Proposed changes to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will reduce the level of environmental protection provided for in law and amount to a regression, the Office for Environmental Protection is warning.

OEP Chair Dame Glenys Stacey has written to the Secretaries of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - namely, Michael Gove and Therese Coffey - to set out its advice following proposed changes to the law with regards to developments, water quality and protected wildlife sites.

The letter states that the proposed changes would demonstrably reduce the level of environmental protection provided for in existing environmental law, and that the Government has not adequately explained how, alongside such weakening of environmental law, new policy measures will ensure it still meets its objectives for water quality and protected site condition.

The OEP is calling for transparency over the impacts of the changes on environmental protections in law. The Environment Act requires Ministers to set out to Parliament where a proposed change in the law reduces environmental protection. The OEP says that ministers should now make a statement equivalent to that required by section 20(4) of the Act and confirm that "they are no longer able to say that the Bill would not reduce the level of environmental protection provided for by any existing environmental law, but that the Government nevertheless wishes Parliament to proceed."

"Proposed changes would demonstrably reduce the level of environmental protection provided for in existing environmental law"

Dame Glenys Stacey says in the letter:

“The proposed changes would demonstrably reduce the level of environmental protection provided for in existing environmental law. They are a regression. Yet the Government has not adequately explained how, alongside such weakening of environmental law, new policy measures will ensure it still meets its objectives for water quality and protected site condition.”

The amendments would mean planning authorities would also be required to disregard negative findings concerning such nutrient pollution in any appropriate assessments, the letter says, and disregard representations from Natural England or others.

The OEP is warning that legal certainty is being replaced with policy interventions announced alongside the Bill amendments. The letter states:

“These interventions do not unequivocally secure, for the long-term, the same level of environmental outcome as legal obligations in the Regulations do. They also introduce uncertainty and the risk of unintended consequences. It is unclear how such measures take account of the polluter pays and precautionary principles. These are internationally recognised principles which underpin the Regulations, and which are reflected in the Government’s Environmental Principles Policy Statement.”