I am pleased to hear that, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Let me also say a quick word about James Brokenshire and Sir David Amess. First, their families can be assured of my ongoing prayers for them in the months ahead.
We talk about the importance of disagreeing well. Sometimes we think that means that we have to agree and be all mushy and all think the same things. The great thing about Sir David and James is that they held really firm convictions but were able to hold them with grace and kindness. There is a little lesson for all of us in that. In that spirit, I thank the Minister for her engagement on this Bill and how open and accessible she has been. It has been a lengthy affair, but that applies very recently as well, and I thank her for it.
I will quickly rattle through three bits of the Bill: first, the World Health Organisation target set out in Lords amendment 3. As we head out on this new adventure outside the European Union, the aim should be to have higher standards, or at least standards as high as those that we set as members of that union, but it looks as though we are going for those that are lower, and that is very regrettable.
We have already heard about the enormous health impact of poor air quality, and it is not just in big cities. In Kendal—in my community and on the edge of the Lake District—Lowther Street has been rated as one of the 200 most polluted streets in the United Kingdom. It is everywhere that this issue matters. We know the impact on asthma, on lung function and on people being hospitalised for cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. Sadly, we heard accurately about the appalling impact and the loss of life, particularly of Ella, but also of thousands of others each year. I do not see why the Government, much as I respect what the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) said, would set themselves unambitious targets that they could achieve when they could set harder targets that would be more of a challenge. The Government should not be disagreeing with Lords amendment 3.
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I also want to speak to the Government motion to disagree with Lords amendment 28. That amendment was put forward in the other place by my noble Friend Baroness Parminter. I will not support the Government motion, because it is bizarre that Defence and Treasury Ministers are effectively exempt from having to have due regard to environmental principles while making policies. When the Government scrapped the Department of Energy and Climate Change, many of us thought that was an inexcusable move, but the weak excuse that the Government used was, “All Departments should have due regard for the environment and climate change, not just one, that is why we are getting rid of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.” If that is the case, why are the Government exempting two of the most important Departments?
Perhaps the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury are the Departments that will find it hardest to take into account environmental policies in their decision making, but that is all the more reason to force them to do it. We cannot say that climate change is an existential threat on the one hand and on the other give major Departments a cop-out.
Moving on, Lords amendments 31 and 33 relate to the office for environmental protection. Here we have a new regulator clearly and demonstrably weaker and less independent than the one that it is to replace. That is obviously a backward step, and there is no denying it. However much the Government may have improved
things from a weaker position to start off with, we are nowhere near what we have let go. We have an office for environmental protection that is too weak to enforce and too compromised to be trusted. The courts will be limited, as we know, in the sanctions they impose. The work of the office for environmental protection can be directed by Government, as we have been hearing, which is a case of the Government deciding whether the regulator can mark its homework. Clause 24 of the Bill gives DEFRA the power to issue guidance to the OEP on how it should enforce environmental law against DEFRA and other public bodies. It is clear that that is not full independence as promised. It is a step back from the situation we currently have.
My final point is that it is odd to say the least—very peculiar—that the office for environmental protection, in seeking to enforce environmental standards in this country, will not have power to assess the impact on the United Kingdom’s environmental standards of trade deals with other countries. Deals that permit imports produced with lower environmental and animal welfare standards will undercut and ruin British farmers and will lead to lower standards here, too.
This is a long overdue Bill, yet within it, there are so many things that are left to be desired. This is such an important set of issues that to come here with a Bill that leaves us with standards lower and less well enforced than we had beforehand, with a regulator less independent than the one we had before, is clearly a backward step.