Aligning policy and practice for environmental improvement
Westminster Forum event - Thursday, 13 March
Good morning, and thank you once again for welcoming me to speak at this event. It is such a valuable thing to be able to come together in this way to focus on environmental protection and improvement.
As ever, when the invitation arrived it came with a list of suggested topics. It was quite a list. There is a lot happening at the moment, a lot of ground to cover, so to speak. There is much to welcome in what Government is doing currently, things that if done well, can make a real difference. I am thinking of things such as the Cunliffe Review on water, the Corry Review on environmental regulation and, of course, the EIP refresh, among others. More on the latter later.
But it's not just about making a difference, or doing better. The progress, the improvement, must be enough to ensure legally-binding environmental targets are met. They are there for a reason. They represent the change needed to ensure our environment is thriving. That is not a nice to have. It is essential. And it is not the responsibility of one part of Government. It is the responsibility shared by the whole Government.
EIP progress report
We published our latest EIP progress report in January – it has become an annual event for the OEP, but there is still little to celebrate.
The headline from our latest assessment – for the 12 months up to March 2024 - remains that Government is off track to achieve its environmental goals and targets. And while there were some areas of improvement, we found less progress in this assessment period than in the year before.
Our assessment of the prospects of meeting 43 environmental targets and commitments found that government is largely on track to achieve 9, partially on track to achieve 12 and largely off track to achieve 20.
Targets where government is largely on track include specific air pollutants such as PM2.5, and particular sources of water pollution such as phosphorus loadings from wastewater. Targets where government is largely off track span most EIP goal areas including those for nature, freshwater and marine environments and waste.
In terms of the overall prospects of government meeting its ambitions for the goal areas set out in the EIP, we concluded that in seven goal areas, including the apex goal of achieving ‘thriving plants and wildlife’, government is largely off track. In three goal areas, government is partially on track - ‘clean air,’ ‘reducing the risk of harm from environmental hazards’ and ‘enhancing beauty, heritage and engagement with the natural environment’.
So the Government has a job to do to catch up and recover lost ground. It is not an easy task, but we think it can be done. And it must be done – but the window of opportunity is closing fast.
Some of the key targets are very close now. Unless things change, those such as the 30 by 30 target on land and sea will not be met. There are also Water Framework Directive targets due in 2027 – we have reported previously on the poor prospects of achieving these – EIP interim targets in 2028 and air emission targets in 2029 and 30.
EIP progress report - recommendations
We set out a number of recommendations which aim to help Government get on track, and with the review of the EIP in mind.
Government must get nature-friendly farming right. It must strengthen its engagement and advisory work with farmers and landowners to achieve its ambitions at scale. Agri-environment schemes are promising but rely on greater uptake of more environmentally ambitious Countryside Stewardship and Landscape Recovery. Government must make sure that sufficient funds are made available so as to optimise the important contribution these schemes make. While schemes could deliver for nature on land, we are concerned that more must be done for biodiversity in our rivers and lakes.
Government must maximise the contribution of protected sites for nature. They contribute towards achieving the set of national biodiversity targets and international commitments, such as 30 by 30, as well as providing wider environmental, economic and social benefits. However, the current framework is not working well enough. Steps should be taken urgently to correct significant underinvestment in site designation and management, including implementation of conservation measures; improving monitoring and strengthening overall governance and engagement with partners.
Government must speed up action in the marine environment. The government did not meet its commitment to ban all damaging activities in Marine Protected Areas in 2024. The latest data from OSPAR confirm the UK will more than likely not have met the legal requirement of marine Good Environmental Status. Government should implement a new UK Marine Strategy that focuses action on those descriptors not yet at good environmental status, to maximise progress and minimise the delay in achieving that overall objective. Government has recently published a Programme of Measures, We are evaluating that programme, and will comment further in due course,
Government must set out clear mechanisms for reconciling competing demands for use of land and sea. The ways in which land and sea are used are among the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss. Environmental pressures will become more acute with the need to develop essential clean energy infrastructure and housing, while delivering the government’s environmental priorities of food security and protecting communities from flooding. The government needs to progress Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs), effective BNG, the Land Use Framework, and detailed catchment and marine spatial plans. These can secure coherence between environmental and other priorities but need to be expedited and effectively integrated into planning decisions in practice. However, plans on their own are not enough without resources to implement them.
Government must develop a circular economy framework. The majority of pressures on the environment are related to how we meet our needs for food, energy, mobility and the built environment so resource use needs to decrease. Progress in this area has been too slow. The government should update the Resources and Waste Strategy to establish a framework for a circular economy. This would deliver economic benefits and improve environmental outcomes across many areas, including nature recovery, but it requires the efforts to go beyond waste management.
This includes the acceleration of a new UK policy and regulatory framework for chemicals, since clean material cycles and products being sustainable by design are crucial steps to achieving residual waste targets and progress towards the government’s environmental priority of a zero-waste economy.
In addition to these areas for action, greater progress will also be enabled with actions on three cross-cutting enablers:
Government must mobilise investment at the scale needed. Across our work, we are seeing significant funding gaps. We are not generallly talking about the need for, say, a small uplift. Rather, we are talking orders of magnitude. Government’s ambition for private investment in nature’s recovery is a key enabling step to close the finance gap, alongside continued and well targeted public investment. Given the scale of the challenge, to achieve this the government needs to provide strong incentives, oversight and regulation, to create the market confidence to deliver rapid, substantial growth in investment, as well as the capability and capacity of the environmental sector to make the most of that investment.
Government must regulate more effectively. Better regulation is an enabler, not a blocker of development that is environmentally, socially and economically beneficial. Effective regulation is essential to address the numerous market and other failures that have led to environmental degradation at significant cost to society. It is also needed to ensure economic growth is sustainable, given the reliance of the economy on natural resources, ecosystems and biodiversity.
Government must harness the support needed to achieve ambitions. The government needs to provide clear leadership at the highest level to ensure cross-government delivery and wider stakeholder buy-in. A revised EIP should be far more transparent and better communicated. It should explicitly state who will do what, how and by when and detail what the intended outcomes of actions are. The government should couple its implementation with greater engagement with non-government bodies and the public to harness their willingness to contribute and build support for action.
EIP rapid review recommendations and interim targets
Those recommendations build on the initial advice we provided for the rapid review of the EIP. In that advice, we were clear about the need for effective prioritisation of actions that will have the most impact across goal areas and targets, front loading efforts to catch up but also making full use of the timespan of the plan to phase actions.
And we once again emphasised the pressing imperative for transparent delivery planning, making clear to all what has to be done, by whom and by when, with each step explicitly linked to specific targets or commitments, and quantified wherever possible.
And our advice was that Government must mobilise funding, including private investment; it must regulate more effectively, and it must harness widespread support to ensure the plan succeeds.
Since we published our EIP progress report, Defra has put out an interim statement on that review. We took heart from that statement. It indicated that much of our advice has been taken into account. The direction of travel looks positive. We await more information with great anticipation.
I do note that the interim statement confirmed that they are updating interim targets to cover the 5-year period from completion of the review.
These interim targets are important. They must act as a meaningful stepping stone on the way to the main objective. We have provided views on interim targets in our last three statutory reports - as well as advising that each goal area of the EIP should have a headline or apex target.
In our 2021/22 report we recommended that government set and vigorously pursue clear and achievable interim targets that are as ambitious as possible in the areas needing most attention. The EIP23 included Environment Act interim targets. There are 21 interim targets with deadlines ranging from 2027 to 2032, with the majority set for 2028. However, in our view not all were set with sufficient context or an explanation of how meeting them will make the appropriate contribution to meeting associated targets. For example, the interim targets relating to the condition of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) do not bear a clear relation to the Environment Act targets for species abundance or extinction risk.
The need for coherence
So, there you have some of our main recommendations. But more broadly, what is needed if Government is to meets it environmental targets and commitments?
One consistent theme coming up throughout our work has been a lack of coherence – policies and plans across government that don’t speak to each other, work together, or support a common goal.
Much has been said and written about a perceived tension between ambitious development plans and protecting the environment, for example. We recognise a clear commitment from Government to ensure that planning reforms ensure that nature recovery and development work well together.
We do not yet have the detail. Just yesterday, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill was published. We will look at it carefully, and evaluate it. Ahead of the Bill coming out, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Steve Reed to acknowledge this and offer the OEP’s support. One of our roles is to provide advice to Government. We can play a role here, and add real value.
In my letter I highlighted the findings of the OEPs report on environmental assessments, which found three key issues that need to be addressed to allow any system to work well: lack of post-decision monitoring, evaluation and reporting; lack of access to information and lack of access to expertise.
We will now take some time to look at the Bill in detail, and keep our eyes on it as it progresses. We will be particularly interested to see the details of the Nature Restoration Fund and the Environmental Delivery Plans. So much is resting on how they will work in practice. This is also a test for the new Environmental Principles Policy Statement, another cornerstone of the Environment Act, and ensuring that among these the precautionary principle, is followed in decision making will be vital.
On coherence, the proposed Land Use Framework is also of interest here. Our initial view is that it is a useful framework for spatial decision making and could be very important for delivering government’s environmental plans and targets – see the recommendation in our EIP progress report - whilst managing land use trade-offs and synergies.
Key to that success will be how it works with other policies and plans – such as LNRS and BNG - and how it can improve coherence across the revised EIP, the 25-year roadmap for farming, food strategy, and the afore-mentioned planning reforms. Where it has influence, where it bites.
One last point on coherence. The Environmental Principles Policy Statement – EPPS – is now in effect. That can be such a powerful tool to ensure that the environment is appropriately considered when developing policy. We have taken an early look at how implementation across government has been going.
We have found positive early signs of the EPPS being supported. But more can and must be done, however, to fully embed good practice across the machinery of government.
Wherever polices that may have an impact on the environment are being developed – in transport, planning and infrastructure, for example - the environment must by law be considered from the very beginning, and throughout.
We have called for strong leadership from government to ensure good practice already underway is shared and embedded, and poor practice identified and cut out.
Government departments also need to be more transparent about how they are being guided by the EPPS so they can be held publicly accountable, and all can see whether it is being used effectively. Such full transparency would enable government to identify any gaps and to act on them.
Delivery
Another theme evident across multiple areas of our work is that of delivery – or rather a lack of delivery.
We have spoken at length about this, and particularly the lack of detailed delivery plans supporting the EIP.
But we have also identified other issues or barriers that prevent environmental laws from being implemented effectively. Lack of planning, lack of monitoring, lack of data, lack of resource, to give some examples.
I’m going to give a sneak preview of one programme of work to give another example of what this looks like in practice.
We have a programme of work looking at environmental inspections. These are obviously an essential part of environmental regulation, an important tool for assessing compliance, and fundamental for a high level of environmental protection to be secured – for effective delivery.
We will be publishing reports later in the year, but some broad themes are emerging.
Most statute applying environmental laws in England are silent on their expectations on inspections. Post-legislative scrutiny by Parliament is welcomed, but rarely considers inspection measures. Up-to-date information on inspections, including what inspections have taken place, is difficult to find.
In practice, we have found many regulated entities are not inspected regularly. Risk based regulation can be an effective approach. But what is in practice may better be called ‘resource-based’ regulation may not be delivering what Parliament intends.
Another example of where a key element of delivery is perhaps not as it should be.
Conclusion
To recap and conclude. Government remains off track to meets it environmental ambitions and obligations. Catching up will be difficult, but we think it can be done, and the revised EIP is an opportunity that can’t be missed.
We have made some specific recommendations, and maintain our calls for coherence across government and for a proper focus on delivery to achieve urgent change.
There are positive signs, and much to welcome in what we see from government, while we await more detail.
But there is something missing. Something fundamental to ensuring we, collectively, can achieve our aims to protect and improve the environment.
That is: a proper understanding across Government and indeed wider society of why this is so important. Why it matters.
We know that a healthy and thriving environment is not a ‘nice to have’. It is essential. It underpins everything else that Government seeks to achieve.
It is now four years since the Dasgupta review was published, commissioned by the UK Treasury. Its findings are worth re-stating. I don’t think they are not talked about enough. It said our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature.
It said we have collectively failed to engage with Nature sustainably, to the extent that our demands far exceed its capacity to supply us with the goods and services we all rely on, and that our unsustainable engagement with Nature is endangering the prosperity of current and future generations.
Improving biodiversity underpins the government’s objectives of securing economic growth, clean energy infrastructure and housing development, as well as delivering a healthier, fairer and more prosperous society.
Clean and plentiful water is essential for human health and wellbeing, biodiversity and the economy.
Air pollution is considered by the government to be the largest environmental risk to public health. It has an effect equivalent to 26,000 to 38,000 deaths per year in England.
Environmental hazards such as flooding, coastal erosion and wildfires have significant social and economic as well as environmental impacts. An Environment Agency study from April 2021 estimated that the total economic damages for all floods between January 2016 and November 2019 in England and Wales to be between £504 million and £924 million, with a best estimate of £708 million, updated to 2024 prices.
So, achieving targets for environmental protection and improvement – meeting the legal obligations in place – is not an abstract or bureaucratic exercise that sits alongside other priorities – it is fundamental to everything else that we all rely and depend upon. It underpins everything. Success is essential.
The challenge for us all is to make sure we don’t just focus on what needs to be done, we must also make the case for why it must be done, and the benefits that will come with success.
Thank you.
