Last week’s King’s Speech included 35 bills and draft bills, setting out the new government’s plans for this parliament and recognising “the urgency of the global climate challenge and the new job opportunities that can come from leading the development of the technologies of the future”.

The government will establish Great British Energy, a new publicly owned company that will invest £8.3 billion in clean energy, in particular offshore wind. Ed Miliband has also unveiled plans to fulfil the government’s promise to triple the amount of solar power in the UK by 2030.

There is a new Water (Special Measures) Bill to ‘strengthen the powers of the water regulators’, enabling them to bring automatic and ‘severe fines’. With every wastewater company in England and Wales currently under investigation for sewage spills, this new bill could be significant.

There was limited mention of nature and biodiversity loss, with a promise to “use development to fund nature recovery”, mainly through the biodiversity net gain mechanism by which developers must restore and improve the natural environment and species habitats in return for being allowed to build.

However, the Deputy Prime Minister and Defra Secretary of State have written to environmental NGOs on the planning and infrastructure bill. The letter illustrates the new government’s desire to use ‘the value gained from enabling development to proceed quickly and smoothly to support nature recovery.’