European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-06-18
Topic: Environment
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the issue of environmental protections spanned several hours of debate in our House, both in Committee and on Report. Indeed, an amendment was made to the Bill, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. The Government considered the noble Lord’s amendment but decided instead to give our backing to an alternative amendment put forward by my right honourable friend Sir Oliver Letwin. That amendment provides further reassurance to Parliament of the Government’s intentions to uphold environmental protections after exit and sets out in legislation that the Government will publish a draft Bill no later than six months after Royal Assent to this Bill. It delivers robust protections. In particular, it acknowledges that there may be circumstances where the new independent environmental body should be able to take the Government to court, which I know was a desire of many noble Lords. This power will be proportionate and appropriate and will supplement established processes, including of course parliamentary scrutiny The amendment also requires that the draft Bill include a list of the environmental principles, such as the "loser pays" principle and the precautionary principle within it. The draft Bill and the forthcoming policy statement will provide further the details of how these environmental principles will be interpreted and how they will apply. These proposals will ensure that the primary focus of the principles will be the formation of policy at a national level As we made clear in our consultation document and in last week’s Commons debates, the amendment applies only to England and to reserved matters. The draft Bill itself will similarly apply only to England and to reserved matters. That means that neither the amendment nor the draft Bill that will flow from it will trigger the legislative consent process. I understand that the Welsh Government do not share our view, and it is of course open to them to put forward a legislative consent Motion in the Assembly. That is clearly a matter for the Assembly and it would not change the UK Government’s view The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has tabled a further amendment on this subject for consideration today. I fear that the Government are unable to accept it as we do not believe it is appropriate to use this Bill fully to design the policy for the creation of the new independent statutory body and the new statutory policy statement. We have already supported an amendment in the other place to ensure that there is a statutory commitment for government to set this body up. We are consulting stakeholders and will bring forward policy proposals and a draft Bill in due course. Deciding further detail on the body through the amendment would undermine that very consultation process The UK has a long history of environmental protection, and we will safeguard and improve on this record as we leave the European Union. This commitment underpins our 25-year environment plan and the Government’s pledge to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. Leaving the EU means that we now have a unique opportunity to design a set of policies that drive environmental improvement with a powerful and permanent impact tailored purely to the needs of our country I hope that noble Lords will accept the amendment sent to us from the other place and recognise that it underpins our pledge to use the opportunity that Brexit provides to strengthen and enhance our environmental protections, not to weaken them. We continue to welcome consultees’ views as part of the ongoing consultation on environmental principles and governance. I therefore urge noble Lords to accept the government amendment and beg to move Motion B1 (as an amendment to Motion B)