My Lords, Amendment 126 is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who sadly cannot be with us this afternoon, the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. We will touch on some of the issues in Clause 15, although this new clause is to go after it. I make no apology for that because when we talk about this Bill, as my noble friend Lord Fox so rightly said when we last debated the environmental impacts, Defra is the largest shareholder. The wide-ranging powers of the Minister to revoke or repeal environmental legislation will have a massive impact on the 1,781 pieces of legislation—probably more by the end of this month, because the dashboard will have been updated—that are under Defra’s auspices.
We obviously debated at some length in previous sessions the wide-ranging powers in the regulatory burdens which are the overriding framework for Ministers when they are considering how they take forward those powers, but one issue has not been discussed very much, if at all, so far in the context of those regulatory burdens which have particular relevance to the environment. It is the requirement that those regulatory burdens do not allow for any taxation to be increased. As the Government will know, the Dasgupta report, which they commissioned, made it clear that, as it stands, the economic benefits which the environment brings to this country are not adequately reflected in the economic models that we have. The full externalities need to be built in to our economic models and the Government need to take them very seriously.
To their credit, when it comes to environmental taxation, this Government have made through secondary legislation, which is what we are talking about, several new taxes. Those are working extremely well, delivering for both the environment and the Exchequer. The first of those, which was delivered under the coalition Government, was of course the popular levy on plastic bags, which delivers for the environment and to which the general public seem to have taken extremely well. It is delivering incredibly well but, as I say, that was made through secondary legislation.
Recently, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and I, along with others, discussed an SI which was about the new and extended producer responsibilities. It was about having levies on producers to tackle some of the major problems of waste that we have in our country. Again, businesses are comfortable with those taxes, which will raise revenue that can then be spent on communicating with the general public about the wider impacts on the environment. By secondary legislation, this Government have already accepted that environmental taxes can have a valuable role to play, yet by saying that there can be no financial costs levied Clause 15 is ruling that route out.
I argue strongly that, in the environmental context, to deny Ministers that flexibility to raise financial revenues, which are welcomed by a number of businesses—including the ones we debated recently in Grand Committee on the extended producer responsibility—is an incredibly
retrograde step. It is great to see the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, here in his place again to defend this area. I am sure that in summing up, he will say, “The noble Baroness doesn’t need to worry, because, of course, you can introduce regulatory burdens as long as there is a compensation in a particular subject area”. I think those were the terms used. Having sat through debates in the Chamber and read what the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said in Hansard from Monday night’s debate—and having read about four times the letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield—I am still no clearer about what “subject area” means.
I have been thinking about this. If, for example, the Government were to amend the water framework directive, which has regulatory burdens on businesses, farmers and landowners, and say, “It’s okay—we can find another regulation and you can increase the burdens on that, because we have made compensatory cuts to somebody else”, does it have to be exactly the same people? Does it have to be landowners, companies and farmers, or can we say that it just has to be in Defra? In which case, the regulatory burdens might be on very different people; it may not be the same businesses that have had the regulatory burdens in one area or another.
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There have been numerous mentions of olive trees. Of course, that legislation from the EU was never applicable. Can those pieces of legislation be counted if you want to add new regulatory burdens? Alternatively, because they never had any applicability in the first place, can you not count them? I do not think we have had any reassurances, to my satisfaction, in this Committee about how this will be practically applied.
Moving on, what I really want to talk about is my amendment, which seeks to set conditions on Ministers in advance of them taking forward the wide-ranging powers that Clause 15 of this Bill gives to them. It seeks to do three things. First, it seeks to ensure that there is an increase in environmental protection levels as a result of any changes. That seems to be fundamental if the Government are going to meet their welcome targets to improve the environment and are going to deliver the benefits—which the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, spoke so well about; it is great shame he is not able to be here today—that the people of our country see from a quality environment, both for their well-being and their health. Improving environmental protection will be a condition that would need to be met before Ministers could take forward these wide-ranging powers.
Secondly, the amendment seeks to ensure that we have a guarantee that we will meet our international obligations. We are one island in a large world and birds do not stop at Dover; we share this planet with other countries. We need to be mindful of the international obligations that we as a country have signed up to: Ramsar, Bern, Bonn, the CBD—all of them. If we are going to carry on playing the role which we did so well at the CBD—the Convention on Biological Diversity—of leading other countries to accept the 30 by 30 target, and I give credit to the Minister and his team for being part of that, we have to meet our international obligations. We cannot guarantee that leadership if we do not meet those obligations.
One would hope that you should not have to put that on the face of a Bill—although after yesterday and the issues with the small boats, maybe we do need to put on the face of the Bill that Governments need to meet their international obligations. Let us be clear on this issue: if this Government do not seriously address the environmental and climate problems, the figure of 100 million displaced people from the UN talked about yesterday will be as nothing compared with climate displacement. We all need to seriously address our environmental and climate targets now. We need to ensure that we meet our international obligations.
We have heard from various sources, including Ministers, about changes to the conservation of habitats and species regulations and of conservation of offshore marine habitats and species regulations. Both of these need to be maintained if we are to keep up with our international obligations under Ramsar and Bonn. The Government may wish to tinker with these, but they are fundamental building blocks of the international agreements we are signed up to. If we want to carry on being a leading player and have Prime Ministers going round talking about how we are world leading—I heard this phrase used in the last group by the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield—we have to meet international obligations. My second point is that we should put on the face of the Bill that we will not do anything that would undermine our international obligations.
Thirdly, the amendment seeks to ensure that there will be a non-regression clause. This was in the OEP’s advice and submissions to Committees down the other end. It was an absolute minimum in this Bill to have a non-regression clause. It is not just for the sake of the environment; it is for the sake of our farmers, who are trying desperately to trade in Europe, and for businesses. The i newspaper yesterday published a very interesting piece of research which showed that businesses do not want any reduction in environmental regulations; they want stability. I do not understand why the Government are moving away from the commitment they made in the Environment Act. As I referred to in my last speech, the Environment Act made it very clear that, if we change environmental legislation in the future because the science and evidence has changed—no one believes anything should be set in aspic—there is a non-regression clause. So my amendment seeks to ensure that we improve legislation, meet our obligations and have a non-regression clause.
The amendment does two other things, but I will not speak to them in any detail because the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, touched on them exceedingly well in previous discussions around the issue of who is consulted about making these decisions. These issues are complex, difficult, long term and interconnected, and who we talk to is important. Equally, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—who is not in his place—rightly said, Parliament needs a role in this. My amendment does all that.
In conclusion, I think many in this Committee would wish that Clause 15 were deleted. We had my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones’s stand part debate last Monday, and the Government made it quite clear that they are not prepared to remove this clause. At that time, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said that she saw no case either for carve-outs for a
particular area. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, rightly reminded the Minister that they already have carve-outs in the Bill for the financial sector, so, if they want to do it, they can. But my amendment does not say, “Carve out the environment”; it basically sets down some conditions that would enable the Government to do what they say they want to do: ensure that we improve our environment within a generation.
If we do not do that, there are very real risks not only that we will not meet the Government’s welcome targets but that the promises made to the general public will be completely hollow, because of what the Bill will allow to happen. I will cite just one example. If the bathing water directive were changed in any way, what people rely on to swim safely on our beaches could be fundamentally undermined. The Government have said they do not want to do that, but the way to say that you do not want to do it is to put it in the Bill, rather than using just ministerial words—much as we admire the Minister who will be speaking from the Dispatch Box. That is the only way to guarantee the protections that people in this country want and the Government say they have set targets to deliver.