Parliament’s role in delivering a green Brexit – Lord Krebs Blog

Posted on 21 March, 2018 by Green Alliance blog

This post was first published by Business Green, and is written by Lord Krebs, an independent crossbench peer in the House of Lords.

The decision to leave the EU raises many fundamental questions, not least of which is how to ensure the rights and protections we currently enjoy are not lost as a result. Eighty per cent of our environmental law stems from the EU. The House of Lords is currently debating the EU (Withdrawal) bill, intended to provide legal continuity as the UK leaves the EU. It is the most significant constitutional bill since that which led to our membership of the Common Market. While not immediately apparent, the bill has major implications for our present systems of environmental protection. In its current form, the bill omits key elements of the body of EU environmental law which are needed to ensure future protection. It also fails to deliver the necessary arrangements to ensure that the public can effectively hold the government to account. I have spent much of my career working on environmental issues, as a research scientist, as Chief Executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, and as Chairman of the Adaptation Sub Committee of the Climate Change Committee, so ensuring post Brexit environmental protection is very high on my agenda. 

Parliamentary interest is high   There has been significant parliamentary interest in fixing the bill in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In the House of Commons a cross-party group of MPs demanded clarity on how important environmental protections would be maintained.

Peers from all sides of the House of Lords have since taken up this cause enthusiastically. I have been working with other crossbench peers as well as representatives of the Labour and Liberal Democrat frontbenches, Conservative backbenchers and members representing the Greens and Plaid Cymru. We have also been working with Greener UK, a coalition of major environmental NGOs working to ensure that important environmental protections are maintained, and indeed improved, beyond Brexit.

We’ve been primarily concerned with amending the bill in three areas: legal certainty, i.e. ensuring that the full body of EU law is brought across; enshrining environmental principles, such as the precautionary principle, in law; and making sure the new green watchdog, which is needed to fill the “environmental governance gap” created by leaving EU institutions that are currently able to hold the UK government to account, is in place by exit day. Click here to read more