The Government this week attempted to throw out our inherited EU rules on sewage and house building. It took Jenny a week to convince Labour to take the opportunity to kill these late Government amendments to the Levelling Up Bill – amendments tabled by the Government at Report Stage in the Lords can be dismissed entirely because they haven’t been scrutinised at Committee Stage – and Labour did eventually join her in voting the amendments down

Jenny’s speech to the House in the Wednesday debate (incorrectly interrupted by the Minister):

We were lied to in this House. Our Government promised us repeatedly that there would be no lessening of environmental protection at any time. They promised us that and they lied. As a result of Brexit, we are now almost unprotected. Loads of us knew at the time that they were lying.

Lord Evans of Rainow : My Lords, the noble Baroness knows full well that parliamentary rules do not allow her to use those words, so we would be grateful to her if she could withdraw them.

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb: Deputy Speaker, is that right?

Lord Evans of Rainow: The noble Baroness knows full well the words that she has just used, and we would be most grateful to her if she could withdraw those words.

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb: I genuinely did not know that I could not say that in this House. I know that in the other place we cannot say it. It is very difficult for me to withdraw words that I know are the truth, but I will withdraw them.

Lord Evans of Rainow: If the noble Baroness looks at the Companion, she will see that it is very clear on parliamentary language. So, I respectfully point to the Companion—and if she could read that and withdraw those words.

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb: I withdraw them.

We were told repeatedly during the passage of the Environment Bill that there would be no lowering of environmental standards in the post-Brexit legislation. That clearly has happened; environmental standards are down. I suppose that it was obvious, because the Government promised, but they refused to put it in that Bill; they absolutely refused, when we kept asking them. This is the same package of obfuscation as their refusal to guarantee post-Brexit workers’ rights or food standards—it is all part of the same thing.

I know that I am a bit cynical about this rotten Government, but even I would not have predicted that the Government would choose such a blatant act of environmental vandalism as these late amendments to the levelling up Bill. Our rivers and streams are already being pumped full of excrement on a daily basis, so why would Ministers feel that it was all right to pump any more in? How are they going to explain that when they pump it into the waterways of the Norfolk Broads or the Lake District?

The clear outcome from these amendments is that water pollution will be higher. The Government can argue as much as they like that the overall effect will be better because of mitigation but, to anyone who understands nature, that will be nonsense. The two most dangerous amendments are government Amendments 247YY and 247YYA. Amendment 247YY introduces a Henry VIII clause that allows the Government to revoke or amend any Act of Parliament or retained EU law concerning the “environment, planning or development” in relation to

“any effect of nutrient in water”,

and the way in which regulators take into account the effect of nutrients in water. Those are huge, far-reaching powers that will last for several years. There is no requirement in the amendment for these changes to be based on science or evidence; the Government will be able to force regulators to act against science and evidence.

The other dangerous amendment is government Amendment 247YYA, which forces authorities and regulators to assume that water pollution from proposed developments will not affect habitats, even when evidence proves that the water pollution will have a detrimental impact on habitats. So, the Government are forcing authorities to assume that water pollution will not affect habitats. This is complete and utter nonsense. They are banning authorities from requiring any assessment of the impact of water pollution on habitats and, worse still, the Government are forcing authorities to disregard the results of any evidence of the impact of water pollution on habitats, even when there is absolute proof that it will cause harm.

We cannot amend such bad law. I thank the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, for his role in this campaign, because his important amendments highlight the sheer absurdity of the Government’s proposal to force planning authorities to pretend that water pollution either does not exist or is not harmful. The Minister talks about more taxpayers’ money being put into mitigation measures as if it were a good thing, so the developers will be allowed to pollute and the taxpayer will be expected to cover the cost of the clean-up. People do not want to pay more in tax, and certainly not if it means more pollution—and certainly not if it means that housing developers can make bigger profits.

It is relevant that housing developers have put £60 million into Conservative Party coffers over the past decade. This policy is the payback by the Prime Minister on that investment. These donations, which account for around one-fifth of Conservative Party funding, had dried up at the beginning of the year; the developers had gone on strike and were refusing to hand over more money until the Government gave a big boost to their share price and dividend payments. I am not sorry to get in the way of such systemic corruption.

The best thing we can do with these government amendments is to reject them. The Government can bring forward fresh legislation if they want to insist on these, and that can be consulted on properly by local authorities and public bodies. They can have this debate as we all get ready for a general election and see how it goes down in a country where swimming in our rivers and on our coasts has become a dangerous sport. We can stop these dangerous government amendments—and we can do that by simply voting “not content”.

Later in the debate Jenny received an apology from Lord Evans of Rainow as she is in fact allowed to call the Government liars: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for my intervention earlier, which was incorrect—and I apologise to the House for misleading it.

Read the whole debate here:  Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill – Hansard – UK Parliament

Press on this win:

Nutrient neutrality – Big Issue 14th September 2023

Nutrient neutrality – BBC 14th September 2023

Nutrient neutrality – Business Green 14th September 2023

Nutrient neutrality – Financial Times 13th September 2023

Nutrient neutrality – Guardian 13th September 2023

Nutrient neutrality – Politics Home 13th September 2023