Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for securing today’s debate and for her excellent chairmanship of the committee, which came out with this excellent report. I thank all members of the Environment and Climate Change Committee for their work. This has been an excellent and important debate. This is an area in which is challenging to move forward, and it is something that we need to get a grip on. I thank noble Lords who have kindly welcomed me today and over the past few weeks. People have been generous and supportive, and I appreciate it very much. It is genuinely an honour to hold this position, following the example of the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, sitting opposite. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, to his role. As I am going to have to follow him in every single debate, it could be quite fun. The report represents a wealth of expertise and insights into the state of nature in this country and offers many valuable recommendations on how we can make the changes that we need to rise to what the report calls “an extraordinary challenge”. I assure noble Lords that this Government are committed to charting a new course and ensuring that nature is truly on the road to recovery. The Secretary of State has confirmed the Government’s intention to launch a rapid review of the Environmental Improvement Plan, to make sure it is fit for purpose so that it will deliver on our ambitious targets, including 30 by 30. We therefore think that this debate and consideration of the recommendations in the committee’s report are very timely. We want to make sure that those recommendations are properly considered as we carry out the work of the review of the EIP. While this work is clearly newly under way—we are a very new Government—I will do my best to address and respond to the points raised during the discussion as best I can. As we have heard clearly today, our biodiversity is in crisis. Without nature we have no economy, no food, no health and no society. However, we now stand at a moment in time when nature needs us to defend it. Critical to those efforts is what we have been debating today: the 30 by 30 target to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030. As we have heard, it was the UK’s international leadership that helped to secure a global 30 by 30 target at the UN biodiversity summit in December 2022. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for keeping going on this issue until he achieved it. What is the word I am looking for? Persistence, that is the word. Of course, he was supported in that by the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, and others. Their leadership made an ambitious commitment here in the UK, which we have to deliver on land and at sea. Targets are meaningless if you do not actually deliver them, so I am pleased that the new Labour Government have renewed that commitment, and we are now focusing on how we can deliver it for the long term. That will be critical to supporting our wider priorities, including cleaner rivers, lakes and seas—the first of two water Bills will be coming shortly—and boosting food security; we have heard about farming. Those priorities also include protecting communities from the dangers of flooding and delivering our legally binding environmental targets. With just over five years remaining until 2030, we are rapidly approaching the halfway point of this decade, yet unfortunately we are still one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. That is why I am grateful for the contributions today; they are valuable in helping to inform how we move forward. What is clear is the sheer scale of the extraordinary challenge we are facing. We have not yet seen the urgent step change that the report rightly calls for. Achieving 30 by 30 will require a clear vision and a delivery strategy to drive the urgent progress we need, but one that draws on the work already taking place across government and beyond. The 30 by 30 programme is about bringing these efforts together to ensure that more nature recovery actions have a lasting long-term legacy. Importantly, it is also about collaboration between and right across sectors. The Government intend to take immediate action to realise the urgent step change needed, and are currently in the process of reviewing our approach. Later this year we hope to confirm the criteria for land that counts towards 30 by 30 in England in order to set a clear and ambitious standard to ensure that only areas that are effectively conserved and managed can contribute towards the commitment. In addition to confirming the criteria, later this year we will begin piloting the process for recognising land that already meets those criteria. Building on the committee’s recommendations, that will help us to develop a process to identify land beyond protected areas that meets the 30 by 30 criteria and can be formally recognised as other effective area-based conservation measures, as was mentioned in the debate. These areas represent a unique opportunity to take a more inclusive approach and recognise where nature is being effectively protected outside of those designated sites. We desperately need a clear strategy to chart our course to meeting that target, and it is important that we continue to drive that work forward. This includes ensuring that our protected areas are delivering as they should be for nature. Our national parks and national landscapes and the Broads—collectively, our protected landscapes—are extremely special places. We know that they cover nearly one-quarter of England and contain around half of England’s priority habitats, but we also know that they continue to suffer the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned Windermere and pollution. This is clearly an area that we have to tackle quickly, which is why we are prioritising our water Bill. We are committed to ensuring that these iconic landscapes become wilder and greener and deliver a significant contribution towards the 30 by 30 target in England. At sea, the Government have taken significant steps to protect our marine environment. We have 181 marine protected areas, including three highly protected marine areas, and as a priority we need to work out how we are going to properly provide protection for them. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and others talked about bottom trawling. I assure noble Lords that we think it is extremely concerning and we understand its negative impacts. Our marine regulators have assessed all fishing activities on the protected species and habitats in our MPAs and identified bottom-towed fishing as a major pressure, so it is very much on our agenda. To support our 30 by 30 target, the Marine Management Organisation has introduced by-laws, which we heard about from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, to restrict the use of bottom-towed gear over sensitive habitats. More recently, in March the MMO introduced a new by-law restricting the use of bottom-towed gear over rock and reef habitats in 13 MPAs. That means that around 60% of our marine protected areas are now protected by by-laws that limit the use of damaging fishing gear used for bottom trawling. We are pushing that further and continuing to work on strengthening protections. Evidence was gathered last year on the impacts of fishing on seabed sediments, and further by-laws are being produced for consultation. So I assure noble Lords that we are taking the issue seriously and moving forward on it. We are aiming for 48% of marine protected species and habitats to reach a healthy state by 2028, with the remainder in recovering condition. Natural England and the JNCC are developing an MPA monitoring strategy.