Get ready for a new environmental battle royale. To kickstart our flagging economy, Rachel Reeves is said to be preparing an onslaught against protected species in order to accelerate infrastructure building.
The chancellor is going beyond what has previously been proposed, in pursuit of her “further and faster” economic growth agenda. She wants to tear up European regulations which developers blame for slowing construction projects. Already, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is wending its way through Parliament, will allow builders to bypass existing controls by paying into a nature restoration fund to improve habitats on other sites.
While the full ramifications of that draft legislation have not sunk in – cue protests as campaigners argue that one habitat is being sacrificed while another benefits, and that the net result is reduced wildlife and fauna – her latest move will also provoke anger.
Among the changes reportedly being mooted by Reeves are plans for a smaller, UK-only, list of safeguarded species. The new shortened line-up would afford more weight to creatures viewed as relatively rare in Europe but common in Britain.
Another is the abolition of the EU “precautionary principle” that requires constructors to show their projects will have no impact on protected natural sites. It would be replaced with a new test based on the risks and benefits of building. Also in Reeves’ sights is said to be imposing limits on the legal challenges that can be brought by environmentalists.
She has previously indicated as to where her thinking was heading. Speaking to the House of Lords economic affairs committee last month, Reeves said: “The reason that HS2 is not coming to my city of Leeds anymore anytime soon, is because, I’m afraid, as a country, we’ve cared more about the bats than we have about the commuter times for people in Leeds and West Yorkshire, and we’ve got to change that. Because I care more about a young family getting on the housing ladder than I do about protecting some snails, and I care more about my energy bills and my constituents than I do about the views of people from their windows.”
Strongly put – but also disingenuous. It is the case that HS2 did have to incur a £100m extra bill for a ‘bat tunnel’ to guarantee the wellbeing of bats on one section of the line in Buckinghamshire – but that is not the reason the fast-railway is not venturing to Leeds. It has more to do with the spiralling cost of the new service. If it had gone the distance to West Yorkshire, the final tally for that leg alone would have been £36bn.
In that context, £100m on some bats is neither here nor there. The bats were also in the south, and had nothing to do with the Yorkshire extension. The fact is that these issues when they arise make ideal media fodder; they are a headline-writer’s dream. So it is with the “fish disco” at Hinckley Point C nuclear plant which plays sound to dissuade fish from entering the cooling system. Again, the expense is tiny, versus the overall price of a nuclear power station.
It is true there are repeated problems for developers coming up against bats, newts and the like, and not just regarding large-scale national projects but on housing sites. Often, though, it’s the time taken in deciding how to proceed that causes the issue. If Reeves could do something about that, rather than drive a bulldozer through the regulations which were introduced for a purpose, she might find it less controversial and that progress is smoother.
It is also a distraction for another reason. While it sounds good and emotive to blame people for wishing to preserve the views from their windows, that is not, in the main, why so few young families are failing to get on the housing ladder. It’s a contributory factor, but it is one of several, of which others are more significant – not least the sheer difficulty in obtaining a mortgage for first-time buyers, whatever the local council expects in offset, the need for roads and services, the provision of car parking, the pollution it will cause. These are just some, there are more.
Reeves is not wrong, but neither should she pretend that this will make it right.
