If my noble friend is going to say that, I shall find it rather difficult to move towards him, because it is not; I speak as chairman of the climate committee because it is not. The reason I speak is simply this: we were promised that we would pass into UK law all the protections that we have as members of the European Union, so that, on the day after our leaving, we would be in the same position in respect of those protections. Under the present arrangements, we will not be.
As I say, this repeats what happened with the climate change legislation. The then Government were in favour of it in general, but when it came to the detailed powers, the Treasury opposed it. The Minister in Defra, or at least its equivalent in those times—it was then the Minister at the Department of Energy and Climate
Change—was in favour of those powers. That battle was fought in the then Government, and they decided that they would not give the powers until we were able to show that there were enough Labour Members to give a majority in the House of Commons so that they would have to give way. Happily, it therefore became an all-party Bill that we can all claim credit for, passed by the Labour Government and ultimately supported by every party in Parliament.
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I want it to be the same here—for all of us to support this because it is the parallel and the same battle. There is an argument within the Government as to whether we should go further, as the amendment suggests, and I want us to support that part of the Government that wants us to go further. This is being critical not of the Government but of an attitude of some parts, not of this Government but of all Governments when one tries to enhance and enshrine environmental matters. We are not in any way being combative but standing up for the same principles for which we stood up and successfully passed in the Climate Change Act.
Let us realise that we want a “world-class” watchdog. Those are the words, not of me, rebels or those who do not like Brexit, but of the Prime Minister and this Government. “We want to be a Government who set standards we have never set before”. Those are not my words—although they are my sentiments—but those of this Government. What we are asking the whole House, unitedly—and people in favour of our movement from the European Union and those against—to accept that after we leave the EU we want the same protections as we were promised. This is the simple way to achieve it.
These are not dark days, I say to my noble friend. These are the days when we are standing up for the future for our children and grandchildren. They are the same days as those when we stood up in the past and are not to do with disagreements about Brexit, but with the carrying through of the government promise and the view of many members of the Government. We know that when the case against the amendment is put forward, it will be the case not of the whole Government but of part of them, and it is our job to try to support those who want this kind of protection. We have seen what happens if you do not have it. When I was Secretary of State for the Environment, the Environment Agency had some independence; I insisted that it spoke publicly and that it could criticise the Government. It is now part of the department and its chief executive sits on Defra’s board of management. We did the same with what was then English Nature. It is now part of the set-up and is drawn into the Government.
The consultation paper has been written by two hands. It is written by the hand that says, “We really must have an independent watchdog. We must stand up and say, ‘The environment comes first and we have to pass it on’”. The other hand says, “Ah, but Ministers must always be in charge and we must balance this promise with all sorts of other things”. I want us to strengthen the hand of the future and of the commonality of Britain. My noble friend Lord Framlingham suggests that we are somehow running against public opinion.
I have to say that we are running entirely with public opinion on this. The public want proper protection and to make sure that their children and grandchildren live in an enhanced and better world.
For the Government to fight the amendment, they must explain why weakness is strength, why doing less is doing more, and why not accepting the views of those most concerned with the environment—inside and outside the Government—is better than accepting them. It is a difficult task and I do not think it is winnable task. I say to the whole House that this is a chance for us to vote seriously for the future and to do here what we did 10 years ago with the Climate Change Act, which this House would never dream of saying was other than a success because it is the lead for every country in the world. If the Prime Minister is right and we want a world-class watchdog and to set standards for the whole world, there is no better way than to take the lessons of the Climate Change Act and put them in the Bill, as the Government promised they would.