Fears environment bills could be sidelined amid Tory leadership race
Crucial environment legislation must not be allowed to be sidelined or abandoned amid the distraction of a Tory leadership race, campaigners have warned.
Ministers openly admit they do not know what is going on with much of the legislation, but those who remain in government are working with skeleton teams to get bills in shape to be passed.
Two ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have quit so far, Rebecca Pow and Jo Churchill, both of whom were working on environment legislation making its way through parliament.
Churchill resigned on Wednesday but on Thursday she was supposed to be in committees about a gene editing bill that would liberalise rules around genetic modification for crops and potentially livestock. The Guardian has been told this has now been passed to the minister Victoria Prentis, who has not resigned.
Prentis says she believes it is her duty to stay in government and get bills passed, rather than quit. Sources close to her say those remaining in Defra are “working flat out” because “the environment cannot wait until October”, which is when Boris Johnson’s allies have suggested he should remain prime minister until.
Bills experts are particularly worried about include the environmental land management scheme, which has faced criticism from the Tory right as well as from Labour and the Liberal Democrats. This legislation would reward farmers for conserving nature, and Defra sources say net zero will not be reached without this new subsidy system.
Other, newer bills under threat include the highly protected marine areas consultation, which would ban all fishing in some fragile ecosystems in England’s seas. This work was under Pow’s purview and is only in the consultation
Read more on theguardian.com
