My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendments 11 and 14 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, to which I have added my name. I thank the noble Baroness for her introduction.
In Committee, we tabled an amendment to place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to meet any interim targets. We were very disappointed that the Government did not agree that this is important if we are to make genuine progress in improving our environment. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, today that if she chooses to test the opinion of the House, she will have our support.
It has been made clear in the debate today, as it was in Committee, that we really need to make sure that the interim targets are going to be met. Amendment 14 would strengthen the EIPs to do this and link them to the targets to make them legally binding, as opposed to their current standing, which is really being nothing more than policy documents.
As I said in Committee when I provided your Lordships’ House with a number of examples of how voluntary environmental targets had been badly missed or even abandoned on a number of occasions, this really only emphasises the need to make sure that the interim targets are as legally binding as the long-term ones.
The Government have seen fit, as we know, to bring in a legally binding species abundance target for 2030, which we welcome and support. This shows that the Government do not, in principle, object to legally binding short-term targets and, indeed, accept that they can drive progress in that area. It seems very inconsistent, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, said earlier, that they are not doing it in this case. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, strongly explained, the Climate Change Act 2008 has been very successful in holding the Government to account on their interim targets. I have heard no compelling justification for why there should be this critical difference in the Environment Bill.
The Minister made the point in Committee that long-term targets provide much-needed certainty to business; the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, also mentioned business and the Aldersgate Group. The Minister said that for businesses to invest confidently they need flexibility around the interim targets but the Aldersgate Group representing business has said that that is not the case. In fact, it has been very clear that it wants other legally binding interim targets so that it can deliver the much-needed investment in nature restoration.
I acknowledge the noble Lord’s previous argument that change towards long-term goals and progress towards meeting them, does not always happen in a linear way. However, I do not accept that this is a convincing argument not to make the interim targets legally binding. Instead, it is an argument for the Government to apply some flexibility in the type of interim targets they may well be setting. We know that the Bill already gives the Secretary of State considerable discretion in setting these interim targets
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, made the point that if you get this set, it means that any early action taken is much more likely to be sustainable as well. So, if we set end goals far into the future, we need binding interim targets with monitoring and scrutiny to prevent the targets being potentially kicked into the long grass or left to the last minute.
Finally, I remind your Lordships’ House that, as I mentioned in Committee, this is not just an issue for Defra. This is important, because if we are to meet our environmental targets, other departments have to play their part. If the interim targets are not binding, why do we think that the DfT, BEIS, local government and others will be on the path to meet the long-term targets? They will have their own priorities, so they will need to be properly encouraged by legally binding targets to make the progress we need.
This amendment would hugely strengthen the Environment Bill and its outcomes. I urge the Minister to review his previous position and support it.