European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-06-13
Topic: Environment
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak to my amendment (e) in lieu of Lords amendment 3. If we want world-leading environmental protections, we need a world-leading environmental watchdog. Today, we awoke to warnings that one fifth of Britain’s wild mammals, our beloved wildcats, hedgehogs and water voles, are at high risk of extinction within the next 10 years. The EU’s role in monitoring, updating and enforcing environmental law will be lost after exit day. The Environment Secretary’s proposed watchdog does not backfill those functions, and it has no teeth. It has three major gaps: an enforcement gap, a climate change gap and a citizen gap First, the watchdog has an enforcement gap, because it cannot start legal proceedings and issue fines, unlike the European Court of Justice, whose threat of fines is the only thing to have galvanised Government action on air quality. Amendment (c), tabled by the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), would give it the ability to start legal proceedings against the Government but is silent on the remedy to be applied Secondly, there is a climate change gap. The Committee on Climate Change warned that its omission from the watchdog’s remit "would be artificial and potentially create problems" The Committee on Climate Change will hold the Government to account on the Climate Change Act 2008, but there will be no enforcement of our other climate change obligations. Who monitors progress towards our legally binding targets under the EU’s renewable energy directive? What happens to our EU emissions reduction targets? Will there be a gap if we leave the EU’s emissions trading system? Amendment (c) does not address that Thirdly, there is a citizen gap, because the watchdog does not provide access to environmental justice for UK citizens, who at present can go to the European Commission when there is a breach of environmental law. They can petition their Member of the European Parliament, who can then ask the Commission to investigate, and ultimately, the European Court of Justice to issue fines. There is nothing in the Government’s proposals or amendment (c) on that, so there are three gaps I turn to the environmental principles, which have cleaned up our rivers and beaches and reduced our reliance on landfill and dirty, polluting industry over the last 40 years. Under the Bill as introduced, they would be lost after exit day. Amendment (c) puts the principles back in the Bill—although a very important one, the principle of non-regression, is missing—but the Government would only have to "have regard to" them, rather than act "in accordance with" them. That is a much less stringent legal requirement, thereby creating the legal uncertainty that the Solicitor General said at the Dispatch Box he wished to avoid. It does not mention local government and public bodies, only national Government, and it is silent on how the body’s independence from Government will be guaranteed and how it will be protected from the fate of Thomas à Becket if it is too effective, after the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government abolished the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Sustainable Development Commission in 2011. Previous Governments have form on abolishing environmental watchdogs whose criticisms of Government are a little too uncomfortable and tart. We do not want to set something up only for a future Government to shut it down.