My Lords, I support these two amendments and congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Hayman of Ullock, on the way in which they introduced them. It is slightly ironic that the Government have just published their Environmental Improvement Plan, yet we do not have any sentiment of improvement in this Bill. In fact, we have a distinct deregulatory flavour with this emphasis on not increasing burdens.
In a way, I will miss this Committee, because we have been getting these wonderful letters from Ministers over the last few days. I thank the hot and cold running supply of Ministers wheeled in for this Bill for their correspondence on the issues we have raised on the various days of Committee. I confess that today’s letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, on the safeguards around Clause 15 did not leave me any the wiser on the definition of “alternative provision”, but perhaps most germane to these amendments was the letter of 28 February from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, on the definition of “regulatory burden”. It left us all, as many noble Lords have said, confused about how not increasing the overall regulatory burden will be assessed—other than, as the Minister has just told us, that it will be up to Ministers to decide whether they are satisfied that the use of the power does not increase the overall regulatory burden in a subject area. I am sure that case law will have to prevail.
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Amendment 126 is really important, as many noble Lords have said, because it would ensure significant improvement in environmental protection from any revocation or replacement. It very much follows the OEP’s recommendation that an environmental non-regression safeguard needs to be added to the Bill.
The amendment is also important in terms of compliance with international agreements, as noble Lords have said. It is slightly unnerving that we are already beginning to see an erosion in our commitment to some of our international agreements. For example, under the UN Convention on Biodiversity, we now have an international commitment—one that we helped to forge in international circles only recently—to have 30% of our land and sea delivering protection for nature by 2030. However, the habitats regulations,
which are crucial to that effect and are needed to drive improvement in the management of protected areas, are being brought into risk by this very Bill.
I am sure that, were he here, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, would tell us that we do not have to worry—that the habitats regulations are home and dry, that they are saved, that we have done them in the Environment Act and are dealing with them in the levelling-up Bill. Well, the levelling-up Bill appears to be receding into the middle distance as we speak, because its Committee days are constantly being cancelled, so we cannot rely on that. Indeed, there is still a massive gap between what the environment regulations currently deliver, what is in the Environment Act and what would be brought in by the provisions of the levelling-up Bill, which are as yet unclear. In general, the Government will struggle to achieve their commitments on leaving the environment in a better state and not reducing environmental standards without the safeguards against regression in the environmental field which these amendments represent.
Amendment 130 focuses on some key regulations that the Government appear to have particularly in their sights; it aims to ensure that standards are not reduced in those key areas. I want to touch briefly on two sets of regulations. One is the habitats regulations; I know that I am absolutely fixated on them but they are one of the most impressive pieces of international and national legislation ever passed in terms of environmental protection, honed increasingly better as they have been by case law over the past 15 years. We meddle with them at our peril, but enough of that; I will take off my hair-shirt now.
The other legislation that I want to talk about is the water framework directive. I must admit, I had great hopes for that directive when it was passed. It is one of those rare pieces of legislation that brings together issues across a whole variety of government departments, including planning, land use, water quality, water quantity and environmental protection. I should take some responsibility for this because I was the chief executive of the Environment Agency at the time of the implementation of the directive—at least for part of it—and I admit that we all dealt with it in a way that meant that it became rather lumbering. However, in legislative terms, it is still an excellent regulatory framework; it very much fosters integration across a number of policy areas. So it is not the legislation that is wrong; it is the implementation that we have to get better.
The amendment would ensure that changes to the water framework regulations would not reduce the level of environmental protection. However, I agree entirely with my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock that any amendment to the water framework regulations, which Defra is currently embarking on, should not be made through this Bill at all, with its deregulatory and regressive provisions and its lack of consultation requirements; instead, it should be made through the provisions which already exist in the Environment Act. Indeed, Defra has taken the route of the Environment Act to review the water framework directive—three cheers for Defra—but we would like to ensure that this decision, which was a good one, is enshrined in
the Bill. We would like to see the key environmental regulations which are listed in the amendment on the reduction of standards safeguarded in the Bill, rather than being subject to ministerial or departmental whim about which piece of legislation they would take them under.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is absolutely right that it must be terribly tempting for the third civil servant from the left to choose the easy route, rather than the more difficult route, when it comes to amending these laws. As such, I support both amendments.
I will raise one more point. The retained EU law dashboard is absolutely crucial; it is the holy grail of what these laws are—and it is slightly increasing. In the last Committee sitting, I sat with my iPad open at the Defra section of the retained EU law dashboard. I was fascinated because under the heading “REUL Reform Progress” is recorded, for each department, the percentage of retained EU law which has been amended, repealed or replaced. It does not actually say whether laws have been given a straight pass through, but it does talk about amendment, repeal and replacement. As I sat watching it, the percentage of retained EU law in Defra that had been amended, repealed or replaced changed from 17.6% to 18.4%. I thought that was really interesting and wondered what had made it make that change. I asked myself, “What piece of law has just been given assent in the Moses Room that has suddenly flipped the switch on a particular piece of legislation so that it is now amended, repealed or replaced?”
The only way you can find that out at the moment is by wading through every single one of the 1,700 Defra retained EU laws, trying to work out which ones have changed since the last time you looked; there is no other indication. Even for a nerd like me who loves the dashboard and who spends all their life studying it, it is a bit unsatisfactory that there is no easy way of working out how the progress of this review of EU law is going.
It is slightly unfortunate that the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, is not in his place, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, and all the assorted Ministers we have had responding to the Bill, will commit to publish a weekly or fortnightly list of regulations which have been amended, repealed or replaced—and, I hope, also some which have simply been assimilated. That will allow us all to see how this work has progressed—not just in Defra but in other government departments; the MoD has claimed that it is practically finished—and enable us to judge the progress of this work and, indeed, to take a position and a view on the effectiveness of this review of EU legislation. I ask for that as a parting gift from Ministers as we come to end of Committee, at some stage this evening, we hope.