Both my hon. Friend and the WWF are right that we need to see bolder action on forests and the oceans. It is a shocking indictment of this Bill that there is barely a mention of the oceans, which is a really important part of our environment.
Ministers must act in a quicker and more decisive way on the environment than we have seen to date. I hoped that the delay in the Bill would have given Ministers that time to be bolder, but I am afraid that they have not used their time as wisely as I would have liked. I welcome the steps forward that the Minister has announced, but they are not enough. The pace and urgency seem to be absent. Our rivers are polluted. There is not a single river in England safe to swim in. More species face extinction at home and abroad; more bees are dying from bee-killing pesticides, the use of which is legitimised by this Government; more plastics are entering our oceans; and dangerous particulates are entering the lungs of some of our most vulnerable. Where is the vision? Where is the landmark boldness that we were promised? Where is the rock-the-boat carbon cutting innovation? Where is the determination to push harder and harder to clean our air, protect our species, plant more trees and get us back on a course for nature recovery? Where is the World Health Organisation’s air quality targets in the Bill? Where is the boldness on ocean protection? We need that bold action not only to cut carbon, but to step up and protect our natural environment as well. If we have this approach that we can either solve a carbon crisis or an ecological crisis, we will solve neither. We need to solve both of them together, or neither of them at all.