The Environmental Audit
Committee’s Chair has today written to the Secretary of State
for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, MP, to ask for
reconsideration of several key areas during the passage of the
Bill:
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The independence of the new Office for Environmental
Protection (OEP) is called into question
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The Committee calls for the urgent publication of a
policy statement to accompany the Bill’s environmental
principles
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The Committee questions the ‘needlessly long timeframe’
to set targets in the Bill
Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, , said:
“The Environment Bill offers the Government a chance to
safeguard our environment for future generations, but there
remain glaring oversights in the Bill.
“The Government has failed to set out its policy
framework which would establish how the environmental principles
will be used in practice – allowing them to avoid full scrutiny
from Parliament.
“We are concerned the independence of the Office for
Environmental Protection remains fragile as long as it relies on
the discretion of Ministers. We ask again for Government to
consider the alternative governance model recommended in our
pre-legislative report.
“Setting 2037 as the date to achieve environmental
targets is too little too late. The Bill only sets target
for air quality, water, biodiversity, and resource
efficiency and waste reduction, but we need
targets across all ten Environment Plan goals. We are
facing an ecological emergency, the time to act is now.”
ENDS
The Committee welcomes the Government’s decision to follow a
number of the report’s
recommendations. Notably, climate change targets based on carbon
budgets will become legally binding, with the new Office for
Environmental Protection able to exercise emergency judicial
powers in the event the Government fails to meet the targets
set.
However, the Committee remains concerned about the OEP’s
governance. Rather than the model proposed in the current Bill,
in which the Chair and its Members will be chosen by the
Secretary of State, the Committee calls for a governance model
similar to the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit
Office where Parliament has a say. The Committee raises the need
for links between the OEP and Parliament to be strengthened, to
ensure the independence of the new watchdog.
The Committee are also disappointed that only targets for air
quality, water, biodiversity and resource efficiency and waste
reduction are required. The Committee is calling for the
Government to set targets covering all ten headline goals in the
25 Year Environment Plan.
In April this year, the Committee scrutinised the Draft
Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill publishing a report which
assessed the Government’s plans.
The Environment Bill was introduced to Parliament last week.
