU are amended to be relevant to the UK. For example, the instrument removes references to the UK as an EU member state. The instrument introduces five main changes, mainly involving a transfer of functions from the European Commission to Ministers.

Sites designated in the United Kingdom under the nature directives are part of the EU’s Natura 2000 network. Those sites are the EU’s contribution to the Emerald network, established by the Council of Europe to fulfil the Bern convention. Those sites will now form a national site network and will continue to fulfil the UK’s international biodiversity obligations. Any such area that is currently part of the Natura 2000 network will continue automatically to be part of the Emerald network on leaving the European Union.

New regulations set out by the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs make it its responsibility to manage and, where necessary, adapt the national site network in co-operation with other authorities. The network’s management objectives look to secure compliance with the aims of the habitats directive and the wild birds directive as retained EU law.

On the designation of special areas of conservation, functions currently undertaken by the European Commission are being transferred to DAERA, which will assess any new special areas of conservation designation proposals, acting on advice from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee using existing criteria.

Regarding IROPI, which stands for imperative reasons of overriding public interest, this instrument transfers the role of the European Commission in being able to offer an opinion to local decision makers such as local planning authorities to DAERA. The opinion concerns whether imperative reasons of overriding public interest may apply in the granting of a planning application for a proposal that might adversely affect priority habitats where there is no feasible alternative. In doing so, DAERA would need to take account of the national interest and consult widely, including the UK Government, other devolved Administrations and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. I should point out that it is my understanding that IROPI has never been deployed in relation to priority features regarding planning proposals anywhere in the UK, such that no final dossier has been submitted to the European Commission for an opinion.

Turning to amendments to annexes and schedules, a new instrument-making power allows DAERA to make amendments to the annexes and schedules as required to reflect technical and scientific progress. DAERA will set out in guidance the means by which expert input is sought, including from statutory advisers, before making any amendment to the schedules and annexes. To ensure transparency and accountability of environmental performance, in line with current requirements, DAERA will report publicly on the implementation of the regulations within six years of the date of exit and every six years thereafter.

The second set of regulations we are considering, namely the draft Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, address failures of retained EU law to operate effectively with regard to Northern Ireland environmental legislation, arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Legislation amended by the regulations covers a wide range of environmental law in Northern Ireland, including the management of waste, producer responsibility, permitting and licensing, noise, environmental liability, air quality and genetically modified organisms.

The regulations amend six pieces of Northern Ireland primary legislation and two sets of regulations. Part 2 of the regulations makes amendments to the following Northern Ireland primary legislation: the Genetically Modified Organisms (Northern Ireland) Order 1991; the Industrial Pollution Control (Northern Ireland) Order 1997; the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997; the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Northern Ireland) Order 1998; the Environment (Northern Ireland) Order 2002 and the Environmental Better Regulation Act (Northern Ireland) 2016.

Part 3 of the regulations sets out amendments to the Environmental Noise Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 and the Liability (Prevention and Remediation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2009. Part 4 of the regulations makes savings in respect of the amendments made to the Environment (Northern Ireland) Order 2002 by this instrument.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I have a question of clarification: in the explanatory memorandum to the Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments) regulations that we are discussing, in section 7.2 it says:

“With EU exit day less than one year away”.

As I understand it, the Government are insisting that we will still leave the EU at the end of this month. I just wondered why that wording was used; is there something the Minister knows that we do not? Also, although I understand she is a hard-working Minister and someone I have always had great respect for, how many other SIs does her Department need to get through before the end of March, and will it have a functioning statute book by the time we leave?

[Dr Coffey]

The 29 March is within a year. I think this SI was written prior to Christmas, and deliberately written to give that sense. I think it is standard wording that is being used across every Northern Ireland statutory instrument being taken through the UK Parliament, so we have not changed the wording in that regard.

I do not have the answer to the hon. Lady’s second question; she may wish to speak to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) who is in charge of statutory instruments for DEFRA. In terms of statutory instruments for which I am responsible, our last SI together, which might be not quite my last opportunity to debate with the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, is a week tomorrow. I am confident from my side, but as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East would expect, we will ensure that the legislation is in place.

In summary, the draft regulations are technical in nature and amend various aspects of environmental legislation, focusing primarily on references to EU law, to Commission processes and to the UK being a member state of the European Union, which will no longer be the case. If we do not address those deficiencies, the result could be legal uncertainty for regulators, stakeholders and the Government, ambiguity about environmental obligations, and difficulty with enforcement for regulators. There are no policy changes and no reduction in the environmental standards or obligations to which Northern Ireland is currently subject. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

It is a pleasure to respond to some of the queries that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport has raised. On the professionalism of the civil service in Northern Ireland, I have full confidence that it will continue the effective regulation that it undertakes today, including its regulators, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. I expect it to be enforcing the law in exactly the same way on 29 March as it will from 30 March onward. The point of these statutory instruments is to allow it to do so and to ensure that the obligations and the law continue as they are.

On the question of fatigue among non-governmental organisations and time to consider stakeholder feedback, there has been considerable time to consider these particular statutory instruments. Some of the stakeholder feedback was received before Christmas and some has been received since—a discussion about whether the ongoing status of the special areas of conservation was clear in law. We agreed with certain things that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said and not with others, but the feedback prompted us to make the statutory instrument clearer. We chose to withdraw and re-lay it to ensure that it was clear, and the RSPB confirmed, as did Greener UK, that that was welcome.

I am conscious of the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the phrase,

“no, or no significant, impact”.

I tried to explain to him in a previous Committee that that is a standard of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, the body that has set out how certain things must be drafted and laid out in the explanatory memorandums. I suggest, since he has taken a huge interest in the JCSI, that the Opposition Whip might wish to volunteer the hon. Gentleman to sit on that Committee in future. “Due to have regard” is a fairly standard legal phrase that is used, in effect, where Government or a regulator must look at regulations and those regulations are what they follow. That is the intent of that phrase.

Regarding the report format, I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about how it might be scrutinised and whether it will lead to reduced quality, but it is fair to say that the reports sent to the Commission at the moment are all done to accommodate the needs of the EU 28. It may be that in future it is decided that there is a simpler way of preparing the information required, and we may want a more tailored way of doing so. I know that we regularly see minor changes here and there from the Commission, where we update how we report on certain matters; this SI just leaves us the power to make similar changes.

[Luke Pollard]

Could the Minister set out how any changes in format would work with the Republic of Ireland, given that Northern Ireland shares a land border with another EU member state and there are some habitats that cross the land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Good Friday agreement requires both countries to have regard to each other, to collaborate and to co-operate, but not, even now, to be identical in every aspect, although of course EU regulations apply directly to both. However, for example, directives can allow legislation to be written somewhat differently if it achieves the same outcome.

I expect that that co-operation will continue, whether through the North South Ministerial Council or the British-Irish Council, a meeting of which I attended about 10 days ago. Lough Foyle and Carlingford Lough each have one management body, involving the north and the Republic working together, so there are already good examples of direct collaboration on different things that are needed. However, I expect that DAERA will consult on any changes to formats.

On scrutiny, obviously the regulator will still be in place and will be able to scrutinise exactly what is going on, and it will be for the Administration to decide whether to scrutinise the reports that are generated. It will be open to the Assembly to undertake that role in due course. A lot of those reports, especially on habitats, have to be presented to the Council of Europe, through the Bern convention secretariat, which again offers opportunities for scrutiny. There is also the ongoing scrutiny that is often done outside Parliament, which I expect will continue.

On the different aspects of new schedule 3A, scientific and technical progress comes up quite a bit when discussing elements of the environment or animal welfare. Quite straightforwardly, the new schedule recognises, as happened not that long ago when we discussed updating humane trapping standards—I think several Committee members were there—that there is some progress for which we need to update the law, rather than its being stuck in aspic. The new schedule gives us the opportunity to do that.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether that means that animal welfare standards could be lowered. It would be a brave Northern Irish Administration that wanted to do that. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that we are committed to the non-regression clause of the withdrawal agreement, which I expect includes animal welfare. I say again that my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth has been one of the biggest champions of ensuring that we preserve our animal welfare standards. In fact, it will actually go the other way; it will be the United Kingdom pressing the EU 27 to make sure that they keep up with the animal welfare standards that we have championed for so long.

On scrutiny of Northern Ireland after we leave the EU, the Northern Irish Administration have asked us to consider including them in the remit of our proposed Office for Environmental Protection, which we are considering as part of our pre-legislative scrutiny. However, it is my understanding that it is not the case that Northern Ireland will automatically come under the scrutiny of that office; that will be a decision for Northern Irish Ministers to make in the future. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that both the Welsh and Scottish Governments have chosen to not join the OEP, but I am pleased to see that DAERA wants to at least set in place the possible opportunity and mechanism for such scrutiny and ongoing monitoring in the future.

The hon. Gentleman asked specifically about aspects of new schedule 3A. I understand that the new schedule allows us to mirror, if appropriate, future changes to the corresponding annexe of the directive, or to the Bern convention. We have talked about designations of special areas of conservation under the amended regulation 7(1) of the Conservation (Natural Habitats, etc.) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995. Existing sites of Community importance are mostly designated. That is my understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland. They certainly have to be designated within six years, which is the current practice.

In essence, the obligation is on member states to designate sites as soon as they meet the selection criteria, as we have seen in the UK recently with the designation of sites for harbour porpoise. They have gone through the process of being deemed of Community importance, and now have gone or are going through the SAC process. Those things all take a certain amount of regulation to take them forward, but there is no change, as far as I am aware, in the regulations from how we operate today. That is relevant to the retained EU legislation.

I know that the hon. Gentleman is frustrated about the pace of trying to get through a lot of statutory instruments. I assure him that I have met the Democratic Unionist party spokesman to discuss a lot of these Northern Ireland statutory instruments, just as I have extended the offer to the Opposition and to the Scottish National party to come to us in advance with queries about any of the statutory instruments. That offer still stands for the remaining few statutory instruments related to my portfolio.

I am conscious that I may not have addressed all the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. I hope he accepts, however, that we are not changing policy—that is an opportunity for Parliament in the future—but making sure that the important legislation that we have in place for preserving the natural environment and trying to do more to address its decline, as he rightly pointed out, especially when it comes to species conservation, will still be in place in Northern Ireland, and that the regulators will have the powers, through the amendments in the second set of regulations, to ensure that there is proper ongoing environmental assessment and management.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Conservation (Natural Habitats, etc.) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

Draft Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Environment (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.—(Dr Thérèse Coffey.)

EU Environment Council

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

The next EU Environment Council will take place on 5 March, in Brussels. I will be attending to represent the UK, and the Scottish Minister for Rural Affairs and Natural Environment, Mairi Gougeon MSP, will also attend.

On environment items, the main legislative focus will be a general approach on the drinking water directive. In addition, there will also be an exchange of views on greening the European semester, and a policy debate on the European Union framework on endocrine disruptors.

The primary focus for climate items will be a policy debate entitled a “Clean planet for all: Strategic long-term vision for a climate neutral economy”.

Any other business (AOB) will include information from the Commission on three items:

Better enforcement of the EU phasedown for hydroflurocarbons;

Proposal for a regulation in order to take appropriate account of the global data collection system for ship fuel oil consumption data;

Intersessional Espoo meeting of the parties, Geneva, 5 to 7 February 2019.

There are currently three member state led AOBs:

Environmental protection policies to combat depopulation in rural areas and to improve quality of life (tabled by Spain);

Tackling greenhouse gas emissions by aviation pricing (tabled by Belgium);

Preparation of the XXI conference of the parties to the Barcelona convention, for the protection of the marine environment and the coastal area of the Mediterranean, hosted by Italy in Naples from 2 to 5 December 2019 (tabled by Italy).

[HCWS1367]

Draft International Waste Shipments (amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft International Waste Shipments (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. This is one of a number of affirmative statutory instruments to be considered as the UK leaves the European Union, as provided for by the result of the 2016 referendum and as subsequently agreed by Parliament. In line with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the regulations simply make technical, legal amendments to maintain the effectiveness and continuity of the legislation controlling shipments of waste, which would otherwise be left partially inoperable, so that following our exit from the EU the law will continue to function as it does today.

The statutory instrument is quite lengthy and makes many adjustments. However, I assure the Committee that those adjustments represent no changes of policy, and nor will they have any impact on businesses or the public. The regulations do exactly what they say on the tin: they bring over what is required to ensure that, the day after exit, things operate just as they did the day before—no more and no less. Otherwise, I would have been breaking the ministerial code when I signed the transparency statement. There is no change in policy; the regulations are simply technical.

The territorial extent of this instrument is the United Kingdom. It applies to all of the United Kingdom, including the territorial sea adjacent to it. The legislation in this area is reserved, but this instrument has been the subject of extensive consultation with the devolved Administrations and the UK regulators.

Part 1 of the regulations contains technical introductory provisions. Part 2 corrects outdated references in the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007 to the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment, which is now known as the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. It also updates a reference to the legislation governing waste management licensing in Scotland to the current 2011 regulations. Part 3 makes technical changes to the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007.

Regulations 14 and 15 omit references to “Community Regulation”. Regulations 16 and 17 omit regulations that implement provisions relating to an EU body and historic transitional provisions in the EU legislation from the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union.

Regulations 18 to 25 make provision for the UK plan for shipments of waste of May 2012 to continue to have effect and to be changed in the future. The amendments provide that any future change must meet Basel convention objectives to have adequate disposal facilities, to minimise the movements of hazardous wastes and to ensure that shipments of wastes are allowed only if the state of export does not have the technical capacity or the facilities to dispose of the wastes in question in an environmentally sound manner.

Regulations 26 to 41 make technical changes to the offence provisions in the domestic regulations. These changes preserve the scope of existing offences and ensure that no new offences are created.

Regulation 42 omits regulation 60 of the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007, which revoked previous versions of the domestic regulations. This change tidies up the law and is intended to make it clearer. Regulation 43 omits schedule 1, which also relates to historic transitional provisions in the EU legislation from the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union.

Part 4 makes technical changes by omitting references to the relevant retained EU law in annex 20 to the European economic area agreement, so far as that annex forms part of our domestic law. The references are no longer needed because the retained EU legislation on waste shipments has been amended so that it sets out all the rules that govern shipments to or from European Free Trade Association countries, for example by treating Liechtenstein as an OECD decision country.

Regulations 45 to 109 in part 5 make technical changes to the principal retained EU regulation on waste shipments, namely European Commission regulation No. 1013/2006. Regulations 46, 47 and 50 amend the scope of retained EU law to make clear that it applies to waste shipments to, from or through the United Kingdom. They also correct definitions and out-of-date references to EU legislation to ensure operability and to make the law clearer.

Regulation 48 amends definitions and makes technical changes to ensure that references to competent authorities and to the 2008 waste framework directive, which appear throughout the retained EU legislation, continue to be effective. Regulation 49 omits a deficient reference to the European Union.

Regulation 51 omits or modifies references to “the Community” and, where required, substitutes those terms with appropriate UK terms. It removes an obligation to inform the Commission about national law related to financial guarantees.

Regulation 52 amends EU provisions that allow the regulators to object to shipments of notifiable waste for disposal that are not in accordance with the principles of proximity, priority for recovery and self-sufficiency at EU and national levels. Those principles are currently defined in the context of an obligation to encourage the establishment of an EU network of waste disposal installations and consequently are no longer relevant to the UK. The instrument substitutes references to the principles with Basel convention obligations to have adequate disposal facilities, to minimise the movements of hazardous wastes and to ensure that shipments of wastes are only allowed if the state of export does not have the technical capacity or the facilities to dispose of the wastes in question in an environmentally sound manner.

Regulations 52 and 53 also make technical changes that preserve the existing powers to object to notifiable waste shipments for disposal or recovery where a destination site operates to lower environmental standards than those in the UK.

Regulations 54 to 62 and regulations 64, 66, 67 and 68 omit or modify references to “Community”, “within the Community”, “Member States” “within a Member State”, “competent authorities”, “the Commission” and “third”, as in third country, and where required substitutes those terms with appropriate UK terms. Regulation 63 removes a reference to an EU directive that is no longer in force, substituting it with a reference to the current EU legislation.

Regulation 65 omits article 30, which relates to border area agreements between member states. Regulation 69 omits all of title 3 of the EU regulation, which requires member states to set up systems for internal waste movements consistent with the system used between member states. Given that the UK has a system for internal waste movements, those provisions are considered redundant.

Regulations 70, 71 and 72 relate to the export of waste to EU and EFTA countries for disposal. The technical changes contained in the draft regulations maintain the control procedures for such exports and preserve the existing prohibition on exports of waste for disposal except to EU or EFTA countries. Approval to export waste to the EU for disposal is contingent on a third country providing appropriate justification. A requirement is included for the Secretary of State to provide such a justification to the competent authority in the relevant EU or EFTA country. Regulation 72 also omits redundant obligations to provide documentation to EU customs offices and substitutes references to EU customs officials’ duties to the duties of UK customs officials.

Regulations 73 to 79 make technical changes to maintain the existing controls and procedures that govern the exports of wastes to non-OECD countries, OECD countries, the Antarctic, and British and EU overseas territories and to EU member states for recovery.

Regulations 80 to 89 make changes to maintain existing procedures that control imports of wastes for disposal or recovery and controls on wastes that transit through the UK. The regulations also omit redundant obligations to provide documentation to EU customs offices and substitute references to EU customs officials’ duties to the duties of UK customs officials.

Regulation 90 omits redundant references to “the Community”, movements of waste “in the Community”, “Community legislation”, “third” and “third countries”. Regulation 91 makes a number of amendments to enforcement provisions. The provisions of article 50 have already been implemented in the UK through the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007 and so some of those provisions will now be redundant and can be omitted. Regulation 90 also modifies those provisions that place obligations on member states to co-operate with each other so that such obligations now fall to the UK regulators.

Regulations 91 and 92 make changes that preserve obligations to provide reports to the secretariat of the Basel convention and omits obligations to provide information to the European Commission on the movement of waste between EU member states. Regulation 93 makes changes to maintain obligations in respect to international co-operation. Regulation 94 omits redundant provisions that require member states to designate competent authorities and contact points to the European Commission.

Regulation 95 makes technical changes that preserve the power for the Secretary of State to designate places at which waste entering or leaving the United Kingdom is controlled. Regulation 96 modifies a provision such that the Secretary of State is required to notify specified information to the secretariat of the Basel convention, rather than the European Commission. The regulation also places an obligation on the Secretary of State to publish UK information previously published by the Commission.

Regulation 97 omits article 57, which relates to an EU body. Regulation 98 omits article 58a, which provides a power to the European Commission to amend annexes to the regulation. Regulation 99 omits article 60, which places obligations on the European Commission to review the regulations. Regulation 100 omits articles 62 to 64, which are considered redundant. Article 62 provides transition rules for shipments of waste approved under the previous EU legislation on waste shipments. Article 63 covers historic transitional provisions in the EU legislation from the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the EU. Article 64 makes provisions for the entry into force and application of the EU regulation. Regulation 101 omits a reference to the direct applicability of the EU legislation to member states.

Regulations 102 to 104 make technical changes to instructions on the completion of forms. Regulations 105 to 108 update or remove references to redundant EU legislation. Regulation 109 modifies the questionnaire for reports on inspections and enforcement, omitting the elements of the EU questionnaire that related to movements of waste between member states. Regulation 110 makes minor technical changes to retained EU legislation that sets out the control procedures for exports of waste for recovery to non-OECD countries. Regulation 111 makes minor technical changes to retained EU legislation that provides a correlation table between EU customs codes and EU waste codes.

The statutory instrument addresses technical deficiencies in the waste shipment legislation, in order to ensure that the legislation will continue to operate effectively when we leave the EU. As I have said, it does not introduce new policy. In the development of the instrument, we have sought to ensure minimum disruption to businesses that are involved in the shipment of waste, by retaining existing law. No enforcement mechanisms or enforcement bodies are being changed, and there are no significant impacts on the enforcement bodies, such as the Environment Agency, or other regulators. The instrument has been designed to ensure the continuation of the current system for the control of waste shipments, and no significant direct impacts have been identified.

Should the UK leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement in place, 545 of the 556 existing approvals to ship notifiable waste to EU countries will continue to be valid. No new applications will be required to allow the export of those wastes and there will be no additional administrative costs associated with the approval process. Unfortunately, Spain is the only EU member state still to provide a response in respect to 11 approvals. My officials have met officials from the Spanish Ministry of Environment, and given that those shipments have previously been approved, there is agreement on both sides that it is important to avoid unnecessary duplication. Our principal export to Spain seems to be car batteries. We have had discussions with prominent exporters there, and there are certainly other countries in the European Union that could accommodate those materials, if necessary.

For those reasons, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

To respond to the hon. Member for Ipswich, seven businesses in England have been affected by the situation in Spain. I do not have the statistics for countries whose regulators are different from the Environment Agency, but I know that the agency has spoken to each of the seven businesses and they are making contingency plans. As I outlined in my opening comments, there are alternative places for people to send car batteries and other products that are currently being sent to Spanish recycling processors.

It is important to recognise that we are still part of the Basel convention, which itself has international laws. I have explained how we are taking the Basel convention, a lot of which was applied through EU regulations, into domestic law so that we continue to have those obligations. The hon. Gentleman referred to countries such as China not taking waste, but China does still take some waste. It is about the level of contamination. We were exporting a lot more paper waste than plastic waste to China, recognising that packaging often gets remade in China and other countries in Asia. Nevertheless, the Environment Agency, proactively and on an intelligence-led basis, works to target exporters in trying to prohibit, prior to export, the movement of waste that would otherwise be illegal. In some countries—including, I think, in Malaysia —waste seems to have been exported to an illegal business, and the Environment Agency was not informed that that business was illegal. Now that our intelligence is better, measures such as stop notices can be deployed more often, and we need an intelligence-led approach for that.

The United Kingdom has always had a strong legal framework for enforcing environmental protections on waste. In terms of EU countries offloading into the United Kingdom, we are all members of the OECD and there is a convention that, in essence, countries can export to other OECD countries. The receiving country will designate the waste as what it considers to be either high or low risk, and processes are followed in that regard, including on what controls are needed when exporting or importing. EU regulations do not allow EU member states to export their waste outside the EU for final disposal, although that is allowed for recycling, so there is no risk in that regard.

We take waste for disposal from other EU member states, and the EU will need to change its rules if it wishes that to continue. I know of one example where the recycling processor has already made arrangements for that EU member state to divert, so instead of that waste coming to the UK facility, it will go to another facility within the European Union. Contingency plans and preparations are well developed in that field.

I think I have covered the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that the Committee will approve this statutory instrument.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Ozone-Depleting Substances and Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases (Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Ozone-Depleting Substances and Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. The purpose of the instrument is to correct deficiencies in retained EU law so that the United Kingdom can continue controlling the use of ozone-depleting substances and fluorinated greenhouse gases once we leave the European Union. It is one of a number of affirmative statutory instruments to be considered as the UK leaves the EU, as provided for by the result of the 2016 referendum and subsequently agreed by Parliament.

In line with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the regulations simply make technical, legal amendments to maintain the effectiveness and continuity of UK legislation that would otherwise be left partially inoperable, so that, following our exit from the EU, the law will continue to function as it does today. I can assure the Committee that these amendments do not represent a change of policy, and nor will they have a significant impact on businesses or the public. We have worked with the devolved Administrations on this instrument, and where its application extends to them, they have given their consent.

The regulations may be somewhat technical but, a bit like a well-known chemical, they do exactly what it says on the tin: they bring over the regulations that are required to ensure that things operate just as they did the day before—no more and no less. If they did any more, I would have broken the ministerial code in signing the transparency statement. So there is no change in policy, and the regulations are simply technical.

Ozone-depleting substances, such as chlorofluorocarbons —often known as CFCs—damage the earth’s ozone layer, increasing the risk of skin cancer and damaging the wider environment. Almost all uses of these chemicals have been phased out under the UN Montreal protocol. EU legislation implements that agreement by restricting ozone-depleting chemicals to certain limited uses where there are no viable alternatives, such as in fire extinguishers on aircraft. It also requires all imports and exports to be licensed to help monitor global compliance.

Fluorinated gases have replaced ozone-depleting substances for many uses, including in refrigerants, aerosol propellants and other industrial processes. They are still powerful greenhouse gases, and, through legislation that we have agreed, we require their use to be phased down. It was only a couple of years ago that the Kigali amendment to the Montreal protocol was agreed and subsequently ratified, with the United Kingdom being the first European Union nation to ratify.

The 2018 Act will retain the EU legislation in UK law after exit day, and most of the provisions will operate without amendment, including requirements to minimise leakages and for technicians handling these substances to be properly trained and certified. However, without changes, some crucial elements would not function. Most importantly, the restriction on the amount of gas that can be sold is currently achieved through quota limits placed on importers and producers. The European Commission directly allocates the quotas to individual producing and importing businesses. The regulations therefore transfer those quota allocation powers to the Secretary of State and the devolved Administrations, establishing a separate UK quota system. Instead of an importer or a producer getting a single quota from the Commission, limiting how much they sell in the EU28 market, they would get two quotas, one from the European Commission for sales on the EU27 market, and one from the Secretary of State for sales on the UK market.

My Department contacted all companies currently supplying the UK to ask how much they placed on the UK market, to determine as accurately as possible the correct quota allocations. That data was cross-referenced with other market information to ensure that the UK supply remains as close as possible to current levels. The UK consumption of hydrofluorocarbons calculated through that process is 11.2%, which closely aligns with the percentage of our population relative to that of the EU, which is 12%. My Department has also recently completed the IT systems needed to operate the UK system, and well over half the businesses currently supplying the UK have already registered on the system to ensure that they can continue operating in the UK.

On the specific changes the instrument makes, regulation 2 omits a redundant reference from the EU legislation in the existing UK enforcement regulations. Regulations 4, 5 and 25 in part 2 and regulations 37, 38 and 56 in part 3 facilitate the transfer of functions to the Secretary of State and the Environment Agency with respect to England and to the devolved authorities with respect to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. A number of the regulations throughout the instrument transfer powers from the Commission to the appropriate UK authorities by amending references to the Commission and the Union. A number of other regulations update cross-references to other legislation that have changed since the EU regulations were drafted.

Regulations 7 and 9 reduce the maximum limit values for the use of certain ozone-depleting substances to reflect the lower usage in the UK relative to the rest of the EU. That is done pro rata, based on the population of the UK relative to that of the EU. Regulations 11 and 20 delete redundant provisions, while regulations 15 and 48 amend dates to reflect the operation of the provisions from the point at which we leave the European Union. Regulation 43 enables training certificates issued in EU member states to continue to be recognised in the UK, to ensure that technicians trained in the EU can continue to work in the UK.

Regulation 48 requires the authorities in one part of the United Kingdom to consult the authorities in other parts before establishing their own F-gas quota system. Regulation 50 enables companies holding EU quota authorisations that are needed to import equipment containing HFCs to exchange those authorisations for a UK version so that they can continue to use them to import to the UK. Regulation 59 allows for the adjustment of HFC quotas should it become clear that, as a result of splitting from the EU quota system, UK supply is below the level it would have been had we not left the European Union.

Finally, we have taken a power through the Environment (Amendment Etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which have already been approved, for regulators to charge businesses a fee to cover the cost of operating a UK system. That will cover the estimated £500,000 per annum administrative costs faced by the Environment Agency and is in line with the long-established principle that the polluter, rather than the taxpayer, should pick up the cost of regulating.

Most aspects of the EU regulations fall within devolved competence, so most functions are being transferred to the Secretary of State and Environment Agency with respect to England and to the devolved authorities with respect to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, the Devolved Administrations have agreed that, for our exit day preparations, they will remain part of a single, UK-wide system, particularly for the purpose of allocating quotas. That means that, immediately after exit, the Environment Agency will allocate quotas for the whole UK market.

The devolved Administrations have all agreed to this instrument, and discussions are under way on the governance arrangements for the operation of the system and the joint decision-making process. Should any Administration wish to diverge from a UK-wide approach in future, they will need to consult the other Administrations to ensure that preparations on both sides can be made.

As we leave the EU, we are ensuring that we have the necessary regulations in place. That is particularly important in relation to ozone-depleting substances, especially as the regulations currently in law, which we must ensure we fully transpose, will be responsible for delivering one third of the Paris agreement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman praises the Montreal protocol. Of course, it was under Margaret Thatcher that the United Kingdom joined it; she was one of the great leaders who recognised the climate change challenge at that time. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the protocol has been successful. Apart from perhaps the UN convention on desertification, it has been the most successful of all the binding international environmental laws.

I am conscious that, right across the House, we continue to seek more action on this issue. It is important to get the regulations right. The hon. Gentleman is accurate to say that the explanatory memorandum was written in the autumn—technically the winter. The draft statutory instrument was initially laid in December 2018, alongside the explanatory memorandum. There was a drafting exchange with the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, and the draft instrument was withdrawn and relaid, but there was no need in my view to update the explanatory memorandum.

The hon. Gentleman asked a series of questions about the 12.4%. It is important that he understands that quotas are not allocated to countries, which is why we do not have definitive knowledge of exactly how much CFCs or HFCs are being used in this country. Quotas are allocated, in effect, to producers, which then sell them to companies here in the UK, or a UK company could sell them to somewhere in, for example, Spain. It will vary based on where it is needed and where the production of different materials may be.

That is why we have done the work we have, and why the European Commission also contacted companies. The Commission has not shared its information with us, but we believe that ours is largely accurate. That is why we have given ourselves, to some extent, an element of flexibility to review the situation. It is not that we wish to have an unduly uneven playing field in the ongoing operability of the functions.

We recognise that the 12.4% is, to some extent, arbitrary. It was decided by the EU at the time, based on usage in the UK. That data is aggregated at EU28 level, so populations and, therefore, the consumption of goods are a reasonably good way for these things to be allocated. That is in line with the regulation that brought all this into effect.

The IT system is ready and open, and businesses are accessing it. It has been financed through Government funding. Future charges will be for the overall regulation system. I do not believe that the guidance will be ready on 1 April, but it will be ready fairly soon, and the Environment Agency will have the budget it needs to do the work it does. It is a case of how we then reclaim those costs.

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that we are not prepared for leaving the European Union. He will be aware that the Government’s position is that we want to leave with a deal, and we are still working on that. I do not have the political declaration to hand, but from recollection I do not believe it specifically refers to continuing to have a shared EU quota for F-gases. What we propose, working with the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is the right way forward to make sure we have a quota system that works for us.

We are still full members of the Montreal protocol—we never gave up our seat—and we will continue to pay into the Montreal protocol assistance fund to help developing nations around the world accelerate moves towards using less harmful gases in their everyday manufacturing and in things such as air conditioning, refrigeration and so on. On that note, I believe the draft regulations are fit for purpose, and I commend them to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Air Quality (Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles Database) (England and Wales) Regulations 2019.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen.

We are at a rare point at this moment in history because the statutory instrument has nothing to do with leaving the European Union. It is business as usual. The SI has been scheduled because of its importance in helping councils tackle air quality by taking advantage of being able to recognise which vehicles go in and out of their areas.

Air pollution has reduced significantly since 2010, but more still needs to be done to improve the quality of the air we breathe. The most immediate air quality challenge is that of nitrogen dioxide concentrations around roads, which is the only statutory air quality limit that the UK currently fails to meet. The July 2017 UK plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide identified that clean air zones that included a requirement for vehicle owners to pay a charge to enter, or move within, the zone if the vehicle did not meet the standard for its type was the measure that would achieve compliance with statutory nitrogen dioxide levels in the shortest possible time. The plan requires English local authorities with exceedances to explore whether they can find quicker alternatives. Several local authorities have already consulted on proposals for solutions. For some, this includes the introduction of a charging clean air zone, and Leeds City Council will start to operate a class B clean air zone from early next year.

There are four classes of charging clean air zone in England, all of which charge pre-Euro 6 diesel and pre-Euro 4 petrol taxis and public hire vehicles. Only class D clean air zones will charge personal cars. Local authorities considering class A to C clean air zones have identified the need to differentiate taxis and private hire vehicles and private cars, and have asked the Government to create a database to help achieve that.

Local authorities hold information only on taxis and private hire vehicles licensed in their area. They cannot identify those licensed by another authority. Hence there is a need for all licensing authorities to provide information to a central database, which will form part of the wider infrastructure that the Government are developing to support charging clean air zones.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

At a given time, taxi drivers may drive for personal use a taxi vehicle that would be registered on the database as a private hire vehicle. Have the Government considered how they might make a distinction in the database between when a vehicle is working and when it is being driven for personal use?

[Dr Coffey]

It will not be for the Government to make that judgment call. It will be for the local authority, because that concerns the charge it intends to impose. The database simply gives local councils the information about which vehicles are private hire vehicles and which are not. When the time comes, if ever, when Stoke-on-Trent City Council has a clean air zone, the hon. Gentleman may wish to take that issue up with it directly.

The purpose of the regulations is to require licensing authorities in England and Wales to supply to a central database certain information relating to taxis and private hire vehicles that have been licensed in their area. The instrument is made using powers under the Environment Act 1995. The database may then be used by local authorities for the purposes of enforcing locally introduced clean air zones that will apply charges in respect of taxis and private hire vehicles. The database will ensure that taxis and private hire vehicles can be differentiated from other vehicles when entering a charging clean air zone.

Regulation 3 will place a duty on all taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authorities in England and Wales to supply certain information at least once a week. That information will include the vehicle registration number, the start and expiry dates of the vehicle licence, whether a vehicle is a taxi or a private hire vehicle, and the name of the licensing authority. Additional information required and the means of providing it will be set out in supporting guidance, which will be published before the regulations come into force.

The regulations extend to England and Wales and apply to all 315 taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authorities, including Transport for London. Given the geographical location of charging clean air zones, it is important that all taxis and private hire vehicles registered in England and Wales are recorded on the database.

The creation and maintenance of the database itself will not have a significant impact on businesses. A regulatory triage assessment has been prepared to assess the impacts on licensing authorities. The database will be designed and hosted in a way that complements existing processes wherever possible, in order to minimise the burden on licensing authorities. Licensing authorities will be funded for this additional work in line with the new burdens principle.

The draft regulations are necessary to support local authorities in introducing charging clean air zones where these have been demonstrated to be the quickest way to reduce roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations to legal limits. We cannot rely on a voluntary approach for the submission of information covered by the draft regulations, given that there are 315 licensing authorities in England and Wales. Without a centralised database, local authorities will be able to charge only those vehicles that they have licensed in their own area.

The draft regulations and the database are necessary to ensure that measures to charge taxis and private hire vehicles will be effective. Without such a database, the level of reduced emissions from these vehicles will be less certain, which may result in the need to introduce charging for additional vehicles, possibly including private cars. As such, the creation of the database is an important step in supporting our air quality ambitions and those of local councils. For those reasons, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

It is a pleasure to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s questions. I would say first that air quality has been my top priority since becoming Environment Minister. There will be Members on this Committee whom I have met in the last two and a half years to discuss the air quality challenges in their areas. There are several Members here whose constituencies are in areas where local authorities are proactively considering the introduction of charging clean air zones. I remind Members that it is their local authorities that have said that the database is necessary.

In terms of our work on non-polluting cars, the hon. Member for Stroud will be aware of our policy to see the end of the sale of conventionally fuelled cars by 2040. On illegal air pollution, he is absolutely right to say that roadside nitrogen dioxide is a challenge. We are working on that and we believe that the database will help councils to tackle some of the more polluting cars that are driving around, particularly in urban centres.

The database is in beta testing at the moment. It will be ready by the second half of this year. Leeds City Council is expected to be the first council to start using it in earnest, with charging coming into effect on 6 Jan 2020.

We want to ensure that Highways England and the strategic road network are very much connected with the air quality challenge that we face. The chief executive of Highways England chairs a fortnightly meeting with his team to go through the different issues of air quality on the road networks, as well as the new innovations they are taking forward and considering on how to improve air quality. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a lot of the issue is down to traffic flow. I am conscious of the challenges of air quality, and I am sure he will welcome the clean air strategy that we published just last month. It has been welcomed by the World Health Organisation as world leading, and it is something for other countries to follow.

One particular element of the road strategy does need to be carefully considered, and we will carry out an assessment of the effectiveness of speed limits, based on the Welsh Government’s work on the speed limits that they introduced on part of the M4. Certain councils, such as Basingstoke and Deane for a particular stretch of the A339 that has a speed limit of 70 mph, are considering reducing limits to see if that will help with traffic flows and lower vehicle emissions. As I say, in every part of the country where we have funded councils to do studies and localised modelling, and to undertake local action, they come up with solutions that by and large they think fit best to help their local communities to improve air quality and effectiveness.

[Catherine West]

Based on the evidence being set out by the Minister, will she consider giving more money to councils so that they can do more such research for their own local solutions?

[Dr Coffey]

More than £3.5 billion has been set aside to tackle air quality—TfL was given money for that as part of its last settlement—and more money has gone to the Mayor of London and many other councils to make the changes necessary, such as retrofitting buses.

I am conscious that the Mayor of London would like more money, and the Secretary of State has agreed to support a spending review bid to tackle air quality in London. For example, the ultra-low emission zone charge, which will come into effect in a couple of months, is a significant step. The policy was initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), but the current Mayor has taken it through. I also encourage TfL to think about its rules for taxis and how they can more quickly be made air-quality-friendly. TfL has made a good start; I am sure that it could go further.

The hon. Member for Stroud asked specifically about Plymouth. That question has come up once before, in an SI on air quality last year, but I am afraid that my officials and I cannot remember the answer precisely, so I hope that he will forgive me if I write to him and the Committee on that specific point. Nevertheless, I am sure that the Committee will consider the draft regulations important in giving local authorities the database that they believe necessary to tackle air quality in their local areas.

[Dr Drew]

Will the Minister give way before she sits down?

[Dr Coffey]

I have sat down.

[The Chair]

Does the Minister wish to take an intervention in the spirit that we are in this morning?

[Dr Coffey]

In the spirit? Very quickly.

[Dr Drew]

I thank the Minister very much. I shall be quick. I gather that she is meeting the Mayor of Bristol later today, which is interesting and my Whip will no doubt know about that. Is that common when a local authority or a Mayor has failed an air quality arrangement? I am just praising her—does she say to local authority leaders and Mayors, “You’ve got to do better”, “This is how you can do better”, and, “Here’s some money to help you”? Is that what she does?

[Dr Coffey]

I am delighted, Mr Owen, that you persuaded me to take that intervention, because I have visited many areas around this country and I spoke to the Mayor of Bristol yesterday. Unfortunately, of all councils, only Stoke-on-Trent City Council is on track with the timeline for delivering the first part of its air quality plan; sadly, other councils have fallen behind. I have to keep emphasising and pushing the matter, which is why we have included ministerial directions. On directions, the High Court said that we should use further legal instruments with all councils, to ensure that they get on with improving air quality.

I am disappointed, because there has been funding and we need to crack on with this, so yes, I have regularly have done what the hon. Member for Stroud suggests. I have been to Nottingham and Birmingham, and I have met people from Leeds. I have been around the country regularly, although I have yet to visit many places. I am pleased to say that I have been to Derby, too, to meet councillors. Yes, I am looking forward to having a face-to-face with the Mayor of Bristol, although yesterday he assured me on the phone that he will present his plan by the end of March, which is welcome news for the citizens of Bristol.

Question put and agreed to.

Environment Agency Permits

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) on securing this debate. I must admit that when I saw him sitting on the other side of the Chamber I was worried that he had perhaps left the party, but I am delighted that he is certainly has not. I am sure he will understand that people may be twitchy at the moment.

[Mr Gyimah]

I would like to assure the Minister that I am not feeling at all Tiggerish.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend certainly has the courage of a lion in championing his constituents; I am sure they will be pleased that he is bringing forward this important matter in debate. We have corresponded previously on this topic, and I appreciate his frustration, but this debate clearly reflects the importance of ensuring we have clear and strong pollution and planning controls that work for environment, for people and for business.

As the Minister responsible for environmental permitting, I would like to clarify the purpose of the permitting framework, and the Environment Agency’s role in relation to permitted sites. It is important to say at the outset that permitting is entirely distinct from planning matters which, as he will be aware, fall to the planning authority, but it is important that all parties involved in consideration of these matters work together openly and transparently at a local level to achieve the best outcome for all.

The development of the environmental permitting framework was designed to make regulation simpler, more straightforward and more proportionate to the risk that it regulates. The objectives of the framework have been to make environmental permitting clearer for businesses while maintaining the same level of environmental protection. Before the framework was introduced, permitting and compliance systems developed largely in isolation and had, often for good reasons at the time, adopted various approaches to controlling different types of polluting activity, even where activities were undertaken on the same site, leading to duplication of regulatory control.

Under the environmental permitting regime, regulation of activities is more straightforward for business and regulators to use and apply. It allows the consolidation of different permits and delivers a streamlined approach to applications, guidance, and inspections. Environmental permits allow for flexibility and prescribing the environmental outcome, but not the way it is to be achieved; for example, a permit might require the operator to ensure that the site is sufficiently secured rather than setting a specific fence height. By cutting unnecessary red tape but continuing to provide protection of the environment and human health, that approach has been largely successful.

Environmental permits are issued for regulated activities carried out at sites. In the case of a permitted landfill facility such as that located at Oxted quarry in Surrey, a permit covers hazards and risks arising from the activities on the site of the landfill itself. Landfill involves the disposal of waste to land, so those risks include waste reception and quarantine, leachate and landfill gas containment and collection, wheel-washing, litter collection and various other operations on site.

It is the case that environmental permits specifically apply to what happens within the boundary of a site, while other matters such as traffic outside the site fall under wider planning controls. That distinction is important to avoid regulatory duplication; it is not the right thing to have two regulators making decisions over the same issue and therefore coming up with potentially different outcomes.

My hon. Friend will be aware that the county council is responsible for the relevant planning controls because it is both the minerals planning and waste planning authority. The council’s stated aim in those roles is to minimise adverse impacts of minerals and waste-related development on local communities and the environment. As he has pointed out, Surrey County Council has restricted vehicle movements in and out of the Oxted quarry site to no more than an average of 76 daily HGV movements, or 38 in and 38 out, but I am conscious that there is also a maximum capping.

[Mr Gyimah]

I understand the Minister’s point about seeking to avoid regulatory duplication. The challenge we have is that we want not to duplicate regulation, but to have a more rounded view of the regulatory process. As it happens, it looks as if one arm does not know what the other arm is doing, and it does not take into account all the factors, particularly the impact those factors have on residents. To the extent that any success was achieved in our campaign, it was more through sheer force of will than through the regulatory system working effectively.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend will be aware that there has been a permit in place for the activities at the quarry since 1980. Following an assessment in December 2016, the agency granted a variation, as he has pointed out, to increase the annual quantity for waste from 100,000 to 200,000 tonnes per year. That application was done legally; I think it is fair to say that the variation was lawfully granted and I also think it is accurate to say that the agency has not received any complaints from members of the public about the performance of the site since operations were scaled up in 2016.

When evaluating an application for a permit variation, the EA is required to consider any negative impacts that may result from managing waste within the boundary of the site. Other impacts outside the boundary of the site must be controlled through the planning process. Being transparent and open matters, but just as my hon. Friend cited the challenges a council might face as to why it would not make a decision on traffic movements, I am sure he will accept that the Environment Agency can be challenged on not making a variation to the permit if the environmental impact is not deemed to be negative. Since the scaling up of operations, there have been no complaints about the operation of the site, although I am conscious that the movements are causing concern to people.

The agency has visited the quarry site on a number of occasions in the past year to assess compliance with the permit. Compliance has generally been good, and where the agency has identified minor non-compliances they have been addressed by the operator. I am conscious that on one occasion there was evidence of mud and soil being tracked out of the site by exiting lorries which the company did not clean up as quickly as it should have; it stated that its roadsweeper had broken down.

I am also conscious that at the time of processing the variation of the permit, the Environment Agency did not carry out a wider consultation with the local community. I recognise that if it had been aware of concerns or complaints, that is something that it could have done at the time. My hon. Friend will be aware that the Environment Agency has since committed to consulting more widely than is statutorily required for any future mineral extraction applications in Surrey, but it is important to make clear that the agency can only consider matters raised through consultation that are within its regulatory remit. In the case of the Oxted quarry landfill site it regulates the disposal of waste and requires that Southern Gravel comply with its environmental permit, but it does not have the power to regulate the impacts of HGV movements.

The Environment Agency and local planning authorities each have clear, strong and distinct roles with regard to pollution and planning control. The necessary distinctions in regulatory role and remit can lead to practical issues on the ground. I fully understand that the mindset of local residents and my hon. Friend, who is their MP, is that the increase in permitted tonnage allowed at the Oxted site is inseparable from the increase in HGVs,

Our published guidance makes it clear that where a regulated facility requires a permit and planning permission, the operator should make both applications in parallel wherever possible. That helps the operator, the planning authority and the Environment Agency to join up where that is of benefit to all concerned. The same principle of joined-up regulation should apply to significant permit variations, and I have asked the agency to ensure that it discusses that with local authorities in relation to sites of possible high public interest.

That should be a matter of good practice, which picks up links between planning and permitting responsibilities where they arise. Locally, the Environment Agency has said that it will continue to work with Surrey County Council and applicants to consider the twin tracking of planning and permitting applications where appropriate. That is sensible local co-ordination that can be established on a case-by-case basis, without the need for additional legislative controls.

I am conscious that what I have said today will not necessarily satisfy my hon. Friend. He will recognise that legislation that adds further regulatory barriers to the progress of business is not something that this Government instinctively support. However, I hope that his example shows that the Environment Agency has listened carefully and is trying to work with local authorities, particularly in Surrey, to learn lessons from this. I commend the council for being strict on the number of movements allowed per day. I am confident that both the county council and, as I have demonstrated, the Environment Agency are undertaking their enforcement actions accordingly. This is an important way for central Government and local government to work together.

Question put and agreed to.

Exiting the European Union (Consumer Protection)

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That the draft REACH etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.

Madam Deputy Speaker, have you ever considered what life was like before you became a Member of Parliament? Well, I never had a dream come true until I was elected to Parliament, but if I take myself back to when I was at high school, I have to admit that my love of chemistry started when I was very young. I was very much inspired by colours, and it was only through chemicals that we had colours—whether it was the colour blue or a range of colours that appealed to us all. This got me excited in chemistry. Moving on a little bit further, I eventually ended up doing a PhD in chemistry. Little did I know that 30 years later, I would be here putting regulations in place.

Why do chemicals matter? Chemicals matter because they are not only part of our second-biggest manufacturing industry but critical to so many of the elements that we have around us, whether in the oil in people’s watches, in paint, or in the different chemicals that are applied not only in pharmaceuticals but in a wide variety of things that we just take for granted. They are even a key part of fireworks, because without chemicals—the inorganic chemicals, in particular—we would not get the wide range of colours. I do not know if you were here, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the night when we had chemicals in fireworks being exploded above Big Ben—that special evening when we were going to reach for the stars, but fortunately did not bring the House down.

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

rose—

[Dr Coffey]

I will happily give way and then bring my speech back to the SI.

[Caroline Lucas]

I was rather hoping that the Minister might do that, because something incredibly important is at stake here. At a recent meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee, we had before us the Chemicals Industry Association, which said:

“No deal would essentially mean, if I can put it lightly, catastrophic effects on the chemical industry here in the UK.”

Does she agree with that assessment, and will she do her very best, then, to rule out no deal?

[Dr Coffey]

No, I do not agree with that assessment. Nevertheless, this SI is not about whether we have a deal or not—it is about having an effective regulatory system. It is not about changing policy or trying to make it stronger—it is about trying to make sure that we can have something that works and continues to work in future.

In line with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, these regulations simply make technical and legal amendments, including transitional arrangements, to maintain the effectiveness and continuity of UK legislation that would otherwise be left significantly inoperable, so that the law as today will continue to function legally following our exit from the EU. I recognise that the statutory instrument is long and makes many adjustments, but I can assure the House that they represent no changes of policy.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

The truth is that the statutory instrument will not be able simply to cut and paste the REACH database into UK law. We cannot cut and paste the chemicals framework established by the EU into UK law because it regulates, evaluates and authorises chemicals, and that is significantly different. That is why the Minister is asking this House to establish a UK chemicals database and asking the UK industry to make significant contributions towards that. That is the case, is it not?

[Dr Coffey]

That is right. These regulations will apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, with the exception of paragraph 1 of schedule 11, which makes amendments to existing domestic legislation regarding the disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls that, in the current regulations I referred to, extends only to England and Wales. This Government, and this country, have to be ready for the prospect of not being part of ECHA—the European Chemicals Agency—in future, and we therefore need to put in place the regulatory framework that means we will continue to have a safe chemicals industry in future.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

The Minister will be aware, I am sure, of the concern that has been expressed by Rolls-Royce, and others, that the SI does not take account of all the scenarios. It mentions, in particular, an application for EU authorisation submitted by a European economic area entity for which a decision has not yet been made and on which a UK downstream user is dependent. Its concern is that post 29 March, in the event of a no-deal exit, UK companies could be left without a proper authorisation, putting many of them in an incredibly difficult position.

[Dr Coffey]

Actually, I am not aware of the reference to that by Rolls-Royce. Yes, we do need, in effect, to replicate the database, and that is what part of these regulations establishes. However, I want to make it clear to the House that CEFIC—the European Chemical Industry Council—and the Chemical Industries Association in the UK have made a joint statement to their members that the contracts that currently exist between consortiums should be amended so that information or data is available both for REACH and for UK REACH in future. None of the consortiums can force their members to do that, but I believe that it is in their best interests to make sure that the data and information required is available to both chemicals regulation systems.

As I said, the regulations apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. This Government and the devolved Administrations have worked together closely on these regulations and have agreed that a UK-wide REACH system will mean a coherent UK market backed by consistent policies and chemical management. The devolved Administrations have been involved in the drafting of the SI and have given their consent. That includes the Labour-run Welsh Government and the SNP-run Scottish Government. Indeed, this was also scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament, which also gave its consent.

[Mary Creagh]

A little earlier, the Minister talked about a section—forgive me, but I do not have the exact number—relating to the disposal of PCBs. Is she saying that different regulations will apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and, if so, will they be to higher or lower standards, or the same?

[Dr Coffey]

I am saying that, as it stands today, chemicals regulation is a devolved matter in how Governments can apply these things. We have a particular regulation that currently applies only to England and Wales. The Scottish and other Administrations will have made their own applications in legislation for that. That is why this is the only bit of the entire statutory instrument that does not apply to the whole of the United Kingdom.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that there will be absolutely no reduction in safety standards—because we all want high safety standards—and does she recall that when REACH first came in, quite a lot of industry voices said that it was more bureaucratic and more expensive but no safer?

[Dr Coffey]

The costs are still going to be significant for administering our own chemicals system in future, but I can assure my right hon. Friend that the safety standards will be consistent and, indeed, we will continue to learn from ECHA in future. As he will be aware, in the future economic relationship that has been put forward through the political declaration, and in ongoing statements by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, we would seek to become an associate member of ECHA in future to share these things in order to try to reduce or mitigate some of the challenges that people like Rolls-Royce are anticipating. But that is not yet an agreed matter, and it is important that the Government set before the House appropriate regulations to make sure that we have that continued safety of chemicals.

Before I explain the provisions further set out in the SI, I want to emphasise that we are absolutely keeping the fundamental approach of REACH, with its aims of ensuring a high level of protection of human health and the environment, as well as enhancing innovation and competitiveness. The building blocks of REACH will all remain: industry’s primary duty to understand the hazards and risks of chemicals and to ensure safe use, all tied to the principle of no data, no market; registration by industry of the chemicals it produces and places on the market; dossier evaluation by the regulator of at least 5% of registration dossiers to check compliance and quality, exactly as ECHA is expected to do today; and substance evaluation, which is investigation by the regulator of outstanding concerns about a chemical often leading to a requirement on industry to fill the knowledge gaps. The UK has been responsible, through ECHA, for making sure that there have been 24 evaluations—for example, of the chemical climbazole, which is used in anti-dandruff shampoos but is suspected of causing feminisation in fish. Then there is the authorisation process that forces industry to apply for and justify continued use of substances of very high concern. Finally, there is restriction of the most dangerous chemicals where unacceptable risks remain.

On the definition of duty holders, article 3 of schedule 1 of the statutory instrument changes the definitions of the various industry duty holders so that they refer to the United Kingdom rather than the European Union. Obviously, this is a simple change, but essential. Without it, UK industry would have no duty to ensure the safe use of the chemicals it produces and uses.

UK REACH will continue with an independent regulatory agency to carry out a central role with a range of technical, scientific and administrative functions—the role that is currently carried out by ECHA. The statutory instrument allocates this role to the Health and Safety Executive under article 2A of schedule 1. The HSE will receive industry’s registrations of chemicals. It will make many technical decisions itself—for example, in dossier and substance evaluations, as well as in scrutinising authorisation applications and making scientific recommendations on restrictions. This builds on the HSE’s existing activities as the UK competent authority for REACH. At the same time, the Environment Agency and the devolved environmental regulators will have the role of providing the advice that the HSE will need on environmental matters, as set out in article 2B of schedule 1.

The HSE, as the UK agency, must also draw on independent expert scientific advice when developing its opinions on restrictions and authorisations. This will add to the robust evidence and analysis underpinning its opinions. We expect the HSE to obtain external advice, but there may sometimes be reasons why it does not feel it needs to do so, such as where ECHA has already published a robust opinion on a chemical. In such cases, where the HSE decides not to take further scientific advice, it must publish its justification, as set out in article 77. Finally, appeals against the HSE’s decisions will be heard by an independent body, the first-tier tribunal, as set out in article 91.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware that I have some concern about the REACH regulations after we leave the European Union, but I am aware that we are talking about the statutory instrument and how it affects the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. She said in response to one of my written parliamentary questions that she wishes to have associate membership of REACH. Although I am not convinced that can actually happen, can she provide me with some kind of reassurance that the Environment Agency currently has the capability to ensure that compliance will continue after we leave the European Union?

[Dr Coffey]

I am conscious of my hon. Friend’s desire to have an ongoing relationship with ECHA. As I have already set out, that is the Government’s desire, too. The Environment Agency is recruiting an extra 10 staff, and the HSE will be taking on an extra 35 to 40 people to help fulfil the functions it already undertakes today. My understanding is that we have estimated the future cost of running UK REACH to be about £13 million a year. By way of comparison, ECHA itself costs about £80 million a year to look after 28 member states. That is why we believe that we are putting in the necessary resource to make sure that the HSE, the EA and, indeed, other regulators are able to play their part.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am not terribly sure that the Minister has reassured the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord). I want to know how we will ensure that the British regime will actually parallel the regulations and approvals of Europe so that we can have the trading arrangements that are critical to areas like mine on Teesside.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

As I said, we are recruiting staff to undertake additional elements, but it will be open to the regulator to take advice from where it likes, whether that is from ECHA, from within the UK—we should remember that, in many cases, UK scientists are the people giving advice to ECHA—or, indeed, from further afield. We will not be restricting the regulator’s consideration, but it matters that we have an operational scenario for chemicals regulation. The House can be assured that we will continue to have a safe chemicals industry in the future.

[Mary Creagh]

The Minister will be aware that my Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee, held an evidence session in December 2018, subsequent to our report published in 2017, in which we heard from Elizabeth Shepherd, a partner at Eversheds Sutherland. She is one of the UK’s leading experts in chemical regulation, and she said:

“The UK regulator, HSE, is no longer involved in the evaluation of substances. HSE has, to date, played a very active part in evaluating chemicals… the chemicals that were assigned to HSE for the 2018-19 period have been moved away from the UK already to other evaluating authorities. Businesses are concerned that they will lose the insight that participation gave them and the opportunity to influence the shape of regulation.”

We are losing our influence, are we not?

[Dr Coffey]

I do not think we are losing our influence. The measure was taken by ECHA after the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Currently, a country can only be a member of ECHA by being a member state of the European Union, so this is forward planning. Some of these assessments can take time to go through the ECHA process, and therefore, given that the HSE would not be a relevant authority for future ECHA authorisations, I would not want to criticise ECHA for having made that decision. Meanwhile, the HSE has the competence, and it has started recruiting people to undertake the different activities it will need to do.

I will now move on to decision making and working with the devolved Administrations. Just as the HSE inherits the role and functions of ECHA, the responsibilities of the European Commission will pass to the Secretary of State. For example, the Secretary of State will make decisions to authorise the use of a substance of very high concern or to restrict chemicals on the basis of an opinion from the HSE, as covered by articles 60 and 73.

REACH also covers devolved matters such as environmental protection. For that reason, the Secretary of State must act with the consent of the devolved Administrations where a decision relates to an area of devolved competence, as set out in proposed new article 4A in schedule 1. A safeguard clause allows the devolved Administrations, and indeed the Secretary of State, to take urgent action where it is needed to protect human health or the environment. This must then be followed up with the normal restriction process to see whether there should be a UK-wide control, as set out in article 129.

On transferring existing UK registrants into the UK REACH system, the regulations contain a range of transitional provisions to provide legal continuity to business and to protect supply chains. All registrations held by UK companies will be automatically transferred, often known as “grandfathered,” to the UK REACH system at the point of exit, as set out by proposed new article 127A in schedule 2, which means there will be no break in their access to the UK market.

Companies will need to provide the HSE with information to support their registrations in two phases: initial information within 120 days and the full information within two years. That is set out in proposed new article 127B in schedule 2.

[Caroline Lucas]

I have been reading worrying material. It is concerning that a civil servant recently confirmed that the IT system on which all of this will be based will not be fully functioning by exit day. Can the Minister confirm that it will? How do we know that the HSE has enough staff? There have recently been big cutbacks in HSE staffing. Are more staff being recruited for the HSE?

[Dr Coffey]

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs effectively contracts with the HSE to provide the necessary staff. The HSE covers a wide range of activities right across Government, particularly on safety at work.

The IT system is still being tested. I will be candid with the House that we will make a call this week on whether the system is ready to go live, or whether we will have to do our contingency plan of companies providing that information to us. I do not have an answer ready, because the assessment has not yet been made. In essence, the Government will still have the information they require to run a safe chemicals system. As I say, the decision will be made at the end of this week on whether companies or the Government will upload the information.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

No, I do not need to give way on that point.

One way or another, the Government will have the information they need to ensure that we have a safe system.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) set out, REACH places a registration duty on importers of chemicals. This will be new for companies that import from the EU or the European economic area, as they are currently covered by their supplier’s registration. That is why we are giving them a two-year grace period, which will give them time to adapt and will protect supply chains. In the meantime, they must send information to the agency within 180 days to provide assurance that they know how to manage the chemicals safely—that is set out in proposed new article 127E in schedule 2. We will keep both two-year deadlines, for grandfathering and for downstream user registrations, under review.

[Dr Offord]

rose—

[Mary Creagh]

rose—

[Dr Coffey]

I would like to bring this to a close fairly soon, because I am conscious that some Members have put in to speak, as would normally be the case rather than the Minister taking interventions.

[Dr Offord]

I am grateful to the Minister for taking interventions, which we are seeking to make because we have specific questions on which she can provide us with advice. Is it the Government’s intention, post-Brexit, to update regulations in compliance with REACH to ensure that the two systems work side by side?

[Dr Coffey]

In effect it will be for the HSE, as the regulator, to make decisions on each level of the process. I have no reason to doubt that the HSE and ECHA will have similar principles in how they go about this. We are not seeking a change in any policy to move away from the REACH process.

It is fair to say that the UK has been trying to get some chemicals restricted much more quickly than ECHA and other EU member states have sought, so there may be opportunities to move more quickly on some of these matters. Again, it will be a judgment call for the HSE on whether to make that recommendation to the Secretary of State.

As for stakeholders, we held a series of informal briefings last summer at which we outlined the proposed regulatory approach, and representatives from the chemicals sector and beyond and other stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations and scientific societies, came to those briefings. Since then, we published a technical notice in September and additional guidance in December and continued with more stakeholder engagement to explain in detail what UK REACH is and what it means for industry. The House will also be aware that I invited MPs, particularly those with chemicals companies in their constituency, to attend briefings.

I recognise the concerns about why businesses have to submit data to the HSE when they have previously registered with ECHA and the potential costs involved. Such concerns were also expressed in the report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the other place. As the Government said in the White Paper, we want a strong deal under which the UK will continue to participate fully in EU REACH and the work of the ECHA. The impact assessment considered the question of data in detail, and the Regulatory Policy Committee stated that the assessment used a proportionate level of evidence to support estimates of the impacts, including impacts on business. We should not expect a repeat of the costs of complying with EU REACH. For example, businesses that have already invested in putting together the EU registration dossier will not face administration costs again.

To be clear about the importance of information. The “no data, no market” principle is fundamental to REACH, and we will not weaken that in any way. It underpins effective chemicals management by both industry and the regulator. We cannot rely on the fact that such data has already been sent to ECHA. It is simply not correct to say that a chemical is deemed to be safe once it has been registered under EU REACH. Registration is how a company shows its understanding of the hazards and how to control the risks, but it does not mean that ECHA and other regulators have approved that chemical or endorsed it as safe.

ECHA will not evaluate the UK dossiers that it received for the June 2018 deadline. ECHA has also stated that, in the majority of dossiers it opens for evaluation, it needs to follow up with requests for important safety information on chemicals, meaning that the company’s safety measures may also not be adequate. Only the UK agency will be able to provide the assurance that chemicals are safely managed in the UK. To give a sense of scale, we will be grandfathering over 12,000 registrations into UK REACH—35% of them from 2018—representing 5,700 chemicals. Looking forward, we would then expect 50 to 100 new chemicals to be registered each year. We have much less understanding of how many notifications there will be for chemicals imported from the EU, because there is currently no duty to report that information in most cases. That emphasises the importance of the notification process so that we know what chemicals are being used in the UK.

REACH is one of the largest and most complex pieces of EU legislation and Members and others have rightly wondered how we would transfer it into UK law. I am confident that the provisions in these regulations mean that we will continue to ensure the highest levels of protection for human health and the environment, based on robust evidence and strong scientific analysis.

[John Redwood]

Maybe I can help the Minister. Is it not the case that the Intrastat declarations provide the necessary information about the current trade in European chemicals?

[Dr Coffey]

I do not know the answer to that, but I will share the suggestion with my officials, some of whom are conveniently in the Box.

I want to assure right hon. and hon. Members that we are taking steps to provide the industry with the legal certainty it needs to operate and to preserve the supply chains for the chemicals on which we all depend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to this debate. I assure the House that the Government remain committed to supporting all the aims of REACH: to ensure a continuing high level of protection of human health and the environment; to promote alternative, non-animal methods for assessing chemical hazards; and to promote the free circulation of chemicals and enhance competitiveness and innovation.

By putting the regulations in place, we will make sure that we can operate a UK REACH regime after leaving the European Union. We are working closely with the HSE and the EA, as well as other regulators, to prepare for that national regime so that the change is as smooth as possible. We know the functions that are needed. I hope that in my opening remarks, I was able to convey the information that we will be providing the resources to fund the staff that are needed. I remind the House that the HSE will be building on the expertise that it already has from acting as the UK competent authority in the EU system and that it will be recruiting more staff to reflect its new and expanded role, as indeed, is the EA.

I do not agree that the arrangements that the REACH SI provides for on scientific advice are in any way weak. The UK agency must publish its scientific opinions, and when forming those opinions on authorisations and restrictions, the HSE must commission scientific knowledge and advice from suitably qualified or experienced persons who are independent of the agency. In a particular case, for example, where ECHA had already published robust evidence, the HSE must publish its justification for deciding not to take further advice. I assure the House that the HSE is not limited to getting its scientific advice from the UK, or indeed, even the EU.

The HSE must consult on and publish a statement about how it will comply with all these duties. That must happen within three months of exit, so we intend to have arrangements in place in UK REACH to allow stakeholders to observe discussions and considerations where this scientific advice is provided.

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mary Creagh]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I will not be giving way in my closing remarks—[Interruption.] Well, I am trying to answer the questions that I have already been asked. On what industry needs to know to do, we have had extensive discussions with a number of businesses and trade associations. We have launched a business readiness campaign targeting downstream users, in particular, and we continue to engage with the industry in that regard.

A question was raised about intellectual property. It is fair to say that the intellectual property remains with the company that submits it, but if companies already own the data, they can of course submit that to UK REACH. If not, they will need to arrange access and, as I pointed out, some are already starting to do so. Some—I mentioned CEFIC and the CIA in the UK—have encouraged their members with consortium registrations to make sure that they make that information readily available. Companies can, of course, employ ORs—only representatives—to hold a registration in the EU, just as they may do for access to other markets around the world, while maintaining their UK registration.

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I will not be giving way, as I have already made clear to the House. I am trying to answer the questions that I have already been provided with. On the other elements of registration, I am conscious that some companies have started to set up relationships with not only ORs, but other companies and to establish offices in the EU. Ireland is a particular favourite.

I want to clarify elements about animal testing—I know that this matters to the House. Within the EU—currently within ECHA—HSE and the EA have been at the forefront of pushing for alternatives to animal testing, and that will continue. UK REACH will continue to follow the “last resort” principle when it comes to possible animal testing. That works alongside other REACH drivers to reduce the amount of testing, for example, where industry must get the regulator’s agreement before carrying out a test. We will continue to work closely with the OECD to develop new alternatives so that we can understand chemical hazards without testing them on animals. We are determined that there should be no need for any additional animal testing for a chemical that has already been registered, unless it is subject to further evaluation that shows that the registration dossier is inadequate or that there are still concerns about the hazards and risks of the chemical.

The right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) asked particularly about Rolls-Royce and products that have not yet been authorised. The point is that the EU has not authorised those chemicals for use. Therefore, we cannot say that they will be authorised by the time we leave on 29 March and we will not have the position to allow for future EU decisions. HSE will work with companies to help them to get into compliance as soon as possible.

The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) referred particularly to products that include chromium. I can categorically say that chromium is a clear carcinogen and it really matters that we have to keep strong controls on how it is used. That is why it concerns me that the Opposition are considering voting against this SI. I pointed out earlier that the Welsh Labour Government have endorsed this SI and want it to pass today. Without these regulations we would not have a chemical regulatory regime that was effective in maintaining human health, and the environment would be put at risk, which makes me even more astonished that the Green party would also contemplate that.

We need to make sure that our regulators have the tools to understand the hazards of the chemicals that we use, and without this SI we would not have the information available on how to mitigate those risks. I invite the House to approve the regulations.

Question put.