Environmental Targets (Public Authorities) Bill [HL]

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Friday 13th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Baronesses said about the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. This Bill is incredibly important and it needs to stand in its entirety.

I will make two points. First, local authorities are critical if we are to get to net zero. Sectors that are either directly influenced or shaped by decisions from local authorities account for one-third of our emissions. We cannot get to net zero without them. This Bill rightly says that it is fine to have national targets to achieve net zero, but unless we actually will the means, it will not happen. Therefore, we need local authorities to use their planning, transport and housing functions to deliver net-zero policy on the ground.

Equally, following up from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, the natural environment is incredibly dependent on local authorities. As she rightly mentioned, local nature recovery strategies are a critical tool that local authorities can use to shape and support nature going forward, with their development processes and amenity space. We cannot get to nature recovery, for which we now have government targets, without them. Local authorities are critical. That is why the Bill needs to go ahead in its entirety.

I will pick up on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. At every opportunity in this Chamber and in the other place, Members are finding legislative vehicles to give these duties to public bodies to take forward the responsibility for climate and nature. She mentioned some of them, but there are others, including the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which has just finished in the Commons. My honourable friend Gideon Amos MP attempted to insert into that Bill a new clause setting out that local authorities, in taking forward their planning and development functions, should take account of the climate and nature targets. As the noble Baroness rightly said, because this House and the other House know that local authorities and public bodies are the vehicles to deliver the nature and climate goals that we want, we will just end up with every Bill being bogged down with attempts to amend it accordingly, unless the Government take forward this incredibly well-measured and timely Bill—and I salute the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for introducing it.

I hope the Minister will support the Bill, but like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I will ask him one question. She mentioned that the Minister said at Second Reading that the EIP was the proper vehicle for taking this forward. However, that deals with the nature aspect; instead, I want to address the issue of the climate goals. Even if this Government do not take forward this timely Bill, they committed in December to introduce a public participation strategy this year. That would set out how businesses, civic groups and individuals would work on this; the Government would bring them together and show them how we can all, as a nation, move towards a just and fair transition to net zero. Critical to that is the role of local authorities—with their respective functions between housing, development and transport—in helping those businesses and individuals get there. Can the Minister assure the House today that, when the public participation strategy comes out—before the end of this year, I hope—it will make crystal clear the role of local authorities and public bodies in helping businesses and citizens help us get to net zero.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I was not planning to speak in this debate, but I have heard so much comment about local authorities that I felt I had to. I declare my interests as a councillor, an ex-leader of a council and chairman of the LGA. I find in those roles that local authorities are constantly emasculated by regulation, red tape, targets and being asked to do more than they could ever possibly achieve. We end up, therefore, always trying to compromise between various targets on which we could not deliver. We were being asked to do too much.

I do not know of a council that does not want better biodiversity and to address the issues of climate change, and that does not care about net zero. The problem is that the more targets, red tape and emasculation there is, the harder you make it for councils to do their jobs, whether that is caring for vulnerable children and adults, or hitting net-zero and climate change targets.

I ask noble Lords to consider whether this actually makes the job of councils and local authorities easier in delivering the things we all want, or whether it just adds another layer of bureaucracy. I cannot answer that for noble Lords, but I do know, having operated underneath all that red tape, that regulations, red tape and targets made my life more difficult in achieving stuff that every council I know wants to achieve anyway.