Michael Gove vowed in 2017, when trying to reassure remainers that leaving the EU did not mean leaving its standards behind, that Brexit would “strengthen environmental protections” in the UK.
But this week, the first proper ripping-up of an EU environmental rule was proposed by Gove himself, who has transitioned from proclaiming the virtues of a “green Brexit” to referring to the very rules he promised to protect as “defective”.
By telling local authorities in England to ignore the extra sewage pollution created by new developments in sensitive areas such as the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, an amendment proposed by the government essentially nullifies the EU’s habitats directive, which the UK had carried over. This directive is meant to protect the rarest species and wildlife areas in Europe from being destroyed by pollution or development, and is one of the strongest EU environmental regulations.
While this is the first time the government has attempted to use a change in the law to scrap an EU-derived protection, the UK has quietly been diverging from European standards for some time.
We will soon see whether the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has the same teeth as the EU – as promised by ministers when it was set up – for enforcing environmental laws and standards in England and Northern Ireland. The watchdog was set up to replace the EU as the enforcer for environmental standards after Brexit.
This week, Dame Glenys Stacey, the solicitor and civil servant who leads the OEP, wrote an angry letter to Gove and Thérèse Coffey about their plans to let housebuilders off the hook for pollution, calling it a “regression” in standards. She has ordered them to appear in front of parliament and admit it will cause a degradation in the environment that could contravene the government’s Environment Act.
It is unclear whether the OEP will have the power to stop this “regression” in the same way as the EU could have. The Wildlife Trusts said of the OEP: “In creating its own domestic version with fewer staff, less funding and restricted access to existing data, public health and the environment is being put at risk.”
The 2021 Environment Act was lauded by the government as a world-leading piece of legislation, promising that the UK would not just safeguard its environment but vastly improve it. Ministers at the time said this was proof that the promised “green Brexit” was occurring, and that it promised more than EU laws did.
However, critics say it is not worth the paper it is written on if laws can be changed to allow more pollution, and the environment targets it sets are for many years in the future, giving ministers a way out when they want to degrade standards, as they are unlikely to be in power when the legally binding targets are missed.
In practice, environmental deviations in standards are already taking place. Ministers approved the use in 2021 of a bee-killing pesticide that was banned in the EU due to its potency. They have provisionally signed off on the use of neonicotinoids every year since, while the EU has tightened its rules on pesticides.
There was more bad news for the bees last week as insect campaigners at Buglife warned that failing to copy a EU ban on imports of potted plans meant Asian hornets, an invasive bee predator, could be being transported undetected in soil.
There could be more to come as the retained EU law (REUL) bill comes into force at the end of the year. This bill, dreamed up by Jacob Rees-Mogg during his short stint as business secretary, ditches hundreds of EU-derived laws, many of which are environmental safeguards. The government refused to adopt an amendment that would protect environmental standards from the mass scrappage of legislation.
Jeff Knott, the director of policy and advocacy at the RSPB, said: “Three times the UK government threw out opportunities to include vital protections for nature in the REUL bill. Instead, ministers repeatedly gave their word environmental laws would not be weakened. They lied, and for the first time in decades we could see new legislation in England breaking that promise.
“We are fed up with the lies and backward steps. England is already one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth and broken promises will not save our rivers or protect our wildlife and wild spaces. People want stronger safeguards for our environment and climate, and it is well past time our leaders listened.”
Some regulations under threat in the REUL bill concern air pollution. The OEP wrote to Coffey this year saying: “In our view, the revocation of these regulations weakens accountability and transparency and in the absence of an alternative, comprehensive plan it has the potential to weaken environmental protection.”
The parts of the regulations to be deleted require the government to prepare and implement its plan to reduce pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and ammonia, and to review it if emissions are projected to exceed targets. The regulations also demand public consultation before revising the programme. Coffey ignored the watchdog and stated her intention to “reduce administrative burdens” by removing the rules.
Campaigners have also strongly criticised the decision to leave the EU’s gold standard chemical regulation system, EU Reach.
Promises to farmers that they would be able to reap generous rewards for protecting the environment, rather than the blanket subsidies they received under the common agricultural policy, have also been broken. The new nature payments system, whereby farmers are paid for practices such as planting trees, digging ponds and protecting the soil, has been delayed and changed each year. The confusion meant only a couple of hundred farmers were paid under the sustainable farming incentive last year. Meanwhile, the EU is developing its own version and reforming the common agricultural policy.
In the future, the UK is likely to diverge even further. Sources at the Environment Agency say it is likely England will miss a deadline for getting water bodies into good ecological status by 2027. This was required under the EU’s water framework directive and is a weaker target than initially set, which was to get them into good status by 2021 – though the EU legislation did allow for an extension to 2027. EU countries are still bound by this legislation and must work to clean up their water.