Eustice disappoints

Just over three weeks ago, George Eustice made quite good speech, but you should never go overboard on praising government departments for speeches when they have to act later to make those words into reality. This week, amendments were published to the Environment Bill which fall far short of what it seemed we would get in terms of legally binding targets for wildlife conservation. DEFRA disappoints again.

Easy to say in retrospect? Well, just over three weeks ago, and a couple of days after Mr Eustice’s speech, I wrote this in my monthly newsletter (click here to subscribe to the June and subsequent editions):

The big environment news in England was the speech by the DEFRA Secretary of State, George Eustice, on Tuesday. It wasn’t a bad speech and it contained some good things in it. It’s the best environment speech we’ve had since Michael Gove was in the job.  But these things need to be read carefully and digested. It’s not as though such speeches start with the line ‘I’m going to point out more clearly all the bits you won’t like’.  It’s almost the case that the more ‘good things’ there are in a speech, the more you should look hard for the bad things! 

I now feel as though I should have added the other caveat which always applies, that one should read the ‘good bits’ carefully to see whether they really are as good as you thought. That’s always true too. But I did also write:

It is a good speech for the environment but DEFRA and Mr Eustice have a track record of making announcements that are either misleading or are not matched with action. In recent times the promised ban on burning on peatlands, the end of Badger culling and the always imminent peat strategy have been three examples.  So we would all be wise to hold back on extravagant praise until we see decisive and rapid action.  The devils and the angels are always in the detail, which we don’t discover until long after the initial impression of the speech itself has faded away.

But a promise to produce a legally binding target for nature’s recovery is what all the NGOs have been calling for, and 165,000+ members of the public have supported, so it’s good to see the right words about it here. If you have signed the #stateofnature petition then pat yourself on the back because you have been part of that advocacy, if you haven’t, then please do – click here.  You can either regard it as keeping Mr Eustice up to the mark or supporting him in his stated aim.

More advocacy will be needed in parliament and Whitehall to make sure that this promise is delivered but Eustice is right when he says this is the equivalent for nature of the Net Zero target for climate change.

So, when I say ‘I told you so’ it is really because I told you so. We are now in the situation described in the last paragraph above where the NGOs are trying to drum up parliamentary support to strengthen the Bill again. I hope that is successful.

The NGOs, except Wild Justice, eased off promoting the #stateofnature petition after Eustice’s speech, perhaps believing that the battle had been won but I am pretty sure we will see a surge in signatures between now and the end of June as the NGO community reacts to the shabby way that DEFRA has treated it. You can be sure that DEFRA will have been telling wildlife NGOs that they have won a glorious victory and they should be pleased with themselves and then they see the tabled amendments to the Bill and feel cheated. Some of my colleagues are smarting, and feel let down by DEFRA, and also a little chastened by their over-eager acceptance of DEFRA’s words which now makes the NGOs look rather gullible. Is it gullible to take a government department’s words as being true, or is it being grown up delivery partners? With this government, ahead of all the governments that I have known through personal experience, it is unwise to take the words as true. Do not rush to praise the words when you can wait to praise the deeds – or not. One of the problems is that all the NGOs (there are too many of them) want to be first in line to express their pleasure and gratitude to government.

The phrase in Eustice’s speech that sent everyone the wrong way was this paragraph;

And, that is why today we will be amending the Environment Bill to require an additional legally binding target for species abundance for 2030, aiming to halt the decline of nature. This is a huge step forward, and a world leading measure in the year of COP15 and COP26. We hope that this will be the Net Zero equivalent for nature, spurring action of the scale required to address the biodiversity crisis.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/environment-secretary-to-set-out-plans-to-restore-nature-and-build-back-greener-from-the-pandemic

There is no doubt, no doubt at all, that paragraph, which was the first meaty paragraph of the speech after some introductory pleasantries, was designed to give the impression that DEFRA was going to do something really good, indeed world-leadingly good. And they haven’t. DEFRA is wallowing firmly in the ‘That don’t impress me much’ area not the ‘Oh George! You’re my hero!’ area. To claim that DEFRA’s actions were going to be world-leading and that they might spark off similar targets around the world as other countries followed suit simply isn’t where we are. To compare what DEFRA has done to the Net Zero aspects of climate change policy is not true. This paragraph is certainly wrong, and the words were only spoken just over three weeks ago so it is difficult, I find it impossible, to imagine that they were written and spoken in good faith then, but that things have changed and reluctantly DEFRA has had to backtrack since the speech. No, I think that paragraph was written to mislead, impure and simple.

Yes there are the two words ‘aiming’ and ‘hope’ in that paragraph but if the speech writer, or the speech reader, thought they would get them off the hook of a charge of being deliberately misleading then they are wrong.

Let us be quite clear, the NGOs have done well to get anything from this government. There has been some progress, but not very much. And not what is needed because, all in Eustice’s words in his speech, ‘There is an increased awareness of the link between our own health, and economic prosperity, and that of the planet‘, ‘…restoring nature is going to be crucial as we build back greener from the pandemic, and in what is a huge year for the environment we will use our COP26 and G7 presidencies to take a leading role on the world stage‘ and ‘Nature is going to be key pillar of our work as host of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26. We were the first major economy in the world to set a net zero emissions target in law. To meet that target we must protect and restore nature‘. Well, that sounded good, but looks like a lot of hot air for COP26 today.

DEFRA’s failure to act will be thrown back at this government in international meetings on climate change and environment for months to come. DEFRA has undermined its own international position and it is the job of UK NGOs to make that abundantly clear to other nations. To the extent that it matters, Boris Johnson must begin to learn that if you keep lying to the people then they will call you out when it is most embarrassing. And that’s what the NGOs must do to keep (and in some cases regain) their self-respect. If you are lied to by government, and regularly deliberately misled, you should not act as though nothing has happened.

There were reports this week that Mr Eustice maybe reshuffled some time this summer and perhaps replaced by Mark Spencer MP. Just ignore them. Rumours on the day of a reshuffle are only about 60% accurate, those well ahead of one have a much lower strike rate. And this is something that it is difficult to influence in any case, so just wait and see.

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