My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and I thank her for getting down to brass tacks with an example. However, I am concerned about this group of amendments, which seeks yet further to strengthen adherence to the legacy of the EU habitats directive and to regulations made under it. When I was lucky enough to be a Minister much involved in negotiating on EU legislation, I used to attend Cabinet committees where, without revealing any secrets, the iniquities and inflexibilities of the habitats directive was a regular theme. The red tape and requirements, for example, to comply with protections in every relevant catchment even where a species or flora or fauna were abundant elsewhere, helped to fuel Brexit sentiment and the feeling that we should be able to do things our own way.
This Bill is an example in spades of not taking back real control and indeed doing far more than the EU has done on the environment. That troubles me, because we do not know how it will work out in practice, and of course the regulation powers in Clause 105—and indeed elsewhere in the Bill—are very wide. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on the need for proper consultation, and like him, I would appreciate some examples to enlighten us all before Report. I note that there is no impact assessment on these clauses; why is that?
I am highly doubtful about Clauses 105 and 106, since they leave us so close to the EU on habitats and, I fear, open to judicial review if we do things in a different way. Simpler, innovative ways of protecting
our environmental jewels and changing things that the EU has decreed but do not work, has to be open to us. We want to get out of the straitjacket of Roman law and have a common-law, common-sense approach to protecting our exceptional habitats and indeed keeping countryside businesses vibrant, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, has said.
I fear that these clauses limit our freedom too much. Moreover, nearly all the amendments in this group would make things worse and will therefore, I hope, be resisted by my noble friend the Minister. Whether you are a Brexiteer like him or not, we must all acknowledge that we have left the EU and must move forward independently.