Contribution
On behalf of many of my constituents, I rise to speak in strong support of Lords amendment 40. Nature unites us in a way that few other things can. Even the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) told me of his love for nature after the Second Reading of my Climate and Nature Bill. Our love for the fields, woods and waterways that shape our lives can cut across deep political divisions, ages and backgrounds. We all want future generations to walk the same landscapes, hear the same birdsong and feel the same sense of belonging to the natural world that so many of us have known.
Lords amendment 40 recognises that truth. It would ensure that nature is treated not as an optional extra but as an essential—something that must be protected and restored alongside meeting our urgent housing need. It would limit environmental delivery plans to areas where a broad, strategic approach genuinely works, as the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) mentioned; examples include nutrient neutrality, and water and air quality.
Without this safeguard, the Bill risks undoing decades of progress in protections for our most vulnerable species. A big-picture approach cannot replace the precise protections that bats, dormice and great crested newts depend on. One cannot ask a dormouse to move house, or offset repeated local losses somewhere else. If we allow that pattern to continue, national extinction becomes a real possibility. This is how nature, the web of life, works. We cannot dismiss small snails simply because they are small. It is the smallest creatures that inhabit our topsoil that form the foundation of the entire ecosystem.
In South Cotswolds, the bond between people and nature is strong, but our area is one of the most environmentally constrained: about 80% of the Cotswolds district lies within the Cotswolds national landscape, and with much of the remainder already developed or at flood risk, we will struggle to meet our target of more than 1,000 new homes every year. Constituents who cherish our wildlife and landscapes have written to me expressing heartfelt concerns about what that level of development will mean for the places that have defined their lives.
The Labour manifesto promised planning reform that “increases climate resilience” and “promotes nature recovery”, yet the Secretary of State recently rejected amendments that would do exactly that. His “Build, baby, build” slogan suggests that we must choose between growth and nature, but that is not true: wildlife protections are not blocking new homes. Councillors and developers alike point to land availability, infrastructure and delivery capacity as the constraining factors. There is no justification for weakening nature protections when it is entirely possible to build in ways that benefit both people and planet.
Lords amendment 40 reflects a real cross-party consensus and is backed by the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and the Better Planning Coalition. It would offer clarity, reduce legal risk and support sustainable development while strengthening genuine nature recovery—which, incidentally, will also help in climate change mitigation. Above all, the amendment recognises that we are not, and do not need to be, in conflict with nature; we are part of it. This is our chance to show that good planning can be both responsible and ambitious, and that we can deliver the homes that people so urgently need while safeguarding the natural world that sustains us all.
I urge Members and the Government to support Lords amendment 40. I urge this House to choose clarity over confusion, evidence over ideology, and long-term stewardship over short-term slogans. Today we have the chance to choose a planning system that is efficient and fair, that is good for business and for communities and, above all, that is good for the wildlife and landscapes that define our country. We can choose to honour our responsibility to future generations, who will judge us not so much by how fast we built, but by what we protected and what we passed on.