Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Whitehead, of Saint Mary’s, to his seat in your Lordships’ House and to the Dispatch Box. It was wonderful to hear such a green-minded speech; over the past few years, they have become more common here, but they are still very welcome. I particularly liked his commenting on protecting and repairing our ocean and high seas. It is absolutely crucial that we understand how much damage we have done already and that we try our best to recover it if we can.

The UK was one of the first countries to sign up to the UN agreement on the law of the sea, and we have been active in shaping the treaty, so it makes sense to pass this Bill as soon as possible. I want to flag up some reasons why this agreement is a good idea but also what protections Ministers should seek next. The good things are as follows. It is good for UK science: our very own National Oceanography Centre is one of the world leaders in ocean scientific research, and this Bill will ensure that marine science and technology can develop to further understand and meet the demands of a changing climate. It is good for marine life and ecosystems: our oceans are full of beautiful things, and protecting our oceans ensures that that beauty survives. We are far too careless about such a precious complex of ecosystems that we barely know anything about. It is also good for UK food security: a thriving sea is full of life, and some of that life can help to sustain our lives and our economy. We must regulate and manage the competition for marine genetic resources that can be used to support the development of new drugs, cosmetics, food and industrial processes.

But, currently, our oceans are collapsing under the strains of plastic pollution, bottom trawling, massive mining projects, toxic dumping and climate change. It is this combined assault on ecosystems that will collapse life in the seas. These problems make international treaties crucial and urgent. The scale of this agreement is huge. It will help to protect two-thirds of the world’s oceans. It has the kind of vision that will help us to deal with the rapidly developing impacts of climate change. However, as is usual with this Government and the last, Ministers are trying to grab additional powers via secondary legislation. It would make sense to increase parliamentary scrutiny of secondary powers. Good policy requires accountability.

We need to ensure that our Government listen to a range of experts, not just to those people with loads of cash who can use money and personal contacts to gain access to the detailed discussions. My biggest concerns are monitoring and enforcement: I simply do not understand how those two things will happen in any sort of efficient way. I would like us to become a world leader in pushing for the establishment of marine protected areas in places beyond national jurisdiction. We should be aiming to protect 30% of the world’s marine areas by 2030—and I do mean “protect”. For example, Greenpeace has found that 90% of our marine protected areas are not really protected at all. There is no meaningful site-wide regulation of the most destructive fishing activity. Greenpeace says of our MPA protection that it is rhetoric over reality, and I think this treaty could be the same. Being a world leader means enforcing the strictest regulation of the existing marine protected areas in UK territorial waters, with an end to bottom trawling and devastating mining operations. I hope that the Minister will help us to do that in a very fast way.

So far, the Trump Administration have not ratified the treaty and have pursued issuing deep-ocean mining licences unilaterally, ignoring the UN-backed International Seabed Authority. The demand for mining minerals is rising, when we barely know anything about our deep seabed. We must also end the public subsidy of pollution within freeports, as we saw up in Teesside, when the dredging of industrial chemicals that had been buried for decades allegedly led to the mass deaths of crabs and lobsters along the north-east coast of England. More deregulation of freeports will mean more environmental problems and more taxpayer money spent cleaning up the mess at a future date.

While I am sure that most here would like this Bill to pass so that we can sign up to international law, 30 days before the ratification, I would say that it does not go far enough to protect our ocean. Can the Minister tell me how strongly this Government will live up to the rhetoric?

Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th December 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment and Amendment 10 are concerned with plastics pollution. Amendment 6 would require the Secretary of State to assess and respond to the risks to marine biodiversity of plastics pollution that arise from activities that are either under UK control or within UK jurisdiction. This is especially important given that the global treaty on plastics is stuck in dispute.

Plastics pollution in the oceans is subject to ocean currents and the polluter, the originator of that plastic, is often in a very different part of the world from the polluted seas and beaches that result from it. The first time this struck me with such force was when I was in Mexico in the biosphere known as Sian Ka’an, in Yucatan. There were incredibly unspoiled, amazing beaches and very little population. I could not understand why the beaches were covered in plastic, especially plastic shoes. They were sweeping up from South America on the currents.

As the BBNJ comes into effect, besides an effort to lessen what goes into the ocean, it will need, and has provision to include, remediation and removal activities. The agreement sets out the process for the submission of proposals by states and the review of the same. Does the UK yet have proposals that it intends to submit? What is the UK doing on ocean plastics and what does it need to do?

The UK is very active in the International Maritime Organization talks working towards future mandatory rules to reduce risk from nurdles—plastic pellets that are transported by sea in freight containers. The Government have also supported the global plastics pollution treaty, which I referred to earlier, are seeking commitments to reduce all sorts of plastics entering the oceans and have developed standards through the BSI.

All of that is very positive, but they have not yet introduced binding national legislation to prevent nurdle loss. This is very topical, because of that huge loss that ended up on Camber Sands from a sewage plant. The UK has no binding laws that specifically regulate the transport, storage, reporting or mandatory spill prevention of plastic pellets in the way that the EU’s new plastic pellet regulation does. I know that UK Ministers have said that there are no current plans to align UK regulations with the EU’s stricter pellet transport regulations and storage requirements, but will the Government rethink this in the light of joining this treaty? That is another example of where we could take much better action now that we are part of a treaty that concerns the oceans.

Ultimately, we have to switch from using so much fossil fuel-based plastics to using biodegradable plant-based products, and renewable energy in place of fossil fuels, so that our oceans stop warming and acidifying. The two things are incredibly linked. It is a multi- generational challenge, but this treaty is a terrific step on the road. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I very much support Amendment 6. In fact, most of the amendments in this group are sensible. Forgive my ignorance, but surely if we pass the criteria for the international treaty, what is to stop us adding things to the Bill? Is there anything? We could, could we not? It would be irrelevant for the international treaty, but relevant for our Government. Quite honestly—I am looking around the table at all these plastic bottles—our plastic use is horrendous. That is what this amendment is about. It is within the scope of the Bill and speaks directly to the aim of what we are trying to do.

The agreement’s preamble is clear. It recognises the need to address biodiversity loss in the ocean caused not just by climate change but by pollution, specifically plastic pollution. In other words, plastic is not just a side issue here; it is identified as one of the core pressures driving the destruction of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Plastic pollution is now found throughout the ocean, from the surface to the seabed, in some of the most remote parts of the seas. It causes injury and death, enters the food chain as microplastics and adds further stress to ecosystems already under strain. One floating patch of plastic out on the remote sea is three times the size of France. It is not the only giant patch. We are producing roughly the same weight of plastic each year as the weight of humans on the planet, and that is projected to keep going up. I do not know who put these plastic bottles here, but can we please complain about that? What is wrong with refilling glass bottles? I do not understand why we would add to the problem.

Amendment 6 is about making sure that, when we have a chance to make a difference and improve our sea, we can do so. The Government need to set out how they will assess and respond to the risks that plastic pollution poses and how the UK will work with international partners to reduce and monitor that harm. The amendment would help ensure that the UK takes every opportunity to lead rather than leave a recognised threat unaddressed.

Having suggested that the UK could lead on this, I feel it is rather undermined by the fact that most of our own marine protected areas are barely protected at all. There is bottom trawling, dredging and overfishing. We need to sort that out for ourselves. Signing up to international treaties is brilliant—it is good to work with other countries—but not if we cannot even manage our own resources. The five-year review is fantastic, but what about a five-year review of our own marine protected areas? The human use of plastic and fossil fuels is driving our destruction. I do not understand why the whole House cannot see that—in fact, the whole population.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 19 but very much support the amendments around plastic. When I was in the Pacific, I too found myself on a quite deserted desert island full of old fishing nets and, weirdly, a whole lot of stuff manufactured by Unilever. It is very scary.

On Amendment 19, we have had conversations about this issue and I am still completely confused as to why the Government will not adopt this incredibly simple amendment. It would strengthen our implementation of the whole BBNJ Bill by ensuring that our existing duty to have due regard to the environmental principles policy statement that we passed in the Environment Act 2021 applies to any of our activities in the high seas.

The 2021 Act was a landmark piece of legislation, which enshrined in law five environmental principles—integration, prevention, rectification at source, the “polluter pays” principle and the precautionary principle—and it required Ministers to embed them in all policy. However, the Act, and thus those principles, apply only to us domestically. As I understand it, there is no plan to extend them now or ever beyond our national jurisdiction. This amendment would close that gap. It would make clear that when we develop policies relating to activity on the high seas—as we are bound to do, as we may be involved in licensing, marine scientific research, environmental impact assessments or, in the future, anything to do with deep sea mining—Ministers must apply the same environmental protections and principles that guide our domestic policy in the UK. I cannot understand why the Government do not just say that that is completely fine.

I would be very happy if the Minister, in her answer, could assure me and others that this will be perfectly okay. I believe that we all want the same thing. Therefore, if she believes that this issue is already covered, can she point out how and where? How does she have absolute certainty that it cannot be legally challenged in the future without this change? Alternatively, does she think that there is another way that we can do it? I do not think that anyone wants to see a disconnect between how we behave on the high seas and how we are obliged to behave here.

--- Later in debate ---

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich asked about what we are doing domestically on plastic; that is probably worthy of an entirely separate debate but, for today’s purposes, let me note the following. We are working with the devolved Governments to legislate for the ban on wet wipes containing plastic across the UK. From 1 June this year, the sale and supply of single-use vapes was banned across the UK. The deposit return scheme for single-use plastic and metal drinks containers in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland will launch in October 2027; this will drive our efforts to stop litter filling up our streets, rivers and oceans. Additionally, the extended producer responsibility for packaging came into effect on 1 January 2025; it will move the full cost of dealing with household packaging waste away from local taxpayers and on to the packaging producers.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

May I ask the Minister something? I am so sorry if she already responded to this; if she did, I did not catch it. We could simply pass this Bill—I understand the urgency here—but we could also add something to it. I do not accept that a lot of the things we have talked about are included anywhere else. Those things are simply put and explicit in the amendments here. I do not understand why the Government would not think about just adding them to the Bill.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right; I did not reply to that point. She will be neither surprised nor pleased to hear that that is not the Government’s intention. We want to get this Bill through in order to get on with being able to participate in the Conference of the Parties. The view of Defra Ministers is, I think, that we ought to consult on or consider any additional measures in the light of other decisions being made. I know that that is not what the noble Baroness wants to hear today—I hope that she does not interpret this as any disinclination from the Government to move forward on the things that I know matter so much to her—but that is not what we want to do with this piece of legislation.

Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 4, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for putting her name to it as well. This is a very important issue that we debated at length in Committee. The reason I am bringing something back on Report, albeit in a more focused form just dealing with plastic pellets, is that plastic generally is one of the huge problems that the ocean needs to have addressed, but the plastic pellet issue is something that the Government could choose to do a lot more about monitoring, evaluating and regulating.

It is notable that the European Union has made regulations about pellets. The loss at sea during shipping of these pellets, which form the basis of plastic wherever it is manufactured, is estimated to be 10 trillion pellets annually, with 10 million tonnes apparently lost within European Union waters, so it is a massive problem the sheer scale of which is hard to imagine. Some of the losses get into the sea and wash out from our own sewage plants—that, again, is something that I am sure the Government will look at. I would like the Minister’s assurance today that through some vehicle in the future, whether it is the forthcoming water White Paper or whatever, they will address this issue of plastic pellets, firming up on how people shipping them are trained, the regulation of it and how they are contained on ships—everything to do with the shipping of them—because the scale of the loss is unsupportable and every country needs to take action on it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. It is an extremely good amendment, and I urge the Minister to pick it up at some future date. This is such a good amendment that it should go into legislation somewhere.

In Committee, we heard at length and with real concern about the scale and persistence of plastic pollution in our oceans. Much of that discussion centred on consumable plastics and waste, but plastic pellets, flakes and powders are equally serious and often overlooked in legislation. These losses might be small in individual incidents, although some might be extremely large, but they are cumulative and, in effect, irretrievable and irreversible once they have happened.

We are looking ahead, apparently, to a global plastics treaty, which I am very excited about. That process is obviously welcome, but the urgency of the problem means that we should take every available opportunity to act now, particularly where there is already an international consensus on best practice.

What I welcome very much about this amendment is its practical focus. This would stop the plastic pellets getting into the sea in the first place instead of our trying to mop them up and recover them later which is, as I said, impossible.

I will also speak to my Amendment 9 on the exemptions in the Bill. Clause 18 seeks to strengthen confidence in how environmental impact assessments are applied. It worries me that there are so many exemptions. Again, I would very much appreciate it if the Minister took this issue up. My amendment is supported by WildFish, an organisation with extensive expertise in marine conservation, whose work highlights the importance of making sure that decisions to rely on exemptions are transparent, on a case-by-case basis, and ensure that there is an equivalence that meets Part IV of the BBNJ agreement and Article 206 of UNCLOS. This amendment would clearly set out that test. Where an appropriate authority determines that a formal environmental impact assessment is not required, that determination should rest on the existence of another assessment being in place that is equivalently robust.

The amendment would also ensure that the reasoning behind such decisions was recorded and published, with the idea to keep decisions transparent and uphold public trust. In particular, there are difficulties in relying on regional fisheries management organisations as a substitute for BBNJ-aligned environmental assessment. Although RFMOs play an important role in managing fishing effort and target stocks, their processes do not routinely deliver full assessment of cumulative impacts across sectors, of effects on food webs and non-target species, or of the full implications for migratory species that cross jurisdictional boundaries. I would be very happy to talk to the Minister in more detail about this and I hope to see it in a future Bill. I would like to have moved this amendment, but we are obviously in a hurry to complete the Bill, so I have held off, but it is incredibly important that we do not allow exemptions without understanding why they have happened and the fact that they have not been recorded properly.

As interest grows in new industries, such as open ocean aquaculture, the potential environmental impacts, ranging from disease and growth in parasites to genetic impacts from escapes and reliance on wild-caught fish, are even more important. We are seeing this in salmon farms at the moment: escaped fish covered in all sorts of rather nasty things spread to wild fish and cross-breed, which is deeply unhealthy for the wild fish. I would welcome the Minister putting on record how the Government intend to apply these equivalence criteria in practice, particularly in view of the regional fisheries management organisations. I would like reassurance that exemptions in any future legislation will be applied narrowly and cautiously; that equivalence will be actively tested and not just assumed; that reliance on regional organisations alone will not automatically justify exemption; and that future high-risk activities will be subject to BBNJ-aligned screening.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches support the intent of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I hope the Minister will have a useful reply to it.

On plastics and the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Miller, one of the things that is clear is that, even in terms of human health and the food chain, plastics discarded anywhere, let alone in the ocean, are a huge issue for the future. I have one question for the Minister. One of the tragedies of last year was that the plastics treaty was not concluded, despite expectation. It is largely thought that that was because of the lobbying of the plastics industry. Certainly, the United States has not exactly been supportive of international agreements over the past 12 months. It would be great if, despite my pessimism about the future of that treaty, there was some feeling within her department that perhaps it is not dead, as it is supposed not to be, and there is still some mileage and hope that we might be able to find a conclusion to it.

Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the treaty came into operation on Saturday, so this is a very appropriate day. My only sadness on this excellent occasion is that, as I said on Report, I believe that this is probably one of the last agreements that we will have internationally from the United Nations in the near future, given the disrespect that we increasingly have for international law and international agreements among the community and certain major players within the United Nations.

Having said that, this is a moment of celebration. We have made an important step forward in terms of biodiversity and the protection of nature across a very large proportion of our planet’s surface, which until now has been—as the Bill says—beyond jurisdiction. There are now 81 ratifications of that treaty, and we will hopefully very soon be among them. We expect the conference of the parties, probably in August, and the plea from our Benches is that the United Kingdom has one of the greatest ambitions at that first meeting and collaborates with other parties that have ratified the treaty to make sure that it really does mean something and makes a real change for our planet and our oceans.

I thank the Minister for her co-operation, help and advice as we have gone through this Bill, and for the way that she has listened. It has been good to have the opposition and government spokespeople speaking as one, generally, on what we have sought to achieve here. I thank my Whip’s Office, particularly Ulysse Abbate for his work, and Members on our Benches for the work that they have done on this Bill. Let us make this something that is really special and really works, allowing us to move towards the global target of a third of our oceans being put aside for protection and biodiversity in one of the most important areas of our planet.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I do not think that any Bill on the ocean would ever have gone far enough for me, but I am very happy that this Bill is passing. I congratulate the Minister on her efforts to keep us calm when we were getting a bit overexcited about what we wanted to see in the Bill. I look forward to watching exactly what happens at the forthcoming meetings.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Very quickly, given that there is such a high level of agreement and support, I thank noble Lords for their co-operation and efforts in getting this done. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said about the conference of the parties; our intention is to play the fullest of roles in making this treaty work. Any time that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, wants a bit of calm or to dull the excitement a little bit, she knows where to find me.