Contribution
My Lords, I rise to speak in support of this Bill, as I did at Second Reading. I too will oppose the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, because it removes crucial provisions relating to climate adaptation and environmental recovery objectives.
The truth is that, despite having really good environmental legislation, the Government are largely off track to meet their legal obligations, particularly on nature recovery, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. The Office for Environmental Protection has concluded that the Government are largely off track to meet their nature goals; the Climate Change Committee has stated that the UK is not on track to meet its 2030 emissions targets; and in the recent report of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Climate Change Committee, not a single delivery plan for adaptation was rated as good. This is an alarming situation, and this Bill will help to resolve some of those problems.
The trouble is that nothing is joined up. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, put it really well at Second Reading when he said that the Government have all the levers, but they are not actually attached to anything. The Government are like a general in a military campaign who fails to tell the troops what the strategy is. Government needs to be interconnected, and these targets and ambitions need to go to the bodies, local authorities and people on the ground who are taking these decisions daily, to help make sure that government policy is joined up from top to bottom and united in its purpose and aims. That is what this Bill seeks to do.
As others have said, we sought to amend the Crown Estate Act, and we succeeded; we also succeeded in amending the Water (Special Measures) Act, but it wastes a lot of parliamentary time having to do this. I will be tabling an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to put such a duty on the Forestry Commission as well. The Government need to do these things.
On Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, I too was a little bit confused by it; there was a disconnect between the wording of the amendment and the speech he gave. It would remove the requirement for public bodies to deliver the adaptation programme. Just yesterday evening, we had a debate in Grand Committee on the impact of wildfires, and the threat is ever-growing. If we do not adapt, people will suffer and we will face increased costs and damages. We need to prepare: the reality of climate change is here, and it is going to be disastrous for people and our economy. We need to do something about it.
Amendment 1 would also remove the nature recovery duty. However, we have to do this. Climate change and biodiversity losses are interconnected and interdependent. Government public bodies own 6% of the land in the UK, so why would we not seek to improve our biodiversity by making use of those bodies and the land under their control?
Councils, as we have heard, also have an important role. I will challenge some of the remarks made because, in Scotland, councils do have a duty to make climate-related improvements. In fact, where they do so, they are making real improvements. Lots of councils want a greater ability to do these things. I therefore reject the amendment because, if passed, it would rip the heart out of the Bill. I will however address some of the points the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has made.
I do not think it appropriate to talk about our climate targets as being arbitrary. They are set by scientists and are reviewed by the Climate Change Committee; they are real targets with real purpose. I agree with the noble Lord about the cost of energy bills. More must absolutely be done to bring down the cost of energy, but we need to remember that it is the cost of gas that sets the electricity price in the UK 98% of the time. I know that the Government are looking at energy market reform, but more needs to be done on that. The green economy grew by 10.3% last year, according to the CBI. In fact, it is one of the very few parts of the UK economy that is showing real growth.
I therefore have to say that I do not think the amendment is useful. I am not able to support it, but we do support the Bill.