Member

In responding to the previous group, as has been said, the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor—referred to the mitigation hierarchy, but also said that a change of direction is needed to achieve more effective conservation action, perhaps distant from the site of an existing environmental feature. I have heard it said before that we need a change of direction or change of heart in our approach to conservation, if we are going to reverse the decline of species in habitats, and that strategic landscape-scale action is what is required, as recommended by Sir John Lawton in his report: bigger sites, better sites and more joined-up sites.