A Tudor-style power grab puts environment in peril
THE ENVIRONMENT Bill has been introduced because of Brexit. There are a million reasons why people voted for Brexit. For some, it was because of a lack of affordable housing, because the UK was unable to make its own laws, or because Brexit would solve their concerns about low wages.
Nobody, however, voted for Brexit because they wanted fewer environmental protections, yet I am sad to say that that is exactly what the Bill, as it stands, represents.
Until the end of this year, 70 per cent of the UK’s environmental protections will come from the union with Europe, which has provided increasingly high environmental standards for 45 years.
The Bill represents the majority of the Government’s efforts to import those protections from Europe into UK law, and it replaces wide-ranging protections with four simple domestic targets — water, air, biodiversity and waste — with a minimum of one target required to be set in each.
The media are reporting that the Treasury is pushing for a maximum of one target in each area outlined in the Bill, so it seems that we are moving from a whole network of protections to just four.
That is a poor trade for our natural environment. I am sorry to say that it is an indication of how the Government interpret their greater environmental obligations after we leave the EU and make our way in the world. The direction we seem to be heading in is backwards.
To prevent that backsliding, the Government must include in the Bill a commitment to the non-regression of environmental standards. I expect that everyone agrees that regression from environmental protections is poor and that standards should not be reneged upon, watered down or discarded.
If we were to let that happen it would have real implications not just for UK wildlife, but our own constituents — the water they drink and the air they breathe.
There is nothing more fundamental than keeping our constituents from harm. Of the four areas set out in the Bill, only one has any details and that is air quality, which is incredibly important. I have one of the worst areas for air quality in the UK.
If the Bill is to have any meaningful impact on the quality of our air, it should include a legally binding commitment to meet WHO levels on fine particulate matter pollution by 2030 at the very latest. Even that will come at the expense of many of my constituents’ lives.
The Bills lacks coherence and fails to establish a link between the currently lacking target it sets out and the improvement plans the Government should be carrying out. Let us not forget that this is the Government who had to be taken to court three times over their lack of action on air quality.
Another area not covered is beaches. Let us not forget that the UK was one of the slowest countries in the EU to clean up its beaches. We were still pumping raw sewage into the sea 20 years ago. Improvements to the quality of our natural water have come about as a result of the EU water framework and bathing water directives. How can we now, in the Bill’s 233 pages, not include any targets for beaches?
If it is likely that we are just going to get one target, will it be for rivers, waterborne pollution, chemicals or ecological status? We do not know. How can we just have a single water target? We need to ensure that we transpose the protections we have in EU law into UK law.
I want to finish by talking about Ministerial powers. In the previous Parliament, we talked a lot about Henry
VIII’s powers. We seem to be returning to Tudor times once more. The Bill confers sweeping powers to enact huge sections of the Bill on the say-so of the Secretary of State.
What happens — we know political shifts happen very rapidly these days — if a future authoritarian Government finds themselves in power and they want to make sweeping changes to the level of environmental protection?
The Bill affords them power over what the targets should be and who enforces them. I am sure that such a prospect makes us all nervous. If multiple targets are set in each area, and if links between targets and improvement plans strengthened, the Bill could mark the beginning of a framework that provides real environmental protection.
However, with its current powers and levels of discretion, it could be used for a catastrophic reduction in protections, leading to poor air quality, polluted waterways, declining biodiversity, exposure to chemical pollution, and a dereliction of our green and pleasant land.
It is entirely down to whoever happens to be Secretary of State on any given day to protect them. The Bill gives too much power to an already over-powerful Executive, and must be amended so that Parliament can have democratic oversight, and so that stringent environmental standards are set.
The Bill gives too much power to an already over-powerful Executive, and must be amended so that Parliament can have democratic oversight, and so that stringent environmental standards are set.