The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has given the UK Government a ‘red card’ for its efforts to reduce health-damaging air pollution, protect biodiversity and prevent flooding in a scorecard assessment of its green policies during this Parliament.
The Committee says that biodiversity, air pollution and flooding are ‘red’ risks, commenting:
“These are areas where the environment has clearly deteriorated since 2010 or where progress has been at a pace unlikely to put improvement on a satisfactory trajectory by the end of the 2015–2020 Parliament.”
The report comes as the main political parties prepare for their manifesto-setting party conferences. The Committee is calling for the creation of new legal commitments to protect the environment, to be overseen by a new ‘Office for Environmental Responsibility’ to ensure all Government policies are compatible with those commitments.
Chair of the Committee, Joan Walley MP, said
"Our inquiry provides a wide ranging examination of the state of the environment and shows that further and continued effort is required to protect it properly. A dedicated, wide-ranging ‘Environmental Strategy’ is needed, overseen by a new ‘Office for Environmental Responsibility’ to ensure the Government meets the requirements to protect human health and the natural world."
The Committee’s report recommends an overarching Environmental Strategy be implemented and concludes that the Government should set up an independent body—an ‘Office for Environmental Responsibility'—to
- review the Environment Strategy the EAC advocates;
- advise Government on appropriate targets;
- advise Government on policies, both those in Government programmes and new ones that could be brought forward to support the environment;
- advise Government about the adequacy of the resources (in both central and local government) made available for delivering the Strategy; and
- monitor and publish performance against the Strategy and its targets.
Joan Walley MP added
"Effective action on environmental protection is essential, both during the current Parliament and beyond. Parties should therefore be considering credible environmental protection in their manifestos. I want them to use our report as both a wake-up call and a template for the measured that need to be put forward. Consistent action by successive Governments will help ensure that the benefits of nature are available to future generations as much as they are to ours."
Click here to download the full Report
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