Today the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) warns
that without substantial private investment and clear commitments
from ministers, the UK may not meet its pledge to protect 30% of
land by 2030 and offer communities greater access to
nature.
Since the Government's current growth agenda prioritises
substantial housebuilding and large-scale infrastructure
development, private investment in schemes such as Biodiversity
Net Gain will be critical to reverse the UK's position as one of
the most nature depleted countries in the world.
In its report on the role of natural capital in the UK's green
economy, the Committee urges Ministers to set out unequivocally
the Government's support for Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and to
ensure that BNG delivers on the Government's aspirations for the
policy. BNG drives investment into nature by encouraging
developers to provide a minimum increase in biodiversity of 10%,
whether this is done on the development site, delivered somewhere
else, or by buying ‘credits' from the Government as
compensation.
There has been speculation that the Government may be wavering on
its commitment to BNG, given recent proposals for a
state-administered Nature Restoration Fund supplied by developer
contributions. The Committee fears that a move away from BNG will
cause uncertainty in nature markets and will have a negative
impact on direct investment into nature restoration
initiatives.
The Committee makes a number of recommendations to strengthen
BNG, including offering developers the ability to pool BNG
projects to ensure that they can attract investments at
scale.
The Committee recommends that Ministers demonstrate that natural
capital approaches are embedded into all decision-making across
Government. The Committee urges the Government to renew its
commitment to the principle that “economic and financial decision
making... support the delivery of a nature positive
future”.
It also recommends that the Government set out in the upcoming
Spending Review how it has taken a natural capital approach to
evaluate spending decisions as well as to set out how the
approaches taken will grow the UK's stock of natural
capital.
The Committee recommends that progress on BNG should be subject
to annual review, and that a comprehensive and publicly
accessible register of the location of on-site and off-site
assets under development— and the investors in each
project—should be established. It says the Government should also
be clear as to how it proposes to invest the ringfenced revenues
from BNG credits.
The Committee concludes that at present, there is no clear method
for the Government to understand or assess progress towards the
2021 target to deliver £1 billion of private investment into
nature recovery by 2030. The Committee therefore recommends that
within 12 months the Government provide a report to Parliament on
current and projected levels of private investment into nature
recovery in England.
The Committee also recommends that the Government undertake a
specific assessment of how its proposed Nature Restoration Fund
(to be provided for under the Planning and Infrastructure Bill,
currently making its way through Parliament) is likely to affect
the level of private investment into BNG projects. The
Government's commitment to promoting natural capital investment
into nature restoration can be demonstrated by publishing a swift
response to its current consultations on the operation of UK
natural capital markets.
Environmental Audit Committee Chair, MP, said:
“No ifs, no buts: we need Ministers to facilitate private
investment by setting out a clear commitment to the Biodiversity
Net Gain policy.
“Biodiversity Net Gain is a ground-breaking approach which can
secure genuine and lasting nature recovery in tandem with
development in every corner of the country. Speculation that it
might be ditched in favour of a broad-brush approach to state
funding of nature restoration at scale risks undermining market
confidence and further depleting nature in some
communities.
“There is a real opportunity, through the Government's commitment
to growth, for nature to grow hand in hand with the economy.
Failure to do this properly, and to keep on top of which projects
are being invested in, will see green spaces slip away from
already nature deprived communities.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- The full list of conclusions and
recommendations can be found on page 55 of the report.
