Environment Bill — House of Lords, 2021-06-28
Topic: Environment
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and to thank her for putting that important case study on our record. I rise to speak chiefly to Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, to which I have also attached my name, as have the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Young of Old Scone Before I get to it, my noble friend Lady Jones has already covered the amendments opening this group and they have been powerfully supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, but I want to briefly address Amendments 77A, 79 and 80A, because those three amendments—as we have just heard very powerfully, in the case of 77A from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh—are about the need for the OEP to have teeth. Her important change does that, and this is something I suspect we will be discussing for a good part of the rest of the day. To the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, I say that of course Wales needs equal protection from the environmental principles that are applied in England. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, clearly identified a really important issue. I would like to offer support to all of those I will come specifically to Amendment 78. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, did a great job of introducing this. We are talking a great deal about security at the moment and I want to focus on two elements of this amendment, addressing the Armed Forces and defence policy, and also a little bit on the Treasury—as others have already. When we heard the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, read out the letter from the Minister in the other place, it seemed that we have that great catch-out, security: "Oh, it’s security—we can’t question any of that." Well, I point noble Lords to the recent integrated review and its foreword, written by the Prime Minister, which says: "In 2021 and beyond, Her Majesty’s Government will make tackling climate change and biodiversity loss its number one international priority." It further points out that "the UN Security Council recently held its first ever high-level meeting on the impact of climate change on peace and security." So we should not be saying, "Here’s security and here’s the environment and security’s going to overrule the environment". We are talking about the same thing here. The Government say that they grasp this, but I think it is very clear from the wording that they do not. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, referred to the fact that the MoD has so many SSSI sites. That is really not surprising, when the MoD controls nearly 2% of the UK. Looking at what that is, 82% is training areas and firing ranges, which we might think are natural sources of biodiversity and natural spaces where there is a great deal of nature—and similarly with the 4% that is airfields It is useful to note that the Armed Forces themselves regard this as really important. Noble Lords might be aware of the sanctuary awards, which are awarded every year within the defence sector, aiming to showcase sustainability efforts across defence. Last year, the silver otter trophy went to the Chicksands historic walled garden project, which brings us back to an earlier debate about heritage being included in "nature". I also note that the sustainable business award was won by the Portsmouth naval base’s Princess Royal Jetty and Victory Jetty project, which aimed to create sustainable moorings in Portsmouth. It would be well if we saw the same thing happening in Oman, where we built a large new military base without any environmental assessment at all. None the less, we are doing this here in the UK. It is really important that we get the Government to see that security and the environment are not in opposition to each other but joined up On that point, I apologise to noble Lords because I will mention something that I have mentioned many times before. When we come to the Treasury not being covered by the Bill, let us look at New Zealand: the New Zealand Treasury puts at its absolute heart a living standards framework informed by the sustainable development goals, putting the environment, economy and security together. If the Government want to be world-leading, we need all aspects of their activities, and particularly the Treasury’s activities, covered by the Bill.