My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 7 at the end of July, before the Government’s Amendment 6 was tabled and was public knowledge, because I think species abundance really matters. I am one of those, perhaps because I am a countryman, who gets worried about the state of our biodiversity. I worry that the CBD and COP 15 are almost never heard of in the press and in public, compared with COP 26—because COP 15 matters as much, if not more, to the future of our planet as COP 26 on climate change, although I realise completely that they are inextricably linked. In many ways, I am very glad that COP 15 has now been delayed until next spring, because the extra time might enable us to get better commitments from the rest of the world. To my way of thinking, government Amendment 6 is as good a way as any of throwing down the gauntlet to the rest of the world: “Copy that”, we are saying. Hopefully, with the extra time now available before COP 15 meets, it might encourage some countries to respond in similar vein. I am always eternally optimistic.
I give the Government credit, first, for introducing Clause 3 in Committee and now for giving it the greater commitment of Amendment 6. I realise that, in government terms, setting a target of this nature is quite a bold step. After all, 2030 is not so far off and, in spite of all the new habitats we hope to create before 2030, from ELMS, net gain, conservation covenants, local nature recovery strategies, et cetera, no one can really predict how nature will respond to these incentives and whether we will get our habitat creation exactly right first time. I suspect not, but it is great that the Government have given it such a priority and, as I say, challenged the rest of the world to follow their example. So I thank the Minister, whose personal hand I detect here, and the Defra team involved.
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However, rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in the long run I still believe that merely halting the decline in species abundance is not going to be good enough for our generation—although, like her, I probably mean the next generation, actually. We are starting at a very low level—an appallingly low level—and we need to not only flatten the curve but eventually bend it into a proper recovery. We really need to put right and actually amend the damage we have done in our lifetime. We must start to restore, not just patch up, the fabric of our environment.
So, having set this ambitious target now, through Amendment 6, I hope that at some time in the future the Government might wish to extend the timetable from 2030 to, say, 2040, and, within that time, aim for a proper reversal of the decline of species that our generation has been responsible for: in other words, not just halting the drop but actually growing the abundance and distribution of species in our country, as our Amendment 7 suggests. I believe we owe it to our grandchildren.