Planning System Reforms: Wild Belt Designation

Duncan Baker Excerpts
Tuesday 22nd June 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Duncan Baker Portrait Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
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I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) for her excellent proposal to promote and increase nature biodiversity. We know that this is important and have heard that from across the room. However the proposals for planning reform shape up, it is absolutely imperative that we put nature and biodiversity at their very heart. I am pleased to see that is happening. Let us not forget that the UK, along with nearly 90 other countries, is committed to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030, through the leaders’ pledge for nature.

We know that globally, let alone in the UK, nature and biodiversity are still declining alarmingly. That is why I wanted to speak in this debate, because giving legal protections to aid nature recovery is vital. Creating wild belts as the mechanism for areas set aside for nature recovery, and providing green corridors for wildlife to move between biodiversity hotspots, is an excellent idea.

Many of us were lucky during lockdown, because we could count on having access to green space, but what about the 11 million people—one in eight—who do not even have a garden? A wild belt designation could easily sit alongside an AONB, a national park or an SSSI. If it gives more access for the public to enjoy protected green spaces that cannot be developed on because they are there for nature to recover, it would give enormous benefits, and not just for nature and biodiversity, but for our wellbeing and health.

The Government are doing enormous work on decarbonisation and setting world-leading targets, but the focus on nature and biodiversity must have equal standing with those targets. We know that the landmark Environment Bill legally binds us to improve air quality, soil quality and water quality, and to leave the planet in a better state than we inherited it, as does the Agriculture Act 2020, which focuses on the environment and promoting biodiversity. It is hugely important, and the Government are doing it. They are weaving it into the very fabric of every piece of legislation coming forward, to enhance and protect nature, and I can see that a wild belt designation would do the same thing. That is why I entirely support it as part of the planning reforms.