Vanity Fair: Not a magazine I usually read but this article highlights what is at stake – much more than any one sector.

Wildlife & Countryside Link’s Brexit Digest

12 September 2017

Fears that the Government were going to face a tough vote on the second reading of the EU Withdrawal Bill was put to bed last night, as MPs comfortably backed the bill by 326 votes to 290. Despite the repeated warnings from senior Tories, not one voted against the bill. Instead of the anticipated Tory revolt, seven Labour MPs voted with the Government.

So what now? The bill will return to Parliament after party conferences, at which point the Government has promised eight days of scrutiny. Already over 130 amendments have been tabled to “remove the excesses of the bill” and to “make considerable improvements”- crucially these are amendments which have support from the four influential Conservative chairs of the Commons committees.

You can see Wildlife and Countryside Link and Greener UK’s proposed environmental amendments here and the accompanying briefing for MPs here.

EU Withdrawal Bill inadequate to deliver Gove’s “Green Brexit” vision of healthier environment Environmental Policy Forum & CIWEM

As MPs begin to debate the landmark European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, leading environmental scientists, engineers, ecologists and water and waste experts have called for meaningful parliamentary scrutiny of environmental policies and laws.

Whilst the Conservative Government committed in its manifesto to “be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than it inherited” and Environment Secretary Michael Gove has talked of his ambition for a “Green Brexit”, a range of professional bodies have warned that the EU Withdrawal Bill “gravely threatens” the ability to achieve either.

In letters to Michael Gove and David Davis, the institutes have warned that the Bill fails to adequately provide for parliamentary scrutiny of the raft of changes required to make environmental laws function, 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. They also warned that devolved administrations should not be constrained from pursuing ambitious environmental policies and targets of their own as a result of the powers the Bill creates.

The bodies have called for the legal establishment of a new body, answerable to Parliament and fully independent of Government which would help provide the kind of scrutiny currently provided by the European Commission. In the past this has allowed citizens and organisations to take governments to court over failing to meet legal obligations such as on air quality. The bodies have also called for parliamentary committees to rubber stamp or call in for scrutiny the large number of laws which Ministers can approve, under so called ‘Henry VIII powers’, as EU laws are made workable in the UK. Click here to read more.

Lissa Batey & Joan Edwards ‘As you are already aware, ahead of the second reading of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill (Repeal Bill), on the 7th and 11th September, we have been working with Greener UK to develop a parliamentary briefing and draft amendments. We thought you’d be interested to see this work, which was sent to all MPs.

The briefing focuses on three high level objectives:

• To ensure the principles of international environmental law are retained
• Provide new governance arrangements to implement environmental standards
• Ensure scrutiny of any potential changes to existing law and regulation

Greener UK have also drafted a number of amendments which will be shared with a cross party group of key MPs – these should be ready at the beginning of next week.

Greener UK website: http://greeneruk.org/