Storm Henk

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

There is nothing more harrowing for people than their property being repeatedly flooded. That is why I, working with colleagues in the Environment Agency, am keen to ensure that frequent-flooding funding best helps households that have been impacted. I am more than happy to continue the conversations that I have been having with my hon. Friend and neighbouring colleagues, because I know how important this matter is.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Minister says that his thoughts and sympathies are with all those affected but, frankly, his words ring hollow. Not only are the Government are failing to protect existing properties—an estimated 4,000 flood defences were in poor or very poor condition in 2022—but worse, Ministers are actively planning to pursue energy policies that will make extreme weather events worse. We are about to debate the obscene Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which would create yet more new oil and gas licences. Where on earth is the joined-up thinking? When will the Minister stop the excuses and introduce the ambitious climate policies that might just protect future flood victims, instead of just mopping things up at the end of the day?

[Robbie Moore]

Back in 2010, 40% of all energy in this country was produced from coal; now, we are at 1%. The Government are taking the reduction of emissions incredibly seriously. We were the first major economy to set a net zero target in law, and we cut our emissions by 48% between 1990 and 2021. Coupled with that, we are taking more proactive measures, including by doubling the amount of funding for improving our flood-resilience programmes from £2.6 billion to £5.2 billion, to better protect more frequently flooded communities, businesses and homeowners.

Water Industry: Financial Resilience

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

For information, Thames Water itself has not paid any dividends for the last six years. Ofwat will rightly hold companies to account when they do not clearly demonstrate the link between dividends and performance. We made that possible through the landmark Environment Act.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I want to bring the Minister back to the figures we have just heard. Water companies had no debt when they were privatised. Since then, they have borrowed £53 billion, and much of that has been used to help pay £72 billion in dividends. Meanwhile, we have an appalling sewage scandal, particularly in the south-east of England. The failing company Southern Water, which my constituents have no choice but to rely on, is considering raising bills by £279 per year by 2030, largely to pay for the investment that it should have been making in previous years. Does that not show that the privatisation of water was a serious mistake that needs to be permanently rectified?

[Rebecca Pow]

Privatisation has enabled clean and plentiful water to come out of our taps. It has unlocked £190 billion of funding to invest in the industry. That is the equivalent of £5 billion annually, and is double what we had pre-privatisation. I am not saying that there is not still a lot of scope for improvement. I have stood at this Dispatch Box many times, as has the Secretary of State, to say that some actions of water companies are completely unacceptable. That is why we have introduced the storm overflow plan and our plan for water.

Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The shadow Secretary of State is ambitious to take my job in the future, but I am confident that the Conservatives will win the next election, partly because we are used to cleaning up this sort of rubbish when Labour leaves office.

I gently say to the shadow Secretary of State that Ofwat is a non-ministerial department and the Welsh Government provide a strategic policy statement to Ofwat for matters in Wales. It is a devolved matter. The hon. Gentleman is dragging the Welsh Government into the debate today, but he should be aware that in 2022 Wales had, on average, 38 spills per outflow, whereas in England it was down to 22 spills. Tackling the issue is not straightforward, but Wales is not doing well. I am not going to blame the Welsh Government out loud, but I am conscious that they would be better following us and having a credible, costed plan, instead of looking away from Westminster.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The complacency that the Secretary of State is displaying is frankly shocking. Not one English river is classed as being in a healthy condition, none meet good chemical standards and few meet good ecological standards. The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years. That is a record of failure. In addition, dividends now average £1.6 billion a year, which is money going out of the system altogether. Why will she not accept that privatisation has been a complete failure, put water back into public hands and make sure the investment goes where it is needed?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady should be aware that during the last decade we put in place legislation that made it tougher to meet ecological status. That includes taking on the monitoring of certain chemicals, which is not done by the Welsh or Scottish Governments. That is why we will continue to work on this issue in a specific way. We are leaning into the issue.

I genuinely wish that Labour had started to sort out the issues when in office. I am not saying that the Labour Government did completely nothing, but they were certainly not clear with the public about what was going on. In 2010, we knew there was no money left after Labour’s damage to the public purse. Indeed, the former Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury was honest enough to tell us that in his own writing. What we did not know was quite how much mess was left behind for a Conservative Government to clean up yet again, which is what we set about doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison]

There is a plethora of support, particularly around energy with the household support fund and including from my colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade—the artist formerly known as BEIS. Surely the hon. Lady has seen the announcement this morning on how we are supporting the transition to green energy, too, which will benefit constituents not only in Scotland, but right around the UK.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

6. What steps she is taking to improve public access to nature.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Trudy Harrison)]

Connectivity to rural areas is vitally important to us. As I have already set out this morning, we are spending millions on ensuring that rural areas thrive and that people have access to nature.

[Caroline Lucas]

As the Minister knows, goal 10 of the environmental improvement plan is to enhance engagement with the natural environment. Saving historic footpaths is a vital way of doing that, so it is a bit bizarre, given there is already a backlog of more than 4,000 applications waiting to be processed to save those footpaths, that the Government have reneged on their promise to scrap the deadline in the mapping review, without any plan to address that backlog. Will the Minister rethink that short-sighted decision, so that we do not risk losing 40,000 miles of precious footpaths forever?

[Trudy Harrison]

Actually, that decision was taken in 2000, and we have extended the date from 2026 to 2031. I remind the hon. Member of the measures that we are taking to improve access to nature with Natural England and the commitment for people to be within 15 minutes of a blue or green area, as well as with the national trails and the designation of the coast to coast as a national trial. The England coastal path is 2,700 miles around England that people can access. In fact, people can access most coastal, common, fell, moorland and heathland areas across the country, but there is a balance between access for the public, the protection of nature and ensuring that the lives of people in rural areas and their livelihoods thrive.

Oil Spill: Poole Harbour

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I would be the first Minister to say that we need assurances on looking after our wonderful environmentally sensitive sites. This oilfield has been working since 1979, and I understand it is the largest onshore oilfield in Europe. The investigation must take place and we must find out what happened—and correct anything that needs correcting—but we should not spread fear about this particular operation or others like it, as they are an important part of our energy make-up.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Poole harbour is a haven for wildlife and is home to rare species, so this spill is incredibly saddening. The Minister says she wants to ensure the disaster is not repeated, but she must know that where there is drilling, there is some spilling. There have been a staggering 721 oil spills in the North sea alone over the past three years. Just last month, the Planning Inspectorate overturned West Sussex County Council’s refusal of permission for more testing for shale oil reserves in Balcombe, beneath the High Weald area of outstanding natural beauty. Given the huge risk to the natural world when things go wrong, will she ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to review this decision?

[Rebecca Pow]

It is all about balance—it is important that we protect our natural environment, particularly in areas as precious as Poole Harbour, because that is as important to our economy as the oil—and ensuring that the investigation is correctly carried out as swiftly as possible. Anything that needs to be put in place to enhance our environmental protections and measures must be put in place—and I would say the same for any other similar project.

Water Company Performance

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that and I could not agree with her more. She is a strident campaigner for the beautiful environment in which she lives, and our bathing water status should be commended—72% of our bathing waters are classed as excellent and 94% as good. It is an extremely good record and we should be proud of it.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, raw sewage was dumped in Britain’s rivers and seas more than 770,000 times. That is almost 6 million hours of pollution discharge. But, as we have heard, the pay of water company executives increased by a fifth, on average. Will the Minister force water companies to invest those profits into urgently upgrading the outdated sewage infrastructure—not ask them, not require more plans, but force them to do it? Will she look again at bringing the companies into public ownership so that money is properly reinvested, not siphoned off to shareholders? She does not seem to understand why people are so angry when water companies are swimming in cash while the rest of us are swimming in sewage.

[Rebecca Pow]

I have said constantly that it is unacceptable that storm sewerage overflows have been used in contravention of permits. Let us not forget, however, that they were put there for a reason by the Victorians: heavy rainfall and sewage all goes down the same pipe and could back up in our loos, so storm sewerage overflows are there as an emergency precaution. It is clear that they have been relied on too much by water companies, and that is why the Government, having put in the monitors and got more data, can step in. We have launched the storm sewerage overflows reduction plan and the water companies are now committed to so much funding to put all the overflows into the correct operating position, concentrating first on areas near bathing waters and our wonderful protected sites and then all the others. There is now a clear plan of action against which to hold the companies to account.

Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

On exports of plastics, we have recognised this issue and want to make sure that we are not exporting to non-OECD countries, but that does not mean that we give a blank cheque when there are exports to member countries of the OECD. That is why we have a rigorous process in place, but we will continue to investigate, through the Environment Agency, where issues arise and get them fixed.

On our thinking more broadly, one of our sadnesses during covid was of course the explosion in single-use plastics and the throwaway elements that were necessary for public health. We also had a reduction in our recycling rates. We do want to turn that around, and that is why we will continue to work on the important EPR reforms to which my right hon. Friend referred.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

At yesterday’s launch of the plan, the Secretary of State claimed that

“we are embedding nature in the heart of every decision that government will take”.

That is a very worthy aim, but how on earth does it square with the action we see from her Department? Just last week, the Department gave the green light to an authorisation of the pesticide neonicotinoid, which we know kills bees. I hope she will not tell us that this was just an emergency authorisation; this is the third year in a row that the Department has ignored its own expert committee on this issue, so this is now becoming routine. How can she reassure us that when she says words such as, “We are going to put nature at the heart of all our environment policy making”, she means it? Where is the consistency?

Bee-killing Pesticides

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard]

It is a great loss to Government that the hon. Gentleman is no longer a Minister, but a great benefit to these debates that we have double the west country Members from Devon speaking on such matters. Wild flower meadows, however we brand them, are a really important part of restoring ecosystems. They demonstrate that the interventions needed to support biodiversity recovery are not always large or expensive. They can be in every single community where there is a patch of ground that can be planted with wild flowers, and are a good way of signalling intent, especially as regards the recovery of pollinators.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. Brighton also has lots of lovely bee-friendly verges and so forth. Are we not just asking the Government to implement their own approach? Yesterday in their environmental improvement plan, they said that they wanted to put nature friendliness at the heart of all their policies. How is that coherent with the decision taken a few days ago? If the Government want to be consistent, they need to look again at the decision on bee-killing pesticides.

[Luke Pollard]

That is exactly right. If we are to have a proper nature-based recovery, and if the Government are to achieve their ambitions as set out in not only the Environment Act 2021 but the associated piece of legislation that this House has passed, we need them to follow their own procedures, and I do not think that they have in relation to the authorisation. I will explain why.

When we left the European Union, the Government promised to follow the science on bee-killing pesticides. How is that going? On 6 September 2021, the right hon. and learned Member for Banbury, then a DEFRA Minister, told the Commons:

“Decisions on pesticide authorisation are based on expert assessment by the Health and Safety Executive.”

Another DEFRA Minister, Lord Goldsmith, gave the same commitment, word for word, in the Lords that month. That surely means that bee-killing pesticides will be used only when the science shows that it is safe to do so. Right? Wrong.

The Government’s own expert committee on pesticides concluded on 30 January this year, in a report that can be found on the Government’s website, that the requirements for an emergency authorisation of bee-killing pesticides had not been met. It stated:

“On the basis of the evidence presented, the Committee agreed it supports the Health and Safety Executive’s Chemical Regulation Division’s assessment that it is unable to support an emergency authorisation, as potential adverse effects to honeybees and other pollinators outweigh the likely benefits.”

How can the decision have been made through expert assessment—on the science—as Ministers claim, if those very same experts say no to bee-killing pesticides? The decision to authorise bee-killing pesticide use is not supported by the science, the politics or the public, so why are Ministers allowing bee-killing pesticides to be used again this year?

If Ministers are serious about neonic use being temporary and exceptional, I want the Government to provide more support for sugar beet farmers, so that they can invest in other reasonable control measures, such as the greater use of integrated pest management. I back our British farmers, and I know my colleague on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), will say something similar. They have had enormous upheaval over the past few years. The withdrawal from the European Union, the change in subsidy regimes, and the fact that it is now harder to export have hit our farmers hard, so we need to find support for them. While critiquing the Government’s authorisation of bee-killing pesticides, I want to lend my support to those beet farmers, who, I recognise, face financial hardship if there is an aphid-spread infection in their crops.

How is best practice on crop hygiene, establishment and monitoring being shared with beet farmers? What investment are the Government making in the development of pest-resistant varieties of sugar beet and other crops? Why did Ministers previously say that the use of bee-killing pesticides would be temporary as new crop varieties would be coming up? What steps is the Minister taking to encourage industry to pay its fair share of the cost of transitioning away from neonic use? Sugar is big business and it is a high-value crop. We have heard before of funds designed to help farmers affected by aphid crop loss, so why grant authorisation again now if there are resources available for the farmers who are suffering from it?

The public will find it hard to believe that this granulated money-making machine is unable to give the sugar beet farmers that it relies on a fairer deal, so as to help them with crop failures, and so that they can develop a robust system of integrated pest management. It is welcome, and perhaps slightly curious, that although DEFRA last week gave a green light to the use of bee-killing pesticides, it simultaneously announced a new subsidy for farmers—the sustainable farming incentive—to encourage them not to use bee-killing pesticides. There is an easier way of preventing the use of bee-killing pesticides: instead of paying farmers not to use them, we could ban them, as Ministers promised to do, as we should be doing, and as other nations are doing.

I think we have stumbled on a new political truth: as long as the Conservatives are in power, whatever the science and their approval process says, they will approve the use of bee-killing pesticides. I challenge the Minister to prove me wrong on that. I did so last year in this very Chamber, and here we are again; bee-killing pesticides have again been authorised for use. More bees will die, and I predict we will be here again in 2024 unless Ministers have a change of heart. Each and every year until we get rid of that political truth, more bees will die. This is not temporary or exceptional; it is now a firmly established annual authorisation of bee-killing pesticides. This is my challenge to Ministers: prove me wrong by not authorising them next year.

Ministers need to provide more evidence of the impacts to inform the science. The reports from the Health and Safety Executive and the Government’s own pesticides committee—the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides— highlight a number of science holes in the evidence that they require in order to understand the impact of this authorisation on bees. Will the Minister respond to that?

Will the Minister report how much of the sustainable farming incentive has been used to lower the use of neonicotinoids? Will he ensure that there is not only catchment area science for any use of neonicotinoids, but field-edge studies for every field they are used in? At the moment, the evidence relates to selected fields and catchment areas, which are often too large. Will he ensure that there are catchment and field-edge water studies for every field that neonics are used in? Will he ensure that the cost of science is billed directly to any farmer using Cruiser SB, so that the taxpayer does not lose out?

The UK Expert Committee on Pesticides said that it would be beneficial to have an assessment of the quantity of active substances deployed in the environment as part of the suite of information used to determine whether the benefits of insecticide use outweigh the environmental risks. Will the Minister agree to do that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) on—once again—securing this important debate, having also secured last year’s Westminster Hall debate on neonicotinoids in response to the Government’s previous so-called emergency authorisation.

I am deeply sorry that we keep needing to have this debate, particularly when the Government’s rhetoric should mean that greenlighting highly toxic pesticides is unthinkable. Yesterday the Government published their environmental improvement plan, which aims to provide

“a comprehensive delivery plan for the Government’s approach to halting and then reversing the decline in nature.”

That goal is very welcome and should align domestic policy with a commitment in the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, agreed by almost 200 countries in December. However, it is in precisely that context that last week’s decision on neonics is so utterly incoherent and inconsistent.

Sadly, this is not an isolated case of Ministers failing to live up to their own greenwash. Just last month, the Office for Environmental Protection reported that not one of the 23 environmental targets examined was on track to be achieved, and 14 were clearly off-track. We also have the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill risks, under which we risk scrapping a staggering 1,700 environmental regulations overnight—vital laws that cover areas such as pesticides, food, nature, air and water quality, to name just a few.

Now we have the so-called emergency approval in England of this banned pesticide—a type of neonicotinoid —for the third year in a row. It is a poison so powerful that some have said that a single teaspoon is enough to kill 1.25 billion bees. It has been said that neonics affect the central nervous system of insects and bees’ ability to forage and navigate. A recent study showed that just one exposure could affect a bee’s ability to reproduce in future years.

Nature’s decline is no more alarming than when it comes to insects. As we have heard, the UK has lost half its insects in the past 50 years alone. I say “lost” but I do not like that word, because we have not lost them; we have destroyed them—let us face up to what is going on here. More than 40% of the earth’s remaining 5 million insect species are now threatened with extinction. The loss of these vital pollinators is truly terrifying to comprehend. It raises the question of how on earth the Government can say in one breath that they are halting—let alone reversing—biodiversity loss, when they are also pursuing such wanton destruction.

Of course, it is particularly alarming that this approval comes, once again, against the advice of the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides, which maintains that the risk to bees and other pollinators did not warrant the authorisation. As we have heard, the committee said:

“the requirements for emergency authorisation have not been met”.

It could not be much clearer. The approval is also contrary to guidance, which is clear that emergency applications should not be granted more than once—the clue is in the name.

The Minister may attempt to argue that sugar beet does not flower, so there is no risk to bees, but that is plainly false. Neonics were banned for use on flowering crops in 2013, but were also banned for use on non-flowering crops such as sugar beet in 2018, when it became clear that their use was contaminating soils, streams and hedgerow wildflowers and, by extension, affecting bees. Flowering so-called “weeds” also grow in fields that attract bees, not just in the current year but in subsequent years, when neonicotinoids are still present in the soil.

I remind colleagues of the findings of the Environmental Audit Committee report on pollinators and pesticides from 10 years ago. I sat on that Committee and was involved in taking the evidence that went into the report. I particularly recall this recommendation:

“Defra policy on pesticides must be evidence-based. Where the available scientific evidence is either incomplete or contradictory, Defra must apply the precautionary principle.”

Actually, I would argue that the evidence here is not incomplete or contradictory. Even if it were, DEFRA should apply the precautionary principle, but I think we can all agree that that the precautionary principle has been chucked out of the window when it comes to this decision and many others. So I ask the Minister quite simply: what is the point of the environmental principles policy statement, which was published just yesterday, if environmental principles are not applied in practice? I urge him to look again at this decision.

Before we left the EU, Ministers waxed lyrical about a green Brexit. The Minister is no doubt aware—and we have heard this from the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier)—that the European Court of Justice ruled on 19 January that emergency derogations for neonics are illegal, so the rest of Europe will not be using these bee-killing chemicals. Is that what the Government mean by the so-called opportunities that Brexit provides? Will he now reassure me that the existing restrictions on neonics and other harmful pesticides will be maintained as part of the Government’s review of retained EU law? They very clearly must be.

In conclusion, I want to probe the Minister on long-term solutions. As is patently clear, when we are the midst of a nature emergency, so-called emergency approvals of neonics every year are inappropriate and unsustainable, and they have to stop. We need an approach that safeguards both food production and biodiversity for the future. These things are not separate; they are intimately connected and dependent one on the other.

I welcome the inclusion of integrated pest management in the new sustainable farming incentive, with payments for insecticide-free farming. However, I am concerned that it could just end up being a tick-box exercise, where farmers complete an IPM assessment and produce a plan but are under no obligation to take practical action. Will the Minister commit to remedying that issue, too?

We need a much more concerted move towards IPM, where we use chemical pesticides only ever as a last resort, if at all, rather than continuing our current reliance on banned neonics. Will the Minister therefore commit to further support for IPM? Will he explain what alternatives are being trialled to prevent emergency authorisations in the future? And will the Government bring forward more investment in farmer-led research, practical advice and peer-to-peer learning?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Spencer]

We take into account all of that data when making these decisions. We take the best advice from the best scientists and make these decisions on their advice. My decision was informed by the advice of the Health and Safety Executive and by the views of the UK expert committee on pesticides and DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser on the scientific evidence. I also considered economic issues, informed by analysis from DEFRA economists.

Looking to the future, we do not wish to see the temporary use of neonicotinoids continue indefinitely. The development of alternative and sustainable approaches to protect sugar beet crops from these viruses is paramount. That includes the development of resistant plant varieties, measures to improve crop hygiene and husbandry, and alternative pesticides. British Sugar and the British Beet Research Organisation are undertaking a programme of work to develop these alternatives, which include yellows virus-specific integrated pest management techniques. The Government are closely monitoring the progress of that.

[Caroline Lucas]

The Minister will know that, since 1970, the UK has lost 50% or more of our insects. Whatever he is saying to us this morning, I do not think he is saying that risk is completely absent; he is balancing risks. Where does the precautionary principle come into his analysis and assessment, given that the risks that we face are so huge? Even if he thinks that the risk is small, none the less, if it happens and there is yet more of a collapse of our bee populations, we are in deep trouble.

[Mark Spencer]

That is one of the reasons why we have introduced the new environmental land management schemes, whose purpose is to change the way farmers grow crops and make them adopt those practices. We recognise how important bees are, and we want to work with farmers to improve the conditions for pollinators. We want to work with nature, rather than against it.

As hon. Members know, we continue our work on the agricultural transition, and we are repurposing the land-based subsidies we inherited from the EU. The hon. Lady makes the point that they did little for the environment and little for farmers. We will now have a new, ambitious system that rewards farmers and land managers for their role as environmental stewards, and that starts with the sustainable farming incentive.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Minister specifically address the precautionary principle? How did he apply it to the decision he made?

[Mark Spencer]

We have to balance all those factors and all the scientific advice, including the precautionary principle, in coming to this decision. It is not an easy decision to make. We have to consider lots of scientific advice on the risk to pollinators and to the sugar beet crop.

We have just published our indicative plan for the roll-out of the sustainable farming incentive standards, which includes the introduction of paid integrated pest management actions. That includes paying farmers to carry out an assessment and produce an integrated pest management plan; introduce natural methods of pest management, such as flower-rich grass margins or field strips, or companion cropping; and take steps to move towards insecticide-free farming. That will support farmers to minimise the use of pesticides and will incentivise the uptake of alternative ways to control pests.

Integrated pest management is at the heart of our approach to support farmers to practise sustainable pest management. We have already commissioned a package of research projects that will enable farmers to access the most effective IPM tools available, and ensure that we understand changing trends in pest threats across the UK.

As I have outlined, the decision to allow the limited and controlled use of neonicotinoids on a single crop has not been taken lightly and is based on robust scientific assessment. We will continue to work hard to support our farmers and protect and restore our vital pollinator populations.

DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL TARGETS (BIODIVERSITY) (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2022 DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL TARGETS (WOODLAND AND TREES OUTSIDE WOODLAND) (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2022 DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL TARGETS (WATER) (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2022 DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL TARGETS (MARINE PROTECTED AREAS) REGULATIONS 2022 DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL TARGETS (FINE PARTICULATE MATTER) (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2022 DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL TARGETS (RESIDUAL WASTE) (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2022

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 General Committees

[The Chair]

I would like to make two points before we start the debate. There is a choice about whether all the instruments are debated together or taken separately. If any Member objects to them being taken together, they will be taken separately. Does any Member object?

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am sorry to hold the Committee up; as you know, Mr Stringer, I am only an observer. When you ask, “Does anyone object to taking them together?”, I do not know if I am allowed to object. That is what I am trying to find out.

[The Chair]

Let me explain. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has notified me that she wishes to speak in the debate. She is not a member of the Committee, but debates on statutory instruments allow contributions from any right hon. or hon. Member, even if they are not a member of the Committee. However, they cannot vote, which takes us to the crux of the matter; the hon. Member would have to be a member of the Committee to object. [Interruption.] I was wrong; I have been corrected. Any Member of Parliament can object to the statutory instruments being taken together. If the hon. Lady objects to them being taken together, we will take them separately.

[Caroline Lucas]

At the risk of annoying the Committee gravely, I would like to take them separately.

[The Chair]

We will take them separately then. Let me get to the right point in my notes and we will begin. For the information of the Committee, debate on each instrument can last up to one and a half hours.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I rise to make three small points. The first overriding point, which has already been made, is about the urgency we need to move much faster towards targets. The Office of Environmental Protections has already said how far off we are on halting the decline in species abundance by 2030. This debate really does matter.

In particular, I point out the proposed target of a 10% increase in species abundance by 2042 relative to 2030 levels. DEFRA describes that as highly ambitious, but it has been pointed out that it could result in lower levels of abundance than we have today since there is no incentive to address the current rate of decline between now and the proposed 2030 baseline. That is a massive hole in the legislation and the target, particularly since the UK is one of the most nature and wildlife-depleted countries in the world.

There is also no proposed target on habitat quality and connectivity. That really matters if the coverage-based targets, such as the proposed 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitats, are not sufficient or if the habitat that is created or restored is not of high enough quality to benefit biodiversity. In other words, it is not simply a question of designating a certain coverage of hectares—it has to be about the quality of that land, and, crucially, the connectivity between that land and other areas of corridors so that wildlife can thrive. The targets included should be based on the 25-year environment plan, on indicator D1, which is precisely about habitat quantity and connectivity, to be able to quantify changes in habitat quality and to improve that all-important connectivity.

Finally, as we have heard, there is also no target to improve the condition of protected nature sites, despite calls for 75% of those protected wildlife sites to be in favourable condition by 2042. There is a huge hole in the targets in this area and I urge the Government to look again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I want to make one point. The worry about the target is that it proposes a metric that would see all trees and woodland cover being counted equally, and that is a problem because not all trees are equal in terms of the contribution they make to biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Not only should we see a more ambitious target overall, but the focus should be on expanding priority habitat woodlands specifically as that is what is needed to contribute to biodiversity targets, which non-priority habitat woodland might not, as well as towards net zero through carbon sequestration and providing climate adaptation benefits.

The proposed metric, which sees all trees and woodland cover being counted equally, would not value the different benefits provided by different types of trees and woodland. It is those benefits that are highly variable. Increased conifer planting, for example, may well not help natural habitat and wildlife at all, especially if the conifers are also chopped down and burnt as biofuel, so that they do not even help us with carbon sequestration either. We needed a more nuanced approach to woodland, and I am disappointed that the Government did not take that approach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I want to make a few comments on this statutory instrument—essentially, to point to the gap between targets and the actual behaviour that is necessary to meet them. I want to underline some of the comments already made about overfishing. The Government have already made numerous commitments to ending overfishing, including through the Fisheries Act 2020 and the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement of 2021, and yet during COP15 they reached an agreement with the EU to continue overfishing a substantial proportion of UK fish stocks. The Government’s intention to reopen a UK fishery for spurdog shark—a species listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list because of its significant vulnerability to fishing pressures—is inconsistent with serious efforts to halt species decline. Rather than the specific target on designated features put forward in the regulations, we need targets to improve marine protected areas in their entirety, particularly from the most destructive forms of fishing, such as bottom trawling.

If we are serious about MPAs meaning anything, they have to be protected from bottom trawling. However, although the UK’s MPA network covers 38% of our waters on paper, destructive bottom trawling is banned from just 5% of them, and that is extraordinary. Continued bottom trawling in MPAs is devastating marine life and linked to substantial carbon emissions, and it has to stop if we are serious about meeting our targets.

My final point is that to date, biological monitoring has been under-resourced, particularly in marine environments, and that has resulted in poorly thought-out site designations. We need much more resource to be put into that type of monitoring so that Government agencies can properly and effectively manage an expanded network of MPAs that mean something in fact, not just on paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I just want to add my voice to this particular debate because it feels tragic that we have wasted the opportunity to put in place targets that would protect far more people from the evils associated with bad air quality. I know we go through the motions of the Minister speaking in favour and the Opposition voting against the SI, but I beg the Minister to, if nothing else, look again at this directive. We have all seen the mountain of evidence showing the dangers that fine particulate matter in the air poses to our health.

I have just come from a briefing by the chief medical officer talking about his annual report on air pollution. The Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants estimates that up to 36,000 deaths each year are linked to air pollution. It causes and aggravates respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and there is a likely link to dementia. If that number of deaths was happening from anything else, there would be all kinds of inquiries set up and all kinds of urgency. However, because air pollution is invisible, we somehow think that it does not matter as much. Well, it does and if anyone is going to tell us that, it would be the mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah. Next month is the 10th anniversary of the tragic death of Ella, the first person to have air pollution recorded as the cause of death on her death certificate, and I pay tribute to Ella’s mother for all she has done to put air pollution higher up the political agenda. The truth is that the Government’s disappointing target of 10 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic metre by 2040 is nowhere near enough to prevent more people dying from air pollution.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle toxic air and protect people’s health right across England. That demands a target consistent with, as we have heard, the updated WHO standard guideline level of five micrograms per cubic metre. The CBI has estimated that bringing air quality within the old WHO guideline level of 10 micrograms per cubic metre could deliver an economic boost of £1.6 billion per annum, so the economic case for a much more ambitious Government target is clear. “Ambitious” should be the watchword. The Government claim the targets they are putting forward are stretching and ambitious. Frankly, that is stretching the English language to breaking point. There is nothing ambitious about a target of 10 micrograms by 2040.

I hope the Committee will forgive me for repeating what has already been said, but it is important. The US has had a stronger legal target than the UK since 2012 and, as we have heard, it is considering making it even more ambitious. The EU Commission has proposed a target of 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2030. That is 10 years earlier than the UK is aiming for. It beggars belief that the Minister can stand there and pretend that the target she is putting forward is an ambitious one. It quite simply is not. As the hon. Member for Cambridge made clear, research by Imperial College London has found that the UK’s proposed target is already achievable by 2030 in 99% of the country based on existing Government commitments and recommendations from the Climate Change Committee. Scotland reached 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2020. There is a huge ambition-shaped hole in the Government’s plans. Ministers love to stand up and tell us how the UK is being world-beating. How about actually living up to that rhetoric rather than just using words that are frankly meaningless? We have heard that the public wants more. Some 90% of those who responded to the consultation disagreed with this—I cannot even say “ambition”—particular target.

There is an even broader case for more ambition, given that the policies needed to accelerate the reduction of PM2.5, particularly cutting the use of fossil fuels for transport, have the additional benefit of supporting the delivery of net zero.

Set against all of that, the Government’s plans to improve monitoring capacity are not comprehensive enough to give a full picture of air pollution across the country. We have already heard that, by 2028, the whole of London will be legally required to have only 15 monitors to assess compliance against the targets, and the SI will clearly not deliver reductions in pollution for those who live near sources of pollution, such as main roads in cities, because compliance with the population exposure reduction target will be assessed only by using urban or suburban background sites where PM2.5 is, as we have heard, not influenced significantly by a source or sources of pollution in close proximity to the site.

If we want to make a real difference to people’s health and reduce the burden on the NHS, we need to do so much better. I urge an urgent rethink and new legal targets that are commensurate with the scale of the problem, and I beg the Minister not to stand up and try to pretend that the targets are ambitious, when they quite clearly are not.

[Trudy Harrison]

A multitude of aspects have been discovered on this particular issue, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Huddersfield for his work to improve the quality of air in areas around schools. When I was a Minister in the Department for Transport, we set up Active Travel England. One of the primary reasons for doing that was to reduce car commuter journeys and improve air quality, and an awful lot of work has gone into improving the air quality in streets around schools. We appointed Chris Boardman as the national commissioner for walking and cycling, and an awful lot of good work has been done.

Our evidence suggests that it is not practically possible to set 5 micrograms per cubic metre as a nationwide target. A study of the level being experienced by people in parts of south-east England in 2018, indicated that 6 to 8 micrograms per cubic metre came from a combination of natural sources, emissions from other countries—such as the air blown across the English channel from Europe—and shipping. The World Health Organisation guidelines are not ready-made targets for adoption. The WHO does not expect any country to adopt its guidelines without first understanding what would be required to meet the targets. While we expect that the majority of the country will meet the target of 2.5 micrograms by 2030, not all parts of the country will be able to do that.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I was only going to point out that, given that the European Commission’s target is a heck of a lot more ambitious than ours, it is a bit rich to stand there and say that the reason we cannot meet our target is because we will have dirty air coming over from people in Europe. They are cleaning up their air much quicker than we are, so that argument simply does not hold.

[Trudy Harrison]

I would like to make it absolutely clear that the EU Commission’s proposed target has yet to be accepted or, indeed, implemented. We are going further than ever before to adopt the targets, and the environmental improvement plan will set out, with even more detail and in the next few days, how we will go about that.

Convention on Biodiversity COP15: Outcomes

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. That is why it was important that when the Prime Minister went to Sharm el-Sheikh for COP27, building on our COP26 presidency where we included nature as a full day of the climate change conference, he referred specifically to the fact that £3 billion of the £11 billion total climate financing will be dedicated to nature. He recognises how critical it is, and we will continue to endeavour to improve the natural environment not only in this country, but around the world.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The agreement on a framework that commits to halting and reversing biodiversity loss is of course very welcome. However, it is a bit staggering that the Government’s own environment targets, smuggled out late last week, will fail to deliver on that goal. They do not even include goals to improve the condition of protected nature sites or overall water quality. As a priority, will the right hon. Lady align the Environment Act 2021 with the new commitments made in Montreal? Specifically, with just 38% of SSSIs and 14% of rivers in good condition, will she now commit to consulting on and setting those crucial targets next year?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady is right to congratulate the world on recognising that and the UK on its role in making sure that nature and restoration were included in the text—and if she did not mention our role, I can assure her that that was the reason it was put back into the text early this morning. The indicators we consulted on set out very clearly that the apex indicator was species abundance. There are a number of other targets that will aim towards that, and by achieving that, I am confident that we will achieve some of the other targets to which she refers, including of course increasing the number of hectares of habitat for nature in this country.