Environmental groups put pressure on Brexit Bill

Today (7 September), the government is presenting the European Withdrawal Bill to the House of Commons, ahead of a vote on Monday.

Representing around 70,000 environmental scientists, engineers, ecologists and water and waste experts, the Environmental Policy Forum (EPF) has written today to Defra Secretary Michael Gove and Brexit Secretary David Davis calling for “meaningful scrutiny of green policies and laws in the proposed Withdrawal Bill process”.

Parliamentary scrutiny

In the letter, the Forum warned that the Bill gives the government executive powers to “bring about legal and institutional changes that would normally be the subject of detailed parliamentary debate and scrutiny”.

The Forum argued that there needs to be ‘appropriate’ parliamentary scrutiny during withdrawal, adding that “public consultation and parliamentary debate should be the presumption and not the exception”.

The letter also called for an independent body to hold the government to account and fill the hole that the loss of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice of the EU will leave.

These institutions have had greater powers than domestic courts “as demonstrated by its ability to enforce progress in addressing urban waste water issues in the UK for example”, said the Forum.

Equally, the letter warned that there is no general statement of environmental principles in UK law that is equivalent to the commitments made in the EU treaties.

There is a need to ensure the “fundamental principles which underpin decades of environmental improvement are protected, or provide a meaningful framework for independent scrutiny of future Government performance on the environment”, said the statement.

The Forum added that devolved nations have been instrumental in driving higher environmental standards, and the Bill “must not limit the ability of the devolved nations” to improve these standards.

Appropriate tools and measures

Environmental Policy Forum chair, Professor Will Pope said: “the Government has welcome ambitions for the environment, with a new 25 year plan imminent and a commitment to improve environmental quality for future generations. Yet plans without appropriate tools and measures for delivery and scrutiny will be doomed to failure.

“Brexit offers certain opportunities to manage our environment in a more effective manner, more bespoke to UK needs. Yet it also presents real risks that measures which have achieved cleaner rivers, seas, towns and cities could be eroded. We are calling for appropriate checks and balances to be established from the outset, to ensure we do not risk becoming the ‘dirty man of Europe’ again”.