Addressing the International Centre for Sustainability in the heart of the City of London, the Rt Hon Dame Theresa Villiers highlighted the need for urgent action to protect nature and reverse the decline we have seen in habitats and biodiversity in recent decades.
During her time as Defra Secretary and MP, she championed environmental issues and nature recovery; and in her speech she pledged to continue to do so. She is currently working up a proposal for a PhD on the legal and policy mechanisms needed to meet targets set on restoration of biodiversity and halting species decline.
Kay Lecture at the International Centre for Sustainability: Theresa Villiers
Nature depletion is one of the defining challenges of our time. We are living through an era of profound environmental degradation. Around the world, species are vanishing and ecosystems are collapsing. The UN has warned of a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution & waste.
It’s no coincidence that so many fictional visions of dystopian futures involve barren and lifeless landscapes. The 2021 Dasgupta Review analysed the huge economic value eco-systems provide in ensuring we can breathe clean air, drink clean water, and produce the food we need to survive.
There’s abundant research on the health benefits of spending time in natural spaces. The Japanese concept of Shinkrin-Yoku encourages people to immerse themselves in woodland environments.
And of course thriving plants and trees are crucial if we’re to have any chance of locking in carbon and preventing disastrous climate change.
Love of landscapes, green fields and biodiversity has a central place in the history and culture of this sceptred isle we are lucky enough to call home.
Left unchecked, degradation of nature could have devastating consequences. The task of reversing that trend is huge, and it’s urgent. But I believe it is possible to bring an end to nature’s decline and secure a thriving natural environment for the future, whilst still achieving the economic growth we need to keep living standards rising. I want to reflect on the legal framework and policy programmes needed for that endeavour.
A legal framework for nature recovery
Passing the Environment Act in 2021 was a landmark moment, the most significant piece of environmental legislation in decades.
As the Secretary of State who took it through the tortuous process of final government approval, I introduced it to Parliament at the dispatch box.
It embeds environmental principles in government decision-making. It introduces a framework for legally binding targets. And it establishes the Office for Environmental Protection (or “OEP”), a powerful new watchdog to hold government to account on delivering its commitments.
Perhaps most important of all, this mammoth statute made the UK the first country in the world to enshrine in law the duty to halt species decline by 2030, our “net zero for nature.”
OEP’s assessment of progress
The OEP’s latest assessment, published in January, makes sobering reading. Progress on environmental improvement has slowed, and the Government is largely off track on 20 out of its 43 targets.
Deadlines for 2027 and 2030 are approaching fast. Repeated delays mean strategy and delivery plans haven’t kept pace with what needs to be done. Specific, measurable and time-bound interim targets are required if we are to operationalise government goals.
These can unlock investment and innovation by guiding policy design and implementation across government, and signalling policy direction and continuity to the private sector.
The Environmental Improvement Plan (or EIP) required under the Environment Act is due for renewal. This next version needs to be genuinely transformative; not merely an update, but a decisive strategy to raise environmental ambition and momentum.
And this EIP must be supported by delivery plans that set out who will do what, how, and by when, and it must detail what the intended outcomes will be.
Unlocking finance for nature
We must mobilise private finance. The Biodiversity Net Gain provisions in the Environment Act require developers to deliver a 10% uplift in habitats. That should mean a substantial income stream for nature recovery, and throw a lifeline to our beleaguered farmers who will hopefully play a major role in these BNG schemes.
But as set out in the report of the 2021 Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform of which I was a member, we won’t be able to maximise the impact of BNG without a flexible, market-based trading system for biodiversity credits.
A coherent and trusted nature market has to be a core part of meeting our biodiversity goals. Leaving all this to licensing by Natural England is not sufficient. We need a more dynamic market-based model if we’re to unlock the innovation and investment that is needed.
Plans for that were set out in the Nature Markets Framework and Green Finance Strategy published by the last Government. Elements of the recent Corry Report proposal for a Nature Market Accelerator could also help.
Clear market rules, standardised credits, and investor confidence are essential to reaching the target that has been set of £1 billion of private money going into nature recovery by 2030.
Agriculture and land-use
Having the right land use policies is of course central to halting species decline. The last few years have seen radical change to our system of financial support for agriculture. The Environmental Land Management schemes (or “ELMS”) which are replacing the Common Agricultural Policy are one of the clearest examples of how leaving the EU has enabled us to strengthen environmental protections. The switch from basic payments to rewarding nature-friendly farming practices is revolutionary.
Changes to farm support are notoriously hard to deliver. But the lengthy engagement with farmers and green groups in designing ELMS seems to be paying off. A significant number of farms opted into the Sustainable Farming Incentive and Countryside Stewardship schemes. That means they’re now being rewarded for providing public goods such as soil health, carbon sequestration, and species recovery. Activities like conservation of hedgerows and leaving space for wildflowers and pollinators are being incentivised, making more space for nature.
But funding is under pressure. The Sustainable Farming Incentive ran out of money and closed suddenly in March.
There was a collective sigh of relief when the Spending Review revealed £2.3 billion a year for farming, plus £400m annually for other nature recovery schemes. That said, the squeeze on Defra’s day-to-day budget, also announced in the Spending Review, won’t help them carry out the crucial leadership role needed for the policy areas we’re considering today.
Moreover, while ELMS is a success story, the OEP have warned that reliance on the Sustainable Farming Incentive will only get you so far. Action is needed to get farmers into the higher-tier more ambitious programmes that have stronger biodiversity outcomes.
The OEP has also expressed the concern that even with an expansion of higher tier, higher impact, schemes, the Government is pinning too much hope on ELMS as a whole when a far broader range of actions is needed to reach the 2030 species target.
Reforming regulation
Effective regulation is essential to address the market failures that lead to environmental harms. Outside the EU, we can now write our own environmental laws for the first time in half a century. Some who disagreed with the result of the referendum claimed leaving the EU would be used to strip back environmental regulations. But the last Government actually strengthened protections in significant respects.
We need smarter regulation, rather than deregulation: clear, outcome-focused, and adaptive.
We should use our new Brexit freedoms wisely and with caution. But there are changes we can apply to the EU rules we inherited to make them more flexible, more proportionate, and less costly to operate. But which do not undermine our nature protection goals.
That brings me to the Habitats Directive. Since 1992 this has governed the treatment of a network of protected areas. The regulations implementing the directive were retained on the UK statute book after exit.
Few would disagree with the aims of the directive. But the way it operates has long been a source of frustration. I recall some pretty animated discussions round the Cabinet table on this going back as far as 2012. My successor as Environment Secretary, George Eustice described the Habitats Directive as “flawed, ambiguous, and bureaucratic.” It can require multiple assessments, and its rules on nutrient neutrality have seen housebuilding projects blocked in a number of areas.
The last government wanted to reform the regulations which implement the directive, whilst maintaining high standards. But they were defeated by a Labour Lib Dem coalition in the House of Lords when they attempted to amend the rules on nutrient release.
The Labour Government is now grappling with the dilemmas their predecessors faced. The Corry Review they commissioned made some reasonable points on streamlining and simplifying environmental guidance which can seem labyrinthine. I agree with Mr Corry that we should promote green innovation through greater use of experimental regulatory sandboxes, and that we should do more to ensure regulators focus on outcomes, not just compliance processes.
In principle, it should be possible to reconcile our commitments on protection of habitats, with a more flexible approach which gives greater scope for conservation measures that look at overall management of species, rather than focusing so exclusively on individual sites.
However, caution is needed. Yes, we should consider targeted reform of the Habitats Directive and a more proportionate approach with involves less site-by-site micro-management, as floated in the Corry Review.
But in their Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Government go too far. At present, developers are supposed to follow a “mitigation hierarchy”: avoid, minimise, mitigate, offset. This long established principle requires developers firstly try to avoid building in places of high wildlife value, especially irreplaceable habitats. If that isn’t possible, they should minimise the harm inflicted. Then they should mitigate that harm, by restoring biodiversity they’ve damaged. Only if all these options are exhausted should they seek to offset harm by creating habitats elsewhere.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, jumps straight to offsetting. The “Nature Restoration Levy” it proposes has been heavily criticised by green NGOs as allowing developers to damage whatever habitats stand in their way. Once they have paid the levy, the draft legislation seemingly permits them to disregard the impact of destroying a protected feature, no matter how unique and precious it is.
Ministers dispute these claims, but many have called for a rethink on the Bill, including the OEP. Demonising bats and newts isn’t an effective way to grapple with housing supply problems. We need changes to the Habitats Directive which are far more precise and targeted to deliver the win-win for nature and growth the Government say they are seeking.
What’s in the Bill currently is too heavy handed, a blunt instrument being applied to a highly complex problem. Amendments are needed to restore the mitigation hierarchy, and give a much stronger guarantee that levy payments will actually deliver benefits for nature. The Government has the chance to do that as the Bill proceeds to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.
Marine protection and global leadership
No strategy to protect nature will work without concerted action to rescue our oceans.
The 2017 Blue Planet TV series had a remarkable impact. It was a moving and powerful reminder that as an island nation, we have a historic obligation to safeguard the seas that surround us. This year we saw the stellar combination of David Attenborough and His Royal Highness Prince William return this issue to the top of the news agenda. As the Prince said in his speech to the Blue Economy Finance Forum in Monaco:
“Rising sea temperatures, plastic pollution and overfishing are putting pressure on these fragile ecosystems and on the people and communities who depend upon them. What once seemed an abundant resource is diminishing before our eyes.”
The UK has shown real leadership on this issue. Working with overseas territories, the Conservative Government’s Blue Belt programme protected an area of ocean the size of India.
We played a vital role in leading the Clean Ocean Alliance. We toughened rules protecting the marine environment with a range of measures to crack down on plastics pollution. Using our Brexit freedoms, we banned damaging fisheries practices like bottom trawling in a number of special protected areas. And we put a stop to sandeel fishing in the North Sea to boost puffin populations who feed on these fish.
What’s more, the UK successfully defended the latter measure in the first arbitration resulting from the EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
But there’s much more that needs to be done to restore the marine environment, including implementation of the long awaited High Seas Treaty, and faster progress on the commitment to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as the as the heir to the throne said in his ocean speech, “the clock is ticking”. But there is hope. Nature has phenomenal resilience and regenerative capacity.
It can revive itself, if we give it a chance, if we act together, and we act now.
The emotional outpouring triggered by the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree was a striking reminder of how deeply people care about the natural world. We must harness that public sentiment to build support for bold policies.
Nature recovery isn’t just an environmental cause, it’s a patriotic one, and it’s an investment in our national wellbeing, resilience, and prosperity.
We’re at a crossroads. With time running out, we must act decisively to strengthen the legal framework for nature recovery:
· to reform regulation so it is more strategic, more outcomes-focused, and more targeted
· to unlock private finance and invest in sustainable farming;
· to lead the world on marine and international conservation; and
· to actively engage the public to inspire a new national mission for nature.
There should be few things more important to us than stewardship of our natural environment.
We have a moral obligation to future generations to hand on this precious world in a better state than we found it.
This was a personal mission for me when I was in elected office. It remains so for me now. And I hope this speech sets out some constructive steps towards achieving that goal.
