Baroness Grender (LD)

My Lords, here we are again. The urgency of the nature crisis demands that we stop relying on—in our view—voluntary commitments and shift to mandatory ones or regulation. I am sorry that we are going back to a subject that we have already rehearsed quite a bit, but it is still important. My amendment also expands which kind of species we try to include within building regulations. I thank the Minister for a meeting we had only yesterday where we tried to work through some of these issues. I have definitely heard, both yesterday and today, the concern she has about embedding some of these issues within building regulations, but I would still argue that making sure there is a level playing field and that developers have clarity of ask is still worth trying for, so I would like to explore it again. Amendment 140—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for signing it—would require the Secretary of State to introduce building regulations to protect and enhance biodiversity within six months of the Act passing. These regulations should include specific measures such as swift bricks, bat boxes and hedgehog highways. The question asked is why building regulations are the appropriate mechanisms for features such as this, and the answer is clarity, consistency and enforceability. Relying on the fluidity of planning policy or non-statutory commitments leads to systemic failure in delivery. Surveys show that ecological features promised in planning approval, such as bat and bird boxes and hedgehog highways, are often—surprise, surprise—missing post-construction. Mandating their inclusion via building regulations would ensure that every new home contributes to halting the decline in species abundance, aligning with our legal duties under the Environment Act 2021. Building regulations already incorporate mechanisms for exemptions, including where installation is impractical —this may be something that we could explore—such as near airports, where flexibility is retained. We must ensure that these proven, low-cost features are delivered universally, moving past discretion and local planning controls. It is notable that, for instance, some local authorities mandate this already, including some Labour ones. I am very happy to supply to the Minister the list of the Labour authorities that already do it. It would be great to make this a level playing field across all local authorities. That is what we are trying to achieve here. I welcome with interest the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. Any measure that encourages the creation of water bodies obviously needs to be subject to rigorous standards to ensure environmental gain. I look forward to hearing her words and the response to the amendment. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman, for putting her name to my amendment. I have in turn put my name to her Amendment 246. It aims to compel the Secretary of State to amend the National Planning Policy Framework to incorporate measures that reduce bird fatalities resulting from collisions with buildings, alongside issuing relevant guidance. We support this necessary move to strengthen design quality. This amendment addresses an avoidable cause of fatalities and would make a very useful contribution to combating the ongoing decline in bird species, which, as we have already heard on the last group, is so significant at the moment. It is very much aligned with the approach that we on these Benches would like to take of pursuing meaningful, preventive ecological outcomes, rather than allowing damage and scrambling for compensation afterwards, which we fear is a bit of a feature of some of the measures in the Bill. I beg to move.