Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

My Lords, I will concentrate chiefly on Amendment 150 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, to which I have attached my name, but I shall briefly comment on Amendment 148, very comprehensively introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. Indeed, we have majored on chalk streams and I suspect we will hear a lot more about them. I am just going to cross-reference a contribution I made earlier this week about the River Itchen and the amount of plastics and fibreglass fibres that have just been discovered in new research in that chalk stream. This amendment addresses permissible activities. We do not know where those fibres in the River Itchen are coming from, but we desperately need to think about what activities we can afford to allow and what the planning permission can be beside those chalk streams. The extraction of water is the obvious issue here, but we also have to think about pollution and we really have to apply the precautionary principle to these crucial environments. Amendment 150 says that a spatial development strategy must take account of local wildlife sites, which is crucial in this terribly nature-depleted country. There are, by a very precise count, 43,992 local wildlife sites, of which we know the status of only 15%. That is what the Wildlife Trusts say. SSSIs have greater legal protection. We know that very often does not work, but these local wildlife sites too often fall under the radar and are not sufficiently considered. They are often stepping stones for wildlife to get from one place to another crucial environment, or parts of corridors that enable wildlife communities to mix, to get genetic diversity, among other crucial factors, so it is crucial that the spatial development strategy totally takes these into account. I think this also cross-references Amendment 152ZA, to which I shall speak briefly. I am strongly in favour of this amendment and commend the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, for bringing it. I am sure that she is going to introduce it shortly, but it is about the welfare of animals being considered in spatial development strategies. We think about such things as light pollution, noise pollution, the cutting off of corridors and the isolating of populations. These things that human developments are doing do not sufficiently consider the welfare of animals, and they very much relate to local wildlife sites as well.