European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-07
Topic: Environment
Catherine Bakewell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I support Amendment 66, to which I have added my name; Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Judd; and Amendment 67A in the name of my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. These amendments are key to ensuring that the protection of our environmental heritage is enshrined in law in the Bill. This group of amendments is crux to the environmental agenda and must be included in the Bill. I fully support the thorough introduction to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and I am grateful to Rescue, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, the Environmental Policy Forum and Greener UK for their briefings As we all know, on 29 March 2019 key pieces of legislation such as the environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental directives will be transposed into domestic law, with the aim that planning policy will continue to function as currently. However, the Bill does not directly reference some important overarching principles established in the EU treaty, potentially weakening environmental protections which underpin planning-led archaeology. This process is difficult—not least because of the perceived weakness in the Bill, which may prevent its stated ambition of ensuring a smooth transition and avoiding a black hole in the statute book on the day of the UK’s exit next year For the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and the Council for British Archaeology, the key issues are: the de facto weakening of environmental principles enshrined in the European treaty, which are not within the scope of the Bill as proposed; the loss of supranational jurisdiction to provide opportunities to bring legal challenges on environmental principles; the uncertainty over how the Government will use so-called Henry VIII powers to amend technical aspects of EU law when transposed, to ensure that they remain workable in a domestic context; and the uncertainty over how previously held EU powers—brought back to the UK after Brexit—will be reserved to devolve to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales In February, during the recess, I went to Cyprus for a holiday. During the week, my husband and I visited the marvellous and numerous archaeological remains on the island, including Aphrodite’s Temple, Aphrodite’s Rock, the Tombs of the Kings and the main archaeological site in Paphos. The Cypriot Government have spent considerable sums of money over many years excavating these sites and preserving the wonderful mosaics uncovered and other historical artefacts. I was struck by the number of non-Cypriot archaeologists who had funded and worked on the sites over the decades to bring the history to life for future generations. Many of these came from the UK To be clear on how important archaeological heritage is, we must turn to the survey of adults in England called Taking Part Focus On: Heritage. This was a DCMS survey of 2017 demonstrating both the cultural and economic value that heritage provides to our society and community. Some 74.2% of adults visited a heritage site in 2016-17, with a remarkable 94.2% of adults agreeing that it is important to them that, "heritage buildings or places are well looked after" Another report, Heritage and the Economy 2017, by Historic England—again reporting English statistics—shows that, "heritage directly contributed £11.9 billion in GVA", equivalent to 2% of our national GVA, and that: "Heritage tourism generated £16.4 billion in spending by domestic and international visitors" The Welsh equivalent showed that it contributed 1.6% of GVA and Scotland’s Historic Environment Audit 2016 showed that heritage contributed, "in excess of £2.3 billion to Scotland’s economy".