Tabled by
of Ullock
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the timeliness and effectiveness of the implementation of their
environmental policies.
(Lab)
On behalf of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock, and with her
permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name
on the Order Paper.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office () (Con)
My Lords, I refer the House to my entry in the register. The
Government are committed to leaving the environment in a better
state than we found it. Following the Environmental Improvement
Plan 2023, we have stepped up our action, including announcing
our multimillion-pound species survival fund and 34 landscape
recovery scheme projects. Our annual reports on the 25-year
environment planand the outcome indicator framework assess our
actions to improve the environment. The next annual report will
be published this summer.
(Lab)
My Lords, it is ironic that some noble Lords who would like to
have participated in this Question, including my noble friend
Lady Hayman of Ullock, will be unable to do so due to disruption
caused by the ninth named storm of this winter. As we adjust to a
world where extreme weather events are more frequent and other
effects of climate change are more apparent, there can be little
surprise that Dame Glenys Stacey has warned that the
Government
“needs to speed up, scale up and make sure its plans stack
up”.
The positive picture painted by the Minister bears little
resemblance to the OEP’s report from last week, which found that
UK environmental ambitions are “largely off track”. Does the
Minister accept the finding that while the Government may be good
at announcing major initiatives, they are less effective at
developing and delivering them?
(Con)
I do not agree with that. The report said that 25 areas were
improving, 10 were static and eight were deteriorating, and we
take these extremely seriously. The OEP said that the EIP targets
are welcome but that scale and pace, as the noble Baroness says,
have to be improved. That was reporting on the year to March
2023; our environmental improvement plan was announced only last
January, so the report was only three months into that period.
There is a real sense of urgency among Ministers, through Defra
and across government to make sure that we hit our no-net-loss
targets by 2030. You do not achieve that by taking action in
2029; you take action now, and we have been doing so over a
number of years, to make sure that the multiple decades of
decline of nature in this country are stopped and reversed. That
is our absolute ambition across government.
(Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that part of the reason for
sewage spilling into people’s homes is that we still do not have
an end to the automatic right to connect, and a greater use of
SUDS? When does he intend to bring forward the consultation on
Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to permit
greater use of these facilities?
(Con)
I have written to my noble friend to give her a detailed answer
to that question, which is the same one she asked quite recently.
I assure her that I asked whether we really had to consult again,
and apparently we do; it is a statutory requirement under the
Flood and Water Management Act. I suspect we will bring in those
measures later this year.
(CB)
My Lords, I heard the Minister speak about the Government’s
urgency, but I will make reference here to actual policies and
plans that have been delayed. I will mention a few; this is not
an exhaustive list. The horticultural peat ban, which was
promised by this year, is not here yet. The implementing
regulations for the introduction of due diligence measures on
forest risk commodities are still not before Parliament. The UK
chemicals strategy was promised last year, the deposit returns
scheme has just been delayed until whenever, and there are the
replacement protections for hedgerows, which followed the loss of
cross-compliance at the end of last year. That is just five. Can
the Minister comment?
(Con)
On hedgerows, I refer the noble Baroness to the fact that an
enormous quantity of new hedgerows has been planted, and we have
11,000 kilometres of hedgerows under new management as a result
of the sustainable farming incentive. On other measures, I am
very happy to write to the noble Baroness to tell her the
timetable for when those measures will be brought in. On forest
risk commodities, it is important that we are in step with other
countries; we are absolutely determined to make sure that
consumers can know whether the commodity they are buying is
putting forests at risk. The UK is a leader in making sure that
happens.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, the Office for Environmental Protection’s annual report
shows that the environmental improvement plan, which sets out
legally binding targets, is meeting only four out of 40 of them.
With the OEP keeping legal action under active consideration, the
Government taking almost a full year to respond to the first OEP
report, and the Minister in the other place saying only that the
Government will respond in due course, will the Minister give a
firm date for when they will provide a formal response to this
serious report?
(Con)
The Environment Act requires the Government to respond within 12
months, and we will respond considerably more quickly than that.
I know that the noble Earl is asking me a question, but does he
agree with me that this is without any measure of doubt the
greenest Government ever? I am proud of that and happy to be held
accountable for all these measures. We brought in a landmark
piece of legislation in the Environment Act. We have brought in
so many other measures that have addressed long-awaited needs in
this environment, and without doubt we have the greenest
Government ever.
(Lab)
My Lords, is the Government not using the wrong benchmark? If
they were to benchmark to, say, 13 years ago, and look at the
improvements, that would be a different matter from looking at
the last couple of years.
(Con)
I do not understand the noble Lord’s position. Working off a
baseline, we have to make sure that we are sharing data. We are
publishing 800 pages of data so that the noble Lord, NGOs,
parliamentarians and others can hold us to account on this. We
use an accepted baseline in order to show an improvement. No net
loss by 2030 and 10% improvement on that by 2042—those are
pushing targets.
(GP)
My Lords, the tone adopted by the Minister is in stark
contrast—180 degrees opposite—to that of the OEP report. That
talks of Britain being locked in an irreversible spiral of
decline of nature. We have what the Minister calls landmark
pieces of legislation. Can he put his hand on his heart and say
that Defra has adequate capacity to deliver the absolute flood of
material that needs to be done to get anywhere near delivering
what he is suggesting is needed?
(Con)
I think we can. We have put more resources into our agencies,
particularly Natural England. We have a sense of complete
determination to hit this, which comes from Ministers and goes
down to the Natural England or Environment Agency individual who
is dealing with a particular group of farmers. But for all the
resources that we could put into government, we would fail if we
doubled them. What is important is that we weaponise land
managers and people who really know about this on the ground.
That is why clusters of farmers working together—for example, in
environmental farming groups—are the way forward to deliver an
increase in abundance of species and protection of nature, which
is not just an environmental or societal matter. It is an
economic one as well, as the Dasgupta report proved.
(Lab)
How is the programme going to provide shore power in our ports
and harbours so that visiting ships do not have to run their
diesel generators?
(Con)
That is a very good question from the noble Lord. I should always
come armed with a list of marine shipping questions. I have not,
but I will make sure that he gets an answer to that in due
course.
of Hardington Mandeville
(LD)
My Lords, to implement effective policies, you need reliable and
accurate data. For water, if an incident is reported but not
inspected, or inspected too late, it becomes a category 3 or 4.
The Environment Agency has reduced its responses to those
categories, saying:
“You get the environment you pay for”.
With this in mind, does the Minister have confidence that the
official water pollution figures are accurate? If he has doubts,
what are the Government going to do to ensure better
monitoring?
(Con)
When we came into government, we knew about 10% of the sewage
outflows from water companies into rivers. We now know 100%,
because we require them to report them. Technology is our friend
here: we are able to use telemetry, which can now do the work of
hundreds of people in real time, producing a message to a phone
requiring an instant response. I think we are much better
equipped to deal with it. Is it perfect? No.
(Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government and my noble friend, who
I know is passionate about protecting the environment and the
need to do so. I support his claim that this is the most
environmentally friendly Government we have had. Before 2010, no
Government took this matter particularly seriously. However, will
he take on board some of the issues that have been noted about
resourcing, particularly of the Environment Agency? It is
apparently not attending all the sewage outflows, so it could
well be that significant numbers are happening without us
knowing. Will he take the issue of resourcing back to the
department?
(Con)
I thank my noble friend. In my absolute belief in what we have
achieved over the last decade and a bit, I am absolutely not
complacent—none of us is. The OEP’s report is really important.
We set up the OEP to hold this Government and future Governments
to account on this. On the issue my noble friend raises, we have
increased the number of Environment Agency officers who should
and must respond to all such reports. On water quality as a
whole, we have put in place, through our plan for water, the most
comprehensive list of measures possible to make sure that not
only water companies but farmers, home owners and others who are
responsible for the quality of the water in our rivers are held
to account when they get it wrong.
