Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)

My Lords, before I speak to Amendment 206 in my name, I declare my interest, as in the register, as chair of Peers for the Planet. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Sheehan, for their support in adding their names. I will also speak to Amendment 138B. I also wholly support the other amendments in this group, in particular Amendment 138 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, and Amendment 149 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, to which I have added my name. All seek to put in place ways to legislate for greater access to green and blue spaces in urban landscapes and the multiple co-benefits this can bring to people, climate and nature. My Amendments 206 and 138B are similar in intention and are a two-pronged approach to future-proofing existing commitments into legislation, adding provisions that ensure that access to green and blue spaces is incorporated for both spatial development strategies and development corporations, and to ensuring that our planning system contributes more to the delivery of these vital spaces. Without statutory requirements, the reality is that opportunities to include green and blue spaces—things like urban water features, ponds and wetlands—from the design stage are often missed. The evidence is quite strong on that. These two amendments would ensure that when developers build new towns they design access to such spaces from the outset. At Second Reading, I made this precise case for access to green and blue spaces. I made the point that the Government made a commitment to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework established at COP15 in 2022 and in their Environmental Improvement Plan 2023, which is currently under review, that every citizen should be within 15 minutes’ walking distance of a green or blue space. I take the point that that might not be enough, especially with small children, but we need to think about the 15 minutes. In her response, the Minister indicated that further legislation was not required because this was already part of our planning system through the NPPF. I propose two counterpoints on this issue, and I would be grateful if the Minister could set out further clarity about what further strengthening measures the Government envision so that this commitment is realised. The first, as a number have already said, is that the NPPF is only guidance and is subject to interpretation by decision-makers and change by current and future Governments. Time and again we are seeing the loss of urban green space because there is a view, even in some of our current laws, that it is fine to build over green space and move it outside the city, because it is better for nature outside the city.