UK Parliament / Open data

Environment Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Deben (Conservative) in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 15 September 2021. It occurred during Debate on bills on Environment Bill.

My Lords, I merely wish to say that I am very worried about this proposal. It seems not to deal with the real issue and to ask Defra to do what it cannot do. What we really need—we know we need it—is a department of land use that takes over the planning, housing and other responsibilities of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. There is no way forward until we begin to realise that this is what we need. To ask Defra, which has only a bit of all this, to do this seems to be a mistake. I fear it will end up with a document, if that is what it is, that will have little influence and will not be able to do the job. It will mean that Defra will not be doing the detailed work it is capable of doing.

I know why the noble Baroness has put this forward and have sympathy with what she is trying to do. It just seems to me that this is not a suitable answer. We have to go for a much bigger issue, which is that in this country we do not have an integrated way of looking at land. The noble Baroness referred to the Climate Change Committee. In our view, that was the way we had to look: in a much more general way than this amendment provides. I am unhappy about it and will not find it possible to support it.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
814 c1449 
Session
2021-22
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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