A letter from Defra

Mark 6 Comments

I’m grateful to my MP, Tom Pursglove, for getting this letter out of DEFRA. Sounds great doesn’t it?

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6 Replies to “A letter from Defra”

  2. I have to say, having at least reviewed the main parts of the Bill as it stands currently after its second reading, I think it is an utter disgrace. There is no independent Environment and enforcement adjudicator as we had under the EU . As it stands the Government has set its self up as “ poacher and game keeper”. It other words on environmental and wildlife issues it is all down to what the minister thinks, and one can imagine what will come out of that compared to the types of judgement that the independent European Court of Justice gave when we were in the EU.
    This letter you have received Mark is (sorry to use such strong language) absolute bull shit.
    We are having the EU Directives that were the foundation of the protection of our wildlife and environment, ripped away from us and being replaced by the judgement of a politician, probably a very biased politician.that will reflect the vested interests of his/ her party.
    The Environment Bill as it currently stands is, in my opinion, appalling.

  3. The words used do not instill confidence but …. and as ever, it’ll be the detail in due course and then of course the actions (if any) ….

    PS Today’s budget wasn’t particularly conducive to environmental considerations, but then did we really expect it to be after HS2 got the go ahead 🙁

    1. Except HS2 is one of the key infrastructure projects that will actually help meet environmental objectives!

      Unless you have envisaged some different economic utopia, people will still travel and the current victorian railway infrastructure won’t be able to cope with additional people travelling by train and people forget that the cost actually equates to the upgrading of the ECML, Midland Mainline and the WCML because it will free up capacity for extra middle distance stopping trains and increased freight trains and all this for the destruction of less than 0.01% of ancient woodland!

      Of course the government could do more by unfreezing fuel duty and making train fares simpler and more affordable, but HS2 is needed and should have been built a decade ago!

      Just because people don’t see it being of use to them is no reason not to take into account what is required to keep this country moving.

  4. It sounds like they plan to re-implement the Strategic Environmental Assessment directive…..under a different name…

    Before the EU, UK made commitments internationally to Ramsar etc…… what are we going to do about these obligations?

    1. The UK is a signatory to Ramsar in its own right so leaving the EU should not make any difference to its obligations under the convention. Same applies to other international wildlife conventions including Berne Convention, Bonn Convention and the Convention on Biodiversity (Rio 92).
      Generally, international conventions do not have much in the way of ‘teeth’ to enforce compliance whereas the European wildlife directives are backed up by the capacity of the ECJ to impose sanctions on parties who do not comply so how the UK performs in relation to its convention commitments in future depends on the good will of the government and their willingness to be seen in international fora as foot dragging or worse.

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