Labour the usage of Brexit to weaken nature rules, MPs say

Labour is the usage of post-Brexit freedoms to override EU nature rules and make allowance chalk streams and nightingale habitats to be destroyed, MPs have stated.

The making plans and infrastructure invoice going thru parliament will permit builders to avoid EU-derived environmental protections and as an alternative pay right into a nature recovery fund.

This would override the habitats directive, which protects animals together with otters, salmon and dormice. Under the brand new invoice it’ll be imaginable to pay into the fund and construct over their habitats.

The invoice additionally lets in doable construction of EU-designated websites together with websites of particular medical hobby and particular coverage spaces.

This week the Guardian printed that the invoice poses a danger to 5,251 spaces referred to as “jewels in the crown” for nature. They come with liked herbal landscapes such because the New Forest, the Surrey Heaths, the Peak District Moors and the Forest of Bowland, and rivers such because the Itchen in Hampshire and the Wensum in Norfolk.

The Office for Environmental Protection, the character watchdog set as much as exchange EU assessments and balances, has warned that the invoice could be a “regression” in phrases environmental coverage.

Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, stated the general public didn’t realise Brexit was once getting used to weaken nature rules.

“I don’t think people have made the connection about Brexit,” he stated. “What we, the Labour government, are doing with Brexit is using it in such a poor way. We’ve already seen it with water standards, pesticide standards over the last eight years, but this just turbocharges it all.

“There’s a sense we are able to get away with it because it’s not what people expect us to do. There is immediate outrage from the public when the Tories do it. People are confused when Labour does it.”

He stated he could be balloting towards the invoice in its present shape. “I don’t understand how anyone who is environmentally minded can vote for this bill,” Lewis stated.

Other political events are making plans to take a look at to win over disaffected nature-loving Labour citizens who shall be disheartened to peer their native inexperienced areas concreted over earlier than the following common election.

Gideon Amos, the Liberal Democrats’ making plans and housing spokesperson, stated: “The government seems content to dilute protections of our waterways and local wildlife with vague promises of future benefits and little clarity about when they will materialise. With national landscapes and precious chalk streams disappearing, we need urgent action from the government, working with our European neighbours, to protect vital ecosystems which run right across Europe.

“The Liberal Democrats have long led the campaign in parliament to clean up our rivers and chalk streams. We will continue to fight for their survival with our amendments to protect chalk streams and natural habitats in this bill.”

Zack Polanski, the deputy chief of the Green birthday party, stated: “Labour are once again showing there’s nothing they won’t learn from Reform. Not only are they content to sell off nature to the highest bidder, they’re only able to do so because they’ve utterly failed to defend the regulations that once protected our environment.

“This destruction is only possible because of their utter inaction on making the case for the value of EU environmental protections. From nightingales to chalk streams, our natural habitats deserve so much better than this bill – and so much better than this nature-destroying Labour party.”

The Wildlife Trusts stated: “The legislation would significantly weaken important habitat regulations – rules which have helped to effectively protect wildlife and wild spaces for decades. In so doing the bill risks stripping away vital protections without clear requirements on developers to deliver the nature restoration needed to revive precious landscapes such as chalk streams, wildflower meadows and ancient woodlands, and to protect treasured species like hazel dormice, otters and struggling bird and butterfly species.”