My Lords, along with many others, we have for some time expressed our concerns about the Government’s lack of ambition in tackling the huge challenges facing our environment. We argued strongly during the passage of the Environment Act for the need to set targets to bring about transformative change, and were told that ambitious targets would be announced by 31 October of last year. That is a full year after the Act came into law—so hardly urgent. It was only after interventions from the Office for Environmental Protection, fellow parliamentarians and environmental groups that eventually they were laid—late—on 19 December.
One reason for the delay is that Defra did not begin the consultation on the proposed targets until March 2022 and the publication of evidence documents to support responses was also delayed. Over 180,000 consultation responses were received, with most people asking for higher levels of ambition. We know this carries a high level of public interest and support. Instead, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee says in its highly critical report, most of the targets have not been strengthened, none has been strengthened significantly, and some have been weakened, with key gaps remaining in some areas where there was strong public and expert support for additional targets.
In addition, the Government are further undermining nature recovery by threatening hundreds, if not thousands, of environmental laws under the retained EU law Bill. Can the Minister tell me what is the point in the Government having a 25-year environment plan if it ends up being nothing but rhetoric?
I turn to the SI in front of us today on the water targets. The date of 2063 was mentioned by the Minister. Until Brexit, the UK Government were signed up to the water framework directive, requiring countries to make sure that all their waters achieved good chemical and ecological status by 2027 at the latest. The UK Government later reduced this to 75% of waterways reaching a single test of good ecological status by 2027 at the latest. The target for the majority of waterways to achieve good status in both chemical and ecological tests has now been pushed back to 2063 according to an analysis by the Wildlife Trusts of the new river basin management plans.
It is not amusing. The latest state of rivers and lakes report released by the Environment Agency shows that only 16% meet the criteria for good ecological status and that no water bodies are deemed to meet the criteria for achieving good chemical status. This is appalling. The Government have set targets to reduce pollution from agriculture, abandoned metal mines and wastewater, and to reduce water demand. That is commendable—of course we support pollution reduction. Nitrogen and phosphorus run-off from agriculture lead to freshwater ecosystems being starved of oxygen, causing harm to wildlife. In fact, agriculture and wastewater nutrient pollution carry most responsibility for the failure of our lakes and waterways to meet good ecological standards.
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The problem with this SI is that there is no information or specifications as to how this will be achieved. The executive summary states that it
“does suggest groups of policy options which could together deliver each target.”
That is pretty thin. Couple this with the fact that the target date to achieve any of the stated aims has now been moved back to 2038 and you will see that there is a complete lack of urgency or ambition from the Government.
Both the general public and experts in this field believe that the level of ambition proposed in the targets for nutrient and sediment pollution is too low. For example, the Government’s Water Targets Expert Advisory Group suggested that a significantly higher level of ambition is required to achieve the goals of the 25-year environment plan. Over 90% of people who replied to the Government’s consultation disagreed with the proposed level of ambition for reducing nutrient pollution; almost every single one wanted a stronger target. Let us remember that only last December, the Government agreed to the COP 15 global biodiversity framework, target 7 of which is
“reducing excess nutrients lost to the environment by at least half”
by 2030. How will the target proposed today, to reduce nutrient pollution from agriculture by 40% by 2038, achieve that commitment? Is it even compliant?
Having said that, bizarrely, there is a nutrient pollution chapter in the levelling-up Bill. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us as to how this will work alongside the Defra proposals and the COP 15 commitment. Has a Cabinet Committee been set up, perhaps, to try to co-ordinate all this?
Looking at the target for water demand, the Secondary Legislation and Scrutiny Committee refers to the submission from Greener UK and Wildlife and Countryside Link. This highlighted that the water demand target is a relative target, based on water abstracted divided by population, and that this could result in overall water taken from the environment increasing, with the outcome of no environmental improvement in this respect. What reassurances can the Minister provide that this will not be the case? We have heard in numerous debates in this House that overabstraction is a significant cause of poor habitat quality and can exacerbate the effects of pollution, including that of the disgusting practice of sewage being pumped repeatedly into our rivers and seas. There have been more than a million sewage spills over the last six years; one every two and a half minutes. It really is time to clean up our seas, lakes and rivers.
We believe that being a custodian of our waterways and the environment should be a government duty and priority. Instead of the lack of ambition and urgency offered by this Government, we believe there should be mandatory monitoring of all sewage outlets so that we can get a grip on the situation, with a legally binding target to end 90% of sewage discharges by 2030. We believe that the Environment Agency should have the power and resources to properly enforce the rules and, as it suggests, that water company executives who routinely and systematically break the rules should
be held personally and professionally accountable. The Environment Agency is so concerned about the lack of progress from the water industry, confirming that water firms’ performance on pollution had declined to the worst seen in years, that it is calling for chief executives and board members to be jailed if they oversee serious, repeated pollution, because they seem undeterred by enforcement action and court fines for breaching environmental laws. In other words, it is the only way that the Environment Agency can see a change in attitude in order to turn the situation around. Why will the Government not support this course of action?
The Minister may well believe that Defra is being ambitious, and I am sure he will continue to reassure us that all is well and in hand, but I am afraid that our seas and waterways need so much more than these targets can deliver. For the sake of our environment and its threatened biodiversity, the Government must do more. We need to ensure that we do not just stop polluting but help our fragile ecosystems to recover for future generations to appreciate and enjoy. I beg to move.