Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 51A and 52A in my name. I respect and agree with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about having some flexibility in the appointment of these different commissioners. My amendment looks specifically at the commissioners for climate and nature. In particular, it seeks that these two topics do not just become a political football at the mercy of the political leanings of the mayor that is put in place. It is not enough to say that a mayor merely can appoint a person to oversee the delivery of one of the authority’s competencies; the mayor needs to appoint someone to oversee the delivery of the competencies outlined in Clause 2. That is especially important when we consider nature and climate, since both the 2008 Climate Change Act and the 2021 Environment Act have clear, unambiguous delivery targets, many of which are spatially constrained and require strategic oversight and consideration of competing land uses. We need someone in place who is able to oversee the delivery of these competencies strategically. The problem is that, currently, the duties in these Acts apply only to the Secretary of State, so there is an incredibly high risk that one of our most important delivery arms is under-deployed or at least deployed very unevenly, depending on the political swing or leanings of that mayoral authority. Why is this so important? I calculated—on the back of an envelope, I admit—the amount of land the six new mayoral districts and the combined areas will be responsible for. It is 75% of the English landscape. This is not a small amount: we are talking about the biggest part of our landscape. Therefore, this should really make us stop and think whether we have the right safeguards in place to ensure the delivery of climate and nature targets if the political leanings of the mayor are not that way inclined. Of course, it should be for the mayors to appoint whom they wish as commissioners, but it is also important to note that we need them to appoint commissioners in certain areas where they have relevant experience or expertise. Although I accept that it would be the responsibility of the mayor of an area to decide how to develop an action policy, we need to put in place some safeguards to ensure that central government’s policy priorities and legal responsibilities are delivered. I am going to give a few examples of the importance of a commissioner for nature and climate. The first, as we heard about before in the previous discussion, is local nature recovery strategies. These are full of potential, but now, as they reach implementation stage, there is a risk they will sit on the shelf, for two reasons: first, because of the challenge of integrating decision-making in local government; and secondly, because of the need to organise co-ordinated action at scale. Environmental skills is another issue. They are commonly and widely recognised as a bottleneck; we do not have the people who are able to help our planning officers to make the decisions needed in the planning system. Lack of skills in planning control and enforcement is a really big risk to delivering on things such as biodiversity net gain right now; only 5% of local authorities say that they have adequate resources properly to manage biodiversity net gain. To deliver and fill those gaps, we need skills and education programmes that are co-ordinated and have oversight at the strategic levels. It is highly unlikely that any of these areas of competence for strategic authorities would see the skills gap as part of their portfolio. I cannot see any of those competences thinking that they should focus on employing people or on education programmes; I would see this sitting under a commissioner for climate and nature. Finally comes the issue of green infrastructure planning, which many of us discussed in the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and the delivery of nature-based solutions and protecting and restoring the UK’s natural capital assets. This requires some large-scale spatial co-ordination actions—for example, the Environment Act targets to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous pollution, and ambitions for nature-based solutions for flood defence. All of that will require strategic interventions and top-down leadership, and to be under a dedicated, named person. Who is going to do it if, within a mayoral system, there is no one with that title who can oversee and manage nature and climate? At the same time, these large-scale conventional infrastructure projects—I know that one of our noble friends works in the Oxford–Cambridge Arc—require large-scale nature plans to ensure that they do not destroy large swathes of nature and critical natural capital assets. That is something we often forget about when we think about nature recovery. I would like to zoom out a bit on this one. It is worth remembering that in a report last year about the role of natural capital in the UK’s green economy, the Environmental Audit Committee found that while natural capital assets are an essential foundation of the UK and global economy, there is little evidence of that being considered in decision-making. So, while the amendment does not specifically deal with natural capital, it would ensure that somebody at the top was considering and responsible for oversight of this in the new authority. I make one more point about natural capital. It is not just a “nice to have”. In November, the ONS released its reports, valuing natural capital assets in the UK at £1.6 trillion. This is not just about the pretty flowers somewhere—this is serious infrastructure. Natural infrastructure underpins so many things we rely on. The annual value of £41 billion in natural capital assets was largely driven by health benefits gained from recreation. So, it comes back to us needing a commissioner at the top who looks at these figures and at what we need to do to deliver on the ground. Devolved government is a fantastic idea, and I am a huge supporter of it, but we need the right people in the right place to deliver what I believe they can deliver. I would be grateful if the Minister could say what the Government’s intention is here. Do they think there should be a commissioner for each of the competences? Given that there are seven competences and seven commissioners, I would think that the answer is yes, although I am not sure any more—maybe it should be more. If they do not think they should state that in statute, why? What situation are they allowing for if we get in a political situation whereby the mayor does not support nature and climate as part of our infrastructure? That is a very big risk that we should look at in this Bill now.