Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-07-07
Topic: Public Lands
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank everyone who has contributed to what has been a very wide-ranging and excellent debate. I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, made an excellent argument about the need for local authorities to act in accordance with their local nature recovery strategy so that it becomes centre stage. As she says, it is not sufficient for them to simply "have regard to" that strategy. I listened to what the Minister said in response. He will forgive our ongoing scepticism about "have regard to" but, quite frankly, in the past it has been an excuse for inaction. That is our concern about the way that it is worded at the moment. We still feel that there needs to be something more specific that ties down that relationship for the future The noble Baroness quite rightly points out that iconic nature reserves such as Knepp would be protected under the terms of her amendment, and I agree with that. That theme was echoed by a number of noble Lords. Again, we have to look at the practical applications of some of these phrases to see what can be achieved by them. I think the noble Lord said that Knepp is just one example, and we seem to have been talking an awful lot about it, but the truth is—and I think the Minister said this—we want a lot of Knepps, particularly on land which is not suitable for high-productive farming. Let us not just concentrate on the one. We want a strategy that will deliver for all the potential Knepps in the future and they all need to have the protection of their local nature recovery strategy to help with that I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that local government is under enormous pressure at the moment and needs the resources to carry out its responsibility properly. Again, the Minister said that these initiatives would be properly resourced. I have to say that that has not been our experience up until now. It has been all too tempting in the past for more and more policies to be put on the shoulders of local government without it having the necessary resources to carry out new responsibilities, which it would like to do properly but just does not have the resources. I think there is still a dichotomy there The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made the excellent point about the diversity of representation on the boards and the need for agencies to collaborate in delivering the strategy. I thought that point was well made. He also mentioned the Cuckmere estuary. As he probably knows, the Seven Sisters site is about—I think this week—to be signed over to the South Downs National Park, which will include the Cuckmere estate. I hope very much that, if there have been failures in the past, under the new regime it will become an exemplar of nature recovery and biodiversity as a new and exciting country park The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, with his customary authority, set out why it is crucial that local nature recovery strategies should be drawn up with the local nature recovery networks. He quite rightly probed the Minister on whether we can justify the partnerships and the networks. Are we clear what they are there for and the contribution that they will really make and, again, are we sure that they will have proper resourcing? I think those questions were well put The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, quite rightly points us to the work of the Nature Friendly Farming Network —again, I have had some dealings with it and have been impressed with the work it is doing—and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. He is right that Natural England should work with these initiatives I very much welcome Amendment 293 in the name of my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone. This is a hugely important amendment. As she says, we need a framework to manage the multiple pressures on land. She listed all the Government’s initiatives which pile up on top of what is a very scarce and precious resource. As she says, it could end up with random and incoherent priorities sitting side by side. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, said that all these pressures on our green and pleasant land are more than we can really deliver and, at some point, someone is going to have to make some strategic choices about all of this I listened to the Minister’s response to this, and he seemed to welcome what my noble friend was saying in her amendment. However, it needs more than warm words: it needs a commitment for that strategy to be laid down, the timescales to be met and Parliament to have a say in it—so it is quite a big ask if we are going to do it properly. I do not know my noble friend’s plan for the amendment, but there was a lot of support for it around the Chamber, so I hope that she will consider pursuing that in some way I listened carefully to what the Minister said in answer to my question about planning and the battle between biodiversity and planners. I am not sure that he answered my question on how a developer’s green footprint will be assessed under the new regime. I understand that he is discussing this further with the Housing Minister, and, obviously, that is a welcome step, but we need to clarify this important point in the Bill now—so I hope that his discussions can come to fruition very quickly I will quote again from the Environmental Audit Committee because I am not sure that the Minister responded to it. It recommended that: "The Government should explain how and when it will move to embedding environmental net gain in the planning system, with clear actions and milestones" It also recommended that: "The Government should strengthen local authority capacity and enforcement mechanisms to deliver biodiversity net gain" Those structural things—clear actions, clear milestones and how these things will be measured—are missing from what the Minister is saying at the moment We are left with a concern that has not been answered —he will know that it has been raised not just here but elsewhere—and we need an answer to this, somehow. We need to bring this to fruition in some shape or form. Obviously, we will not do that this evening. I welcome further discussions on this with the Minister, as I am sure other noble Lords will, but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.