My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and all noble Lords who have spoken so passionately and eloquently in this debate. I have added my name to Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall. As other noble Lords have said, he made such a compelling case that we do not need to repeat all his arguments. I will comment also on Amendments 25 and 202, standing in my name.
As I said at Second Reading, what set out to be a landmark Bill two years ago now seems to be behind the curve in content and ambition. Nowhere is this more obvious than in this debate. The truth is that the Government are running to catch up on this issue—and they still have some way to go.
Noble Lords have given a number of stark examples of the crisis we face in biodiversity decline. Reference has been made to the RSPB report, which describes a lost decade in the UK in which 41% of our species are declining and 10% are threatened with extinction. They include red squirrels—a particular passion of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh—water voles, ghost orchids and meadow clary. A third of wild bees and hoverflies have now been lost. A total of 97% of our wildflower meadows have gone since the 1930s. This crisis is caused by agricultural practices, pollution, urbanisation, habitat loss and climate change. It needs action now.
At the same time, globally, WWF’s Living Planet Report shows that we are losing forests and habitats at an alarming rate, with a species decline of 68%. The UK is adding to this problem through its huge consumer appetite for commodities, which is adding to global deforestation.
Meanwhile, despite all previous government commitments and targets, biodiversity decline has deteriorated further. As has been said, the Government have missed 17 out of the 20 agreed UN biodiversity targets. The Government’s progress report on the 25-year environment plan shows an alarming number of downward arrows for issues such as species abundance and the distribution of priority species. These are important for conserving biodiversity. It seems that all the trends are going in the wrong direction. Something has to change, and it has to change now.
So we are debating today the government amendment on their species abundance target. Of course, we begin by welcoming the target date of 31 December 2030. But, beyond that, it leaves much to be desired.
I will follow up on the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, at Second Reading, and which he raised again today. He asked for a definition of “species abundance”, which the Government now seem to favour. He and other noble Lords have raised this issue. I share that query, so can the Minister give a precise reason why this phrase was used? Will there be a clear definition of what it means in regulations or guidance? By what means can we be assured that proper metrics will be produced and that there will be proper measurement? Can you measure a phrase such as “species abundance”?
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Furthermore, I hope the Minister, when he reflects on the wording of his amendment, can see how inadequate it really is, because I know he wants to do something about this decline. But what exactly does it mean to “further” the objective of halting the decline in abundance of species? How will “furthering” ever be measured? Will it be another hollow target with no substance to back it up? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that the Minister needs to toughen up these proposals, or live to regret it in the longer term.
So I hope the Minister can see the sense of our simple amendment to change the current intention of creating targets that
“further the objective of halting a decline”
to simply spell out that the Government will set targets that will “meet” the objective. It is a simple ask, but it is much clearer about its intent.
It is not enough to halt the decline when we know that the damage that has been done already to our environment. This is why we have tabled Amendment 25 to the Government’s amendment, which would halt and then reverse the decline in species abundance. As the noble Lord, Lord Randall, said, conservationists and all sorts of scientific experts are absolutely confident that a combination of reducing pressures on biodiversity and positive action on species recovery can indeed bend that curve so it goes upwards again. I agree very much with the point the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, made, which was that it is not just about setting the national targets; we can do so much locality by locality, habitat by habitat. Indeed, the ELMS programme has much to deliver on a local level. So we believe that this should be the ambition and intent of the Government, and that it would be hugely popular if it was carried through, as demonstrated by the enormous number of names now added to the public petition on this matter.
I also refer noble Lords to our Amendment 202, which sets out in detail a new “state of nature” clause. This encapsulates the ambition we ought to expect in a Bill of this importance—to bring our neglected landscapes and wildlife back to life. The amendment would set the deadline of 2030 to halt and then begin to reverse the loss of biodiversity. It requires the target to be set before Parliament within six months of the Bill being passed. It requires interim targets to be set. It covers the inclusion of both terrestrial and marine wildlife, and it flags the much-needed need to restore habitats. I thank my noble friend Lady Young for her support on this, and particularly for the birdsong in the background of her contribution. It gave all of us a bit of a lift in this rather dowdy environment. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for adding her support, particularly for that amendment.
While the noble Baroness was talking, she did also mention the problems of the Knepp estate. I do not know whether the Minister feels able to, but it would be really helpful if he would put something on record about these problems—which I know he will know about—of the proposed housing development, because that is a very precious site. If we cannot act to protect biodiverse environments such as that, what are we able to do? I hope the Minister can give some reassurance on this.
Our amendment is a much more ambitious programme than the one we have before us from the Government. It is hugely frustrating, given the number of recent government pledges which have been made but do not seem to be reflected here. Noble Lords have documented a number of them. For example, the Government have tabled their amendments since they have published their response to the Dasgupta report. That response says that the Government are committed to a “nature positive future”. Will the Minister say what that means, if it does not mean reversing the decline in biodiversity?
The response also says that the Bill will be amended to ensure that new national infrastructure projects will provide net gains for nature. This has now been tabled as Amendment 201A, and that is welcome too—but that amendment, too, has some limitations, which we will discuss when we get to that part of the Bill. Given this small flurry of recent amendments, I suggest to the Minister that it might have made more sense to consult on the wording—to consult stakeholders, perhaps, and even some of your Lordships, before these amendments were tabled, to ensure that they were fit for purpose and likely to have broad support.
The Government have also agreed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, as part of the G7 nature compact. Again, a number of noble Lords have referred to that. It seems odd that they are prepared to make all these statements in public, but are not prepared to follow them up in terms of the legislative programme. We are therefore interested to know where these commitments will land, if not in this Bill. How will they be reflected, in the Bill or elsewhere? Perhaps the Minister can clarify how all those commitments will be taken forward.
Obviously, if we do not take this opportunity to tie down those commitments through this Bill, our reputation will, as noble Lords have said, take some hammering at COP 15 and COP 26. The discrepancies will become all too apparent to the developing nations and other nations that we are hoping to impress. So I hope that the Minister will join the dots between the public declarations and what is in the Bill, and explain how the two fit together.
I said at the outset that the Government were running to catch up with the global pledges on environmental action, and with the expectation that those will have the targets and resources to match. I hope that the Minister has heard the frustration—and the unity, across the Chamber, about the fact that we need to be more ambitious. This is an issue that will not go away. I hope that if he is concerned to reverse the decline, but is anxious about how that can be done, he will meet us to discuss it. We have the evidence, and we have the people who can come forward and show how it can be done, to give him some confidence that we can meet those targets, put reversing biodiversity decline on the legislative programme, and make it happen. I hope that he will feel able to respond to those points.