Queen's Speech 2021 - Environment Bill

Environment Bill

“My Government will invest in new green industries to create jobs, while protecting the environment... Legislation will set binding environmental targets.”

The purpose of the Bill is to:

• ● Put the environment at the centre of policy making, making sure that this Government – and those in the future – are held accountable for making progress on environmental issues.

• ● Introduce a framework for legally-binding environmental targets and establish a new, independent Office for Environmental Protection.

• ● Introduce measures to revolutionise how we recycle; enhance local powers to tackle sources of air pollution; secure long-term, resilient water supplies and wastewater services; and protect nature and improve biodiversity.

  The main benefits of the Bill would be:

• ● Setting up a new, independent body that will hold all public authorities to account on environmental law, helping to drive momentum on progress to protect and improve the environment.

• ● Improving air quality by fighting air pollution so that we have cleaner air to breathe.

• ● Ensuring we can manage our precious water resources in a changing climate.

• ● Supporting Government’s ambitions to become a world leader in using resources

  efficiently.

• ● Restoring and enhancing nature and biodiversity, with thriving plants, wildlife and habitats.

• ● Ensuring companies undertake due diligence to protect ecosystems such as the rainforest from illegal deforestation.

  The main elements of the Bill are:

● Placing a duty on Ministers to ensure environmental considerations are central to policy development; setting legally-binding targets; producing a long-term environmental improvement plan; and setting up the independent Office for Environmental Protection.

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• ● Preserving our resources by minimising waste, promoting resource efficiency, and moving towards a circular economy. These measures include extended producer responsibility, product labelling powers, introducing a consistent approach to recycling across local authorities in England, introducing a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, and providing for more effective litter enforcement. It will also provide the powers to introduce charges for single use plastic items to combat pollution.

• ● Improving air quality by requiring the Secretary of State to set at least two legally- binding targets on air quality for PM2.5, the most harmful air pollutant.

• ● Managing water sustainably through modernised legislation to secure a long- term, resilient water supply and wastewater services.

• ● Protecting nature by mandating ‘biodiversity net gain’ in the planning system, ensuring new houses are not built at the expense of nature and delivering thriving natural spaces for communities. We will improve planning for nature recovery through Local Nature Recovery Strategies and create Nature Recovery Networks to join up nature sites and create wildlife-rich places. We will give communities a greater say in the protection of local trees.

• ● Placing requirements on larger businesses that use agricultural commodities associated with deforestation. These requirements will prohibit larger businesses from using key agricultural commodities produced on illegally deforested land.

• ● We will be putting forward amendments to the Environment Bill to reduce the harm from storm overflows to our rivers, waterways and coastlines. New duties will require the Government to publish a plan to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows by September 2022 and report to Parliament the progress of implementing the plan.

  Territorial extent and application

● The Bill will extend and apply UK wide, with over half of the Bill’s provisions applying to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Key facts

● The Bill has been carried over into the second session but work on implementing its measures has not stopped: Dame Glenys Stacey has been appointed as chair of the Office for Environmental Protection; a draft Principles Policy Statement is out for consultation; we have started developing our legally-binding targets with experts; and consultations have been launched on the deposit return scheme for drinks containers and extended producer responsibility for packaging.

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• ● The Government is taking strong action to deliver the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth and leave the environment in a better state than we found it.

• ● The UK was the first major economy to legislate to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and we have set out the most ambitious climate change target, cutting emissions by 78 per cent by 2035 on 1990 levels.

• ● This follows on action we have already taken:

o We introduced one of the world’s toughest bans on microbeads in rinse off personal care products in 2018 and introduced a ban on the supply of plastic straws, cotton buds and stirrers from 1 October 2020.

o We will increase tree planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares of trees per year by 2025, have created a Nature for Climate Fund to drive a step change in planting in England and will publish an England Trees Action Plan this spring.

o We have strengthened protections for ancient woodlands, veteran trees and other irreplaceable habitats in the revised national planning policy framework.

o We have invested £3.8 billion into cleaner air, and emissions of nitrogen oxides have fallen by 32 per cent since 2010 and are at their lowest level since records began.

o We have committed to protect 30 per cent of the UK’s land by 2030 and will create new National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and ten Landscape Recovery projects.

● The Environment Bill will work in tandem with policies introduced in the Agriculture Act 2020, supported by measures such as the Environmental Land Management schemes.