Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-28
Topic: Environment
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted to support and speak to the amendments in this group. As we are considering in detail a number of amendments relating to both the independence of the OEP and its budget, resources and staffing, I will keep my comments on this group limited to parliamentary oversight and scrutiny The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and I served together on the EU Environment Sub-Committee, and I think he is the sole survivor of that committee to now be on the Environment and Climate Change Committee. He carries the candle for us all in that regard. I am grateful to him for tabling these amendments and agree entirely that we were promised oversight as near as possible equivalent to and as effective as that which pertained through our membership of the European Union, and that my right honourable friend Michael Gove, in the other place, said that it would be inappropriate for Defra to be in charge in the way that, it has now become apparent, it will be On balance, I prefer the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, which would ensure that appointments would not be made without the consent of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee. On a number of occasions during my tenure as chair of the EFRA Committee, we conducted pre-appointment hearings. I do not know whether there was a pre-appointment hearing in this case, but we know that Dame Glenys Stacey is now in place. My first question to my noble friend is: was there such a pre-appointment hearing? Was it carried out by one, the other or both of those committees? I think I am right in saying that Amendment 85 breaks new ground in suggesting that the other non-executive members of the OEP would also face a pre-appointment hearing. I do not know whether that has ever happened before The reason why the amendments are so welcome, particularly Amendment 85, is that it gives us the opportunity to ask my noble friend to set out precisely what the parliamentary oversight of the OEP will be. I argue very forcefully not just for a pre-appointment hearing by the two committees in the other place but for opportunities to have the chair of the OEP, Dame Glenys Stacey, in annually for a full review of its work It is important to ask my noble friend one last question. When we were preparing the report to which I referred earlier, Beyond Brexit: Food, Environment, Energy and Health, the Secretary of State told the EU sub-committee—he is quoted at paragraph 162 of the report—the following: "It is important to note that the chair of the OEP, Dame Glenys Stacey, has already been appointed and is in post … It is already able to receive complaints. Until it has its full legal powers, there is a limit to what it can do to act on those complaints. If the European Union wanted to have dialogue with the OEP for the purposes of that part of the agreement, which really is only about cooperating and sharing, there would be nothing to prevent that from happening in this early stage." I would go further and press my noble friend to ensure that there is an obligation, particularly in the early stages while the OEP is being set up and finding its feet, to have regular contacts with the European Commission to find out its exact approach. It may take a different view, but it would be helpful to have at least some background in this regard. It is my certain understanding that Environmental Standards Scotland has already had such contact. It would be highly regressive and retrograde if the OEP, representing England, did not replicate that I am also concerned—I hope my noble friend will put my mind at rest—that it should not be in any shape or form admissible or possible for the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to lean on the independent chair of the OEP and suggest that she not take up a complaint, were she minded to do so. According to my current understanding of the OEP’s composition and independence, the situation in that regard is by no means certain. I commend these amendments, and in particular I have great sympathy with Amendment 85.