My Lords, following on from the excellent questions from my colleagues in the Room, I want to ask the Minister for a little more
clarification on the point mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, about review. Like my colleagues, I am not opposed to these regulations, but we need to make sure that they work.
The Minister referred to a general review of the environmental permitting regulations in 2019. Is he prepared at this stage to say a little more about what the purpose of that general review at that time is? I think it is quite important, given that there has been a lot of discussion over recent years about cutting back on red tape, that we see not only what the purpose of that is but how reviewing these regulations fits into that.
As a supplementary to that, the Minister mentioned that, in the mean time, before that 2019 review takes place, these regulations will be kept under review. I wonder if he would be prepared to say what exactly that review’s form will be—what monitoring would be undertaken, and what resources would be available—given that, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, there have been some issues relating to funding for both the Environment Agency and Defra in recent years. So the Liberal Democrats are not unhappy with this approach, but it is a new approach and it needs to be reviewed—and we need the resources to ensure that that will happen.
4.15 pm