Recent analysis by the green thinktank the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and the Guardian has found that the UK government is using Brexit to backpedal on crucial EU environmental protections, leaving some experts concerned.
The analysis found that there are 28 environmental areas in which the UK is falling behind the EU, an increase from 17 areas that they found in their analysis last year.
This has led to concern that the UK government is using Brexit as an opportunity to reverse EU-mandated environmental protections.
The IEEP’s head of UK environmental policy, Michael Nicholson, said: “The UK has chosen not to keep pace with the EU”, but is instead “actively [going] backwards” in its environmental protections.
The IEEP and Guardian analysis found some areas in which the UK has moved ahead of the EU in its environmental protections. One of these highlights is the UK’s ban on sand eel fishing, which protects puffins by ensuring that their food supplies are not depleted by commercial fishing.
Overall however, their analysis found that the negative impacts outweighed the positives.
A key area of concern highlighted in the analysis is the planning and infrastructure bill. The bill forms a critical part of Labour’s manifesto, and aims to “streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure” to allow the government to achieve their target of building 1.5 million new homes in England.
The IEEP and Guardian analysis raised concerns that the bill overrides the EU’s habitats directive, which protects the habitats of rare animals such as nightingales and red squirrels.
The bill will allow developers to pay into a general nature restoration fund instead of maintaining or creating new habitats to make up for any environmental destruction as part of development works.
The analysis also found a number of other key areas of concern, including water quality, recycling and air pollution as the UK falls behind stricter EU legislation aimed at cleaning up rivers, removing microplastics and chemicals from water supplies, and imposing new regulations mandating that luxury products are made out of a certain level of recycled goods, and banning the destruction of unsold goods.
Concerns about the negative environmental impacts of the planning and infrastructure bill have also been raised by the Office for Environmental Protection, the independent body created post-Brexit to hold the government and public bodies to account on their environmental measures. It has labelled the bill as a “regression” in the UK’s environmental legislation.
The bill was criticised by a number of MPs back in June, with Labour MP Clive Lewis telling the Guardian: “I don’t understand how anyone who is environmentally minded can vote for this bill”.
The picture is somewhat different in Northern Ireland, which has been required to implement EU environmental laws as part of the Windsor framework which allows for a soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.
Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link has called on Starmer to be “braver” and for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to “turn the tentative steps forward into a confident plan for a nature-positive economy”.
Green MP Ellie Chowns has also criticised the government’s “political choice” to water down EU regulations, saying that “the government has made the wrong choices and needs to change direction”.
A Defra spokesperson told the Guardian: “We’re rebuilding the water network with a record £104bn investment to halve sewage spills by 2030, banning bee-killing pesticides, banning single-use vapes, creating the first National Forest in 30 years, releasing the first wild beavers in centuries, investing billions into nature friendly farming, and we will continue to deliver win-wins for the environment and development through our new Nature Restoration Fund.”
Featured image via orxy / Shutterstock.
