Biodiversity Loss

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Alex Sobel

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Rees. I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for securing the debate and for mentioning and supporting my Climate and Nature Bill, which gets its Second Reading on Friday. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) for bringing forward the Climate and Ecology (No. 2) Bill, of which the Climate and Nature Bill is an iteration. If I am not successful on Friday, I am sure that we will see future iterations of the Bill as the matter has so much support across the House.

The covid-19 pandemic laid bare the interdependence of people and nature. It is no longer possible to deny the fact that human health is linked to our use and abuse of the environment. The biodiversity crisis is a cultural, social and economic one. As humans, we are not simply observers of nature but an integral part of it. We need an approach that collaborates across Departments, sectors and nations to even begin to save our natural environment.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people understand a lot more about the concept of net zero, and therefore combining net zero with nature loss is so important for bringing people emotionally on side?

[Alex Sobel]

I thank the hon. Lady, who serves alongside me on the net zero all-party parliamentary group. She has foreshadowed what I was going to say next: nature is essential to the future of all, and yet environmental degradation occurs disproportionately in, or around, low-income areas where a high percentage of people of colour live. Our approach must ensure a thriving natural environment for all.

The House probably knows that I have a long history of raising the subject of insects. In fact, I introduced the first insect population loss debate in 2019, in this Chamber. I think it was the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) who provided the ministerial response to that debate, and she will be responding to this one as well. I wanted to call it insectageddon; unfortunately, the House authorities would not allow such a title. Sadly, we remain in the same position on insect loss. The decline in insect populations is one of the lesser-known tragedies of the human effect on the environment. Where insects go, all other species follow.

Let’s not mince our words: the rise in the human population and the loss of pollinating insects sets us on a road of cyclical starvation. We will lose the production of some crops, particularly those best for health and wellbeing. The role that insects play in food security is pivotal. Dung beetles, for example, save the cattle industry an estimated £367 million a year. The national pollinator strategy is set to be updated this year. There has been a successful educational piece on the role of bees in food security, but we need to go further and highlight the impact that invertebrates have, too. I hope the Minister can address that point.

Education will also be central to mending the heartbreaking lack of care that humans have for the natural environment. There are countless young people in particular who have shown outstanding leadership in this area, and I thank them for their bravery. Lots of organisations, as well as the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I used to sit, have noted that changes could be made to the school curriculum. For example, a new GCSE in natural history would teach children and young people skills in observing, naming and recording nature. There is a significant skills gap in ecology, which means that devolved and local authorities are simply unable to prevent further losses, let alone increase biodiversity. Adding this GCSE to the curriculum, which is to be done by 2025, will create a skilled workforce that can go into jobs in the natural world.

The practical skills that curriculum and skills initiatives provide are just one side of nature education. The second is encouraging people, not just young people but the whole population, to experience, celebrate and learn about nature in a holistic way. People are spending less and less time outdoors, and we know that this lack of connection results in a lack of appreciation of, and value placed on, nature. We can change that by improving access to nature in both urban and rural areas through, for example, expanding initiatives such as forest education schools—particularly to areas of high deprivation, where we know that children virtually never visit the environment. To build on that, we could create a national nature service so that young people can experience nature jobs and think about working in ecology in the broadest sense.

I spoke briefly about tackling green skills shortages through nature education, but the UK must set out how it will fund these skills. No matter how many well-intentioned speeches we hear about the need to create green jobs, if there are no proper financial incentives, then devolved and local authorities will simply be unable to help us to reach the 2030 goals that we signed up to at Kunming-Montreal.

We cannot decouple the crisis that the natural world faces from the economic crisis and the climate crisis. Economies are embedded in, rather than external to, nature. When we recognise that, it becomes blatantly obvious that depleting nature risks the health and wellbeing of everyone. What this demands, then, is a fundamental and transformational change of how we measure economic success. GDP does not take into account the depreciation of natural assets, despite the natural environment being the key decider of our future success. If we do not move into inclusive wealth measurement, we will continue running ourselves into the ground, destroying more and more of the natural environment. At their core, economies do not value the natural world and therefore cannot address biodiversity loss.

People should have the right to experience the benefits of nature and a healthy environment, and the right to play a meaningful role in restoring and protecting that environment. The crises we face—of poor mental health, food shortages, conflicts and socioeconomic inequality—are all connected, and nature is the key intersection. We must tackle the nature crisis.

Automated Vehicles Bill [Lords]

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Alex Sobel

2nd reading
Tuesday 5th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill because it takes the first step towards the creation of a framework within which automated vehicles can operate safely. The future of sustainable travel lies in such vehicles, and the UK now has a good opportunity to join the growing number of countries that are embracing this new technology. The tech sector in the UK is particularly strong, and the Bill should give confidence to investors if we are to develop a self-driving vehicle industry and take full advantage of its potential. A large part of that potential relates to road safety: there are still too many road accident victims, and I believe that automated vehicles can contribute significantly to reducing that number if we get this right. The Bill also has the potential to help us reach net zero. We may need to question, and reduce, individual car ownership in future if we want to hit our net zero targets, and automated vehicles may help us to do that.

However, the potential of this industry will only be realised if there is a high level of public confidence in the protections that the Bill gives to public safety—particularly the safety of other road users such as cyclists and pedestrians, who are more at risk than motorists. There is clearly scope for improving the safety of our roads, given that nearly 90% of traffic accidents are caused by human error. Many of the accidents that involve more vulnerable road users, such as cyclists, result from driver impairment or from drivers’ disobeying traffic laws.

Evidence emerging from trials of AVs in San Francisco relating to overall safety improvements is encouraging, but a report of just one thing going wrong will set back efforts to secure public confidence in the safety of these vehicles. It will be important to set out very clearly the scope of any trials in the UK. We may receive reassurances from the industry that the technology is being improved continuously, but we must set out our expectations of what the trials can and cannot achieve. No technology will ever be 100% safe. If there is an interaction between technology and the human being sitting in the car, there is the potential to override the system. The nature of that interaction is almost a philosophical question, which has not been entirely resolved today, but the Minister has been generous in allowing us to raise our concerns.

During the San Francisco trials, issues arose relating to AVs’ hindering emergency vehicles and stopping in cycle lanes, and those need to be addressed. Of course some issues are to be expected in trials, but a repetition of those incidents will damage public trust. People must be confident they will not be repeated on UK streets, and that will require a robust legal and safety framework which will also cover our trials.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s concession in changing the standard of safety for AV drivers so that they will have to meet or exceed the level of safety of careful and competent human drivers. The implications of that for driving tests have already been mentioned, and it is important for that discussion to continue. The Bill gives us a chance to improve the safety of our road networks for the long term, and we should see this as an opportunity to improve accessibility and safety for the public rather than just maintaining current standards.

Automated vehicles also require adequate infrastructure to support them. The poor state of UK roads has led to the highest number of pothole-related call-outs for the RAC in the last five years. Assurances must be given that improvements in road surfaces will be made before the roll-out of AVs. Will minimum standards for road quality be set for their use, and will local authorities be given the additional resources they will require in order to meet them?

Older and more vulnerable people are more reliant on taxis and private hire cars, a great benefit of which is a driver who can help them with access. The benefits of increased affordability that AVs may bring must not come at the cost of reduced access for disabled and vulnerable users, who will also require assurances about access on automated public transport if it is to be completely unstaffed. We have not talked enough about the human input into this brave new world of automated vehicles and about whether, for instance, someone will be available to assist a disabled person using such a vehicle.

Another area of concern, which has also been mentioned today, is the attention given to data protection in the Bill. It is of course essential that AVs can take in data for machine learning algorithms, which enable them to improve the way in which they navigate. However, a large number of parties will inevitably have access to the data. It will include personal information, including people’s faces. The overlap between commercial and personal data creates issues with access and storage. When data is shared between parties, including private companies, can we be sure that people’s personal data is not being monetised for commercial gain? The Government have not yet given adequate assurances that personal information will be protected.

What about insurance? Insurers have said that the data from AVs must be readily available to establish liability, but drivers must feel confident about how their data is managed. How the data is stored must be open and transparent, and it must be held independently. Establishing a clear path of accountability is essential for public confidence. Cyclists and pedestrians who do not hold personal insurance should receive fair and swift compensation when they are victims of an accident. Further assurance is needed that insurance companies will receive adequate guidance for such claims.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill, but I urge Ministers to carefully review how it will impact on access for disabled and vulnerable transport users. I also encourage the Government to look further at data protection regulation. We must see this Bill as the beginning of a framework, not the end.

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

The hon. Member is giving a list of things that are absent from the Bill. In my constituency we have autonomous delivery robots, which are currently on pilot; they are not regulated at all in the UK. Is this not another area that the Bill should regulate, in addition to the issues she has raised?

[Wera Hobhouse]

We always try to solve other problems with Bills in front of us, so we have to be a bit careful not to hang something on this Bill that actually goes into other areas, but new technologies create new challenges for all of us. For example, there are safety issues with such deliveries, but that probably requires a separate Bill. However, it is important that the Government make sure that we have adequate regulation of new technologies.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, there are many exciting opportunities for technological change, and we must embrace them. If we do not, other countries will go ahead, and then we will have them anyway. We must take the public with us, understand the risks and make sure that the huge potential of AVs is seen for what it is, but we must avoid unintended consequences that will lead to the public not coming with us, so let us get this right. It is a great opportunity, and let us make sure that we minimise the risks.

Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Alex Sobel

2nd reading
Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The proposed legislation before us is an outrage, and I am pleased that we have had the opportunity today to discuss in detail what it means. It has been a relatively good-natured debate, but it has shown very clearly where the political choices are, and I find the political choices of the Conservatives unacceptable.

New licences for new oil and gas fields in the North sea are in direct conflict with our national and international net zero commitments. We must get away from our dependence on fossil fuels, not extend it. At COP28 the Government signed an international agreement to phase out fossil fuels, but we are doing the opposite in this country. It is just not acceptable for us to do one thing abroad and another at home. As has already been said so many times this afternoon, this is losing us our reputation for good leadership, and losing any credibility that the Government could have at home or abroad.

The Government’s claim that the Bill ensures our energy security is complete fiction. Recent analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit found that oil from new licences sent to UK refineries would account for less than 1% of fuels used in the UK in 2030. The Bill would make little or no difference to UK energy security, and the Secretary of State herself admits that it would do little to cut bills. Furthermore, on the basis of past records, new licences issued since 2010 have produced only 16 days of extra gas supplies. Between now and 2050, new licences are expected to provide an average of only four days of gas per annum. Is it really worth it to lose our reputation, our commitments and our path to net zero for that? The vast majority of this new oil and gas production would not stay in the UK; it would be sold on global markets for consumption abroad. No government should want a repeat of the energy crisis of last year, which was brought on by the crisis in global fossil fuel supplies and soaring prices on the global oil and gas market. Only by moving away from fossil fuels can it be guaranteed that such a crisis will not be repeated.

However, this legislation is not just stupid and unnecessary, but dangerous. It breaks down a decade-long cross-party consensus that every Government must be seriously committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and must provide strong, unflinching leadership to help people, organisations and businesses along the road to a successful energy transition. As we have heard today, there is a fair amount of consensus, so why should it be broken? That is really not understandable. Undermining this consensus is hugely irresponsible and sends entirely the wrong signals to the international community. The latest COP28 negotiations have shown how rocky the path to net zero is and how important the leadership of the developed nations remains. I was at COP28, and it is really sad to see how that leadership has been lost and how many nations look at us and shake their heads. They cannot understand what has happened to the UK in the last year or two.

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

It is not just at COP28, the climate COP, that there is an issue. I was at Montreal at the nature COP, and we were in the vanguard of agreeing that 30% of waters should be protected for nature. These additional drilling rigs cause havoc in our inland waters, but 15 % of new licences were declared in marine protected areas, so we are seeing a nature crisis being caused by this as well as a climate crisis.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Yes, indeed. Many organisations that campaign to protect nature and the oceans have written to me—and probably to many other Members of Parliament—about how extremely dangerous and damaging this is to marine wildlife.

The UK is in a strong position geographically to cover its future energy needs from renewables and from cutting energy consumption. The Minister well knows my position on this: diverse, home-grown renewable energy and a significant home insulation programme are key to the solution. The energy efficiency of our homes is among the worst in Europe, and yes, if we are talking about jobs, we are lacking so many of the jobs that we need in the retrofitting and upgrading sector. We need a new workforce in the new technology for the net zero future of our UK economy. That is not looking back at past fuels. They have powered the world, yes, but we need to transition and we cannot keep on with business as usual. That is the problem and the opportunity. It is deplorable that the Government have finished embracing this new future and broken the consensus that we had across the House.

Where is the legislation to address all that? Failed project after failed project alongside acute underfunding means that people continue to live in cold homes with sky-high energy bills, so where is the legislation to revolutionise our home retrofitting agenda? The problem needs long-term policy and funding commitments rather than the stop and start of this Government. While offshore wind is no doubt a success story, we must move faster. Onshore wind development has been slow, and solar has been particularly off-track. In fact, we are going backwards. The proportion of renewable projects that are being delayed is on the rise.

Last year the Government’s predictable failure to contract new offshore wind lost 5 GW of renewable energy and the opportunity to save consumers £2 billion a year. Renewables developers still face a planning system that is stacked against onshore wind, and community energy providers still face enormous start-up costs. Rather than a petroleum Bill, why are we not debating a marine energy Bill today to incentivise investment in the various new technologies in marine energy and facilitate the fast roll-out of installations? The Government are wasting time and money on the fuels of the past. Instead, they should champion UK technology and innovation.

So, why this Bill? My suspicion is that it is an election year Bill to drive division and fuel the culture wars. For too long, working people have been made to worry that the green energy transition is a punishment for them and that it will cost them prosperity, livelihoods and the way of life that they are used to. But there are countries who have successfully turned the negative narrative into a prospect of hope and major opportunities. The US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s green industrial plan will together see over $600 billion of green investment creating new and exciting jobs and careers. Even Canada, an economy smaller than ours, has announced a package that offers nearly £50 billion-worth of tax credits for green technologies. Green investment will be worth a potential £1 trillion by 2030. Uncertainty over this Government’s commitment to reach net zero means that investors are looking the other way.

Oil and gas are energy sources of the past. Putting our political future towards them only amplifies how seriously out of touch and out of ideas this current Government are. The Bill is misleading and counterproductive. It flies in the face of our net zero commitments and will do nothing to ensure our energy security. Indeed, it will do the opposite. We Liberal Democrats will support the Labour reasoned amendment and oppose this Government Bill, and I call on all colleagues across the House with an ounce of honesty and integrity to do the same.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Alex Sobel

Committee: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 124, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), and new clause 27, tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). I am very pleased that she is here to introduce it later on.

What is the biggest long-term issue facing people here in Britain and across the world? It is not Brexit and it is not the world economy; it is climate change and the environment. For decades, we have thoughtlessly exploited our planet, heated the atmosphere and polluted the earth. The price we pay for continuing as before will be enormous.

As part of the European Union, Britain is making progress to tackle climate change. Together, we have signed up to the Paris agreement. Many European laws and regulations, which are our laws, have been a force for good and have nudged the UK towards better environmental protection and better protection for human health. That was possible through the effective enforcement of those laws by EU agencies and the European Commission. The Bill carries with it the risk that we might scrap the commitments we have shared with the EU to go it alone, or to throw in our lot with America or another country.

I want this country to become the greenest in the world. Before I became an MP, I was closely involved in improving how we dealt with our household and commercial waste following the EU landfill directive. Landfill produces a potent greenhouse gas, methane, and diverting landfill waste through recycling, composting and waste reduction is the only way to stop this greenhouse gas getting into the atmosphere. The UK is still one of the worst recyclers in the developed world, according to figures released the other day.

We have a long way to go and would not have gone as far as we have without the EU pushing us in the right direction and the effective enforcement of the European enforcement agencies and the Commission. We have talked for a while today about how the UK has been a leader on particular EU legislation. That is the beauty of the EU: in some areas, we are leaders; in other areas, such as air pollution, other countries have been leaders. Together, we have produced a body of legislation that makes things better for us all. Another example of good EU legislation is how our beaches have been cleaned up following EU directives. British beaches are now 99% clean and safe—that is what the EU has done for us.

The environment is owned by everybody. It is not a person or legal entity that can complain. Private ownership in a deregulated world does not protect the environment. That is why the legal principles that underpin the EU, as well as powerful and independent enforcement bodies, are so essential.

Frankly, I am not reassured by Ministers. The recent Brexit impact assessment debacle or the war of words over regulatory alignment or divergence are prime examples of why we should not be bamboozled by fine words, but keep a watchful, eagle eye on the Government’s every move. The draft animal welfare Bill that has been produced in a panic is not at all reassuring, but rather an example of how all the Government can do in the face of Brexit is to firefight. Indeed, the biggest problem for me is that Brexit has to happen in such an enormous rush, and that there is apparently the need to undo in a few short months the laws, regulations, enforcement, co-operation and partnerships that have evolved over 40 years.

The protection of the environment depends on cross-border co-operation. The environment is not a game of politics. It is the one thing that can either guarantee or endanger our own survival. The next best thing to staying in the EU would be to stay in the single market and the customs union. That alone would protect the high standards for the environment, health, safe employment, consumer protection and animal rights, and the oversight and enforcement of those standards by independent agencies. That is why everybody in the House should support amendment 124, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, which would ensure that the Bill’s provisions would not undermine EU regulations and their enforcement during the transition period, while we are still operating in the single market.

At the very least, we should set up independent regulatory bodies that are effective and have enough teeth to hold powerful organisations, global companies, industries and individuals to account, and new clause 27 would allow that to happen. Of course, it would be great if we could count on everybody to do the right thing, but experience tells us otherwise. Environmental crimes continue unfettered where there are not powerful laws and powerful enforcement agencies.

Would it not be a tragedy if Brexit meant that we aligned ourselves with Trump’s America, pulling out of the Paris climate change agreement, expanding our fossil fuel industry, undermining our renewable energy industry, trampling over environmental protection laws and sitting idly by as the planet warmed up? Climate change is not “Project Fear”; it is the worrying and brutal reality. I started by saying that climate change is the biggest challenge of our age—bigger than Brexit. What a tragedy it will be if the environment and vital action to tackle climate change are the biggest victims of Brexit.

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

Today’s sitting has considered many important amendments on issues that I have long supported. New clause 27 in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and amendment 96 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) would ensure that we do not fall into a regulatory black hole when it comes to environmental protection. The Secretary of State’s appearance before the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit, did not assuage any of our fears in that regard. New clause 53 in the name of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) focuses on our obligations under Dublin III to help to reunite children and families who have been separated by war or persecution. I support those amendments and hope that they will be pressed to a vote. They are just three of a legion of amendments that show the true cross-party nature of the concerns about this Bill.