Environment Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, when the office of environmental protection was mooted, I hoped it would be on the same basis as the Climate Change Committee, and be totally independent of government. When that was not the case, I hoped that the structure of the Bill would be that advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and that that part of the Bill should be within the remit of the Climate Change Committee, which is sufficiently independent.

I remember when I was a Minister, and that was many blue moons ago now, being quite irritated at times by the interference of Brussels. We had perhaps some of the best civil servants in the whole of the EU then; my advice was excellent, and I thought that what we were doing was right. But on reflection, perhaps we were not that right. I remember I once lost a Division and went to the Leader, the late Lord Whitelaw, and said to him, “Willie, I’m terribly sorry, I lost that amendment”. He looked at me and said, “Malcolm, perhaps they were right”. Perhaps the Government are wrong on this occasion. As I see it, the problem is that Defra will remain judge and jury, and there is a route for disaster.

I shall give two examples. One example is the water authorities, which I helped to privatise in the mid-1980s. My friend, the late Lord Ridley of Liddesdale, made a revolutionary change in policy by taking control of pollution away from the water authorities and handing it to the National Rivers Authority. The water authorities were outraged, but it was right. What went wrong was that the NRA was amalgamated into the Environment Agency, and the money for the Environment Agency was reduced so that the controller of the polluting companies did not exercise the brake that was needed. We talked about that a couple of days ago.

The other government department that is a classic example of judge and jury is the Forestry Commission. I know that my noble friend on the Front Bench agrees that the Forestry Commission has been an utter disaster for this country. It has cost the taxpayer a huge amount of money and planted the wrong trees in the wrong places with the wrong policy. I hope that that is beginning to change. I have been banging on in this House on that for more than 50 years, but at long last I am being proved right.

I would really like the OEP to be seen to be independent. Not only does it have to be independent, which it is not under the Bill—as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, said, the schedule is not strong enough—it has to be seen to be independent. My noble friend Lord Cormack was right: this is better done by negotiation. The Government will get defeated on Report on this, but it would be far better if we got an amendment that we could all sign up to, because that would send a message to everybody who will be affected by the Bill—which is the whole of the country—that there is unanimity in Parliament that that is the right way forward. At the moment, as I said to my noble friend when he was kind enough to have a meeting with me, I am unhappy with the OEP. I am not quite certain what the right amendment is, but I know that there is one out there if we all make an effort to get it right.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, there has been near unanimity in condemnation of what is currently in the schedule to deliver a really independent body of the kind we want. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said in a formidable opening address on the group, we want to create the same degree of fear, almost, in public bodies that the possibility of the European Commission intervening and fining this country provided before Brexit. What is envisaged in the Bill goes nowhere near that.

Frankly, we know that there are precedents for what happens to so-called independent bodies. I had expected to speak after my noble friend Lady Young and just before my noble friend Lord Rooker. It is instructive that one was the chief executive of the Environment Agency and the other the chair of the Food Standards Agency. When the Environment Agency was first set up in the 1990s, to which the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, just referred, there was a lot of talk about independence, but in fact it became part of the Defra family. Its independence was limited by successive Governments over the whole of that period. Under the coalition Government, it was restricted from briefing parliamentarians or engaging in anything that amounted to a campaign in the eyes of the then Government. Subsequently, of course, its funding has been seriously cut. The Environment Agency is doing an effective job on limited resources, but it is not independent of government.

The other example is the Food Standards Agency. The FSA is a non-departmental body, but as soon as it started straying into areas of interest to the Department of Health on diet, health advice and well-being, those functions were taken off it and ploughed back into the Department of Health. It was right to take it out of its origins in MAFF, but in practice it was never completely independent of government, much though the efforts of my noble friend Lord Rooker and others tried to make it so.

We want a truly independent body on the environment to face up to the immense challenge of climate change and biodiversity diminution. This is not it. I agreed with pretty much every word that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said. I do not entirely agree with his amendment—like others, I prefer the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch—but, as recent speakers said, the Government really do need to take notice of the overwhelming view of the Committee that this will not do. To be truly independent, the OEP needs not just a formal position and designation as a non-departmental body; it needs powers, which are insufficient in the Bill; it needs provision for how its composition is established, which is not fully in this Bill; and it needs powers of enforcement, which we will consider later in Committee and which are, at the moment, clearly completely inadequate to the task.

This is the central part of the Bill. The Government have to think again. If they can come up with a better proposition then let us seriously consider it, but what is in the Bill at the moment is not adequate. None of us believes that it is, and I doubt whether the Government themselves—and the Minister in particular, if I may say so—really believe that it is. Let us think again and try to get something better before the Bill completes its course.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree on the importance of this part of the Bill. Indeed, it is the only part of the Bill that I dealt with at Second Reading, on governance issues. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, introduced Amendment 82 very well. We might argue, but as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, somewhere there is an alternative to what is in the Bill. We just have to find it, because the Minister and his advisers will appreciate that this will not get through the House.

I sat on the environment sub-committee of the Lords EU Committee for a few years. The early promises about the governance gap are not being filled with this Bill. I will not quote again the article that Michael Gove wrote in November 2017, when he was Defra Secretary of State, accepting the fact that there is a gap, but I will refer to what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, referred to, which is the 30 out of 34 wins by the European Court of Justice on environmental issues. You have to ask yourself about this: it won on 30 out of 34 cases. That meant that the UK Government were refusing to do something that caused them to be taken to court. Both parties were involved, by the way. The UK Government did not want to do something—whether it was cleaning up the beaches, making water safer, it does not matter: they did not want to do it. But the European Court of Justice and the Commission took the case to the court, and the court decided, “Yes, you will”, in 30 cases out of 34. When I checked, the other four were undecided.

I know from my own experience inside the department that the threat of infraction meant that you got cracking, talked to the Treasury and said, “Look, we ought to do this. Can we have a few more quid or move some budgets around to satisfy this? Otherwise, we’ll be penalised with a bigger fine than what this will cost us.” That is what actually happened in some cases. I know from experience that this is the way that it works.

I also know, of course, that Defra loves control. In my first two years as a Minister, from 1997 to 1999, I was at MAFF. I was then at Defra from 2006 to 2008—the same department, basically. The point that I am making is that the culture was the same; it was about control. This probably would not happen, but it would be very interesting to have some interviews—exit interviews would be the wrong thing—with people who are no longer serving on some of the bodies, particularly Natural England and the Environment Agency, as to what happened. I know to my certain knowledge that Defra leant on Natural England.

When we were setting up the Food Standards Agency in 1998 and 1999—I might add that my noble friend Lord Whitty was wrong on this, as it is a non-ministerial department with a different structure from a non-departmental public body—I discovered, because of the capacity and willingness of Defra civil servants to adhere to the policy of the Government, that there was an attempt at the highest levels in Defra to convert that agency to an executive agency of MAFF. The department wanted to keep control, even with all the problems we had in setting up the agency. Despite the report from Philip James and the manifesto commitments, they still thought at the last minute that they could keep it as an executive agency. It would have been the ultimate control, if you like, of having an executive agency compared to a non-ministerial department.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I thought I understood the intention of my noble friend Lady McIntosh in these amendments and I tried hard to understand her explanation, but I am not certain that I fully understood and I too look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister will have to say.

Some discretion should be given to the Secretary of State, even in the case of a person who may have been insolvent or convicted of a criminal offence possibly decades ago. As noble Lords are aware, many of those who have been convicted of a criminal offence and punished for it have often gone on to make a positive contribution to society years later. It would set a bad precedent to legislate that they should be for ever denied opportunities for which they might otherwise be considered.

Regarding Amendment 90, I cannot conceive of any circumstances in which the Secretary of State would not consult with the chairman of the OEP prior to removing a non-executive member from the board. If the Secretary of State does not have the kind of relationship with the chairman where they are in regular contact on the operations of the OEP and the composition of the board, it would surely follow that either the chairman or the Secretary of State was in the wrong job. I do not think that such prescriptive details as my noble friend proposes should be included in the Bill.

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, mine is a very brief point which goes in the opposite direction to the noble Viscount’s. On the previous amendment, we discussed the method of appointment of non-executive directors and the role of parliamentary committees. Surely, at least in respect of the final version, if the Secretary of State considers a non-executive director to be unfit there should at least be a consultation with the chairs of the parliamentary and Commons committees who were party to his or her original selection.

It seems lopsided that we have more or less agreed in principle for parliamentary engagement in the appointment, but that the Secretary of State could on the face of it, taking sub-paragraph (6)(c) as it stands, make a decision against a member of the OEP because they thought they were not doing the job properly. When we have parliamentary scrutiny, that judgment should at least be shared by the chair of the appropriate committee. That is my sole point on this group of amendments.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I was very happy to support and sign this amendment, which has been explained by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. It is a specific proposal and has been brought to our attention by the Law Society of Scotland as something it feels is consistent with similar circumstances in other public bodies, such as those she mentioned. Trying to define what makes a person unfit gives some clarity and specificity to such a situation, in contrast to a general catch-all that is left to some extent to the discretion of the Minister.

The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said that he thought a conviction was not necessarily appropriate as a disqualification. This is stretching a point, but it seems to me that the Secretary of State still has discretion and what the amendment seeks to do is to say that in normal circumstances, and probably in most circumstances, a conviction, whether it happens while the member is in office—especially if it happens in office—or prior and has not been disclosed, would be a valid reason to remove someone. Similarly, becoming insolvent while being a member of the board is another reason that is clear and understood.

The purpose of the amendment is to add some clarity, without in any way preventing the Secretary of State from arguing other reasons as to why a member has become unfit. It is not suggesting these are the only two definitions, but they are generally accepted as significant ones that have been identified in other bodies—particularly in Scotland, which is why the Law Society of Scotland has recommended it.

Environment Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I very much welcome the appearance of Clause 2 in this Bill, but it would be seriously sharpened up and given impact by the adoption of Amendment 20 by my noble friend Lady Hayman. I support that amendment and Amendment 156 in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy.

My Amendment 21 is slightly different. It is, in essence, a probing amendment. It starts to deal not with the setting of targets, but the way in which those targets could be delivered. It is arguable that the amendment should come somewhat later in the Bill, but Clause 2 specifically deals with PM2.5 and I thought it was relevant here. I will not press the amendment with its current wording, but it is intended to provoke a discussion and, hopefully at later stage, a form of words to address the practicalities of delivering an effective air quality strategy for the targets to be set under Clause 2, particularly in relation to PM2.5. Indeed, it should extend to ultrafine particles, which were not previously covered by EU regulations.

The focus on PM2.5 as the cause of the most harmful lung and pulmonary diseases is important. My noble friend has underlined the implications of the recent coroner’s recommendations following the tragic death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah in south London. The target needs to be ambitious, much more challenging than current standards in the EU and elsewhere, and to reflect the WHO targets, as my noble friend said. For it to be delivered, we need to focus on the key role of local authorities and others and ensure that they are fully effective. That requires resources, in terms of both money and powers. It also requires their efforts to be brought within a coherent national strategy, as well as a system of parliamentary reporting on progress all the time—particularly on the interim targets.

However, the targets will not work unless we have a proper system of monitoring toxic and noxious emissions and very small particulates. We also need a strategy for the specification of increased quality of air quality monitoring. Currently, most monitors measure nitrous oxides and derive from those measurements an estimate of particulate exposure, mainly from road traffic. Ideally, we need to be able to measure the particulates directly and it is important that we have a clear quality specification of the technical parameters of those monitors. We also need a clearer strategy for the placement of monitors: by the roadside, away from the roadside, at schools—since children are the most susceptible to lifelong lung malfunction from diseases induced by particulate ingestion—around construction sites, around self-standing generators and on some industrial premises.

Most importantly, we need a system of communication. There is no use in even extensive monitoring unless we both inform the public and follow up with analysis where the targets are not going to be met and where there are exceedances or near exceedances by location and with particular forms of action that are needed. Communication to the public is therefore key; we need to link the monitoring system to automatic warnings to the population in the streets, at bus stops, outside schools and colleges and so on. We also need to ensure that local authorities, particularly highways authorities including Highways England and Transport for London, have the legal responsibility for establishing the network of monitors, collating information from them and informing the public of the levels of poison gas and particulates including, in particular, PM2.5.

I recognise that Amendment 21 as worded envisages a regulation on local authorities, but it also requires regulations elsewhere in terms of transport vehicles and machinery specifications. I accept that there must be a better way to reflect the need for those specifics in the Bill. I am looking to the Minister to come forward before the completion of this Bill with a way of ensuring that local authorities and others are both required and resourced to set up a comprehensive system of monitoring and communication to the public, and that there is a clear follow up where limits are exceeded and targets not met. That is what the amendment is about.

I should declare my interests as president of Environmental Protection UK, once known as the National Society for Clean Air, which has focused for decades on this issue. I ask the Minister to come forward before the end of this Bill with a better version of this.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am delighted to see all these amendments and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Kennedy, for bringing them forward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, gave an excellent introduction. I just have one slight problem with it: while the current Mayor of London is doing a lot on air pollution, he is also building a road that will negate virtually everything he is doing and has done. The Silvertown tunnel should be stopped immediately with not another penny spent on it. We all have to understand that building new roads is a mistake anywhere in the country, but especially here in London, when we should be concentrating on better, cleaner methods of transport.

I have worked the issue of air pollution on since 2001. The mayor at the time, Ken Livingstone, made a very good stab from a standing start at reducing air pollution, even though at the time it was just a warning flag that we were about to break EU limits. He did what he could in terms of the congestion charge and encouraging cycling, even though he was not a cyclist himself. Sadly, as soon as the mayoralty was taken over by the current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, things went a little bit skew-whiff. He did not get the whole issue of air pollution and that is a big problem because we know that, if you do not have targets for reducing something, it is likely to not get done. If we are going to clean up our toxic air, this Bill has to set binding targets.

The sources of air pollution are widespread: industry, transport, buildings and agriculture are all major contributors. We have to understand how each of those can be cleaned up and improved, not just for all of us who breathe it in in the cities, but for farmers who also experience a huge amount of pollution in their daily lives.

Air pollution has been found to cause death after a coroner ruled it was a cause of death for Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah. I pay tribute to Ella’s mother Rosamund, who campaigned and fought for so many years to reach this verdict. Ella is the first person to ever have air pollution as a cause of death and it is now official that Ella’s painfully cruel death was unnecessary, preventable and should never happen again to any child or adult. If the Minister is in any doubt about putting targets on air pollution into this Bill, I urge him to meet Rosamund, who fought a fantastic campaign virtually alone when she was suffering immeasurable grief from losing her eldest child. I think he would be convinced and would take it back to the department to insist that we put targets on air pollution into this Bill.

The coroner in Ella’s case said that

“there is no safe level for Particulate Matter”

in air and recommended a reduction in the national pollution limits to bring them into line with World Health Organization guidelines, which is exactly what my Amendment 29 would do. It would hook air pollution targets to the latest WHO guidelines and require the targets to be updated as the science develops. I believe this is the only safe way to proceed and the only way to be true to Ella’s legacy, so that no more children will die from choking on toxic air.

Environment Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

[Inaudible]—it has been a long time getting here and we should all welcome it. That is not to say that I or this House will welcome the Bill in all its aspects; indeed, many have already been touched on. I shall probably be following some amendments on air quality, pesticides—as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Randall, just now—and various aspects of water quality and the whole regime governing water and our natural waterways. During the subsequent process of the Bill, I shall also touch on issues arising from the interface between it and the Agriculture Act. I make no apology for returning to the issue to which so many noble Lords have already spoken: the central problem of the structure and the authority of the office for environmental protection and the powers given—or not given—to it by the Bill.

The switch from a largely European-determined framework of environmental legislation was never going to be an easy one. The Bill makes a bit of a stab at it but gets some fundamental things wrong. The Bill requires serious modification before we get back to a pre-Brexit situation. This House can improve it in that respect—it is good at scrutiny and we are required to be at our best as we go through the Bill clause by clause—but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lady Young, I have heard some rather disturbing rumours. I am apprehensive about the siren voices that are coming, which say that the Government want to see this Bill through as rapidly as possible, that they do not want the Lords to hold it up, that they are looking for a minimum number of amendments and that they are not prepared to compromise. I do not associate the Minister or the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, with these comments, but they do come from sources pretty close to the Government. I hope that the Minister can dissuade his colleagues from taking a negative or defensive attitude during the course of our proceedings. This Bill can become a better Bill and it can deliver a better environment, but that requires us to be allowed to scrutinise it and amend it properly.

In essence, the problem with the office for environmental protection is this: in our recent European past, the European Commission could ultimately strike down decisions or failures of any public body across Europe to act in accordance with European law, and could also require pretty substantial reparations—I know for a fact that Permanent Secretaries would on occasion quake in their shoes when they were told that the Commission was on their case—but that is lacking in the tone of this Bill. Like others, I was often critical of the Commission, its cumbersome methods and its very indirect approach but, at the end of the day, it had the power to ensure that even the most powerful public authorities and the most powerful private sector interests obeyed the diktats of European legislation and the principles that were laid down in that legislation.

However, the OEP, in the form presented here, falls well short of that. That is no criticism of the new chair or anyone who is likely to serve on it but, for example, taxation and public spending are excluded from its purview, its relationship with the Climate Change Committee is obscure and its powers to hold individual public authorities to account are limited. In effect, the powers are limited to the new process of an environmental review—a process that is still pretty obscure but clearly is not directly enforceable since its conclusions do not have the force of law and the courts are not obliged to uphold them. The reality is that, as set out in this Bill, the OEP is not fit for purpose. It is the job of the House of Lords to change that.

Air Quality (Legislative Functions) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation. I declare an interest: I have just retired as president of Environmental Protection UK, which almost started its life as the National Society For Clean Air, and I am still a vice-president. Therefore, anything with “air quality” in the title attracts my attention.

I have to confess that I first put my name down for this debate under a bit of a misapprehension. The title of this SI, with its reference to legislative functions, implied to me that we might get to know which of the functions hitherto carried out by the European Commission and its agencies would be transferred to which UK bodies and regulators. Indeed, I hoped that we might get a clearer idea than is apparent from either the latest version of Defra’s air quality strategy or the text of the Environment Bill—in its present form at least—on which authorities will be responsible for the regulations and the enforcement of which bits of that strategy, thus indicating which public authorities would be responsible for those functions that previously rested with the European institutions. I hoped that we could get some clarification with this SI, but no such luck.

As the Minister explained, the SI deals with a much wider issue in a sense, but also a much narrower one. The wider context is that we are now internationally a party to the UNECE agreement on dangerous pollution registration as an independent signatory, having previously been party via our membership of the EU and the European pollutant release and transfer register. We therefore have little leeway on a long-standing international agreement under the Aarhus convention, transposed into EU law, as I understand it, in 2006.

What is before us is also narrower because the main obligation under it is not on government bodies but on the industrial operators to maintain their register of pollution and waste release, leakages and transfers. But, of course, this registration system requires government bodies to oversee its operation, and it is not clear even from what the Minister said, let alone the text, which government bodies we are talking about. The crude transfer from the European Commission to the Secretary of State does not answer that question—which body in practice is, as the text says, the “appropriate authority”? Is it Defra? Is it the Environment Agency? Is it local authorities, which generally bear the brunt of air quality enforcement in practice? Is this UK-wide? What are the responsibilities of the devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all of which have direct regulatory relations with the relevant operators that have to maintain registers under these provisions? Even if it is England only, it is not all that clear who is responsible.

I was for a number of years a Minister in Defra and its predecessor departments, and then for six years a member of the board of the Environment Agency. I briefly had responsibility for air quality at Defra, but in the six years I was on the Environment Agency board, every year we considered a chart of our performance against our KSIs. Most of the achievements were amber and many gratifyingly green, but on air quality, year after year, they were red, and that never changed. The reason for that lay not in the responsibilities of the Environment Agency itself, nor, indeed, of the local authorities of which the Environment Agency had oversight, but because the largest air-quality issues were largely problems for the Department for Transport or its agencies, or for BEIS or whatever the department covering energy and construction was called at the time. In other words, the department and agency which were formally responsible for air quality strategy had no jurisdiction over the largest problems of air-quality pollution and health hazards—road transport being the largest, but there were also major contributions by static machinery on construction and energy sites.

The issue of what is the appropriate authority goes beyond this particular SI, and we may need to return to it at a later stage. We need eventually to be clear on this. I hope that we will be before we start substantive discussion on the Environment Bill, but I have to tell Ministers that in its present form, the Bill is not clear on air quality.

I have just a couple of other questions. First, the UNECE agreement prevents signatories from deleting pollutants from the list but allows signatories—previously the EU and now the UK—to add to the list for their jurisdictions. Do Her Majesty’s Government at present have any plans to add to the list or to change the thresholds for reporting that are in Annexe 2, Article 5 of the protocol?

Some of those thresholds seem very high for releases into the atmosphere per annum, and some of the releases into water and soil really ought to be banned altogether in a sustainable system. The whole issue of what is the threshold for reporting probably needs to be addressed now that we have “taken back control” of our rules. Otherwise, a number of smaller entities that release pollutants and waste will not really be covered. Do the Government have plans to review the thresholds and, if so, will that be part of the Environment Bill, or will it be later?

Lastly, I go back to the devolution issue. We talk about “appropriate agencies”. Are decisions in this area to be taken by Defra and/or the Environment Agency, which are the key entities for England, or are we to have a four-nation framework, under which all four UK Governments will take an agreed position? If there is not a unified position, the companies obliged to run the register will be required to do so in a number of different jurisdictions. They will find that bureaucratically difficult if there are marginally different criteria north and south of the Tweed, or east and west of Offa’s Dyke, for example. Even if the criteria are the same, the duty to record the register and provide it to the appropriate authority will be fourfold rather than, as currently, a single reporting system.

As I said, I was under a bit of a misapprehension as to how wide this SI went, but it raises some of those problems. I am happy to nod the SI through this afternoon, but we will need some clarification of those issues—if not today, I ask the Minister to consider it in the course of the passage of the Environment Bill, if not before.

REACH etc. (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will try not to repeat too many points about the lack of preparedness or resources for the HSE which colleagues have made, or to emphasise that, by trying to solve one problem in extending the deadlines, another has been created in making safety standards less strong. I will concentrate on other points. I very much support the regret amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman. I do that in a literal sense, because I regret that we are where we are, when we do not need to be.

There was a point in the ongoing Brexit saga, and I have taken an interest in this for a considerable time, when I thought that I was on the same side as the Prime Minister—not the present Prime Minister obviously, but Mrs May. Colleagues with long memories will remember that I made a bit of a nuisance of myself in the debate on the EU withdrawal Bill in 2018 about EU agencies. The Government rejected my general case but, in her Mansion House speech, Mrs May recognised three exceptions where we needed to continue a clear relationship with European agencies: medicines, aviation and the European Chemicals Agency. I agreed with that aspect of Mrs May’s approach and, had those negotiations proceeded, we might have had a sensible withdrawal agreement and could have at least maintained some degree of associate membership of ECHA and REACH.

I ask the Minister if there is still some hope. We have heard of progress from Brussels, but have not yet seen the details. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee was informed of a “chemicals annexe”. Does that exist? Can we see it? Does it come into force if there is a deal? This morning, the newspapers listed a number of potential sub-agreements, but they do not include chemicals. They include aviation and medicines. Are there sub-agreements that come into force if we reach a deal in the next couple of days? If we do not reach a deal, what will apply then? Parliament will want to see that annexe sharply, and we need to ensure that it meets all the anxieties about the dual registration process, the costs, disruption and delay for what is an expensive, legally complex and restricted system.

Part of the reason for this amending SI is to reflect the situation in Northern Ireland and a protocol which, I understand, may in essence still be in being. The situation is even more confused by duplicate registration than it is for GB. The HSE is a GB organisation, and there is a separate health and safety executive for Northern Ireland, which has legal status over there. It does not appear to have any role to play in Northern Ireland, because Northern Ireland will remain part of the single market in that respect, and in the EU regulatory structure. That will mean that businesses in Northern Ireland, whether or not they trade with the rest of the EU, or even with the Republic of Ireland, will automatically have to have dual registration. Most of those businesses may be subsidiaries, suppliers or customers of GB-based businesses but, for Northern Ireland business, and for trade between Northern Ireland the rest of the United Kingdom, there will have to be dual registration. Therefore, the cost falls more on Northern Irish businesses than on businesses on the mainland.

We have to remember that many of these businesses are relatively small. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, explained, sectors or industries that use chemicals, such as those dealing in furniture, toys and paint, are dominated by relatively small companies. That applies in Northern Ireland as well. The Northern Irish situation will not be resolved by the endorsement of the protocol in any agreement, if it is then complicated by the double structure of regulations, which will hit all firms in Northern Ireland, not just the main chemical manufacturers. It will also cause an issue between Northern Ireland and Great Britain at the ports.

The disparaging remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, about REACH were uncalled for. There were some hiccups in the development of this system but, by and large, it has now been accepted by the chemicals industries and by most user groups and environmental organisations. We depart from it at our peril; we will have to parallel it, and there is a cost to that which these regulations do not resolve. I support the regret Motion.

Treaty Scrutiny: Working Practices (EUC Report)

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to hear that the chairs of each of these committees agree on so much. We are presented with a unique opportunity to change the balance between the Executive and Parliament in this respect. For many centuries, the elite and the people of Britain seemed to agree that treaties were a matter for Kings and not for Parliament. That changed very slightly in 2010, with the CRaG Act, but my experience, like that of so many speakers, is that that Act is not fit for purpose in these post- Brexit circumstances. When I was my noble friend Lady Donaghy’s predecessor, we started to look at some of the new, post-Brexit, rollover treaties. That was not an easy process; we were improvising. It showed me what an enormously complex job this is, and how CRaG is not really fit for purpose. We were, of course, involved only in looking at the final texts. In reality, the House of Lords had no leverage and the Commons had just 21 days before ratification to comment on an already agreed text. That is not scrutiny; nor does it confer parliamentary legitimacy on the outcome.

I commend the EU Select Committee for setting up the new International Agreements Committee, but that has to be seen as a temporary expedient. We need much more leverage, and that means the involvement of a new, powerful parliamentary committee throughout the process, from setting a negotiating mandate, receiving reports back through the negotiations, and scrutiny and comment on the final text. We also have to take account of the differential role, under CRaG—indeed, under our parliamentary system—of the Lords and the Commons. It has been my view throughout that the optimal parliamentary scrutiny of treaty negotiations should combine legitimacy and expertise and that there should, therefore, be a joint Commons and Lords committee on treaties. This should probably have equal numbers, but a chair from the Commons, and include significant expertise from this House. It should report back to both Houses, which would each have the right to debate and propose amendments to the treaty, although only the Commons could block it or alter it entirely. There is also a need to involve the devolved Administrations in this process.

As my noble friend Lady Taylor and other noble Lords have said, there would have to be confidentiality and security provisions, as there are currently with the joint Intelligence and Security Committee. However, that joint structure is the best form of scrutiny, and this House should propose it. I appreciate that some future Foreign Secretaries and some future—and possibly current—mandarins and political advisers may see this as a constraint and a chore, but in many respects a powerful parliamentary committee could strengthen the hand of the Government of the day, both in negotiating with other countries and in delivering domestic acceptance and ratification of the treaty process. It would help both those processes if Parliament could be seen to be fully involved and to have the final say.

It is Brexit that has triggered our attention to this. Many of our important treaties in the last 40 years have been negotiated for us by the EU, but not all. In those 40 years, parliamentarians, including British Members of the European Parliament, have had a say on those treaties. However, that is true not only of the European Parliament; the US Congress negotiates treaties, particularly ones on trade. It also happens in Canada, Australia and, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, in Japan. These are countries which are now in our sights for new bilateral trade and other arrangements. The level of parliamentary scrutiny has, in many different ways, been significantly higher than that provided by CRaG. We now have the opportunity to change that.

Air Quality and Emissions

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

It is essential that decisions we make today have at their heart a commitment to long-term sustainability and resilience, both in our domestic actions and in our global outreach—through, for example, the Department for International Development. That thread should run through all government decisions in all departments. That is why we are so pleased to hear the commitments by the Department for Transport, the Secretary of State for BEIS—who is also the president of COP—and other departments of government. There is no doubt in my mind that this Government recognise that out of the ashes of this appalling disaster we have an opportunity to make decisions which will pass the test of the time. The Prime Minister himself—[inaudible.]

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, better air quality is the only benefit of this lockdown. Figures for the spread of the disease and deaths from it here and in other countries indicate that the areas most hit are those which are highly polluted or have heavy congestion. Will the Government consider producing guidance, requests and eventually powers to get local authorities to introduce congestion charging, parking restrictions and pure banning of bad vehicles from such areas in future? Most of the powers for local authorities exist in the 1999 Act, but they require reinforcing. Will such reinforcement be in the forthcoming Environment Bill? I declare an interest as the honorary president of Environmental Protection UK.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

The actions the Government are already taking are entirely consistent with the need to tackle air pollution, which is the most serious environmental health threat to humans. The clean air strategy which we published in January last year was praised by the World Health Organization as an example for the rest of the world to follow. One of its key commitments was that the Government would produce primary legislation on air quality. That request has been answered in the Environment Bill, which includes measures to improve air quality at its heart. It is the first Environment Bill for 20 years. It commits us to setting very ambitious targets for fine particulate matter, which is the pollutant of most concern to human health; it will give local authorities a clear framework and simple-to-use powers to address air quality in their areas; and it provides government with new powers to enforce environmental standards for vehicles. Of course, the Environment Bill goes far beyond issues such as air pollution. At its heart is a commitment that we should leave the environment in a significantly better shape than when we inherited it.