My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Woodland Trust and president and vice-president of a range of conservation organisations as listed in the register. When I tabled this regret amendment, I did not realise I would be scheduled in the death slot at the end of the day, and I apologise to the Minister for keeping him up.
I thank the Minister for laying out these regulations. I feel a sense of déjà vu with some of them because the history of creating targets for biodiversity is a rather chequered one. I hope the House will forgive me if I dwell on some of the history. When I first came into the environment movement 30 years ago, I was told very firmly that to save biodiversity we had to pay attention to three things: first, the abundance of individual species and the extent of their distribution; secondly, habitat creation in the wider countryside; and thirdly, very definitely, a network of protected special sites and the condition of those sites. We have got some way in these targets towards the first two, and I will comment briefly on them, but I am afraid we have nothing on the third. The targets put forward by the Government fail to tackle all these three issues, and they need to be put together.
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The targets were roundly booed by between 92% and 99% of all the respondents to the consultation, when they were asked whether they would be a good measure of biodiversity changes and on the grounds that they lacked ambition. The UK, as the Minister has already said, is one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. We are at the bottom of the league table among G7 countries, as measured by the Biodiversity Intactness Index. We have a bit of a car crash on our hands and a big turnaround needs to be delivered, and we need effective targets to drive progress.
The first requirement I had dinned into me 30 years ago was about species, but the species extinction risk target to reduce the risk by 2042 compared with 2022 is a bit limp. It has been said, although the Government have denied it, that this could be met by simply improving the status of one species from critically endangered to endangered, which does not sound like 20 years’ worth of achievement to me; perhaps the Minister could say whether it does to him. Can he reassure the House that there is a commitment to a statistically significant or even a major reduction in extinction risk, not just any reduction however minor, which the current wording might encourage people to believe? Some 13% of species in England are threatened by extinction, and many of
the rest are in serious decline. They are on the brink and must be brought back from it urgently. The importance of toughening up this target has been thrown into sharp focus by the recently agreed COP 15 global goals that agree that, by 2050, extinction rates and risk of all species will be reduced tenfold. That sounds more like it in my book. We signed up to this COP 15 agreement—indeed, we did a lot to lead it—only a month ago. The ink is barely dry on the agreement, yet the Government are putting forward an England target for 2042 that would not enable us to be on track to meet that global agreement for 2050. We are going to look very foolish to other countries, especially the ones we cajoled to sign up. Can the Minister say how he is going to resolve this, and make sure our international reputation is not in tatters?
On the second point—increased habitats in the wider countryside—the target proposed by the Government is for the restoration or creation of in excess of 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat by 2042, as the Minister said. However, that is a lot less than the target of three-quarters of a million hectares that was supported by a large majority of experts and the public during the consultation period. It is also not a very good metric. A better one, which would cover quantity, quality and connectivity of habitats, is under development by Defra following the 25-year environment plan, but it is more than five years since the plan was published. Can the Minister promise that this more satisfactory indicator that is still under development will be finalised very shortly, not in 2024 as is promised? Will he commit to using the metric to set a better binding target for habitats as soon as it is available?
The biggest flaw in the biodiversity targets that we are considering tonight is the complete absence of the third thing I was told was important 30 years ago. There is no target at all for the condition of terrestrial protected sites—sites of special scientific interest. SSSIs, as has been said many times before, are the jewels in the crown of our wildlife resources. They are designated for the importance of the species they support. They are the bedrock of our biodiversity conservation and will be vital for reversing declines in the abundance or even the survival of many species. Overreliance on the abundance target underplays the value of habitat restoration, the primary place for which, at first, is in the protected sites.
Over the past 30 years, mostly as a result of the EU birds and habitats directive, we have not seen SSSIs completely trashed to a great extent any more; it has become comparatively uncommon and is mostly done by government-financed infrastructure schemes—but we will put that aside for the moment. But many SSSIs are in pretty poor condition, impacted by a lack of management, inappropriate land use and modern agriculture. The percentage of SSSIs in favourable condition has remained steadfastly below 40% for many years.
For a brief period in the 1990s and early 2000s—when, by sheer chance, I happened to be chairman of English Nature, the predecessor of Natural England—there was a glimmer of progress, which was not led by me but finagled by Defra and English Nature’s great staff. In 2000, Defra’s public service agreement for SSSIs was set at 95% of them being in favourable condition
by 2010—that was ambition. That was a real target. Defra and English Nature had a six-year rolling programme that was well thought through and resourced to make this happen. By 2003, 58% of SSSIs were in favourable condition, and, the following year, 62% were—real sustained improvement was possible. But, alas, as the years went past, resources were cut, the focus moved away and SSSIs declined in quality from then until now. More recently, in the 25-year environment plan, government committed to 75% of SSSIs being in favourable condition—so we are still not as good 95%, but 75% might just pass. But the improvements necessary to deliver that have not been driven, and the long-term targets that we are debating today are totally silent on the condition of protected sites.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s recent report on these statutory instruments notes that the Government failed to comment on why a target is not possible. That raises an excellent question, so I ask the Minister: why is such a target missing? The Office for Environmental Protection’s recent report on progress with the 25-year environment plan points out that its objectives are not being achieved across the board and calls for “challenging apex targets”—that is a bit jargony—for all goals in the forthcoming environmental improvement plan, which would include protected sites. I look forward to that on 31 January. So it is pretty clear that everyone thinks that the absence of a condition target, or indeed any target, for protected sites is a bad thing. In fact, you have to ask a more basic question: what is good about protecting protected sites if they are simply allowed to decline?
But, again, the implications of this omission have become worse as a result of COP 15. Only three weeks ago, we signed up to a commitment to ensure that, by 2030, at least 30% of areas of degraded terrestrial ecosystems are under effective restoration and that, by 2030, at least 30% of the land is protected and effectively managed—this is the 30x30 commitment that the Government busted a gut to support in Montreal. Back home, we are miles away from either 30% commitment, and, unless we adopt a binding target for protected sites’ condition to drive their recovery, we will look globally foolish or duplicitous, as well as letting those sites go down the drain. The slogan is, “Think global, act local”; we did the global diplomacy on this one, so now let us get the England action into focus with a target—hopefully an ambitious one. If the Minister would like, we can tell him how we made progress 20 years ago.
I hope that the Minister can commit to bringing forward as soon as possible a new target for the condition of terrestrial protected sites—our precious SSSIs. Let us not forget that the crisis of biodiversity decline is as existential as the climate change crisis. Every extinction foreshadows our own. We need to do better than this. I beg to move.