Environment: 25-year Plan

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare interests as the chairman of the Woodland Trust and either president or vice-president of a range of environmental and wildlife bodies, including the RSPB and the Wildlife Trust for Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire—a fine part of the world.

I thank the noble Lord, Gardiner, for his exposition of the plan. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, alas, is not in his place today. When he was Secretary of State for the Environment, he used to say that environment NGOs were “thank you, but” organisations; they used to thank him for anything that he achieved but always impressed on him that more was needed. The 25-year plan raises that sort of response in my heart.

The Government have to be admired because it is a tough pledge to leave the environment in a better state at the end of a generation, bearing in mind some of the immense pressures and the real signs of decline, such as climate change and declining biodiversity. Fifty-six per cent of species in this country are in decline—much threatened by agricultural practice and, increasingly, by urbanisation. The Minister talked about improvements to air quality but we have been struggling in the end game of making sure that air quality meets environmental standards on a European basis. Soils are rapidly becoming a key issue, having been neglected in the past. The startling figure that the Woodland Trust has come out with reveals that our country may actually be deforesting at the moment, rather than increasing woodland cover. It is admirable that the Government are being bold and looking forward but, as I said, we are “thank you, but” organisations so I will now have a go at some of the thank yous and buts.

First, it is great that there has been recognition of the myriad benefits of woods and trees. Noble Lords have heard me bang on about those so often that I shall not bore them again. It was a great pleasure a few Sundays ago for me to hear a Prime Minister, Mrs May, launch on “The Andrew Marr Show” her support for the northern forest. This £500 million project has been brought together by the Woodland Trust and the Community Forest Trust. It will be a wonderful forest: 50 million trees will be planted over 25 years and it will span from Liverpool to Hull and greatly help the economic regeneration of the north.

But there is a huge mismatch between the amount of new woodland planting that the Government are committing to deliver through their own funding and the stated commitment to increase woodland cover in England to 12% by 2060. We are currently at around 10%. The plan commits to planting 7,200 hectares per annum with government resources for the next 25 years, which is better than the measly 700 hectares achieved in 2016. But that means that the target in the plan will be heavily dependent on a range of players planting trees, not just the Government. We will need developers, local authorities, businesses, farmers, private individuals and public bodies to take a role. Will the Minister give a commitment to incentivising all land managers to plant trees, as the Government develop a post-CAP land-use policy? Will he assure the House that environmental benefits, including woodland creation, will be at the heart of future farming payments and tell us how the Government intend to arrive at their woodland cover objective of 12%, without more ambitious planting targets and schemes than are currently in the plan?

Another “thank you, but” goes for the commitment in the plan to protect ancient woodland, because protecting existing woods is as important as creating new ones. Our existing woods are under threat from development and tree disease, as the Minister said, and from conversion to other land uses. Based on the evidence that it has, the Woodland Trust believes that we are now in a state of deforestation, where actual woodland cover is reducing. But, to be honest, the data is pretty duff and we do not really know—which is a bad way to be in this data-rich age. So we welcome the role of the new national tree champion. I would quite like to be that champion but I am sure I am not eligible, being parti pris and part of the Woodland Trust—but good on that person, whoever they are. However, they need to ensure that improved baseline data is available, that monitoring improves and that there is real reporting of all woodland losses if we are really to protect our existing woodland resource.

I particularly welcome the reiteration of the manifesto commitment to improve the protection of ancient woodland, but 700 ancient woodlands are currently under threat. HS2 is a big enemy of ancient woodland and, as we dash for housing, that, too, is beginning to threaten ancient woodland considerably. So the Government really must go further than the changes they have already proposed to the National Planning Policy Framework. I have seen two independent legal opinions, sought by the Woodland Trust and by lawyers active in the development field, which confirm that the proposed changes to the NPPF would not alter the currently inadequate level of protection for ancient woodland in practice.

I therefore hope, again, that the role of the national tree champion will come good. I was slightly anxious to see that he or she will explore opportunities to further strengthen the protection of ancient woodland. I rather hoped that the NPPF changes, when they came forth, would have done that job and that he would not need to worry his head about that one. All this illustrates the fact that government alone is not sufficient: we need all government to be involved, not just Defra, and we need other players to make a difference.

It is encouraging to see the natural capital approach that the Government are putting at the heart of the plan, but we must make sure that ancient woodland is not seen as part of this process. Ancient woodland is 400 years old; it is a complex web of species and ecosystems and is completely irreplaceable. It should not be damaged in the first place and cannot be traded as part of a no net loss scheme.

Last but not least in my “thank you, but” list, I will address the governance gap after breakfast—I mean, Brexit; Brexit and breakfast are a real contradiction in terms. After Brexit we will have lost the sanctions that Europe provided on government and government bodies for failing to meet environmental standards: namely, infraction proceedings and fines. There is a promise in the plan on consultation and on an independent body that will hold government accountable. We must look closely at how independent that body is and what sanctions it will have. Will the Minister tell the House whether the new statutory body will have, for example, the power to bring a legal challenge to the Government if they fail to meet the objectives of the 25-year plan?

Overall, therefore, the 25-year plan is a “thank you, but” job. There are lots of initiatives; it needs legislative and policy underpinning; there is an excellent direction of travel; but it now needs clear, measurable objectives that are based in statute, and better metrics—and it needs to report to the public and Parliament year on year. Can the Minister tell us how and when these will be put in place? I will end by saying, “Thank you, but”.

Brexit: Environmental Enforcement Agency

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, again, I do not want to pre-empt the consultation. We want a wide consultation and stakeholders, your Lordships and others to participate in it. We need to fill the governance gap, particularly as we wish to enhance the environment. I hope that before too long we will publish the 25-year environment plan. We want to enhance the environment, and that is a step forward. I assure the noble Baroness that we wish to have a rigorous environmental body.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister pointed out that this measure is aimed at closing the governance gap. One of the major benefits of the EU enforcement mechanism was that it could enforce fines against the Government in infraction proceedings. I have not been able to find another UK independent regulator which has that power at the moment. Can the Minister tell us whether the new independent regulator will be able to enforce environment standards not only on public bodies but on the Government?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I will be straightforward. We want to proceed with this because we think government and public bodies should be held to account. We have existing frameworks, regulators, judicial review processes and Parliament ensuring that the Executive are accountable to them and, ultimately, to the electorate. This is an important matter, and we are going to consult widely. We have not ruled anything in or out. We want a full consultation so that we can understand what stakeholders and other interested groups think is the best way forward in holding government and public bodies to account.

Brexit: Environmental and Climate Change Policy

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chairman of the Woodland Trust and as president and vice-president of a range of environmental and land management NGOs and professional bodies. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for securing this debate—and I hope she lives.

We are told that Brexit means Brexit, but what it does not mean is junking our standards of environmental protection. A number of public surveys during the referendum campaign demonstrated continuing public support for high levels of environmental standards. However, many of these standards have been negotiated as part of the EU framework over the last 40 years, and, as many previous speakers have said, the task of untangling them and taking control from a UK point of view is going to be very complicated.

Brexit might mean Brexit but no amount of wishing removes the UK from the European bioregion. We will continue to share air, seas and migratory species, so it is vital that we at least maintain the current standards of protection for air, water, land and biodiversity, and that we recognise the full range of regulation and legislation involved. The range is massive—25% of EU legislation is about environmental protection, and it will be a big piece of work to repatriate that. It is crucial that we maintain robust, well-enforced environmental and wildlife laws, and it is absolutely vital that we give business a sense of security and continuity in delivering to these standards. The last thing that business wants is absence of certainty or, even worse, the flip-flopping that we have seen on environmental standards from the Government over the last 18 months.

I welcome the great repeal Bill—a wonderful title. We have to watch that the tweaks made to ensure operability do not result in any watering down, either by design or by Sod’s law. In particular, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, stressed, we need to understand what will replace the compliance regimes that are currently ultimately ensured by EU processes such as infraction procedures and the European Court of Justice, to make sure that our environmental and wildlife laws are enforced by domestic compliance regimes that are at least as tough. Can the Minister tell us the Government’s initial thoughts on such monitoring, compliance and enforcement regimes?

We also need to take this opportunity to address the parts of our domestic policy framework that are failing. Trees and woodlands are crucial for a whole range of things: wildlife conservation, timber productivity, the management of carbon, enhancing farming output with shade and shelter for crops and livestock, the improvement of water quality, reducing soil erosion, flood control, access to recreation and human health. What is not to like about trees? Apart from that, the public love them. So people need trees, yet over 600 of our ancient woodlands—those cathedrals of woodlands —are at risk from proposed infrastructure and built development.

There is a huge loophole in the national policy planning framework that means that ancient woodlands have little protection compared to ancient buildings, and local planning authorities are therefore often unable to stop the destruction of ancient woodlands and trees. I press the Minister to say what the Government intend to do to improve the protection for ancient woodlands and to at least bring it into equivalence with the protection given to ancient buildings under the national policy planning framework.

I turn now to land management policy, which will be fundamental to Brexit. For many years, the common agricultural policy has been slated as being the major downside of European membership, along with the common fisheries policy. CAP is a major element of European activity, in that it accounts for 45% of the European Union budget, yet it has been pretty disastrous for about 30 years in driving the decline in our native wildlife and environmental standards. It is pretty odd that even the farmers—those who benefited from it—did not much like it either. Post-Brexit CAP demise may be the only silver lining. I am trying to stay enthusiastic in the face of the blackness that will follow Brexit by saying that, like the kid in the sweet-shop, we will have the opportunity to design, at long last, a properly integrated approach to land use policy, focused on multipurpose land use and public benefit.

Land is a scarce commodity; we are not making any more and, with climate change, we may have rather less. But it is not clear what we consider land to be for. Is it for food security; timber production; ecosystem services and the protection of air, soil and water; biodiversity; climate change mitigation; flood management; public access; or built development? We need to face the fact that all these are legitimate claims on land, and therefore a future land use strategy needs to take an integrated approach that balances all these needs. Will the Minister tell us how the Government intend to establish an integrated debate on this issue? All the competing interests need to be round the table at once, talking about it, not just part of a consultation after the Government have had unilateral and bilateral consultations and discussions with those various competing interests.

The Government should take this opportunity to combine their proposed environment and agriculture 25-year strategies. They are currently being prepared separately, although with some overlap, but they are both about what the same land is going to deliver.

Currently, 75% of our land is farmed, and land managers need to be incentivised and rewarded for delivering the full range of land-based services, but only for services that are delivered for public benefit. We need to see the integration of food and timber production with the delivery of ecosystem services, and that must be the basis of any incentive and grant system. As the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, was quite right to point out, this needs to happen on a landscape scale greater than that of individual farms. Public subsidies need to be targeted spatially to reward groups of land managers for delivering public good together.

It is vital that the new land use policy takes full account of the benefits to be gained from substantially increasing woodland cover. The current subsidies for woodland planting—with the benefits that trees bring, which I have already outlined—simply are not working. Last year, as a nation, we undershot the government planting targets by a whacking 86%. We are the country in the European bioregion with the lowest level of tree cover but we are now effectively deforesting. Will the Minister give a commitment to turn around this situation in the short term to get the planting rates back up, and make a longer-term commitment to enhance the creation of forest cover in a future integrated land use policy?

Before I finish, I want briefly to touch on two or three other issues. The first is the importance of integrating what we want to deliver for the environment for the future in all the current Brexit discussions. The industrial strategy will be fundamental, but it must have the environment at its heart. The trade strategy will be crucial, both to the standards we need to achieve in environmental terms and to the future viability of farming. The infrastructure strategies we need for future economic development must take full account of the environment, and likewise the climate change and energy policies we adopt for the future. Therefore, will the Minister let us know what government thinking is on putting the environment at the heart of all these key debates that are happening as we speak?

The law of unintended consequences is an axiom that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong—I am feeling that enthusiastic and optimistic at the moment. The range of what might emerge from trade negotiations is huge, from quasi-single market membership to the World Trade Organization. Let us not mess up the agricultural industry by mistake during those negotiations. Let us not develop a system of our own that is even more bureaucratic than the previous European one. Last but not least, please, we must have full parliamentary scrutiny as we transfer to the future—improved, I hope—system for environmental protection in this country.