Contribution
My Lords, I rise to address the amendments in this group. There are some important amendments here, some that raise interesting concepts and some that are apparently sexy but may be difficult to implement. Biodiversity is vital to preserving our ecosystems, which in turn provide clean air, water and food. It holds significant cultural, aesthetic and economic value, supporting industries such as tourism and agriculture. I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for moving the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Grayling concerning biodiversity.
Amendment 335 seeks to ensure that a biodiversity audit is incorporated into the planning application process or application for development. I recognise the potential merit in integrating biodiversity considerations at this stage in the planning process and I keenly await the Government’s response. I agree entirely that, as far as EDPs are concerned, one must do an audit at the beginning to know what one has before one can say later whether it has improved, got worse or stayed the same—I hope that the Government will correct me if I am wrong—but I think that my noble friend’s amendment may refer generally to planning applications, where a balance has to be struck. I can see the benefit of doing an environmental audit beforehand, when it might speed things up and cost less, but doing it afterwards might also speed things up and cost less. I would like to know what the Government’s thinking is.
I understand that, before I joined Natural England, about eight years ago it reached out to HS2 and said, “We know that you’ll be doing a lot of work on the route. You may come across some biodiversity problems. Talk to us in advance and we’ll see if we can sort it out”. I understand that Natural England was told, “Pooh, pooh. We don’t need you involved in this. We know what we’re doing”. By not involving Natural England in the early planning stage, HS2 hit the bat problem, which is when it invented the £110 million tunnel. So there can be merit in getting nature bodies and the developers involved with Natural England early in the planning stage.
Amendment 336 calls for transparency in offsite biodiversity mitigation decisions. If the amendment were to pass, the Government would be required to publish a statement setting out the scientific basis for that decision. Government accountability is a principle on which Members on both sides of the Committee agree and I thank my noble friend for his contribution and my noble friend Lady Coffey for moving the amendment.
I also thank my noble friend Lady Coffey and the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for their amendment contributions. These amendments seek to provide important protections for potential wild-belt areas and their associated ecosystems. I particularly like my noble friend’s amendment on ponds. It is an excellent idea and, if the Government do not accept it, I would like to hear a good reason why.
On heritage tree preservation orders, I can tell the Committee that on 27 September 2023 I was driving back from Newcastle along the Hadrian’s Wall road—well, my wife was driving and I was sitting in the passenger seat, giving my usual expert guidance on how to drive, as men often do. She said, “We’ve driven past this gap for years. Why don’t we go and look at it?” I said, “Well, you can go if you like. I’m not going to try to stagger up there. It’s about to rain”. That night, a few hours later, those swine cut down the tree. It grieves me that I did not try to stagger up to look at it. The Sycamore Gap tree was iconic. The word “iconic” is not in the amendment, but the tree, although it was not of cultural significance, was of iconic significance. I like the concept of the amendment. My only worry is that the definition seems rather wide and that it lands it all on Natural England, which is not geared up to do this.
If this amendment were to pass, I suspect that, within one month, Natural England would have a million letters from people saying, “You must ledger this tree, that tree and that tree”. It could not just say, “Thank you very much, it’s all in the register now”, and tick the box; it would have to investigate every single one, it would have to see whether it was genuine or not and, no doubt, there would have to be a review process, as people would demand that a tree be taken off the list or added to it. So, I like the concept and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that something must be done, but I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that we need to do it properly and find an easy way to do it that protects all the right trees, but not at a huge bureaucratic cost.