Viscount Trenchard (Con)

My Lords, the arguments I will put forward in support of my Amendment 254 are similar to those that I put to your Lordships in support of my Amendment 147, so I do not need to repeat them at length—and not only because of the late hour. I am not certain that environmental delivery plans are the right answer, nor am I confident that Natural England is currently well equipped to take responsibility for EDPs. I share the concerns my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Fuller expressed during earlier debates today. Does the Minister remember that it was Natural England which objected to its own planning application at the Lizard peninsula two years ago? If there are to be EDPs, chalk streams must qualify as protected sites under Section 55. The Minister was so supportive of CaBA’s chalk stream strategy two years ago when we debated the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill. I am grateful that she said on Thursday that she will write to me to tell me how the Government intend to respond to the request from the Petitions Committee for an updated response to the petition, Don’t abandon the Chalk Stream recovery pack. However, on Thursday, she seemed rather dismissive of the chalk stream recovery pack on the grounds that it is now out of step with the Government’s ambitious programme of water reforms. However, although organisations such as the Rivers Trust and the Wildlife Trust, acknowledge that there has been positive progress in a small number of areas, they believe that there are still many actions where progress has been lacking and a large number of chalk streams where the status is stagnant or, in some cases, declining. The latest water framework directive cycle 3 data for chalk streams reports the most up-to-date status for recent years—this is an update from the original chalk streams restoration strategy. It derived a list of 312 water bodies that had been agreed with the EA. Of those, 83% failed to meet good ecological status, 42% failed to meet WFD standards for phosphate and 34% failed to support good ecological status for flow. With only 17% of chalk stream water bodies achieving high or good status under WFD in both 2015 and 2022, it is clear that current action to protect chalk streams is inadequate and things are not improving. In fact, in many cases, conditions are getting worse, with at least 40% of chalk stream water bodies declining in at least one of the WFD elements that define ecological status between 2015 and 2022. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act paved the way for the protection of chalk streams within the new environmental assessment regime through inclusion in environmental outcome reports. Regulations yet to be made by the Secretary of State will specify outcomes relating to issues such as air quality and biodiversity. The Act cited as an example the protection of chalk streams from abstraction and pollution. Although this is a promising development, we would like the Government to confirm that they intend to set explicit outcomes for the protection of chalk streams. Can the Minister confirm that they will do that? Briefly, I will also speak to Amendment 355 in my name. I do not understand why it was not grouped with Amendment 354, in the same way as Amendments 146 and 147 were debated together. Amendment 355 seeks to ensure that chalk streams must be included in the definitions of protected sites. I will not repeat the arguments at this late hour. The amendment also seeks to grant the same protection to blanket bogs, which are extensively found across the northern hemisphere and especially in Scotland and Ireland. They play an important role in water purification, flood control and support for unique biodiversity. I do not bracket them absolutely with chalk streams, but both should clearly be included within the definitions of protected sites for the purposes of Part 3 of the Bill.