UK Parliament / Open data

Environment Bill

I thank noble Lords for their contributions.

Although I welcome the commitment to transparency of my noble friend Lord Lucas, Amendment 96 would effectively cause the OEP to become a data bank. This would weaken its ability to focus on its principal objective of contributing to environmental protection and to the improvement of the natural environment. The OEP cannot simply publish commercially held data, nor can it ignore the sensitivity and confidentiality of certain data which may inform policy-making and make it public. It will be subject to clear requirements set out in existing law, such as the Data Protection Act 2018, which govern access to and protection of information. I highlight that the Bill explicitly sets out that the OEP must have regard to the need to act transparently. However, there may be occasions when the OEP cannot be transparent and make information publicly available, such as during the investigation of a complaint.

The Government support making environmental data open and public where possible: for instance, through DATA.GOV.UK. Defra is also developing a new interactive dashboard to improve access to the open data used in the 25-year environment plan outcome indicator framework. Defra published an update on 11 June which I encourage any noble Lords interested in this area to view.

My noble friend questioned the discrepancy in cost between cows’ milk and oat milk. Although I cannot pretend to know the absolute details, I can remind him that the thesis of the Dasgupta review was reconciling our economy with nature, learning to value valuable things and adding costs to pollution, waste and plunder. That is not the case today, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made very clear in her speech earlier; unfortunately, the consumer often pays twice, over the counter and then through their taxes, or perhaps through a damaged environment. If products reflected the true costs of production, I suspect that the price system would be very different across most products today.

I was asked by my noble friend the Duke of Montrose to write to him about—I have to remind myself what I promised; I am now promising to write him about something and I cannot remember what it was. Yes, it was about the framework agreements that we have made with the devolved Administrations. I will take him up on that offer and I will write to him as soon as possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked whether I believed that the OEP should follow the guidelines and guidance of the chief scientific adviser. It is certainly the case that the two should be working very closely together. Whether that relationship should be formalised is a different issue—I suspect probably not. However, I would expect that relationship to be a close one.

Finally, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for his kind comments about this amendment.

So I hope I have reassured the noble Lord and I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
813 cc652-3 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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