Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to open this debate with the government amendments tabled in my name relating the role of devolved Governments in the implementation of the BBNJ agreement. As noble Lords will be aware, the BBNJ Bill extends to the whole of the United Kingdom, apart from certain clauses which extend to Scotland only. Foreign affairs, including the negotiation and signature of international treaties, are a reserved matter under the devolution settlements. However, observation and implementation of obligations arising under treaties in domestic law are excepted from the foreign affairs reservation so far as those obligations relate to devolved matters. Working closely with Ministers and officials in the devolved Governments, we have agreed that the legislative consent motion process is engaged for Scotland and Northern Ireland, to varying extents, by Parts 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill.

The Government have been in sustained discussions with both devolved Governments to seek consent for this Bill, and I can confirm to the House that Motions on consent will be debated shortly in both the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Throughout these discussions, the Government have sought to ensure that devolved competencies are fully respected. That is why we have tabled amendments on Report to strengthen the role of the devolved Governments in the future implementation of the BBNJ agreement.

Clauses 9 and 11 confer powers on the Secretary of State to make regulations to implement the UK’s obligations under Parts II and III of the BBNJ agreement. Government Amendments 1, 2, 5 and 6 provide Scottish Ministers and the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs with concurrent powers to make regulations within devolved competence. In addition, Amendments 3 and 7 place a duty on the Secretary of State to consult Scotland and Northern Ireland before exercising the powers in Clauses 9 and 11 where regulations engage devolved matters. This approach will ensure that devolved Governments are engaged in advance of regulations being made and enable them to make their own provision on devolved aspects where they wish to do so, and it reflects their responsibilities while supporting timely and effective implementation of the agreement.

Government Amendments 10 and 11 ensure that Clause 23, which sets out procedures for the making of regulations under the Act, does not apply to regulations made under the new clauses introduced by government Amendments 1 and 5. Instead, the procedures for regulations set out in government Amendments 2 and 6 respectively will apply.

Finally, government Amendment 12 amends Clause 26 so that Clause 18 comes into force on such a day as the Secretary of State appoints by regulations, rather than upon Royal Assent. This change will ensure a consistent approach across the Bill with regards to the environmental impact assessment regulations that are being amended. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for going through those technicalities. These Benches welcome the effectiveness of devolution for this sort of implementation legislation, as I am sure the whole House does. The one question I have for the Minister, although she does not have power over it, is whether she has been assured by the devolved Assemblies that the correct and needed authorities will be given, so that we can keep up the momentum and participate as a party that has ratified this agreement when the first Conference of the Parties takes place?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, the Bill enables the Government to go ahead and ratify the treaty, which we signed when we were in government and we still support. We have discussed the treaty and the Bill at length in Committee, and we are pleased that the Government are continuing with this work to implement the treaty.

The amendments in this group seek to grant powers to the Scottish and Northern Ireland Ministers that are broadly equivalent to those granted to the Secretary of State under the Bill. Although the content of these amendments is not especially concerning, it feels a little late for the Government to make substantive changes to their Bill. The Bill has progressed through all stages in the House of Commons and Committee in your Lordships’ House. By making amendments at this late stage, Peers are denied the opportunity of proper scrutiny in Committee. We believe that this is happening too often. We were clear when it happened under the previous Government that it was unacceptable, and it remains so under this Government. Can the Minister please explain why the Government have waited until Report in this House to make these changes?

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. It is an extremely good amendment, and I urge the Minister to pick it up at some future date. This is such a good amendment that it should go into legislation somewhere.

In Committee, we heard at length and with real concern about the scale and persistence of plastic pollution in our oceans. Much of that discussion centred on consumable plastics and waste, but plastic pellets, flakes and powders are equally serious and often overlooked in legislation. These losses might be small in individual incidents, although some might be extremely large, but they are cumulative and, in effect, irretrievable and irreversible once they have happened.

We are looking ahead, apparently, to a global plastics treaty, which I am very excited about. That process is obviously welcome, but the urgency of the problem means that we should take every available opportunity to act now, particularly where there is already an international consensus on best practice.

What I welcome very much about this amendment is its practical focus. This would stop the plastic pellets getting into the sea in the first place instead of our trying to mop them up and recover them later which is, as I said, impossible.

I will also speak to my Amendment 9 on the exemptions in the Bill. Clause 18 seeks to strengthen confidence in how environmental impact assessments are applied. It worries me that there are so many exemptions. Again, I would very much appreciate it if the Minister took this issue up. My amendment is supported by WildFish, an organisation with extensive expertise in marine conservation, whose work highlights the importance of making sure that decisions to rely on exemptions are transparent, on a case-by-case basis, and ensure that there is an equivalence that meets Part IV of the BBNJ agreement and Article 206 of UNCLOS. This amendment would clearly set out that test. Where an appropriate authority determines that a formal environmental impact assessment is not required, that determination should rest on the existence of another assessment being in place that is equivalently robust.

The amendment would also ensure that the reasoning behind such decisions was recorded and published, with the idea to keep decisions transparent and uphold public trust. In particular, there are difficulties in relying on regional fisheries management organisations as a substitute for BBNJ-aligned environmental assessment. Although RFMOs play an important role in managing fishing effort and target stocks, their processes do not routinely deliver full assessment of cumulative impacts across sectors, of effects on food webs and non-target species, or of the full implications for migratory species that cross jurisdictional boundaries. I would be very happy to talk to the Minister in more detail about this and I hope to see it in a future Bill. I would like to have moved this amendment, but we are obviously in a hurry to complete the Bill, so I have held off, but it is incredibly important that we do not allow exemptions without understanding why they have happened and the fact that they have not been recorded properly.

As interest grows in new industries, such as open ocean aquaculture, the potential environmental impacts, ranging from disease and growth in parasites to genetic impacts from escapes and reliance on wild-caught fish, are even more important. We are seeing this in salmon farms at the moment: escaped fish covered in all sorts of rather nasty things spread to wild fish and cross-breed, which is deeply unhealthy for the wild fish. I would welcome the Minister putting on record how the Government intend to apply these equivalence criteria in practice, particularly in view of the regional fisheries management organisations. I would like reassurance that exemptions in any future legislation will be applied narrowly and cautiously; that equivalence will be actively tested and not just assumed; that reliance on regional organisations alone will not automatically justify exemption; and that future high-risk activities will be subject to BBNJ-aligned screening.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches support the intent of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I hope the Minister will have a useful reply to it.

On plastics and the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Miller, one of the things that is clear is that, even in terms of human health and the food chain, plastics discarded anywhere, let alone in the ocean, are a huge issue for the future. I have one question for the Minister. One of the tragedies of last year was that the plastics treaty was not concluded, despite expectation. It is largely thought that that was because of the lobbying of the plastics industry. Certainly, the United States has not exactly been supportive of international agreements over the past 12 months. It would be great if, despite my pessimism about the future of that treaty, there was some feeling within her department that perhaps it is not dead, as it is supposed not to be, and there is still some mileage and hope that we might be able to find a conclusion to it.

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Moved by

[Lord Teverson]

8: Clause 14, page 10, line 37, at end insert—
“(2A) In section 69 (determination of applications), after subsection (1)(c) insert—“(d) the need to ensure the human rights of those at sea in areas beyond national jurisdiction,””

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, one of the core characteristics of the Bill is, obviously, a treaty that is about actions beyond national jurisdictions. In fact, we should celebrate it even more, because I suspect it will be one of the last of these treaties that we shall enjoy and be able to make over the next few years. I think that there will not be many that follow this.

One of the areas that has been left out of the treaty, but which is important, because this is beyond national jurisdiction, is around human rights—hence the amendment. I thank the Minister and her team for the conversations that we have had recently about this area. Human rights are, by definition, universal, but they are very differently applied, in practice, terrestrially from how they are on the high seas. The reason for that is that, terrestrially, they can be enforced; those who feel that their human rights are being threatened can go to authorities, normally. Their cases and instances can be pursued, whether it be through legal processes or whatever.

Out on the high seas, that is very different indeed. There is effectively a vacuum in terms of enforcement once the national boundaries at sea have been crossed. There is also an asymmetric situation in terms of power. Whether it be crew, passengers or researchers in this instance, once they are on the high seas, they have very little power in comparison to the skipper or captain, or what the owners might instruct the skipper or captain to do. For instance, unlike on land, there is no contact by mobile telephone; you cannot get in touch with authorities to pursue your case or ask for help or get protection. None of that is necessarily available.

That is compounded by flags of convenience, which we talked about in Committee. Often, those flag states, which would be the enforcement authority for a vessel on the high seas, do not have the capacity, the interest or the ability to be communicated with to enforce those human rights on that vessel; hence why I ask that we also include human rights in the terms of the licensing requirement. I noted, going through the coastal access Act, that human health was one of the considerations, but human rights are obviously much broader than that.

So, who are the sorts of people who might be the problem? I suspect it is not the researchers on a research vessel, but you still have crew beyond that. The problem is usually because they are either indentured employees, migrants who are unable to communicate easily with the ship owners or the authority of the port where they are, being unable to communicate in the same language. There is quite wide-scale abuse, mainly in the fishing industry, but there are also instances in the cruise industry and risks in this sector as well.

That is why I feel it is important that the licensing authorities are able to check, purely in the case of licences for research beyond national jurisdiction, and that they have to consider whether the boat owner, operator and licensee are able and have the will to protect the human rights of the persons on board those vessels. I beg to move.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his amendment. Of course, we share his desire to see the rights of those who are at sea beyond national jurisdiction protected. This is an important issue and I understand why he has tabled his amendment, but I am sure that even the noble Lord will probably accept that the Bill is possibly not the right vehicle for his concerns to be addressed.

The amendment would add an additional duty on marine licensing authorities to have regard to the need to ensure that the rights of those at sea beyond national jurisdiction are protected. Obviously, I am interested to hear the Minister’s response, and I am sure she can tell us what work her department has done to understand whether this new duty would be at all workable and how licensing authorities could go about assessing the necessary information to comply with any new duty. I am sure she will also tell us whether Ministers have considered any other possible approaches to ensure protection for those at sea beyond national jurisdiction. Ultimately, given that this is an issue relating by definition to issues and activities beyond national jurisdiction, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, would consider that a multilateral approach, rather than the UK acting unilaterally on this, would probably have more luck in ensuring that his concerns are addressed.

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Although I fully recognise the importance of the issue the noble Lord has raised—both to him and to the Government—it is more appropriately addressed through dedicated domestic legislation and established international maritime and labour frameworks than it would be through the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to withdraw his amendment. However, notwithstanding that, we keep these matters under constant review. We understand completely what he is getting at, and the difficulties with visibility, with enforcement and the protection of those working on the high seas. We thank him for using this opportunity to raise this.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the greatest delight is that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness actually agreed with each other; that seemed highly unusual, having sat through the previous debate. I have brought about a coming together of the two of them—at least that is positive.

I agree absolutely with the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, that this issue should be dealt with multilaterally. That is clearly the case. However, I am a pessimist. Unfortunately, I do not think that is on the cards in the near future, in any way. This would be a way to address that, and perhaps the UK could once again show a lead to other nations and other signatories of the treaty.

However, I agree with much of what the Minister said. I hope that we can continue this conversation more productively, perhaps in other legislation, because this issue affects a significant number of people who trade, research and fish on the high seas. They need our support and our understanding that there can be some very difficult times for those people in those circumstances. However, on this occasion, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.