My Lords, Amendment 12B would make interim targets statutory. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her support. I add my support to the request of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, to the Minister to respond with a date for including soils.
I thank the Minister—as others have already done—for talking to me about this amendment on interim targets and for explaining the Government’s position. The Government feel that there is a need for flexibility in interim targets and are concerned that the short-term focus that a five-year statutory target would impose could inhibit the long-term action which is so needed for nature.
This amendment precisely covers these points of concern about flexibility and lack of action now for the long term. Nature and the environment need urgent action now for benefits which will come in 10, 20, 30 or more years’ time. There is a real challenge with funding actions now for future, long-term benefit, when funding is tight and where there are competing, more immediate priorities with short-term outcomes. It is always hard to argue for those future benefits. It is always easy to think that we could delay action for just one more year, especially when interim targets can be revised or replaced at every annual review of the environmental improvement plan. It is just too easy to discount the future.
I congratulate the Government, as others have done, on the world’s first comprehensive net zero strategy. It is a great example of climate change action at work and of the value of statutory, independently set five-year targets.
If the Minister will be patient with me, I should like to ask him a series of questions. First, is he able to provide assurance that funding will be committed to the delivery of the interim targets in this Bill?
Clause 11 sets out the conduct of the reviews of environmental improvement plans. Clause 11(1)(c) requires the Government to assess whether they should take further or different steps to improve the natural environment. Can the Minister confirm that this assessment of steps will include whether the legislative framework itself should be improved; for example, whether statutory interim targets would be helpful? Can he tell us when and how Parliament will have the opportunity to scrutinise the interim targets the Government will bring forward, and when and how Parliament will be involved in scrutinising the proposed long-term targets before the laying of the statutory instruments in October 2022, given how important these are to the Government’s overall environmental strategy? I recognise that this is quite a shopping list of requests, so if the Minister is unable to respond to them now, I would be grateful if he would write to me with the answers.
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