Defend nature campaign - where are we now?

It's been two months since the UK Government launched an Attack On Nature, through a raft of announcements which had an overarching tone of deregulation. DWT's CEO Harry Barton gives an overview of why the nature is still under threat and the challenge for the new government.

After months of chaos we finally have what seems like a stable government. The challenges facing it are huge. While our new Prime Minister appears to have a lot less antipathy towards the green agenda than his predecessor, we still don’t know exactly where he stands on many issues.

His decisions to reinstate the ban on fracking and attend the COP27 climate conference are reassuring. But the failure to set environmental targets by the legal deadline, the obsession with drilling for more oil in the North Sea and continuing uncertainty over the new farming subsidy regime (ELMS) are deeply concerning. A key test in the coming weeks will be his approach to the Retained EU Law bill, which could potentially wipe out 570 pieces of regulation and environmental protections built up over decades.

Why should we be the slightest bit concerned about losing a bit of regulation? Like death and taxes, regulation feels like one of life’s inevitabilities, and it’s hard to find politicians or business leaders that have much good to say about it. The very word is often bandied about as an arch gremlin, encapsulating everything that drives us mad and spoils our fun – unnecessary form filling, impenetrable websites, bureaucratic delays. I’ve heard it savaged in conversations with farmers trying to access subsidy payments or with friends struggling to change their phone provider. In many political circles it has come to represent everything that frustrates growth and puts dampers on progress. Scrap the regulation and we’ll be happy, wealthy and free!

The list of laws that could face the chop through the REUL bill is long - Habitat Regulations, Water Framework Directive, Bathing Waters Directive to name but a few. Originating in Europe but embedded in English law, they tell builders where they can and can’t build, farmers when and what they can spray, local authorities what processes they need to go through before taking big decisions on approving development. They reach into almost every aspect of commercial life, from pharmaceuticals to fishing nets.

Like case law in the English courts, regulation has typically evolved slowly over time to tackle practical problems being experienced in the everyday world. Slurry leaking into rivers. Building practices destroying bat roosts. It's often said that our woods, meadows, wild birds and insects are victims of death by a thousand cuts. Rather than any one-off cataclysm, we’ve witnessed a gradual erosion over decades, perhaps centuries, through seemingly small, insignificant decisions. I’m conscious of this as I see ash trees succumbing one by one to disease in the hedgerows all around me. As they’re felled, the flail soon follows, levelling the hedge off at the head height and preventing any young sapling from replacing the lost veteran. I’ve never counted, but I’d estimate we have ten less mature hedgerow trees in our parish every year.

Man riding bike down path by a river with houses in background. — Photo, Ben Hall/2020VISION

The converse is equally true of course. Individual decisions - to invest in a better slurry store, to build a bit of green space into a new housing development - create crucial openings for wildlife. It’s in these small but multitudinous decisions that the recovery of our nature lies. And regulations and protections, which define limits, direct behaviour and set standards, are absolutely key to these incremental steps forward for nature.

Few would claim that poor regulation doesn’t exist or that urgent reviews aren’t needed in some areas. It does, and they are. But many of the gripes vocalised by politicians, businesses and regulation hawks have nothing to do with regulation in its true sense and are more a reflection of sloppy administration, poorly funded agencies struggling to cope with ever increasing workloads or companies wanting to protect themselves from legal action or loss of earnings. Many more reflect a lack of awareness as to what problem the regulation is there to solve.

A recent poll by Unchecked showed that 74% of UK public thinks that current levels of regulation are either right or not strong enough.

But I suspect there’s something else behind the attitude of many people in powerful positions. Grand ambitions for growth and the quest for record breaking profits often borrow metaphors and imagery from the conquering of the wild west or the building of Britain’s colonial empire. The World is out there for the taking, if only we had the grit and determination to grasp it. What we achieve is a direct result of our imagination and endeavour. In this world of romantic bravado, progress is forged in bold, sweeping strides, and with the adventurous spirit of the buccaneer. Protection is for faint hearts, regulation for wimps.

But this isn’t the world we inhabit. There is precious little wilderness out there to conquer, and our impacts on the planet are so great that there is little we can do that doesn’t have an impact, directly or indirectly, on our neighbours. The sad truth is that we now live in a crowded room where one person snoring keeps everyone else awake, grinding their teeth with barely suppressed fury. Regulation may never be sexy, appealing or popular, but it is one of the prices we pay for civilisation.

Little wonder then that tearing up the rule book isn’t nearly as popular as some would have us believe. A recent poll by Unchecked showed that 74% of UK public thinks that current levels of regulation are either right or not strong enough. Only 22% feel we should accept less regulation to promote growth. Neither is this split down obvious party-political lines. 70% of people likely to vote conservative at the next election felt we had the right amount of regulation, or not enough. This sentiment was equally strong for environmental protections, with 81% of young people and 93% of potential conservative voters wishing to keep them.

Tap running — Photo by Imani on Unsplash

Regardless of its popularity, there is little evidence that regulation holds back our economy. In stark contrast, the costs of absent or ineffective regulation are all too clear. Cancellation of the Zero Carbon Homes policy has cost the UK £2 billion in wasted energy and added £200 annually to household energy bills. The failure to regulate effectively against air pollution causes 40,000 premature deaths in the UK. And the effects of weak enforcement can be seen in the parlous state of our rivers across the whole of the Southwest, with its notoriously high water bills - linked in no small part to the costs of cleaning up this mess.

Rishi Sunak has pledged his reputation on restoring economic stability, something that few would argue against. Here are some things that will help this stability.

First, he could set long term environmental targets and clear plans for how to get there, including making it clear what environmental protections will be in place. This will provide some much-needed certainty.

Secondly, he could help insulate us against the rising costs and instability over energy by shifting away from fossil fuels and driving growth in genuine green energy, with help to households and businesses to adapt.

Thirdly, he could ensure all subsidies, such as those for farming, help achieve public benefits such as net zero, nature’s recovery and cleaner waters, so that the quality of our rivers and coasts is something to be proud of rather than an international embarrassment.

And finally, he could take a constructive and progressive attitude to regulation and protections, rather than threatening to drive a bulldozer through them. All these would help us here in Devon and Cornwall, where our economy relies so much on awesome landscapes and clean, sparkling seas.

Graphic of future vision for UK environment if Government 30by30 pledge is achieved — If the Government commits to protecting, connecting and restoring 30% of land and sea for nature, this is what the future for people and wildlife could look like.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with grand announcements at international conferences or “world leading” new laws. We need them. But they’ll amount to little more than hot air without the boring, unsexy regulations, byelaws and other legal instruments that translate rhetoric into reality. If our new prime minister wants to get Britain on track to nature recovery and carbon neutrality, we need solid, and ambitious targets, an end to perverse subsidies and sensible, targeted regulation that is efficiently administered and rigorously enforced. One thing we don’t need is a deeply unpopular and utterly counter-productive bonfire of regulations, with all its wasted heat and toxic fumes.