Environmental Protection and Biodiversity

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

The speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) was one of the finest on the environment that I have heard in this House for a long time. One day, the Government will see sense and he will become Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

I will cut most of what I wanted to say. The national security assessment, mentioned by my hon. Friend, says:

“Cascading risks of ecosystem degradation are likely to include geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict migration and increased inter-state competition for resources.”

Why is that not the subject of a great debate in Parliament? Yesterday, we had the Prime Minister’s vital statement on Iran. The whole House sat in a packed Chamber to discuss the US bombing of that evil regime and the security implications for the world. Yet we have our own national security assessment telling us that global ecosystem degradation and collapse is one of the most serious threats to UK national security, and we still have had no debate on it.

The collapse of biodiversity over my lifetime is not a matter of spreadsheets. It is felt in silent fields that were once singing meadows, in poisoned waters that were once shimmering streams, in children who have grown up in a depleted world without knowing how much has been lost, or how abnormal is the world they inhabit. The monitoring and enforcement system currently in place under environmental regulators lacks capacity and is chronically poor.

Take our water sector: of the 2,778 serious pollution incidents reported in 2024, officials downgraded 98% as “minor incidents”, yet only 496 were actually attended or inspected before being downgraded. There can be no doubt that the regulatory system is as rotten as the pipes the water companies have abandoned since 1989. I welcome the Red Lines for Nature campaign as far as it goes, but that is scarcely far enough when it talks of no further weakening of environmental protections and no funding cuts to environmental bodies.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. Sorry, Mr Gardiner.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

I congratulate the mayor; he is a trailblazer both nationally and internationally through his climate and nature work. I know that Justin Beaver and his wife—I cannot remember her name, but it is a similarly cringeworthy pun—are living happily ever after. Actually, I do not know whether beavers live happily ever after; I think they are quite mean to each other. But they are definitely living happily in Ealing and providing those natural ecosystem services that we need—they are nature’s original ecosystem engineers.

In December, we published our 2025 environmental improvement plan, and over the next five years, it will accelerate progress towards those Environment Act targets. I gently say to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson), that some of those targets do not have a baseline. When I was talking to our chief scientific adviser yesterday, I asked how we will meet some of those species targets, and we will have a baseline developed by 2028-29. It is all very well legislating, but it is also about how things are measured. As a former Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, I am all about how we measure it, because that is how the Government are held to account. I want to hold to account myself or any future Minister, whoever it may be.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mary Creagh]

I will just finish my point. Over the next five years, we will improve species abundance, reduce species extinction risk, and restore or create more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich land. We are also delivering our international commitment to protect 30% of the UK’s land and sea by 2030, which will help us to tackle the climate and nature crises while supporting growth.

We have heard a little about housebuilding versus infrastructure, and the system we inherited was too slow and too fragmented. Across the country, we have more than 164,000 homeless children living in temporary accommodation. In my city of Coventry alone, 2,000 children wake up to that reality every day—we have one of the highest rates of child homelessness outside London. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) also has about 800 homeless children in his constituency.

Those realities of nature loss and homeless children have a similar root cause: political short-termism and the ducking of big decisions on land use, investment and environmental recovery, leaving the nature and housing crises to deepen. Politics has failed both, and the nature restoration fund can unlock stored housing and infrastructure while still achieving enormous, tangible environment outcomes. We want more for infrastructure and more for nature, not less.

[Barry Gardiner]

rose—

[Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

rose—