Public Access to Nature
Debate between Robin Walker and Caroline Lucas(12 months ago)
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Mr Walker
I absolutely recognise that, which is why it is important that councils work together with voluntary groups to make sure that we signpost those green spaces. In my own consistency, which is an urban constituency— Worcester is surrounded by beautiful countryside, I accept —we have seen a fantastic local project by the Worcester Environmental Group and the council to develop the Wild about Worcester Way, a walking route around the city. It connects green spaces in the city and accessible areas such as the Worcester Woods country park, Nunnery wood and Perry wood, where Cromwell allegedly met the devil, to our primary schools, so that there are walking routes for children to enjoy. In areas where they might not enjoy great parks and facilities, to link schools, through active travel, to such places is important.
We also need to look at routes through the countryside. I do not represent many farmers and I am not going to get into the detail of the debate about the right to roam, but I do think we should be exploring more greenways—more long-distance travel routes from area to area. I am interested in proposals for a Hereford to Worcester greenway to enable both active travel and engagement with nature for people. For that to work, there needs to be join-up between different Departments—the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—to make sure we have an approach that can support these things with proper funding.
I touched on this earlier, but there is also the importance of having nature as part of the curriculum. I have spoken before about the amazing work being done by the Rivers multi-academy trust in my constituency, which is promoting a curriculum based on the sustainable development goals. Right at the heart of that curriculum is engaging children with nature and making sure that they understand their responsibilities to nature. I was interested in what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said about the balance of rights and responsibilities when it comes to access. It is absolutely key that children have the opportunity to learn those responsibilities at an early stage in their education, and they are not going to do that unless we connect them with nature and give them those opportunities to be outside and to be engaged with nature.
Caroline Lucas
As someone who spent the first 18 years of their life in Great Malvern and spent a lot of time on the Malvern hills, I appreciate the hon. Member’s words about that. I have been enjoying his speech very much, but is he going to come on to the natural history GCSE? We have worked together with the wonderful Mary Colwell to try to make sure there is a natural history GCSE in the curriculum, which would absolutely give young people that empirical exposure to the nature around them.
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady is absolutely right and pre-empts my very next point. I did have very interesting meetings with the hon. Lady, Mary Colwell and Tim Oates discussing the case for a natural history GCSE. I have to honest and say that I was initially sceptical. Going into those meetings, I had extensive briefing from officials as to all the questions to ask and all the reasons why we might not approve a natural history GCSE, and I felt that the campaigners, collectively, were able to answer those questions in an incisive way. That demonstrated the academic benefits of restoring subjects such as botany to the curriculum, and the opportunity to engage students at a crucial time and to make sure that we fill the gap between the primary science curriculum, which includes good elements of nature, and the A-level in environmental studies, which the Government have put forward. The conversations I have had in schools since taking the decision that we should go ahead and develop that, show there is enormous appetite for it. I will be writing to the Minister for Schools to urge him to come forward with the detail needed to ensure that the natural history GCSE can be delivered at the earliest possible opportunity. It is important that we move forward with that. I know that many groups, including The Wildlife Trusts, are interested in contributing to the work on that. I think it is possible to deliver an academically rigorous, challenging and interesting natural history GCSE, which will also widen opportunities for students in our schools to undertake field work.
It is so important to have a natural history GCSE. People say, “Well field work is covered in biology and geography”, but not every student takes those subjects. Many students will opt out of geography before they choose their GCSE courses, and many will take combined sciences and might not have the opportunity to take part in field trips. A natural history GCSE will give students another opportunity to engage in field trips and outdoor activity, and to develop some of the skills that we as a country will need if we are to meet our long-term ambition of leaving nature in a better state than we found it.
We have recently seen in Worcester the establishment of the Office for Environmental Protection. It has been interesting talking to it about the job and skills opportunities there are for people who can understand and monitor levels of nature, biodiversity and environmental issues. Some hard skills are required for that, such as data science and scientific knowledge, so we must ensure that we take advantage of those opportunities. We must look at careers guidance in schools and prepare children for a greener, more environmentally aware future, in which increasing the quality of our natural environment and biodiversity is a key goal shared by all parties across the House. That is also a good reason for stepping forward with access to nature for schoolchildren in general, and with the natural history GCSE in particular.
A couple of things have improved in recent months and years, one of which is the conversation around environmental land management schemes. I have met my local wildlife trust regularly, and our discussions have led me to think that the Department is now in a much better place on ELMs than it perhaps has been sometimes in the past. Some of the concerns that the trust raised strenuously regarding the direction of travel about a year ago seem to have been met, so I am grateful to Ministers for their ongoing engagement with The Wildlife Trusts on that.
A number of constituents have written to me recently about the so-called Save the Shire campaign and the interesting challenge of saving literary landscapes. When that first came in, I imagined that it might refer to the view from the Malvern Hills, which I have always understood was very much the inspiration for Tolkien’s Shire. It turns out, however, that it is to do with another part of Worcestershire, which the Tolkien family had connections with, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean). It is an example of some of the tensions between access to nature and other environmental issues, because it is a campaign against the development of a solar farm. People are saying that they do not want the development of the solar farm because it will change the nature of the countryside and change access. that is a challenge. I will not wade into the planning area. Of course it is important that we protect our rural landscapes, and it is also important that we develop renewable technologies and renewables, but access must be a key part of that and one concern is that, if we have large renewable installations on land, they will restrict access. We should ensure that we enable access, both for nature and creatures, but also for people, to those sites and that we do not allow rights of way, which are important, to be shut off.
We need to continue to work on this area. Some of the figures on the health benefits have been cited. I suspect those understate the reality. The £2 billion figure I have seen in a Natural England report about health benefits largely focuses on physical health. As a country we face such huge challenges with mental health, particularly among our young people. Engaging people with nature and ensuring that they have that opportunity to reflect and engage with nature—as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion ably pointed out, that has very much been part of our natural development as human beings over the millennia, let alone the centuries—will be better for people’s mental health and in the long run it can save the health system a fortune.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill
Debate between Robin Walker and Caroline LucasWednesday 8th January 2020
(4 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 8 January 2020 - (8 Jan 2020)
Mr Walker
I will not, I am afraid.
The Government cannot accept amendment 49, as it would mean that we could be inadvertently bound by European Union rulings for many years. Instead, clause 26 ensures that we and our courts will be able to determine the extent to which courts are bound by historic Court of Justice of the European Union decisions after the implementation period. This will be done sensibly, so I can provide some reassurance to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. The Bill commits us to consult the senior judiciary across the UK before making regulations, and we do not intend this in any way to upset long-standing constitutional principles such as the structure and hierarchy of the court system. This clause simply enables us to take back control of our laws and disentangle ourselves from the EU’s legal order, but in a way that will be consulted on carefully with the judiciary, recognising the structures and hierarchies that exist there.
New clauses 1, 6 and 17 and amendment (a) to new clause 6 all seek to introduce various statutory roles for Parliament, and for the devolved Administrations and legislatures, in the future relationship negotiations. These are unnecessary requirements that risk impeding and delaying negotiations. New clause 6 in particular imposes onerous requirements for consultation and impact assessments, but would make it very challenging indeed to conclude negotiations by the end of 2020.
Caroline Lucas
Does the Minister recognise that what he refers to as “onerous requirements” are precisely what our colleagues in the European Parliament enjoy right now? Does he not find that there is a rather ironic point here, which is that we are supposed to be taking back control—although we assumed that meant to elected representatives, not just to No. 10—but we actually have less control than the colleagues we have left behind in Brussels?
Mr Walker
I fundamentally disagree. The purpose of the Bill is to deliver on the withdrawal agreement and take that forward. It is not to set out the future of negotiations. This legislation is focused on allowing us to move forward into those negotiations. It would be a profound mistake to tie the hands of the Government in achieving the best result for the whole United Kingdom.