The following statement was made by the Secretary of State for DEFRA, George Eustice MP, in parliament on Thursday: Statement In May 2018, Defra commissioned Julian Glover and an independent panel to consider how we might improve the management of our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs). Their report, the Landscapes Review,…
Category: THE POLITICS: Ministers, MPs, government policy
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…
Good things and bad things
If you are subscribed to my free monthly newsletter then last week you would have received my thoughts on George Eustice’s environment speech – there were good bits and less good bits. The most worrying looking bit was the announcement that DEFRA was going to fiddle about with the Habitats Regulations now that we are…
Pow on Woman’s Hour
This was a cracking interview of Rebecca Pow, DEFRA minister, by Emma Barnett on Woman’s Hour on Thursday. We moved through plastic bags, plastic waste exports to Turkey, tree-planting v HS2, road building, coal mines, trade deals with Australia and where to go on holiday. It was robust, tough but pretty fair, and went to…
Richard Benyon returns to DEFRA
Richard Benyon, the toffish ex-MP returns to DEFRA as a Lords Minister. DEFRA now has two lords a-leaping and with Zac G being unpaid, it rather looks like a strange BOGOF deal. As a minister in the upper house Lord Benyon will have to answer difficult questions from the likes of Baroness Bennett and others…
And the votes are in…some of them
I now live in the North Northants unitary authority – don’t you love our logo of a massive pair of binoculars on a hill and a Red Kite too? I do! I used to live in the district council area of East Northants within the county council area of Northamptonshire but the district councils have…
An important half a sentence…
It’s not exactly a headline election promise, but on page 56 of the SNP manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections in May you will find; All that campaigning leads to that half a sentence – hard won, and only a start. But if I had the opportunity to quiz candidates in this election I’d be…
DEFRA #omnishambles on peat – who briefed ministers?
Further to this morning’s blog on DEFRA admitting to being clueless about where the 40cm peat (that they claim they are wanting to protect) can be found, here is another perplexing information response to the talented Guy Shrubsole. I’ve missed a few things out of the fairly long response but not anything material as far…
DEFRA #omnishambles publishes review of general licences
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Wild Justice challenged general licences in England in winter 2019 Natural England withdrew those licences in spring 2019. DEFRA reintroduced very similar licences in summer 2019. DEFRA held a consultation on general licences in autumn 2019. DEFRA published the consultation responses and its views on them in spring 2021. And they represent pretty poor analysis…
DEFRA #omnishambles doesn’t have a clue – for peat’s sake!
In response to an information request about DEFRA’s knowledge of peat resources, following their scandalously abject policy measure to restrict burning on peatlands, this was received (not by me, I am grateful to the excellent and talented Guy Shrubsole). The most interesting paragraph, although it is all riveting of course, is this one: We do…