Environmental Targets (Public Authorities) Bill [HL]

Lord Krebs Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Krebs]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, late on Friday afternoon, or even early on Friday afternoon, is known in academic circles as the graveyard slot. I hope that this is not the slot where my Bill enters the graveyard. In introducing the Bill, I declare my interests as set out in the register; in particular, that I am on the scientific advisory board of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, a consortium of NGOs and Cambridge University, and that I am an independent scientific adviser to Drax, the power company. I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss the Bill —in fact, twice—and Richard Benwell and Matt Browne of Wildlife and Countryside Link for their help in preparing the Bill and providing a briefing.

We have outstanding legislation in this country relating to climate and the environment, so why the need for further legislation? I intend to explain that over the next few minutes. The Climate Change Act 2008, and its associated secondary legislation, sets a legally binding target to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and to meet the interim targets in the carbon budgets. Furthermore, the same Act places a requirement on the Government to ensure that the country adapts to the inevitable impacts of climate change on our infrastructure, buildings, land and people.

The Environment Act 2021 also places specific legal obligations on the Government, including targets on biodiversity, water quality and use, woodland cover, waste and air quality. Examples include halting the decline of biodiversity by 2030 and reducing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in water from agriculture by 80% by 2038, compared with the 2020 baseline.

The unfortunate news is that, in spite of this excellent legislation, the Government are nowhere near on track to meet their legal obligations on climate and nature. The Climate Change Committee said in its report to Parliament in July this year:

“The UK has committed to reduce emissions in 2030 by 68% compared to 1990 levels, as its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement. It is the first UK target set in line with Net Zero. Now only six years away, the country is not on track to hit this target”.


In the same report on adaptation, the Climate Change Committee said:

“The UK’s Third National Adaptation Programme … lacks the pace and ambition to address growing climate risks, which we are already experiencing”.


In its January 2024 report, the Office for Environmental Protection said:

“Government remains largely off track to meets its environmental ambitions and must speed up and scale up its efforts in order to achieve them”.


The OEP concluded that the Government were on track to meet just four of the 40 targets it examined.

This is where my Bill comes in. The simple fact is that myriad day-to-day decisions that could help to deliver the targets are not in the hands of central government. It is as though the Government have a set of levers on their desk that they can pull, but the levers are not connected to anything under the desk. Instead, these actions are spread across many public authorities, which are listed in the Bill. These include land managers, such as the Forestry Commission, Forestry England and the national parks authorities; regulators such as Ofwat; local authorities responsible for planning decisions; and infrastructure authorities such as Network Rail and National Highways. The Bill encompasses not just the public sector but, indirectly, the private sector, such as water companies that are regulated by the authorities listed.

Meeting the legally binding targets will require a Stakhanovite effort not just from central government but from all those public authorities. In fact, I argue that, without action from the public authorities, there is little or no chance that the Government will meet their targets. This Bill would give the public authorities a duty to have as a priority helping to meet the targets. Contributing to the targets is referred to in the Bill as the environmental recovery objective and the listed public bodies have a duty to take all reasonable steps to meet that objective.

Some of the bodies predate the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act, so it is not surprising that they do not have a responsibility to help to meet the targets in these Acts. For instance, the work of Forestry England, the country’s largest landowner, is closely tied to legislation written over 100 years ago. In general, where public authorities do have duties in relation to the environment and climate change, the duties are weaker than those implied by the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act.

For example, National Highways, established under the Infrastructure Act 2015, has as one of its eight objectives to

“minimise the environmental impacts of operating, maintaining and improving the network and seek to protect and enhance the quality of the surrounding environment”.

It is also obliged to

“conform to the principles of sustainable development”.

These are well-intentioned obligations, but they do not imply a specific duty to help to meet the biodiversity or greenhouse gas emission targets, yet transport infrastructure can have a major impact on both. We know that surface transport accounts for roughly a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions and these emissions have barely reduced at all over the past 30 years.

Local authorities have a key role in this Bill, and councillors from across the political spectrum and from a range of councils across England have expressed their support for it, both personally to me in writing and in public statements. The briefing from Climate Action is very revealing and salient. It concludes that, without action by local authorities, the Government will not achieve its net-zero target and that voluntary action is not sufficient.

In 2024, according to the Local Government Authority, two-thirds of councils were not confident that they would reach their net-zero target. The barriers to achieving the targets include lack of money, lack of expertise and lack of political will. In Scotland, all councils have to produce an annual report on climate action. In England, under two-thirds of councils do so. That is the case for giving public authorities a duty to help meet the targets in the two Acts to which I have referred.

There will no doubt be objections to the Bill, so I will address three of them. The first objection is that it is unnecessary because the listed public authorities are already doing the work. The second is that it is too burdensome and costly for the nominated authorities to implement. The third is that it is too blunt an instrument.

It is apparent that the first two of these objections cannot both be true at the same time. If it is unnecessary because public bodies are already doing it, by definition it cannot be too burdensome. Some public authorities may already be contributing to the targets to the best of their ability. For them, there will be no extra burden or cost. However, as my examples have illustrated, not all public authorities contribute to meeting the targets. Many of them—perhaps most—have weaker obligations than those implied by the Bill. In fact, if all public authorities were contributing fully to meet the targets, one might ask why we are so far off track in meeting them.

What about costs? There might be some modest additional costs in the short term, but they have to be considered alongside the costs that will be avoided. These include costs associated with flood damage, damage to infrastructure from extreme weather, and loss of ecosystem services such as clean air and clean water, and—we now know from the excellent book by my noble friend Lady Willis of Summertown—good health. Those costs could be avoided by modest investment in taking action to help protect the climate and nature.

The third possible objection that I raise is that the Bill is too blunt an instrument, imposing requirements on public authorities that they cannot meet because of other priorities. However, although the Bill is prescriptive, it is not too prescriptive. It states:

“The environmental recovery objective is a principal objective”,


not the principal objective. So public authorities have it within their discretion to balance it against other objectives.

Finally, two further considerations are measurement and reporting. How will progress be measured and who will assess how well public authorities are doing? The targets are in the two Acts to which I have referred; therefore, the measurement of progress and the baseline for each target will be based on the criteria that the Government have set out in these Acts. The most obvious body to assess public authorities’ progress in meeting the targets would be the Office for Environmental Protection.

In summary, the Bill fills a gap in the Government’s plans for climate and nature. We know that they are not on track to meet their targets. If they do not accept the Bill, or at least the principles within it, I would ask the following question: if this is not part of the answer to the question of how to get back on track, what do the Government propose as an alternative? I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in this debate and sacrificed their Friday afternoon. I will not spend a lot of time going through the contributions as I am sure we are all quite keen to get away.

However, I shall respond to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for whom I have the greatest respect, and I thank him for his kind words about me. He raised a mixture of points, including that some public authorities are already straining every sinew to help to meet the targets, that some of them have no capacity to do so and would not know how, and that for some of them some of the targets are irrelevant. These are all arguments worth exploring, and I hope that in Committee we can have a further debate on those points.

I have a particular point about Network Rail. Those of us who suffer at its hands travelling in and out of London all agree that we wish that Network Rail, the train operating companies and their public owner successor could actually get the trains to run on time and get us from A to B. However, it is nevertheless the case that Network Rail owns 55,000 hectares of land, is a neighbour to 7 million people and has a biodiversity strategy. Last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, and I met its director of biodiversity, Neil Strong, and discussed this Bill with him. He was broadly supportive of it; he thought it would help Network Rail with its ambition to have no net loss of biodiversity by the end of this year—which by the way is way ahead of the Government’s target of 2030—although it was not clear to us that Network Rail was measuring biodiversity in the right way and therefore whether it would know if it had achieved the target. I do not think Network Rail would push back at the Bill if a duty were placed upon it, and it would be up to the company to balance that duty with the duty of getting the trains to run on time.

I thank the Minister for her response and for the two meetings we have had, and welcome her offer of further discussions. I took away a number of points from her response. The most important was that the revised environmental improvement plan may be a home for some of the ideas in the Bill, and I would very much like to discuss that with her.

Another important point made by the Minister, which I had forgotten to make and which had not been made before, is that this is about not just avoided costs but economic growth. The Government’s plans for green growth would be supported by the skills and actions that followed from the Bill.

The Minister also made the point that the Government are still relatively newly in place. She used the words, “reviewing” and “actively considering”. I take the point that many of these issues are under review. Perhaps, once those reviews have concluded, or even while they are being carried out, we will be able to discuss the merits or demerits of the proposal in my Bill. I am not claiming that it is a magic bullet, and there may be better solutions. If so, I would like to hear them, and I look forward to further discussions.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Environmental Targets (Public Authorities) Bill [HL]

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 13th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on his Private Member’s Bill, and thank him and all noble Lords who took part in the debate on Amendment 1. I look forward to hearing the noble Lord’s remarks shortly. He rightly highlights through his Bill, and his contributions so far during its passage through your Lordships’ House, the intertwined issues of environmental decline and climate change, on which this House must continue to engage.

As my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock has noted, the intention of the Bill to drive and strengthen public authority action towards meeting national, environmental and climate targets and objectives is important. Of this the Government are in no doubt. Encouraging nature’s recovery is a key priority, fundamental to the Government’s approach to economic growth. However, at the risk of repeating my noble friend’s comments at Second Reading, there are already measures in place seeking to realise this Bill’s ambition.

For example, we expect that the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act’s biodiversity duty, strengthened through the Environment Act, will ensure public authorities make conservation and enhancement of biodiversity a core part of the delivery of their functions. Local nature recovery strategies will set the strategic priorities for nature recovery in an area and identify the best locations for land management actions to deliver those priorities. These are progressing well, and we expect most or all to be published this year or shortly after, covering the length and breadth of England.

On climate adaptations, England’s third national adaptation programme, NAP3, summarises the collective actions the Government are taking to address risks and opportunities from climate change and to ensure that adaptation is incorporated into government programmes. Recently, through the Water (Special Measures) Act, this Government introduced a requirement on Ofwat to have regard to the need to contribute to achieving targets in the Environment Act 2021 and the Climate Change Act 2008 when carrying out its functions. We intend to strengthen the statutory purposes of protected landscapes, our most iconic and inspiring places, to give them a clear mandate to recover nature and to widen the public’s access to it.

This Government are firmly committed to working collaboratively to improve the natural environment. As we have already heard in noble Lords’ contributions this afternoon, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wasted no time in announcing a rapid review of the statutory environmental improvement plan, and we will publish a revised EIP this year. This revised plan will focus on cleaning up our waterways, reducing waste across the economy, planting millions more trees, improving air quality and halting the decline in species by 2030. To answer the question posed by my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone on wider alignment, there are already measures in place to realise the Bill’s ambitions through this collection of actions.

Further, on net zero, the Government will deliver an updated plan that sets out the policy package to the end of carbon budget 6 in 2037 for all sectors by October 2025. This will outline the policies and proposals needed to deliver carbon budgets 4 to 6 and our nationally determined contribution commitments on a pathway to net zero.

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, effectively proposes the removal of climate adaptation from the remit of this Bill. I agree with my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that the noble Lord’s speech seemed more focused on net-zero targets than climate adaptation, which is the focus of his amendment.

Climate adaptation is essential for supporting our natural environment and biodiversity, as the Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, recognises, as well as protecting our communities and economy. Climate change is now an inevitable part of our present and future, posing many challenges with severe impacts on our lives, health and prosperity. It is therefore essential that we continue to adapt to climate change, not only for the environment’s sake but to reduce its significant economic and growth impacts. As my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock made clear at Second Reading, this Government are fully committed to addressing net zero and the role that climate change plays, as summarised in NAP3.

I will briefly address the points the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, made about net zero. The British people deserve lower-cost, clean and secure power—we are all in agreement on that—and the good jobs that will come along with that. Certainly, it is the role of all Governments to protect us from the long-term threats we face in energy security. The economic case, the national security case and the environmental case all point in the same direction, which is our clean green energy mission that will protect the country from exposure to unstable international markets and give greater security and stability to both family and national finances in terms of energy costs. We will achieve this through delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero. Our mission will bring energy security, protect bill payers, create good jobs and help protect future generations from the costs of climate breakdown.

The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, spoke with passion and knowledge about the importance of engaging every level of society—local authorities, businesses, individuals and other stakeholder groups—in our mission to tackle climate adaptation and pursue net zero. Defra and DESNZ are working on a public participation strategy. The noble Baroness made some well-observed comments about the importance of engagement at all levels of society and I will take that back to colleagues in both departments.

In conclusion, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for bringing this Bill to the House and enabling this debate, and I look forward to hearing his comments.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register—in particular, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, has already mentioned, that I chair the independent advisory group on sustainability for the Drax Group.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for meeting me to discuss the Bill and the noble Lord, Lord Katz, for discussing it with me just a couple of days ago. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. It was heartening to hear support for the Bill from all sides of the House, although there were some voices of scepticism. It is important to recognise that the environment and climate are not partisan issues; they are things that affect future generations. We are concerned about it for the future of our children, grandchildren and future generations in general. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, for his kind words about me personally.

When I read Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, its purpose was not clear to me. As others have said, including the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Coffey, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the Minister, it removes the adaptation element of the environmental recovery objective by deleting lines seven and eight of Clause 1. It also removes the environmental recovery objective itself by deleting lines nine to 11. As others have pointed out, without this objective, the rest of the Bill would make no sense, as it is all about how the listed public authorities deliver the environmental recovery objective. I was therefore tempted to conclude that the noble Lord intended it as a wrecking amendment. However, I now understand that the amendment is based on scepticism about achieving the targets in the Environment Act and, particularly, the net-zero target of the Climate Change Act.

In other words, the amendment is not directed at my Bill, but at these two Acts of Parliament. I could rebut in detail the arguments made about net zero by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, but because I believe the amendment is out of scope, I prefer not to engage in the detail. I suggest that if the noble Lord objects to the net-zero target passed by the previous Conservative Government, it would be more appropriate to try to change that Act rather than this Bill.

It is therefore perhaps worth restating what this Bill is about, and some of these points have already been made. It introduces an objective for the many public authorities, regulators, land managers, infrastructure providers, planning authorities and so on to contribute to the specific targets in the Environment Act and the Climate Change Act. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, these public authorities are the bodies that make the daily decisions that affect the state of our environment, our resilience to climate change and our greenhouse gas footprint. In fact, the truth is that, without the contributions of these public authorities, there is no hope of meeting the targets—a point made by a number of noble Lords.

I will briefly allude to local authorities, since they were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, among others. It is worth noting that, in spite of what has been said, on Wednesday this week the LGA published its position on my Bill, in which it said it is in principle in favour of a statutory climate duty. There you have it: the LGA, which represents local authorities, supports the intention of this Bill.

The Minister has said that the Government are not going accept the Bill, although they agree with the principles in it. However, I point out that the Government have recently said that they will

“clarify how the environmental improvement plan will be delivered, including the role of government departments and bodies, environmental NGOs, businesses, farmers, landowners/managers, local government and the public”.

This Bill should be a godsend. It provides the clarity that the Government is seeking on how to deliver the environmental improvement plan.

Furthermore, two recent reports, commissioned by Defra, also point in the same direction as my Bill. The interim Cunliffe report, on the water sector, concludes that

“the sector needs a clearer and more consistent long-term direction—one that aligns environmental ambition, the provision of water supply and wastewater removal, and the expectations of customers … We believe the legislative framework that underpins the sector must be revisited”,

which is what this Bill is in part doing. The report goes on to mention resilience and adaptation.

The Corry review of the regulatory system in Defra states that the system is now

“inefficient and difficult for customers to navigate. It needs to work in a fundamentally different way, to become a system focused on delivering positive outcomes for nature and the environment and to be an aid not an impediment to sustainable growth”.

So there you have it. The Government’s own plans for the environmental improvement plan and the two reviews that Defra, commissioned by Cunliffe and Corry, all point in the same direction as my Bill: make the regulatory regime simpler, clearer and more effective. At the same time, ensure that public authorities are helping to deliver the specific legally binding targets for nature and climate.

During the debate, the Minister and other noble Lords referred to a number of existing initiatives: for example, the biodiversity duty that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, mentioned; the local nature recovery strategies that a number of noble Lords referred to; the devolution framework, which has been implicit, although not specifically referred to; and the protected landscapes targets and outcomes framework, referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, among others. These initiatives are, without doubt, important, but they could be enhanced by specific guidance on timelines for meeting the targets in the two Acts. The biodiversity duty, for instance, has the rather weak guidance:

“Consider what you can do to conserve and enhance biodiversity. Agree policies and specific objectives based on your consideration. Act to deliver your policies and achieve your objectives”.


There is no link to the Environment Act or the Climate Change Act, so we could strengthen the guidance for those duties.

To summarise, my three asks of the Government in the future, would be—

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I understand what the noble Lord says on that, recognising that this was covering every single bit of government. The guidance that was attached to the production of local nature recovery strategies was actually very much stronger and more specific.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness for pointing that out, and I accept her comment.

To summarise, my three asks of the Government are: first, to tighten the guidance where appropriate, following the interjection of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, on the existing initiatives aimed at protecting nature and tackling climate change; secondly, to ensure that the environmental improvement plan includes the role of public authorities in meeting the specific time-bound targets in the Environment Act and the Climate Change Act, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone; and, thirdly, in line with Corry and Cunliffe, to modernise and simplify the legislation, as proposed by my Bill. In the meantime, I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, having had a good debate about his amendment, will agree to withdraw it.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I started this debate by saying that my real concern about all these green initiatives is that they are adding to costs and are one of the reasons why our electricity prices are some of the highest in the G7 and make this country very uncompetitive, particularly when it comes to manufacturing industry, which continues to leach from this country to other countries in the world. The chances of restoring our manufacturing sector seem to me to be pretty faint as long as we have these astronomically high prices. I noticed during the debate that a lot of people have gone on about the duties of all the authorities listed here to adapt to green initiatives, but on the other hand, nobody talks about the cost of doing that. That is really my concern, right across the board.

The green initiatives that we have under net-zero legislation are actually leading to customers paying more for services. I am surprised that the Local Government Association says that it approves of the Bill, because it will mean that community charge payers will be paying more money to enact all of this stuff. But I think we have had an interesting debate and I am more than happy to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for his amendment. He made some points about the new formation of Great British Energy-Nuclear. I am afraid that some of the detail that he asked for regarding the corporate structure of that body is a little beyond my bailiwick, so I undertake to write to him with more detail.

However, let me reassure the noble Viscount that Great British Energy-Nuclear, as it is now called, will continue to drive forward the UK small modular reactor programme as part of this Government’s commitment to net zero and mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower. I agree with the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in relation to the amendment and its contribution to the Bill, and I have already spoken at some length in my comments on the previous amendment about the Government’s commitment to making the UK a clean energy superpower.

After the spending review this week and the commitments that we have made not just to the SMR programme but to Sizewell C, we can be in no doubt that this is the biggest nuclear rollout for a generation, and we see nuclear as very much a part of creating that clean energy superpower. For the sake of brevity, I will leave my comments at that.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for bringing forward this amendment and all noble Lords who have taken part in this very short debate. I will not speak at length, because I can make my point very briefly.

At Second Reading, I pointed out that there are two classic objections to the proposals in my Bill: on the one hand, they are unnecessary; on the other, they are too burdensome. Both cannot be true at the same time. Yet it seemed to me that in the debate we have just had, the point was made that the nuclear industry, of which I am in full support, is very tightly regulated, therefore, this additional layer of regulation is unnecessary. On the other hand, we heard that this additional layer of regulation would be too burdensome and impose duties on the nuclear industry that would discourage investment. Both simply cannot be true. If it is doing it anyway, it cannot be burdensome; if it is not doing it anyway, maybe it needs a bit of extra burden.

In truth, when we look at what the Government’s website says about GBE-N, we see that it says that it will deliver the Government’s long-term nuclear energy programme and support the UK’s energy security and contribute to our net-zero targets—so tick the box, job done. It is already contributing to net zero.

One of the other tasks that GBE-N will have, alongside the competition to build up to three SMRs, is, along with Rolls-Royce, to choose the sites where the SMRs are to be built. Those choices will have environmental implications. It seems to me perfectly reasonable, when those choices are made, that they should reflect the targets in the Environment Act. If they were clearly going to be detrimental to the target of reversing the decline in species diversity by 2030, it would be reasonable for GBE-N and Rolls-Royce to be asked to think again.

So, although I have heard an argument for removing GBE-N from the list of public authorities, I am not convinced by it—although I will take it away and think about it further. In the meantime, I very much hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, will withdraw his amendment.

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate, and I thank the House for the thoughtful and considered attention that it has given to my amendment.

Let me conclude by returning to the core principle that underpins this amendment. We simply cannot deliver a cheap, reliable and secure energy future without nuclear power generation. It is therefore essential that we increase Britain’s nuclear capacity. Unlike the intermittent technologies so generously backed by the Secretary of State, nuclear provides what no other low-carbon technology currently can: reliable baseload power. It offers inertia to stabilise our grid and consistency to underpin our economy and long-term energy security that does not depend on the weather or foreign imports. It does all this while requiring substantially less new grid infrastructure than widely dispersed solar and wind installations. The more new nuclear we have, the less we need to erect ugly pylons in our beautiful countryside.

Yet we are not on track. As things stand, Britain will not have small modular reactors connected to the grid until the 2030s. That is not a criticism of the technology but a reflection of government hesitation—hesitation that stands in stark contrast to the headlong rush to achieve clean power by 2030, relying almost entirely on intermittent renewables and simultaneously dismantling our domestic oil and gas capacity in the North Sea.

We also need to explore the urgent need to accelerate the commercial development of so-called AMR technologies, some of which—such as the Japanese high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology, whose prototype was developed at Winfrith in Dorset in 1965 as the Dragon reactor—are proven to be inherently safe. Like the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I regret the reduction in the funds committed to GBE; it makes it all the more unlikely that Great British Energy will have any funding available for nuclear projects. I thank my noble friend Lord Effingham for his strong support and the noble Lord, Lord Katz, for agreeing to write to me about changes to the corporate structures of both GBE and GBE-N.

It is true that nuclear projects are strictly regulated from a safety point of view. I say that in response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who said that it could not be true both that nuclear was overregulated, so it should be easy to comply with these additional regulations, and that it was underregulated, meaning that increasing the regulation would make the UK seem a less attractive destination for investment. I think that both are true. It is true that, from a safety point of view, nuclear projects and nuclear power stations are regulated extremely strictly, but the environmental regulations are a different type of regulation. The environmental and planning-related regulations are an additional burden with which GBE-N is not, at present, expecting to have to comply; they would represent an additional burden to investment in nuclear projects.

With my gratitude to the Minister and other noble Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for his amendment to include the Canal & River Trust in the list of authorities in Clause 2(2). I also pay some tribute to his creative way of raising concerns about the stewardship of the Canal & River Trust, such as the removal of litter bins and other associated issues relating to its environmental responsibilities. I will certainly bring his comments to the attention of my colleague, Minister Hardy, who has responsibility for the Canal & River Trust in the department.

The Canal & River Trust is an invaluable organisation with which Defra and other government departments work closely. The Government will continue to collaborate with the trust to ensure that its efforts are best directed and realised, to improve and protect the natural environment for the public. For the sake of brevity and the progress of business, I will leave it at that.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, for raising this question and all those who took part in this short debate. I have the good fortune to live in central Oxford, very close to the Oxford Canal. Indeed, when I set off this morning, I did my usual 10-minute walk down the canal towpath from my house to Oxford station. The canal in Oxford, together with its canal banks, forms a wonderful corridor for wildlife, leading right into the city centre. I often see a heron fishing on one of the weirs and occasionally glimpse the iridescent blue of a kingfisher flying past. In the winter, I see groups of goosander that have migrated south for the winter from Scotland or Scandinavia.

I am lucky. Unlike in the examples cited by the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, in my neighbourhood the canal towpath is well maintained and litter free. I very much wish that were true of the rest of the canal network. In fact, my only complaint about the canal in Oxford is a rather different one: a number of residential canal boats—already referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Evans—are allowed to burn dirty solid fuel, which would not be allowed in other residences. I wish the Government would do something about this. After all, one of the six key targets in the Environment Act is to cut exposure to the most harmful air pollutant to human health, PM2.5. The canal boats could be a good starting point for reducing that pollution exposure.

In principle, I think it would be very good to add the Canal & River Trust to the list. However, this is now above my pay grade because I do not fully understand the position of the CRT. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, and I looked it up myself, it is a registered charity and therefore governed by the Charity Commission and not subject to the same regulations as public authorities. I assume it would have to change its charitable objects in order to comply with the intention of this Bill, so I would like to take it away and understand it. In the meantime, I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, will see fit to withdraw his amendment, recognising that it has had a very sympathetic hearing from all around the House.

Before I sit down, I once again thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate this afternoon. I have not mentioned the Wildlife and Countryside Link and Green Alliance, which were very helpful in preparing the material for this Bill. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for agreeing to continue the discussion of how the ideas in the Bill can be taken forward.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Parminter, have already mentioned that there are two routes ahead of us. We all agree with the intention of the Bill, plus or minus some points. I take the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and we all agree in general with the principle of improving our environment. The two routes that the Government have are either to accept that there will be piecemeal chipping away as Bills come forward and people try to achieve amendments, which is inefficient and time-consuming, or they could do it at one fell swoop very simply by accepting the Bill that I have proposed.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. I am quite unfamiliar with being treated sympathetically, but I do accept that in this case, the noble Lord has certainly done so. I thank my noble friends Lord Eccles, Lord Trenchard and Lord Effingham for their support. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, raised a very important point about the ambiguity of this trust because, as the Front-Bench spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said, it is a charity. Well, it is a charity, but it is in receipt of £50 million of hard-working taxpayers’ money. Any organisation that is in receipt of taxpayers’ money from central government is aware that the Government might need to have a wee word with it if it is felt that it is not providing the public service that it should be doing. I am disappointed that, over 13 years, the trust did not work out the business model so that it did not need the £50 million of taxpayers’ money. The whole point was that, over time, it would remove that subsidy. It failed to do that and also failed to supply simple things such as rubbish bins on canals in urban areas. It does a good job in the countryside, but it is urban areas in particular that I am thinking of. I am most grateful to noble Lords and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.