Clause 40 - Duty to conserve biodiversity
Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill
10:30 am
Madeleine Moon (Bridgend, Labour)
During the previous two days of discussion in Committee, it has been interesting to hear how different Members have represented their rural communities. We have heard from the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) about the idyll of rural communities in Cornwall, and we have heard about the tremendous variety of mining villages from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith). May I add my endorsement of the beauties of the Sheffield area? My son is at university there, and I had never previously visited the area. We now regularly stay on a farm in the midst of nowhere outside a village called Hathersage, where we are 15 minutes from the centre of Sheffield, and it is absolutely glorious. I can assure those people who are concerned about the setting of Sheffield, that its environmental setting is a good representation of the United Kingdom’s diversity.
On Friday, I visited a rural village in my constituency. Cornelly is not what many people would think of as a rural community; there are certainly no roses round the doors or ponies trotting through the streets. Many people live in council housing and work in the steel works at Port Talbot, in the neighbouring constituency. One would not think that the word “biodiversity” was on everyone’s lips, but at a question-and-answer session with the children, who are planning to come to Parliament in a few weeks’ time, I was asked—the question was like a gift, and one might have thought that I had planted it—“What are you going to do as a Member of Parliament to protect different species?”
That might seem a bizarre question coming from someone in Cornelly, given the way in which I have described it, but I have not told hon. Members that Cornelly is on the borders of Kenfig national nature reserve, which is a European site of nature conservation. As a result, the people of Cornelly are very conscious of biodiversity and of our responsibility for protecting the local habitat; to them, it is their local habitat—their local playground. Indeed, it is also the last remaining site of the sand dune systems that once stretched along the south Wales coast. It is therefore a rare habitat, and the biodiversity is of European importance.
When I told the children about my involvement in this Committee and about the clause, they were particularly interested. For them, biodiversity is not an academic, obscure issue: it is something that they see daily as they walk around their community. For them, it is precious, and they want the Committee to take responsibility for its conservation.
In previous speeches, the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) has mentioned the role of local authorities, and the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall has reiterated the point today. However, it is perhaps not generally recognised—I received this statistic from the Association of Local Government Ecologists—that 60 per cent. of local authorities in England do not employ an ecologist or have access to professional advice and information. Despite long-standing central Government advice and guidance, many of them are still not aware of their statutory obligations for biodiversity.
That is a frightening fact. It is frightening that many development plans for managing landscape features—local authorities have had responsibility for such things since 1994—still do not include sections on the management of flora and fauna. They pay no regard to that and contain no information about the biodiversity features in the local authority.
It has been recognised that planning will play a major role in meeting European and international targets on biodiversity loss by 2010. Yet local authorities’ performance varies greatly, as the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall mentioned. Not all of them have links with their local recording groups, so they do not know who the local bird recorder, the local moth recorder or the local plant recorder is. They certainly do not have an established local records centre to co-ordinate the information that many of them need. I am very fortunate because such things are in place in my local authority, but even when they are in place, there are still battles on the planning committees.
Our local authorities do not always conduct biodiversity action planning, something else mentioned by the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall. Some areas are not even designated sites of interest for nature conservation. That can have a tremendous impact for the protection of sites when planning applications are made. An example from my constituency is Kenfig hill; whereas in Bridgend the local authority has many areas designated as sites of interest for nature conservation, across the border the neighbouring authority has none.
Hafod Heulog wood is an ancient woodland with no designated protection. An application has been made to the two local authorities for the extension, yet again, of an open-cast mine, which would wipe out the wood. The neighbouring authority knows nothing at all about what is in the site, but the local community is adamant that it wants to protect biodiversity and is aware of species that it wants protected, including butterflies and mammals. What is important—my reason for tabling this probing amendment—is that we should have a duty on local authorities not just to conserve but to further biodiversity. To date, many are not carrying out those duties. Reports to development control and planning committees contain a presumption in favour of developers. The presumption is people first.
I cannot tell the Committee how many planning committees I sat on when I was a local authority member in which the local member would say, “We don’t have to worry about a butterfly: I need this housing estate.” A member might take the same view about a particular mammal, or about great crested newts, and the reason would be, “I want a rugby academy,” or “I want my golf course extended.” I have heard all that over and over. Because there is not necessarily a demand that local authorities should have a duty to further biodiversity, many are able to disregard it.
Biodiversity is poorly integrated into other local authority departments. It is at its best in the leisure and highways departments’ grass-cutting regimes. We have, fortunately, seen an end to the sterile landscape of bowling green road verges. Increasingly, those areas are allowed to grow. Local authorities have grasped that responsibility, largely because it saves them money, but a side effect has been improved habitat opportunities. I wonder how many members of the Committee could say how many butterflies or flying insects they saw as they went about their constituencies this weekend, which was beautiful, with glorious sunshine. The increasing sterility of the environment in my constituency frightens me. It will have an effect on young people. If they do not regularly see the creatures and habitats that we know we need to protect, they will pay less and less regard to them.
I tabled amendment No. 127 because the words in the Bill will enable local authorities to have regard to a matter and then move on. They will look at the issue, then say, “No, no. That development is more important than protecting the habitat.” It is important to re-emphasise the duty to conserve and give greater strength to what we seek to protect. In Scotland, that duty is already in place. I hope that it will also be placed on English and Welsh local authorities.